Baba Aye's

"Four things come not back: the spoken word, the spent arrow, time passed and the lost opportunity" (Omar Halif, 14th century philosopher) Dear Osita, I will be very brief after your last mail, subsequent to my response to Rot Fash's. I do think it would however be "disingenuous" to circumscribe any response whatsoever from me after some of your assertions below, based on that. The most I could do is to assume a non-polemical and summary stance in response. I am glad you assert I seek to subscribe views to critique. The views I actually pass through the most severe of critique, if you must know, are actually mine. I believe that it is in the process of critique that knowledge is expanded. It is also not my brand of dialectics. It is a materialist Hegelian-Marxist brand actually. I do take exception at your considering my approach 'pompous' though. I am sure that if it were not yours that we are talking of and you were asked to consider which approach is ...

Dear ATL, You could be right about the duality of possible uses of nationalism as an ideology. This is one reason why strictly nationalism or patriotism as ideologies can hardly ever lead to lasting social transformation. I have argued earlier on nationalism itself that without radical 'nationalists' coming to terms with the truism in Malcolm X's assertion that there really are two nations in each 'nation' (that of the masters and that of the enslaved; that of exploiter rich and that of the exploited poor; that of the minority elites and that of the immense majority of dispossessed) strategies they propose would always be deficient. It is in this light for example on a 'black nationalist' note for example that while I am pan-Africanist, I do not stand for an 'I am black and proud' unity of Africa and while I do stand for a new Nigeria, I have no illusion that it would be the same Nigeria an Abacha or Obasanjo had as their visions. I must also say, wi...

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. Ol...