Baba Aye's

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...

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

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

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

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

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