on 'international support' and the struggle for 'change' in Nigeria
My dear Baba-Aye,
I thank you for felicitating with me on this very important moment in my life.
As is customary with our people, "ire akari"....The joy will spread around.
I am greatly tempted to break my earlier promise in order to 'shed' more light on a few things, especially my position on the need for REVOLUTION in the land - which i hold tenaciously to as the panacea for the myriads of pervasive misgovernance and subterfuge in the Nation state- but i will NOT.
NOT for wanting to abandon a lively debate and by extension, an opportunity to expand the rich discourse of charting a course for a progressive Nigeria, but I strongly believe as you do that this debate and many others(in the past) must be surbodinated to the more needful convergence of revolutionary ideas for a trully great Nation.
Undoubtedly, i admire your doggedness and clarity of thought which are essential ingredients for inspiring others.
Fare thee well, brother.
Oluwarotimi.
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From: Baba Aye
Date: Tuesday, May 26, 2009, 3:07 AM
Dear RotFash,
My sincere congratulations to both you and your son. It sure is a thing of joy, for he young man to pass through this rite of passage and such a wonderful moment of pride for a father, especially when he is not deprived of the right of being at the convocation ground with his son, by the state or a dictatorial VC.
I actually do not intend to continue with the debate, despite my belief that not only do you not say anything new, but that you re-formulate your earlier position with even more rueful hues. Why? The primary issue for me, is not about the correctness or otherwise of your line or mine, but: how can more and more people that want to and seem committed to a struggle for a better society bound together and build the necessary social force(s) to give life to this legitimate dream? Even debates on issue that do not have an immediate and pressing import on the way forward have to be subordinated to this greater cause...at least at such times as this.
I must say that it is very tempting for me to engage with yours below and I have had to turn it over and over again and again in my mind if it should be done as against abandoning such a step as a means of clearly pointing out that for me the issue is not contending over a 'truth' on the issue at hand. Apart from it not being characteristic of me to abandon a debate when issues still remain to be thrashed, what really bothers me so much is that with earlier statements of yours that tend towards a realization of the need for REVOLUTION, in an earlier debate, you would consider the people's mass action as paling into insignificance besides some mirage of an 'international support'. Well, I have learnt that a lot of times, with ideas, unlike with more physical chemistry, water and oil do mix...
I must say though that, whatever you consider, in your view, as inadequacies of my analysis, it did not flow from inadequate reading of your earlier posting (which I did once again as you advised). I do endeavour to read any piece I intend to engage with, four, five, six, seven times, to be sure of what I am engaging with and my own take on what it includes.
On a final note, albeit on a lighter note; you might consider my submission more grandiloquent than the rains at Epetedo which you witnessed on June 11, 1994, but I do consider "chest beating" an insult. Baba Aye is not a gorilla....he is 'IRON LION #1'
Once again, do accept my congratulations on your son's convocation.
Baba Aye
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From: rotimi fashakin
Date: Monday, May 25, 2009, 5:21 PM
Dear Baba-Aye,
I first read yours (as much as my phone could allow) at MMA Lagos on my way to Yankee land to attend my son's graduation in Accounting in NY. A few minutes later, Osita's response came in, commending it as brilliant and this made me more curious to read the full text. The long, tortuous 'over 27-hour' ordeal was assuaged by the realisation of reading the brilliant piece.
Did i find it so?
May be, may be not;but i could read some grandiloquence and modicum of 'chest beating' as being actively involved in the struggle that eventually gave birth to what is now known as the 4th republic.
Let me start by presenting you with the NEXUS connecting my 'International support' assertion and IBB's democratisation programme.
The Bretton Woods' institutions, after tracing much of the Nation's wealth into private hands, opined that ANY more relief or fresh borrowing CAN only be granted after concrete and demonstrable evidence of democratisation. They pressured IBB into commencing his bogus, designed-to- fail democratisation process. Since Abacha was part of that government as Army Chief, he just improved on the subterfuge with his 'ingenuous' five-party scheme.
I had assumed you knew this as the Scriptures declare, ' we speak wisdom among them that know wisdom...."
Much as I appreciated the organised mass action by the coalition of human rights' activists in those tempestuous days; this pales into insignifance when compared with the support by the International community.
You know it was not too difficult for Abacha as Army Chief (in July 1993) to 'order' Sir Michael Otedola (as Governor of Lagos) to relinquish Lagos to his suzerainty before mowing down scores of 'stone-throwing, hapless' demonstrators. In fact, MKO (understading that Abacha was now actively involved in QUELLING the insurrection) counselled strongly against throwing more Nigerians on the streets. He knew that Mohammed Sani Abacha was capable of re-enacting the 'TIANNEMEN SQUARE' massacre without bating an eyelid!!!!
This brings me to responding to your poser: ' why would a dark googled man who cared about international pressure, as you would want us to believe, judicially murder Ken Saro-Wiwai during a CHOGM?'
My answer: Because he was a raving lunatic that should NOT be confronted with raw power but superior intellect!
A few examples will suffice:
TY Danjuma is a respected Ex-chief of the Nigerian Army and was once asked why he chose to 'hear no evil, see no evil and say nothing' during the 41/2-year (Nov 17, 1993-June 8, 1998) bestiality unleashed on Nigerians by Sani Abacha. His reasponse: ' Only a fool will stand infront of a moving train" Make no mistake about it, Danjuma was/is no coward! That Babangida dislodged Dimka from FRCN on Feb. 13, 1976 was attributable to his sheer bravery in ordering it!
That ABACHA rescinded his 'kill 'em all' for the victims (OBJ, Yar'dua and Co) of the 1995 phantom coup was attributable to the superior wisdom of Bill Clinton when intervening in his telephone conversation with him. As he later told his deputy, Oladipo Diya: ' Dipo, this Clinton man don put his dirty mouth in this matter. He was just saying yes sir yes sir to me on the phone'
You see why i will always disagree with you into ALWAYS misreading sinister motives into every American Leader's intervention in the high-handed, iron-fisted grips of some despots.
It was JF Kennedy who poignantly asserted that: 'INJUSTICE ANYWHERE IS A THREAT TO JUSTICE EVERYWHERE'
Ask yourself, why would an American leader be interested in prevailling on a brutal despot from killing some of his citizens IF it was merely for selfish interest?? In our local parlance, " O TI SHI"----- 'YOU HAVE MISSED IT"
During the infamous reign of terror by the dark goggled one, the opposition within had been beaten to comatose state. It was the opposition abroad, sheltered by the International community, that provided the formidable groundswell for the eventual 'call for truce' by the regime.
You will agree with me that after the Judicial killing of Ken Saro Wiwa, the International community responded with a deluge of sanctions. Canada broke diplomatic relations with Nigeria with the relocation of the embassy to Ghana. Nelson Mandela championed the move for Nigeria's suspension from the commonwealth. The nation fitttingly assumed a pariah status among the comity of nations. All these weathered the vice grips of the murderous dictator.
I think after reading this mail, you may need to read my last mail AGAIN. It seems you misread some things!
You mentioned that the International community advised MKO to give up his mandate:
"And if that international community really cared for the vague justice and stand against impunity as you say, why did MKO too need to go, or even before then, be advised by the Commonwealth and UN to let go of hos mandate and go home to eat eba?"
You and I are living witnesses to the events before, during and after June 12, 1993.
As a matter of fact, I was at Epetedo for the declaration on June 11, 1994; a very rainy evening.
You will agree that by the time Abacha died on June 8, 1998; the mandate had tottered and what remained was badly vitiated by massive haemorragic back-stabbing. The running mate, Babagana Kingibe(aka Sai Baba) had settled in as a two-time minister of the Abacha regime. Same for Lateef Jakande and Ebenezer Babatope (EBINO TOPSY)! IF you must know, Bola Ige too was hob-nobbing around to see IF he could be accommodated in an arrangement (tinkered on) by the Abacha regime for a prime minister.Added to these was the murderous desire of some elements in the military to settle personal scores with MKO for taking their friend's wife because of his money. All these were known to the International community. It was a very pragmatic advice and with the power of hindsight, I believe, very apt.
Let me continue from where we left off before this disquisition. I still agree in toto with Osita's assertion that , "WHETHER WE LIKE IT OR NOT, WE NEED INTERNATIONAL SUPPORT IN OUR MARCH TOWARDS 2010."
I think after this one, NO MORE from me. As you can see, i am just here to re-count how benevolent the ALMIGHTY has been in making me shake my son's hands on graduation day JUST like my late father did to me at UNIFE.
My brother, have a refreshing 'practical session'.
Best regards,
Oluwarotimi.
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Dear RotFash,
Do pardon my not responding to yours below as promptly as I would have wanted to. I have had to tidy up a number of things here to leave me free for a programme within the deeper interiors of this land which I will be traveling for in a few hours time. Considering the fact that there is cut off from cyberspace, I would want to engage with issues such as those you raise, at this juncture.
That my response to Osita's is "weak" and "very" much so is a matter of your opinion, which of course you are very much welcome to. I do think though, that you fail to even adequately grasp, the essence of my position, which itself can not but result in inherent weaknesses in your argument. More importantly though, I did posit examples, as evidence. You have neither refuted this (about the myth of good governance and not basic political and economic interests being at the heart of America's support for or not for oppositional forces), nor did you 'support' your assertions on the role of 'international support' in the anti-military dictatorship struggle.
For the avoidance of doubt, I repeat my earlier position on international support' in general: "I also agree with the issue of 'international support' in principle". What I did basically was to put its understanding within 'a broader context' to guide analysis geared at strategizing, because a wrong diagnosis can hardly led to the correct prognosis. Rather repeating myself all over again, as I think you hardly grasp the essence of my argument, I will engage with the contents of your submission to make this clearer.
You as well say you could 'go on and on' without even starting in terms of making incontrovertible assertions! To convince us that: "Were it not for the collective International pressure on the Military despots that bestrode the political landscape, the Nigerian state would still be under Military rule" you make us know what every body including infants then knew that "it was a reluctant leader that "stepped aside" on August 27th 1993 after 8years on the saddle" without even attempting to point out any link between this and your much beloved 'international support'. Then you, it could be assumed, present a rhetorical question: Why would the 'dark goggled' one go to the extent of the ingenious 5-party(of the 5 fingers of the leprous hand fame) adoption chicanery IF not for International pressure, without giving consideration to any other possibility that could have made such a chicanery necessary, even if for the purpose of showing that such possibilities could not be considered as valid, in opposition to your views.
I aver that the most essential ingredient above all other ingredients (that could have been important or not), was the mass action of the people, buoyed by organised forces, which made the country ungovernable for, first IBB and (for 82 days, Shonekan and then) Abacha It was this much more than any other ingredient which threw up some new 'ingredients' and sharpened others there hitherto. These other ingredients in the making of the soup of history included not only what you term 'international support' but as well, intra-ruling elite's contestations. It is the contention of all these angels and demons thrown up that shapes and determines what then happens, based on the contested terrain of balances of forces and not some a priori whether you like it or not magic of anything...particularly that mystique which you seem to create (as some did in those JT days) of 'international support' which shapes and determines what then emerges as the tomorrow. Unlike you, I will not just make weak and empty assertions, I will present concrete, verifiable snippets from those times below as concrete analysis of the reality of our recent history thus, in defence of my argument. Starting with why and how the August 27 stepping aside was unwilling rather that just saying you must know what if you did not know already would have been scandalous!
It is very instructive that despite all the international hue and cry when he annulled the elections in June of that year, IBB never gave thought to stepping aside. But less than 48 hours after July 5, he announced that an ING would be set up (of course, he could have imagined that he would still be in control of that ING, this we will come back to). What was the significance of July 5, 1993?
July 5, 1993 witnessed what I believe was and still remains the most awesome demonstration of people's power in popular action ever in Nigeria. The mass of Nigerians from the nooks and crannies of Lagos spilled out towards MKO's house. The least of the different estimations of the size of that movement was 800,000, with most putting it at between 1million and 1.5 million persons. I and Femi Obayori anchored initiating things at Mushin, hardly sleeping for days during which we met with different sections of the popular sector there from workers to area boys, to market women to students, etc, but when we got to Challenge it already seemed like a dream, when we looked back and forth and saw the sea of persons. But we had not seen anything yet! The ocean of heads at MKO's house, spilled on to Toyin Street, to Allen, to Awolowo road and to Agege motor road! I remember FF even had a hell of a time getting through these to the MKO's place where he was as well to speak! The armoured vehicles of the police and helicopters hovering that were to keep things in check had little choice but to just watch and even in many a case cheer! This was the big beginning of the people's response in those six years of contestations between forces of revolution and counter-revolution, progress and reaction, the people (and those with them) and the elites (including a number that seemed to be on the side of the masses,, including MKO).
Before going further, I would want to point out one or two things of clear relevance for us to learn from with regards to that tsunami-day, which setthe pace for several tings after it.
One, even we progressive forces organized around CD, which called out the people for that action never expected something that large. BRK had a few days back at a meeting when we were planning towards it had expressed the thoughts of most of us that we should have not less than 5,000 present and who knows we could even have up to 10,000 people on that march! In fact, the earlier plans had been for a candle light procession. It was Kola Odetola, a Trotskyite and then Lagos State secretary of NUPCE (one of the three unions that would form the Amalgamated Union in 1996), one of the finest of organizers we ever had -described by General Abisoye as 'exceptionally brilliant' in the aftermath of the ABU massacre in '86- who raised that suggestion. What are the lesson here? We at times do not know just how close the time of the revolution-as-groom's arrival is. The presence of an organization, our oil or better still steam engine to convert the steam of popular anger into action for change, is of the utmost essence. Also a lesson there stems from the fact that when we arrived at MKO's, even though he had prior notice of the action, we were initially informed that he would not address the people because he was seeping. And actually he was! The reason became clearer later when we got to know that he had spent the whole of the night at Abuja discussing with IBB. We can learn from this that where and when we are forced by circumstances of history to establish alliances of whatsoever sort with those on the other side, we should be under no illusion because they do know that despite whatever differences they have at particular points in time, what binds them together is actually stronger than whatever it is that then separates them. The importance of this for strategizing for change can not be underestimated.
I would say in now moving ahead with my argument that some of the best accounts of that glorious day were by Owei Lakemfa and (especially in my view) Lanre Arogundade's on the National Concord's front page. I have LA's in one of my newspapers scrap books somewhere, but you might wish to ask him for a copy as that paper is now rested. It was one of those days like the coming of the Haley's comet and clearly the defining event that led primarily to August 27, much more than any and all the 'international support' in and from outside the entire universe!
As with such popular mass movements, even when reaction came as a quick backlash (Abacha's 'taking over' Lagos two days later with some 160 persons shot dead on the street and BRK's arrest same day - incidentally, in passing, I, Abubakar Momoh and Glory Kilanko were the last to be with him of us that day as we analyzed the significance of the people's defiance despite what was happening, reflected in the national stadium event of that day in planning for the next step), the forces for progress' confidence grew in stature and creative tactics were thought through. Civil disobedience as non-violent struggle became as much a strategy for us as it was a principle for some of us. With this I refer to the spate of 'sit at home' strikes which CD mobilized the people around even when Bafyau's NLC leadership prevaricated. And it is also very interesting that both IBB and Shonekan's lame duck administration collapsed in the midst of General Strikes! As labour was drawn into the fray eventually for many reasons, IBB was involved in negotiations with it much more than with any and every institution and country within the 'international community'. He more than some of us even today, was clearer on the fact that the most decisive contestation was and would be that with forces inside Nigeria.
On Abacha's five fingers of a leprous hands akunana senior brother of parambulator (apologies to Abami Eda, ASBP, was one of the strictly gbedu vibes of Fela...I think it best describes Abacha's 5-party gyrational charade!), you do two theoretically flawed things at the same time, as I understand it, and tie them together in an even more flawed knot. First you imply that Abacha's intended electoral abracadabra, was a result of the frown of 'international support', and that his exit was due to that international support for the opposition. Thus you establish a know between Abacha's politics, 'international pressure' and Abacha's to the great beyond stepping aside.
It is trite political science that even the most despotic of regimes has to be somewhat legitimated. No matter how tyrannical a rule is, without an ideological cement with which some extent of 'consent' is bestowed on it by the rule, it cannot last for long. You see this perspective in different ways running through the theories of the greatest minds in the West on elite rule. From Mosca to Michels and in more recent times to Michael Mann, who with a totally non-Marxist analysis, shows your the 'democratic' America's truly bureaucratic, authoritarian and despotic elite dictatorship which it really is. I would say though that Gramsci with his theory of 'cultural hegemony' best grasps what we could see at play with Abacha, for example.
Of course this still amounts to mere, 'weak', theoretical assertions, you could say! Let us look at what verifiable empirical facts show us. Mainasara in close by Niger had just done what Abacha sort to do and the case in Egypt was also more food for thought for him than any pressure from the West. This was why he sent some of the intellectuals that pandered before him to study these countries political systems. But let me ask a simple question; why would a dark goggled man who cared about international pressure, as you would want us to believe, judicially murder Ken Saro-Wiwai during a CHOGM? And if that international community really cared for the vague justice and stand against impunity as you say, why did MKO too need to go, or even before then, be advised by the Commonwealth and UN to let go of hos mandate and go home to eat eba?
The truth of the matter was that once again it was when the masses were rising and that international community could see the situation might go beyond the capacity of that 'strong man' to handle that they moved in with the equation I had earlier described. And why? What is because of a love for Nigerians or any serious commitment to 'fraternity, liberty and equality'? NO sir! It was to defend their strategic interests.
I will defend my assertion by recourse once again to the history of that period. I have earlier documented the different phases of that 'Six years of Revolution in Nigeria'. In 1994, after smashing the oil workers strike and locking up leaders of the opposition like Gani and BRK, while others like WS and Enahoro had scurried for dear life to the West, the tide of revolution subsided and counter-revolution was in the ascendancy, i.e. Abacha's order was in charge. The international community then ranted and raved, posturing really. By 1997 things started to change once again. The opposition re-organized itself. CD which had become (and sill remains now) a mere forlorn ghost of what it had been in the first phase of revolutionary upsurge which it had been the vanguard of, was supplanted on May 17, by the UAD. Things began getting to a head in 1998. On May Day, Sowore, Bally, Saint and co, ignited the Ibadan action that led to Ola Oni and Bola Ige's heroic captivity as 'prisoners of war' to use the words of the then Oyo State governor (who better than a whole lot of 'Marxists' realized that there was really a class war going on!), on the platform of Congress of Progressive Youths (COPY). COPY's proposals also led the UAD to call for the Yaba 5-million man rally that gave Olisa and Odion, black eyes they could be proud of. In March of that year, OPC spit with a then revolutionary faction led by Ganiyu Adams emerging at Ebutte Metta. In the Niger Delta, the fires of the chikoko where being fanned by the Oronto Douglas, Isaac Osuoka and co-led Pan Niger Delta Resistance Movement (also then called the Chikoko Movement, CKK). Forces were aring themselves and the international community knew this and the fact that the man in Aso rock was so jonesed that a head-on collission with consequences that would hurt their strategic economic interets might erupt. That and not all these nursery school belief in international pressure or support led to their action with regards to (nb: both) Abacha (and Abiola)..
I would not like to 'go on and on'. I believe that if the concrete historical facts I have presented still make my argument 'weak', you should be kind enough to provide such that vitiates what I have thus presented. I would advise you, if you have not that is, to read Igbokwe's Heroes of Democracy. I do not agree with the crux of his argumentation line, but amongst other things the book presents a rich stock of primary sources from that struggle. It also shows that without denying the arguable role(s) of the international community, the heroes of that struggle, include the Ganis, Umars (the two persons IBB would seven years later single and not the international community, as being the sincere players on the other side then), Kalthos, BRKs, Falanas, Aborishadeses, Kokoris, DadibisSangos, Arogundades, Iweres,Ubanis, the Press, Akinsayas and the millions of 'unknown' Nigerians who either fought or bore the brunt of Abacha stoves knowing they were being part of a struggle for the soul of a country. Without wanting to go on and on though, something crossed my mind now about my own experience with the 'international support' and elements one would otherwise not have thought of as being supportive in any way, which I think is 'axiomatic'. This was when Kudi was being buried.
On that fateful day, Carrington called me by name (definitely asked from some of us close to them since I never had or cared to have relations with the 'international community' of capitalist states and their representatives) while leading the singing angry youths. He assured me that look young man, the international community shares your grief and supports your cause, but do de orderly please. Of course, I then went back and called for the singing to be more strident and when Kudi was interred we grabbed the coffin for maoilizational purposes, despite Kola and co's resistance. We were to use it on June 12 a week later to stir action on Ikorodu road, but agent provocateurs amongst us insisted we should still keep moving with it even after Awolowo round about, addressing rallies as we went. We would be apprehended at EKO hospital as I spoke to a crowd, there, by men of the NPF led by Young Arobamen, who won my respect that day. He seized the coffin and told us that we as well should be arrested but he was Nigerian and knew our cause to be true, but that there was no way in the course of duty that he could make us continue with the coffin (it was experiences like this that I had in mnd in an earlier debate on the police, here). From this you can see the conditional support of the international. It is merely in defence of order! And if the forces of reaction can safeguard order, by jove, so be it!
More generally on this masquerade of 'international support' you claim that: The dynamics of our world is such that there is zero tolerance for impunity and absolutism. Fela's "Beast of No Nation" adequately answers that. My earlier examples of Israel and Egypt merely buttresses this. One needs only add the 'international support' for absolutist dictators in Latin America (like Pinochet) and apartheid South Africa, to see how true such 'zero tolerance for impunity and absolutism' has been. Or more recently after 9/11, with the restoration of the impunity of the CIA's 'authority' (!) to assassinate where (by American interests' standards) necessary, heads of states of other soverign countries, do we say zero tolerance for impunity and absolutism is being demonstrated?
With the Bahir thing in Sudan. I have written against the genocide in Darfur and was even part of the organisers of a demonstration against this during my stay in Germany, but are issues as simple as you put it? Definitely not! America is no more interested in the people of Darfur and because of that against him than they were with the Iraqis and against Sadam. Rather, their economic interests lie at the heart of their actions. The concern of the United States of North America is more with the grounds that China is gaining over the Sudanese oil reserves!
I want to say I appreciate the 'In my opinion' prologue to Osita's 'whether we like it or not' formulation. You however also failed to get this in my earlier response: "And even with that, a 'whether we like it or not' proposition might still not be the most apt way of presenting such within a democratic culture (the ethos we seek to project within the broader social sphere, I believe should be lived even within us)". There is really little more to say beyond this.
In summing up here and for now, as I do have a more practical task at hand in the next few hours, I must say once again, that I do not fail to see an international dimension to people's struggles. Indeed I am an internationalist and practically so, beyond mere empty words! I however put 'international solidarity', over and above the myth of the construct that the 'international support' presented by you and Osita for example amounts to, in my own view, on one hand. On the other hand, I also stress the primacy of practical action stirred by real organization as against hope in a pie-in-th-sky, of support from anywhere. This is the lesson from our past and this is the challenge that lie ahead for us to fulfill our future.
I am constrained for now by time to come to Osita's subsequent questions as well.....but I surely will, once I am back to civilization!
Have a wonderful weekend, sir Rote; it is always a pleasure engaging with you, even when I fiercely disagree with your point of view.
Sincere regards,
Baba Aye
Global Labour University/Instituto de Economia, UniCamp
solidarityandstruggle.blogspot.com
skype name: iron1lion
"An ounce of action is worth a ton of theory." Friedrich Engels
"If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants." - Isaac Newton
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--- On Tue, 5/19/09, rotimi fashakin
Date: Tuesday, May 19, 2009, 9:52 PM
Baba Aye,
Permit me to disagree with you on your rejoinder to Osita's intervention.
Osita mentioned Ínternational support'as an essential ingredient for our march towards 2011; you tried, albeit very weakly, to controvert that assertion. Were it not for the collective International pressure on the Military despots that bestrode the political landscape, the Nigerian state would still be under Military rule. If you must know, it was a relunctant leader that "stepped aside" on August 27th 1993 after 8years on the saddle and over N40Billion blown on a bogus, designed-to- fail democratisation process. Why would the 'dark goggled' one go to the extent of the ingenious 5-party(of the 5 fingers of the leprous hand fame) adoption chicanery IF not for International pressure. I can go on and on. The dynamics of our world is such that there is zero tolerance for impunity and absolutism. El-Bashir, the Sudanese president is finding out that he could not (despite his puerile attempt to amass Arab sentiments) cause the genocide in Dafur, expecting the discerning world to look the other way. I can go on and on. In my opinion, it is axiomatic to say, without mincing words, that 'WHETHER WE LIKE IT OR NOT', a measure of international support is needed for Nigeria to make it in 2011!
When i wrote to a gentleman that i knew in the early 80s in UNIFE after his initial bachelors degree. I also knew him to be religious and had written to him with every sense of responsibility. Because the Nigerian nation has a way of consuming its very best and blunting their effectiveness; i needed to check IF his revolutionary zest and FIRE is still aglow. Would you ask me where is GG Darah? Is he still able to inspire with those pungent articles?
Let me end with this admonition from the Holy Scriptures: 'But exhort one another DAILY while it is called TODAY, lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin'.... Heb.3:13.
Thank you.
Oluwarotimi
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--- On Tue, 5/19/09, Baba Aye
Osita,
I do agree with you that quite often patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels like Hitler and Abacha, to paraphrase Samuel Johnson. I also think that while the Prof is correct about if we were to act our age as a country and all that, the missing point being how or which kind of people will lead us in acting out our age? Definitely not the lot one sees in the PDP, ANPP, AC and PPA, which are the major parties as of today.
I also agree with the issue of 'international support' in principle. But have some objections to your formulation on it for 2011. First, I must say with all due respect that such 'whether we like it or not' kind of language presupposes some hidden truth waiting to unravel itself on one hand while smacking of the sort of ingredients that become clogs in the wheel of intelligible discourse on the other. Without any empirical evidence, I don't see how this can be anything but your own opinion. And even with that, a 'whether we like it or not' proposition might still not be the most apt way of presenting such within a democratic culture (the ethos we seek to project within the broader social sphere, I believe should be lived even within us). On 'international support' I think we should not get carried away by proclamations of good governance, democracy and all that being the basis of American support for any democratisation project. American interest first and last, is the basis. That is why Israel and Saudi Arabia will always be allies of America despite the former's onslaught on Palestinians and the latter's any thing but democratic political structures for example. It is where and when a mass movement for democratic change becomes a counter-hegemonic power in concrete contention for the state's driving seat that it can look up to the kind of 'international support' you see (or conversely where such forces of opposition -democratic or not- could be subversive to states against American interests e.g the contras in Nicaragua). This is why Clinton and Blair could not just give Baba Iyabo a nod and a wink, but champagne sef....they saw no credible alternative. If the groundswell of a pro-democracy movement had not seemed threatening to the dark-goggled one's iron grip, do you think they would have made the decisive simultaneous equation by elimination of him and 'money's' husband? I doubt it....
For me, 'international support' should be seen in a broader context. Trade unions and civil society organisations should build bridges of 'international support' transnationally in the spirit of working class internationalism and the global justice and peace movement to join in mobilizing world public opinion against the Nigerian state and its interests across the world, challenging its draconian and ani-people's activities electorally and otherwise. This approach was a major plank of the MOSOP anti-Shell struggles success. Even Western governments would have to give more consideration to our struggle when their country's citizens join us on picket lines across the metropoles' cities.
I sincerely think the challenge is to begin to build an oppositional movement that could rally both national and international mass support against the worse than Ekiti saga, 2011 drama that is gradually forming before our eyes....The time to commence this, I believe, is NOW!
Baba Aye
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--- On Mon, 5/18/09, Osita Mba
Date: Monday, May 18, 2009, 6:48 PM
Prof, the problem with the brand of nationalism you invoke is that it has been exploited in the past by devil incarnates like Hitler, Abacha, and Mugabe to destroy their people and their nations. Whether we like it or not we cannot effect any change in 2011 without international support. The electoral clouds that are gathering ominously as we approach 2011 would have been tackled in 1999 if Clinton and Blair had not given Obj a clean bill of health with a nod and a wink. Remember how the EU observers were forced to change their assessment of that election? Nigerians still have to stand up to be counted in 2011 but the support of an American president that is committed to free and fair elections and good governance is not to scoffed at. The people that erode Nigeria's sovereignty are those that scamper to Germany each time they catch a 'cold' after 2 years in office when unprecedented oil revenue was received; the people that make our country home to one of the largest concentration of poor people in the world. Playing the nationalism or the racism card is either ignorant or dishonest or both. Osita
Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device
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From: Ayo Olukotun
Date: Mon, 18 May 2009 08:26:07 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Re: [FOIcoalition] Sad Day for Nigeria (Apologies to President Yar'Adua)
Rotimi
Thanks for your vigorous response and for recalling my antecedents .I do not deny that the country has been very poorly if at all governed At academic and popular levels I have vocally drawn attention to the tragedy of misrule Iam trying to broaden the current discussion beyond that well known fact by suggesting that if we acted our true age and carried through the vision of our founding fathers who projected a Nigeria on the world stage we would not be trapped at a level where America snubbing would cause such consternation You were setting up a straw man in trying to suggest that Iam evading the decay at home
My reference to Asia is to suggest how far we have fallen from redemptive possibilities and to sketch out or at least broach the prospect of nationalist self discovery
Ayo Olukotun
Professor of Political Communication
Lead City University,Ibadan
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--- On Mon, 5/18/09, rotimi fashakin
Date: Monday, May 18, 2009, 4:15 AM
Hello Ayo,
I want to believe this is the same Ayo Olukotun, the fiery students' leader of Great Ife who called out the students on a long trek to Lagos and was eventually driven back at Ikire.
I strongly disagree with you. We need to understand that US is not the cause of the myriad of problems in our land but our leaders and their avaricious lust for power and money. The only thing they know is satisfying the cravings of their depraved nature.
You knew how a leader became so inebriated with fleeting and uncertain political power that he declared an election a 'do or die' affair like a conquering generallisimo moving ebulliently to stamp out any vestige of opposition. We are all witnesses of the aftermath of the continued brigandage that the much taunted 'power of incumbency' had used to reduce elections to already determined selections with the active connivance of the chief Umpire (whose name sounds like Goat). If you juxtapose the scenario in Naija with the recent Ghanaian presidential elections, you know it is an eternity of difference. Mind you, the Obama presidency is still all about victory of RIGHT over Might. The election in Ghana, though keenly contested, was devoid of rancor. John Kuffor did not prod the Head of Police to intimidate the opposition by looking away while the ruling party perfected all new rigging tactics. Wow! you still need to salute the crude ingenuity at play in the recent Ekiti rerun elections. In Ghana, the ruling party lost in a fair contest and did not resort to incivility. That is salutory.
Look at the carnage going on in Niger Delta. Agreed, tough decisions need to be taken against the militants; but not bombing villages (just as the predecessor of this inept leader had done)! Was that caused by US? You do not redress age-long deprivation and injustice by inflicting more Injustice. Oil was struck in commercial quantity in Oloibiri in 1957. Since that time, that area had consistently suffered degredation. As late as 1994, Amassoma was not connected to the mainland with a bridge! It took so long to get to this quagmire, we need not hurry a solution to get out. We shall only exacerbate the situation.
When Obama sees Yarádua, he will only be reminded of the repression of white hegemons during the civic rights' movement. I agree with Azubike Ishiekwe(hope am correct!) that Yardua is both ful of guile and ruthless. A twin-evil combination that was hitherto NOT in any Nigeria's Executive President!
I do not want anyone to be deluded that the regime means well; there is absolutely nothing to evince this, except empty grandstanding. Yar'adua is ONLY interested in preserving the status quo that had brought steady retrogression to the Nigerian state EVEN at the detriment of his health.
Enjoy your day, Prof.
Oluwarotimi.
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--- On Sun, 5/17/09, Ayo Olukotun
Date: Sunday, May 17, 2009, 8:40 PM
I don't see how applauding foreign slurs to one's country helps to change anything It only panders to the ego and racism of a Western world that arrogates to itself the right to determine who and who not should be happy As the Asian world has demonstrated there is something beyond the ' end of history civilisations' currently reeling from self inflicted economic woes which they prefer to generalise as global .
Let us look forward to the day when our moods are4 not determined by American approval or dis approval and when we can begin to cultivate a niche that the world will take a cue from
Ayo Olukotun Ibadan, Nigeria
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--- On Sun, 5/17/09, Kayode Ogundamisi
Date: Sunday, May 17, 2009, 4:23 AM
Obama's White house on Ghana!
"The President and Mrs. Obama look forward to strengthening the U.S. relationship with one of our most trusted partners in sub-Saharan Africa, and to highlighting the critical role that sound governance and civil society play in promoting lasting development. "
Can someone please help send the above to President Yaradua and his gang of misfit's in the Peoples Demo-crazy Party?
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--- On Sun, 17/5/09, chido onumah:
THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
____________ _________ _________ _________ _________ _________ _________ _________ ___
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE May 16, 2009
Statement by the Press Secretary on Upcoming Travel by the President
The President is scheduled to travel to Moscow, Russia, July 6 to 8 at the invitation of President Medvedev. The summit meeting will provide an opportunity for the United States and the Russian Federation to deepen engagement on reducing nuclear weapons, cooperating on non-proliferation, exploring ways to cooperate on missile defense, addressing mutual threats and security challenges, and expanding the ties between American and Russian society and business.
The President will then attend the G-8 Summit in L’Aquila, Italy, from July 8 to 10. The Summit and related meetings with world leaders from emerging and African economies will provide an opportunity for the United States to engage with its partners on a broad range of issues. The President will also chair a meeting of the Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate while at L’Aquila.
The President and Mrs. Obama will visit Accra, Ghana, from July 10 to 11. While in Ghana, the President will discuss a range of bilateral and regional issues with Ghanaian President Mills. The President and Mrs. Obama look forward to strengthening the U.S. relationship with one of our most trusted partners in sub-Saharan Africa, and to highlighting the critical role that sound governance and civil society play in promoting lasting development.
I thank you for felicitating with me on this very important moment in my life.
As is customary with our people, "ire akari"....The joy will spread around.
I am greatly tempted to break my earlier promise in order to 'shed' more light on a few things, especially my position on the need for REVOLUTION in the land - which i hold tenaciously to as the panacea for the myriads of pervasive misgovernance and subterfuge in the Nation state- but i will NOT.
NOT for wanting to abandon a lively debate and by extension, an opportunity to expand the rich discourse of charting a course for a progressive Nigeria, but I strongly believe as you do that this debate and many others(in the past) must be surbodinated to the more needful convergence of revolutionary ideas for a trully great Nation.
Undoubtedly, i admire your doggedness and clarity of thought which are essential ingredients for inspiring others.
Fare thee well, brother.
Oluwarotimi.
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From: Baba Aye
Date: Tuesday, May 26, 2009, 3:07 AM
Dear RotFash,
My sincere congratulations to both you and your son. It sure is a thing of joy, for he young man to pass through this rite of passage and such a wonderful moment of pride for a father, especially when he is not deprived of the right of being at the convocation ground with his son, by the state or a dictatorial VC.
I actually do not intend to continue with the debate, despite my belief that not only do you not say anything new, but that you re-formulate your earlier position with even more rueful hues. Why? The primary issue for me, is not about the correctness or otherwise of your line or mine, but: how can more and more people that want to and seem committed to a struggle for a better society bound together and build the necessary social force(s) to give life to this legitimate dream? Even debates on issue that do not have an immediate and pressing import on the way forward have to be subordinated to this greater cause...at least at such times as this.
I must say that it is very tempting for me to engage with yours below and I have had to turn it over and over again and again in my mind if it should be done as against abandoning such a step as a means of clearly pointing out that for me the issue is not contending over a 'truth' on the issue at hand. Apart from it not being characteristic of me to abandon a debate when issues still remain to be thrashed, what really bothers me so much is that with earlier statements of yours that tend towards a realization of the need for REVOLUTION, in an earlier debate, you would consider the people's mass action as paling into insignificance besides some mirage of an 'international support'. Well, I have learnt that a lot of times, with ideas, unlike with more physical chemistry, water and oil do mix...
I must say though that, whatever you consider, in your view, as inadequacies of my analysis, it did not flow from inadequate reading of your earlier posting (which I did once again as you advised). I do endeavour to read any piece I intend to engage with, four, five, six, seven times, to be sure of what I am engaging with and my own take on what it includes.
On a final note, albeit on a lighter note; you might consider my submission more grandiloquent than the rains at Epetedo which you witnessed on June 11, 1994, but I do consider "chest beating" an insult. Baba Aye is not a gorilla....he is 'IRON LION #1'
Once again, do accept my congratulations on your son's convocation.
Baba Aye
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From: rotimi fashakin
Date: Monday, May 25, 2009, 5:21 PM
Dear Baba-Aye,
I first read yours (as much as my phone could allow) at MMA Lagos on my way to Yankee land to attend my son's graduation in Accounting in NY. A few minutes later, Osita's response came in, commending it as brilliant and this made me more curious to read the full text. The long, tortuous 'over 27-hour' ordeal was assuaged by the realisation of reading the brilliant piece.
Did i find it so?
May be, may be not;but i could read some grandiloquence and modicum of 'chest beating' as being actively involved in the struggle that eventually gave birth to what is now known as the 4th republic.
Let me start by presenting you with the NEXUS connecting my 'International support' assertion and IBB's democratisation programme.
The Bretton Woods' institutions, after tracing much of the Nation's wealth into private hands, opined that ANY more relief or fresh borrowing CAN only be granted after concrete and demonstrable evidence of democratisation. They pressured IBB into commencing his bogus, designed-to- fail democratisation process. Since Abacha was part of that government as Army Chief, he just improved on the subterfuge with his 'ingenuous' five-party scheme.
I had assumed you knew this as the Scriptures declare, ' we speak wisdom among them that know wisdom...."
Much as I appreciated the organised mass action by the coalition of human rights' activists in those tempestuous days; this pales into insignifance when compared with the support by the International community.
You know it was not too difficult for Abacha as Army Chief (in July 1993) to 'order' Sir Michael Otedola (as Governor of Lagos) to relinquish Lagos to his suzerainty before mowing down scores of 'stone-throwing, hapless' demonstrators. In fact, MKO (understading that Abacha was now actively involved in QUELLING the insurrection) counselled strongly against throwing more Nigerians on the streets. He knew that Mohammed Sani Abacha was capable of re-enacting the 'TIANNEMEN SQUARE' massacre without bating an eyelid!!!!
This brings me to responding to your poser: ' why would a dark googled man who cared about international pressure, as you would want us to believe, judicially murder Ken Saro-Wiwai during a CHOGM?'
My answer: Because he was a raving lunatic that should NOT be confronted with raw power but superior intellect!
A few examples will suffice:
TY Danjuma is a respected Ex-chief of the Nigerian Army and was once asked why he chose to 'hear no evil, see no evil and say nothing' during the 41/2-year (Nov 17, 1993-June 8, 1998) bestiality unleashed on Nigerians by Sani Abacha. His reasponse: ' Only a fool will stand infront of a moving train" Make no mistake about it, Danjuma was/is no coward! That Babangida dislodged Dimka from FRCN on Feb. 13, 1976 was attributable to his sheer bravery in ordering it!
That ABACHA rescinded his 'kill 'em all' for the victims (OBJ, Yar'dua and Co) of the 1995 phantom coup was attributable to the superior wisdom of Bill Clinton when intervening in his telephone conversation with him. As he later told his deputy, Oladipo Diya: ' Dipo, this Clinton man don put his dirty mouth in this matter. He was just saying yes sir yes sir to me on the phone'
You see why i will always disagree with you into ALWAYS misreading sinister motives into every American Leader's intervention in the high-handed, iron-fisted grips of some despots.
It was JF Kennedy who poignantly asserted that: 'INJUSTICE ANYWHERE IS A THREAT TO JUSTICE EVERYWHERE'
Ask yourself, why would an American leader be interested in prevailling on a brutal despot from killing some of his citizens IF it was merely for selfish interest?? In our local parlance, " O TI SHI"----- 'YOU HAVE MISSED IT"
During the infamous reign of terror by the dark goggled one, the opposition within had been beaten to comatose state. It was the opposition abroad, sheltered by the International community, that provided the formidable groundswell for the eventual 'call for truce' by the regime.
You will agree with me that after the Judicial killing of Ken Saro Wiwa, the International community responded with a deluge of sanctions. Canada broke diplomatic relations with Nigeria with the relocation of the embassy to Ghana. Nelson Mandela championed the move for Nigeria's suspension from the commonwealth. The nation fitttingly assumed a pariah status among the comity of nations. All these weathered the vice grips of the murderous dictator.
I think after reading this mail, you may need to read my last mail AGAIN. It seems you misread some things!
You mentioned that the International community advised MKO to give up his mandate:
"And if that international community really cared for the vague justice and stand against impunity as you say, why did MKO too need to go, or even before then, be advised by the Commonwealth and UN to let go of hos mandate and go home to eat eba?"
You and I are living witnesses to the events before, during and after June 12, 1993.
As a matter of fact, I was at Epetedo for the declaration on June 11, 1994; a very rainy evening.
You will agree that by the time Abacha died on June 8, 1998; the mandate had tottered and what remained was badly vitiated by massive haemorragic back-stabbing. The running mate, Babagana Kingibe(aka Sai Baba) had settled in as a two-time minister of the Abacha regime. Same for Lateef Jakande and Ebenezer Babatope (EBINO TOPSY)! IF you must know, Bola Ige too was hob-nobbing around to see IF he could be accommodated in an arrangement (tinkered on) by the Abacha regime for a prime minister.Added to these was the murderous desire of some elements in the military to settle personal scores with MKO for taking their friend's wife because of his money. All these were known to the International community. It was a very pragmatic advice and with the power of hindsight, I believe, very apt.
Let me continue from where we left off before this disquisition. I still agree in toto with Osita's assertion that , "WHETHER WE LIKE IT OR NOT, WE NEED INTERNATIONAL SUPPORT IN OUR MARCH TOWARDS 2010."
I think after this one, NO MORE from me. As you can see, i am just here to re-count how benevolent the ALMIGHTY has been in making me shake my son's hands on graduation day JUST like my late father did to me at UNIFE.
My brother, have a refreshing 'practical session'.
Best regards,
Oluwarotimi.
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Dear RotFash,
Do pardon my not responding to yours below as promptly as I would have wanted to. I have had to tidy up a number of things here to leave me free for a programme within the deeper interiors of this land which I will be traveling for in a few hours time. Considering the fact that there is cut off from cyberspace, I would want to engage with issues such as those you raise, at this juncture.
That my response to Osita's is "weak" and "very" much so is a matter of your opinion, which of course you are very much welcome to. I do think though, that you fail to even adequately grasp, the essence of my position, which itself can not but result in inherent weaknesses in your argument. More importantly though, I did posit examples, as evidence. You have neither refuted this (about the myth of good governance and not basic political and economic interests being at the heart of America's support for or not for oppositional forces), nor did you 'support' your assertions on the role of 'international support' in the anti-military dictatorship struggle.
For the avoidance of doubt, I repeat my earlier position on international support' in general: "I also agree with the issue of 'international support' in principle". What I did basically was to put its understanding within 'a broader context' to guide analysis geared at strategizing, because a wrong diagnosis can hardly led to the correct prognosis. Rather repeating myself all over again, as I think you hardly grasp the essence of my argument, I will engage with the contents of your submission to make this clearer.
You as well say you could 'go on and on' without even starting in terms of making incontrovertible assertions! To convince us that: "Were it not for the collective International pressure on the Military despots that bestrode the political landscape, the Nigerian state would still be under Military rule" you make us know what every body including infants then knew that "it was a reluctant leader that "stepped aside" on August 27th 1993 after 8years on the saddle" without even attempting to point out any link between this and your much beloved 'international support'. Then you, it could be assumed, present a rhetorical question: Why would the 'dark goggled' one go to the extent of the ingenious 5-party(of the 5 fingers of the leprous hand fame) adoption chicanery IF not for International pressure, without giving consideration to any other possibility that could have made such a chicanery necessary, even if for the purpose of showing that such possibilities could not be considered as valid, in opposition to your views.
I aver that the most essential ingredient above all other ingredients (that could have been important or not), was the mass action of the people, buoyed by organised forces, which made the country ungovernable for, first IBB and (for 82 days, Shonekan and then) Abacha It was this much more than any other ingredient which threw up some new 'ingredients' and sharpened others there hitherto. These other ingredients in the making of the soup of history included not only what you term 'international support' but as well, intra-ruling elite's contestations. It is the contention of all these angels and demons thrown up that shapes and determines what then happens, based on the contested terrain of balances of forces and not some a priori whether you like it or not magic of anything...particularly that mystique which you seem to create (as some did in those JT days) of 'international support' which shapes and determines what then emerges as the tomorrow. Unlike you, I will not just make weak and empty assertions, I will present concrete, verifiable snippets from those times below as concrete analysis of the reality of our recent history thus, in defence of my argument. Starting with why and how the August 27 stepping aside was unwilling rather that just saying you must know what if you did not know already would have been scandalous!
It is very instructive that despite all the international hue and cry when he annulled the elections in June of that year, IBB never gave thought to stepping aside. But less than 48 hours after July 5, he announced that an ING would be set up (of course, he could have imagined that he would still be in control of that ING, this we will come back to). What was the significance of July 5, 1993?
July 5, 1993 witnessed what I believe was and still remains the most awesome demonstration of people's power in popular action ever in Nigeria. The mass of Nigerians from the nooks and crannies of Lagos spilled out towards MKO's house. The least of the different estimations of the size of that movement was 800,000, with most putting it at between 1million and 1.5 million persons. I and Femi Obayori anchored initiating things at Mushin, hardly sleeping for days during which we met with different sections of the popular sector there from workers to area boys, to market women to students, etc, but when we got to Challenge it already seemed like a dream, when we looked back and forth and saw the sea of persons. But we had not seen anything yet! The ocean of heads at MKO's house, spilled on to Toyin Street, to Allen, to Awolowo road and to Agege motor road! I remember FF even had a hell of a time getting through these to the MKO's place where he was as well to speak! The armoured vehicles of the police and helicopters hovering that were to keep things in check had little choice but to just watch and even in many a case cheer! This was the big beginning of the people's response in those six years of contestations between forces of revolution and counter-revolution, progress and reaction, the people (and those with them) and the elites (including a number that seemed to be on the side of the masses,, including MKO).
Before going further, I would want to point out one or two things of clear relevance for us to learn from with regards to that tsunami-day, which setthe pace for several tings after it.
One, even we progressive forces organized around CD, which called out the people for that action never expected something that large. BRK had a few days back at a meeting when we were planning towards it had expressed the thoughts of most of us that we should have not less than 5,000 present and who knows we could even have up to 10,000 people on that march! In fact, the earlier plans had been for a candle light procession. It was Kola Odetola, a Trotskyite and then Lagos State secretary of NUPCE (one of the three unions that would form the Amalgamated Union in 1996), one of the finest of organizers we ever had -described by General Abisoye as 'exceptionally brilliant' in the aftermath of the ABU massacre in '86- who raised that suggestion. What are the lesson here? We at times do not know just how close the time of the revolution-as-groom's arrival is. The presence of an organization, our oil or better still steam engine to convert the steam of popular anger into action for change, is of the utmost essence. Also a lesson there stems from the fact that when we arrived at MKO's, even though he had prior notice of the action, we were initially informed that he would not address the people because he was seeping. And actually he was! The reason became clearer later when we got to know that he had spent the whole of the night at Abuja discussing with IBB. We can learn from this that where and when we are forced by circumstances of history to establish alliances of whatsoever sort with those on the other side, we should be under no illusion because they do know that despite whatever differences they have at particular points in time, what binds them together is actually stronger than whatever it is that then separates them. The importance of this for strategizing for change can not be underestimated.
I would say in now moving ahead with my argument that some of the best accounts of that glorious day were by Owei Lakemfa and (especially in my view) Lanre Arogundade's on the National Concord's front page. I have LA's in one of my newspapers scrap books somewhere, but you might wish to ask him for a copy as that paper is now rested. It was one of those days like the coming of the Haley's comet and clearly the defining event that led primarily to August 27, much more than any and all the 'international support' in and from outside the entire universe!
As with such popular mass movements, even when reaction came as a quick backlash (Abacha's 'taking over' Lagos two days later with some 160 persons shot dead on the street and BRK's arrest same day - incidentally, in passing, I, Abubakar Momoh and Glory Kilanko were the last to be with him of us that day as we analyzed the significance of the people's defiance despite what was happening, reflected in the national stadium event of that day in planning for the next step), the forces for progress' confidence grew in stature and creative tactics were thought through. Civil disobedience as non-violent struggle became as much a strategy for us as it was a principle for some of us. With this I refer to the spate of 'sit at home' strikes which CD mobilized the people around even when Bafyau's NLC leadership prevaricated. And it is also very interesting that both IBB and Shonekan's lame duck administration collapsed in the midst of General Strikes! As labour was drawn into the fray eventually for many reasons, IBB was involved in negotiations with it much more than with any and every institution and country within the 'international community'. He more than some of us even today, was clearer on the fact that the most decisive contestation was and would be that with forces inside Nigeria.
On Abacha's five fingers of a leprous hands akunana senior brother of parambulator (apologies to Abami Eda, ASBP, was one of the strictly gbedu vibes of Fela...I think it best describes Abacha's 5-party gyrational charade!), you do two theoretically flawed things at the same time, as I understand it, and tie them together in an even more flawed knot. First you imply that Abacha's intended electoral abracadabra, was a result of the frown of 'international support', and that his exit was due to that international support for the opposition. Thus you establish a know between Abacha's politics, 'international pressure' and Abacha's to the great beyond stepping aside.
It is trite political science that even the most despotic of regimes has to be somewhat legitimated. No matter how tyrannical a rule is, without an ideological cement with which some extent of 'consent' is bestowed on it by the rule, it cannot last for long. You see this perspective in different ways running through the theories of the greatest minds in the West on elite rule. From Mosca to Michels and in more recent times to Michael Mann, who with a totally non-Marxist analysis, shows your the 'democratic' America's truly bureaucratic, authoritarian and despotic elite dictatorship which it really is. I would say though that Gramsci with his theory of 'cultural hegemony' best grasps what we could see at play with Abacha, for example.
Of course this still amounts to mere, 'weak', theoretical assertions, you could say! Let us look at what verifiable empirical facts show us. Mainasara in close by Niger had just done what Abacha sort to do and the case in Egypt was also more food for thought for him than any pressure from the West. This was why he sent some of the intellectuals that pandered before him to study these countries political systems. But let me ask a simple question; why would a dark goggled man who cared about international pressure, as you would want us to believe, judicially murder Ken Saro-Wiwai during a CHOGM? And if that international community really cared for the vague justice and stand against impunity as you say, why did MKO too need to go, or even before then, be advised by the Commonwealth and UN to let go of hos mandate and go home to eat eba?
The truth of the matter was that once again it was when the masses were rising and that international community could see the situation might go beyond the capacity of that 'strong man' to handle that they moved in with the equation I had earlier described. And why? What is because of a love for Nigerians or any serious commitment to 'fraternity, liberty and equality'? NO sir! It was to defend their strategic interests.
I will defend my assertion by recourse once again to the history of that period. I have earlier documented the different phases of that 'Six years of Revolution in Nigeria'. In 1994, after smashing the oil workers strike and locking up leaders of the opposition like Gani and BRK, while others like WS and Enahoro had scurried for dear life to the West, the tide of revolution subsided and counter-revolution was in the ascendancy, i.e. Abacha's order was in charge. The international community then ranted and raved, posturing really. By 1997 things started to change once again. The opposition re-organized itself. CD which had become (and sill remains now) a mere forlorn ghost of what it had been in the first phase of revolutionary upsurge which it had been the vanguard of, was supplanted on May 17, by the UAD. Things began getting to a head in 1998. On May Day, Sowore, Bally, Saint and co, ignited the Ibadan action that led to Ola Oni and Bola Ige's heroic captivity as 'prisoners of war' to use the words of the then Oyo State governor (who better than a whole lot of 'Marxists' realized that there was really a class war going on!), on the platform of Congress of Progressive Youths (COPY). COPY's proposals also led the UAD to call for the Yaba 5-million man rally that gave Olisa and Odion, black eyes they could be proud of. In March of that year, OPC spit with a then revolutionary faction led by Ganiyu Adams emerging at Ebutte Metta. In the Niger Delta, the fires of the chikoko where being fanned by the Oronto Douglas, Isaac Osuoka and co-led Pan Niger Delta Resistance Movement (also then called the Chikoko Movement, CKK). Forces were aring themselves and the international community knew this and the fact that the man in Aso rock was so jonesed that a head-on collission with consequences that would hurt their strategic economic interets might erupt. That and not all these nursery school belief in international pressure or support led to their action with regards to (nb: both) Abacha (and Abiola)..
I would not like to 'go on and on'. I believe that if the concrete historical facts I have presented still make my argument 'weak', you should be kind enough to provide such that vitiates what I have thus presented. I would advise you, if you have not that is, to read Igbokwe's Heroes of Democracy. I do not agree with the crux of his argumentation line, but amongst other things the book presents a rich stock of primary sources from that struggle. It also shows that without denying the arguable role(s) of the international community, the heroes of that struggle, include the Ganis, Umars (the two persons IBB would seven years later single and not the international community, as being the sincere players on the other side then), Kalthos, BRKs, Falanas, Aborishadeses, Kokoris, DadibisSangos, Arogundades, Iweres,Ubanis, the Press, Akinsayas and the millions of 'unknown' Nigerians who either fought or bore the brunt of Abacha stoves knowing they were being part of a struggle for the soul of a country. Without wanting to go on and on though, something crossed my mind now about my own experience with the 'international support' and elements one would otherwise not have thought of as being supportive in any way, which I think is 'axiomatic'. This was when Kudi was being buried.
On that fateful day, Carrington called me by name (definitely asked from some of us close to them since I never had or cared to have relations with the 'international community' of capitalist states and their representatives) while leading the singing angry youths. He assured me that look young man, the international community shares your grief and supports your cause, but do de orderly please. Of course, I then went back and called for the singing to be more strident and when Kudi was interred we grabbed the coffin for maoilizational purposes, despite Kola and co's resistance. We were to use it on June 12 a week later to stir action on Ikorodu road, but agent provocateurs amongst us insisted we should still keep moving with it even after Awolowo round about, addressing rallies as we went. We would be apprehended at EKO hospital as I spoke to a crowd, there, by men of the NPF led by Young Arobamen, who won my respect that day. He seized the coffin and told us that we as well should be arrested but he was Nigerian and knew our cause to be true, but that there was no way in the course of duty that he could make us continue with the coffin (it was experiences like this that I had in mnd in an earlier debate on the police, here). From this you can see the conditional support of the international. It is merely in defence of order! And if the forces of reaction can safeguard order, by jove, so be it!
More generally on this masquerade of 'international support' you claim that: The dynamics of our world is such that there is zero tolerance for impunity and absolutism. Fela's "Beast of No Nation" adequately answers that. My earlier examples of Israel and Egypt merely buttresses this. One needs only add the 'international support' for absolutist dictators in Latin America (like Pinochet) and apartheid South Africa, to see how true such 'zero tolerance for impunity and absolutism' has been. Or more recently after 9/11, with the restoration of the impunity of the CIA's 'authority' (!) to assassinate where (by American interests' standards) necessary, heads of states of other soverign countries, do we say zero tolerance for impunity and absolutism is being demonstrated?
With the Bahir thing in Sudan. I have written against the genocide in Darfur and was even part of the organisers of a demonstration against this during my stay in Germany, but are issues as simple as you put it? Definitely not! America is no more interested in the people of Darfur and because of that against him than they were with the Iraqis and against Sadam. Rather, their economic interests lie at the heart of their actions. The concern of the United States of North America is more with the grounds that China is gaining over the Sudanese oil reserves!
I want to say I appreciate the 'In my opinion' prologue to Osita's 'whether we like it or not' formulation. You however also failed to get this in my earlier response: "And even with that, a 'whether we like it or not' proposition might still not be the most apt way of presenting such within a democratic culture (the ethos we seek to project within the broader social sphere, I believe should be lived even within us)". There is really little more to say beyond this.
In summing up here and for now, as I do have a more practical task at hand in the next few hours, I must say once again, that I do not fail to see an international dimension to people's struggles. Indeed I am an internationalist and practically so, beyond mere empty words! I however put 'international solidarity', over and above the myth of the construct that the 'international support' presented by you and Osita for example amounts to, in my own view, on one hand. On the other hand, I also stress the primacy of practical action stirred by real organization as against hope in a pie-in-th-sky, of support from anywhere. This is the lesson from our past and this is the challenge that lie ahead for us to fulfill our future.
I am constrained for now by time to come to Osita's subsequent questions as well.....but I surely will, once I am back to civilization!
Have a wonderful weekend, sir Rote; it is always a pleasure engaging with you, even when I fiercely disagree with your point of view.
Sincere regards,
Baba Aye
Global Labour University/Instituto de Economia, UniCamp
solidarityandstruggle.blogspot.com
skype name: iron1lion
"An ounce of action is worth a ton of theory." Friedrich Engels
"If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants." - Isaac Newton
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--- On Tue, 5/19/09, rotimi fashakin
Date: Tuesday, May 19, 2009, 9:52 PM
Baba Aye,
Permit me to disagree with you on your rejoinder to Osita's intervention.
Osita mentioned Ínternational support'as an essential ingredient for our march towards 2011; you tried, albeit very weakly, to controvert that assertion. Were it not for the collective International pressure on the Military despots that bestrode the political landscape, the Nigerian state would still be under Military rule. If you must know, it was a relunctant leader that "stepped aside" on August 27th 1993 after 8years on the saddle and over N40Billion blown on a bogus, designed-to- fail democratisation process. Why would the 'dark goggled' one go to the extent of the ingenious 5-party(of the 5 fingers of the leprous hand fame) adoption chicanery IF not for International pressure. I can go on and on. The dynamics of our world is such that there is zero tolerance for impunity and absolutism. El-Bashir, the Sudanese president is finding out that he could not (despite his puerile attempt to amass Arab sentiments) cause the genocide in Dafur, expecting the discerning world to look the other way. I can go on and on. In my opinion, it is axiomatic to say, without mincing words, that 'WHETHER WE LIKE IT OR NOT', a measure of international support is needed for Nigeria to make it in 2011!
When i wrote to a gentleman that i knew in the early 80s in UNIFE after his initial bachelors degree. I also knew him to be religious and had written to him with every sense of responsibility. Because the Nigerian nation has a way of consuming its very best and blunting their effectiveness; i needed to check IF his revolutionary zest and FIRE is still aglow. Would you ask me where is GG Darah? Is he still able to inspire with those pungent articles?
Let me end with this admonition from the Holy Scriptures: 'But exhort one another DAILY while it is called TODAY, lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin'.... Heb.3:13.
Thank you.
Oluwarotimi
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--- On Tue, 5/19/09, Baba Aye
Osita,
I do agree with you that quite often patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels like Hitler and Abacha, to paraphrase Samuel Johnson. I also think that while the Prof is correct about if we were to act our age as a country and all that, the missing point being how or which kind of people will lead us in acting out our age? Definitely not the lot one sees in the PDP, ANPP, AC and PPA, which are the major parties as of today.
I also agree with the issue of 'international support' in principle. But have some objections to your formulation on it for 2011. First, I must say with all due respect that such 'whether we like it or not' kind of language presupposes some hidden truth waiting to unravel itself on one hand while smacking of the sort of ingredients that become clogs in the wheel of intelligible discourse on the other. Without any empirical evidence, I don't see how this can be anything but your own opinion. And even with that, a 'whether we like it or not' proposition might still not be the most apt way of presenting such within a democratic culture (the ethos we seek to project within the broader social sphere, I believe should be lived even within us). On 'international support' I think we should not get carried away by proclamations of good governance, democracy and all that being the basis of American support for any democratisation project. American interest first and last, is the basis. That is why Israel and Saudi Arabia will always be allies of America despite the former's onslaught on Palestinians and the latter's any thing but democratic political structures for example. It is where and when a mass movement for democratic change becomes a counter-hegemonic power in concrete contention for the state's driving seat that it can look up to the kind of 'international support' you see (or conversely where such forces of opposition -democratic or not- could be subversive to states against American interests e.g the contras in Nicaragua). This is why Clinton and Blair could not just give Baba Iyabo a nod and a wink, but champagne sef....they saw no credible alternative. If the groundswell of a pro-democracy movement had not seemed threatening to the dark-goggled one's iron grip, do you think they would have made the decisive simultaneous equation by elimination of him and 'money's' husband? I doubt it....
For me, 'international support' should be seen in a broader context. Trade unions and civil society organisations should build bridges of 'international support' transnationally in the spirit of working class internationalism and the global justice and peace movement to join in mobilizing world public opinion against the Nigerian state and its interests across the world, challenging its draconian and ani-people's activities electorally and otherwise. This approach was a major plank of the MOSOP anti-Shell struggles success. Even Western governments would have to give more consideration to our struggle when their country's citizens join us on picket lines across the metropoles' cities.
I sincerely think the challenge is to begin to build an oppositional movement that could rally both national and international mass support against the worse than Ekiti saga, 2011 drama that is gradually forming before our eyes....The time to commence this, I believe, is NOW!
Baba Aye
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--- On Mon, 5/18/09, Osita Mba
Date: Monday, May 18, 2009, 6:48 PM
Prof, the problem with the brand of nationalism you invoke is that it has been exploited in the past by devil incarnates like Hitler, Abacha, and Mugabe to destroy their people and their nations. Whether we like it or not we cannot effect any change in 2011 without international support. The electoral clouds that are gathering ominously as we approach 2011 would have been tackled in 1999 if Clinton and Blair had not given Obj a clean bill of health with a nod and a wink. Remember how the EU observers were forced to change their assessment of that election? Nigerians still have to stand up to be counted in 2011 but the support of an American president that is committed to free and fair elections and good governance is not to scoffed at. The people that erode Nigeria's sovereignty are those that scamper to Germany each time they catch a 'cold' after 2 years in office when unprecedented oil revenue was received; the people that make our country home to one of the largest concentration of poor people in the world. Playing the nationalism or the racism card is either ignorant or dishonest or both. Osita
Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device
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From: Ayo Olukotun
Date: Mon, 18 May 2009 08:26:07 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Re: [FOIcoalition] Sad Day for Nigeria (Apologies to President Yar'Adua)
Rotimi
Thanks for your vigorous response and for recalling my antecedents .I do not deny that the country has been very poorly if at all governed At academic and popular levels I have vocally drawn attention to the tragedy of misrule Iam trying to broaden the current discussion beyond that well known fact by suggesting that if we acted our true age and carried through the vision of our founding fathers who projected a Nigeria on the world stage we would not be trapped at a level where America snubbing would cause such consternation You were setting up a straw man in trying to suggest that Iam evading the decay at home
My reference to Asia is to suggest how far we have fallen from redemptive possibilities and to sketch out or at least broach the prospect of nationalist self discovery
Ayo Olukotun
Professor of Political Communication
Lead City University,Ibadan
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--- On Mon, 5/18/09, rotimi fashakin
Date: Monday, May 18, 2009, 4:15 AM
Hello Ayo,
I want to believe this is the same Ayo Olukotun, the fiery students' leader of Great Ife who called out the students on a long trek to Lagos and was eventually driven back at Ikire.
I strongly disagree with you. We need to understand that US is not the cause of the myriad of problems in our land but our leaders and their avaricious lust for power and money. The only thing they know is satisfying the cravings of their depraved nature.
You knew how a leader became so inebriated with fleeting and uncertain political power that he declared an election a 'do or die' affair like a conquering generallisimo moving ebulliently to stamp out any vestige of opposition. We are all witnesses of the aftermath of the continued brigandage that the much taunted 'power of incumbency' had used to reduce elections to already determined selections with the active connivance of the chief Umpire (whose name sounds like Goat). If you juxtapose the scenario in Naija with the recent Ghanaian presidential elections, you know it is an eternity of difference. Mind you, the Obama presidency is still all about victory of RIGHT over Might. The election in Ghana, though keenly contested, was devoid of rancor. John Kuffor did not prod the Head of Police to intimidate the opposition by looking away while the ruling party perfected all new rigging tactics. Wow! you still need to salute the crude ingenuity at play in the recent Ekiti rerun elections. In Ghana, the ruling party lost in a fair contest and did not resort to incivility. That is salutory.
Look at the carnage going on in Niger Delta. Agreed, tough decisions need to be taken against the militants; but not bombing villages (just as the predecessor of this inept leader had done)! Was that caused by US? You do not redress age-long deprivation and injustice by inflicting more Injustice. Oil was struck in commercial quantity in Oloibiri in 1957. Since that time, that area had consistently suffered degredation. As late as 1994, Amassoma was not connected to the mainland with a bridge! It took so long to get to this quagmire, we need not hurry a solution to get out. We shall only exacerbate the situation.
When Obama sees Yarádua, he will only be reminded of the repression of white hegemons during the civic rights' movement. I agree with Azubike Ishiekwe(hope am correct!) that Yardua is both ful of guile and ruthless. A twin-evil combination that was hitherto NOT in any Nigeria's Executive President!
I do not want anyone to be deluded that the regime means well; there is absolutely nothing to evince this, except empty grandstanding. Yar'adua is ONLY interested in preserving the status quo that had brought steady retrogression to the Nigerian state EVEN at the detriment of his health.
Enjoy your day, Prof.
Oluwarotimi.
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--- On Sun, 5/17/09, Ayo Olukotun
Date: Sunday, May 17, 2009, 8:40 PM
I don't see how applauding foreign slurs to one's country helps to change anything It only panders to the ego and racism of a Western world that arrogates to itself the right to determine who and who not should be happy As the Asian world has demonstrated there is something beyond the ' end of history civilisations' currently reeling from self inflicted economic woes which they prefer to generalise as global .
Let us look forward to the day when our moods are4 not determined by American approval or dis approval and when we can begin to cultivate a niche that the world will take a cue from
Ayo Olukotun Ibadan, Nigeria
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--- On Sun, 5/17/09, Kayode Ogundamisi
Date: Sunday, May 17, 2009, 4:23 AM
Obama's White house on Ghana!
"The President and Mrs. Obama look forward to strengthening the U.S. relationship with one of our most trusted partners in sub-Saharan Africa, and to highlighting the critical role that sound governance and civil society play in promoting lasting development. "
Can someone please help send the above to President Yaradua and his gang of misfit's in the Peoples Demo-crazy Party?
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--- On Sun, 17/5/09, chido onumah:
THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
____________ _________ _________ _________ _________ _________ _________ _________ ___
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE May 16, 2009
Statement by the Press Secretary on Upcoming Travel by the President
The President is scheduled to travel to Moscow, Russia, July 6 to 8 at the invitation of President Medvedev. The summit meeting will provide an opportunity for the United States and the Russian Federation to deepen engagement on reducing nuclear weapons, cooperating on non-proliferation, exploring ways to cooperate on missile defense, addressing mutual threats and security challenges, and expanding the ties between American and Russian society and business.
The President will then attend the G-8 Summit in L’Aquila, Italy, from July 8 to 10. The Summit and related meetings with world leaders from emerging and African economies will provide an opportunity for the United States to engage with its partners on a broad range of issues. The President will also chair a meeting of the Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate while at L’Aquila.
The President and Mrs. Obama will visit Accra, Ghana, from July 10 to 11. While in Ghana, the President will discuss a range of bilateral and regional issues with Ghanaian President Mills. The President and Mrs. Obama look forward to strengthening the U.S. relationship with one of our most trusted partners in sub-Saharan Africa, and to highlighting the critical role that sound governance and civil society play in promoting lasting development.
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