Melaye’s Book: the Nonfiction Work of Fiction

I laughed and laughed hard like many Nigerians at the news of Dino Melaye authoring and launching a book. The 600-page book is called Antidote for Corruption, offering ways of tackling corruption in Nigeria.

Representatives of anti-corruption agencies, however, were markedly absent at the launch. Other politicians who though ethically deficient but yet retaining some senses did not also attend the event.

The composition and character of those at the event would tell the nature of the gathering. In attendance were Senate President,  Bukola Saraki, former First Lady, Madame Patience Jonathan among other usual suspects in the corruption saga. 

Antidote to corruption should never have come from someone in this class of men to whom corruption is a second nature. How can a man who breathes corruption be prescribing anti-corruption pills? Lucifer himself preaching paradise. Subconsciously, Melaye is probably offering suggestions that will endear you to corruption.

What happened was ethically-challenged people gathered and worried and complained about pompous publicity that the anti-corruption fight enjoys. If everything would be quietly done, less hyped and sensational, that will be okay. Not entirely bad idea, but such suggestion should have to come from somebody with clean slate.

The crucial question, however, is where Dino has got the intellectual resourcefulness to author a book, any book, when a simple Google search about him will not reveal any record of him writing a work anywhere? Related searches about him reveal sentimental superficialities, conspicuous shallowness, blissful philistinism, corrupt and vulgar life-style and crude ostentation: Dino Melaye’s house, Dino Melaye’s cars, Dino Melaye’s video, etc.

Dino wants present himself as intellectually formidable, not knowing that he and his friends cannot rise above themselves. The only people he can intimidate are the non-reading minds, the ilk of Bukola Saraki who was overwhelmed by what he calls Melaye’s “resilience” for writing a voluminous book. Saraki judges intellectuality by voluminousness, not depth and substance.

The farce is so crude, pedestrian, and painfully mediocre that Nigerians dismissed it with scornful laughter. But Dino is not one with sense to realize the emptiness and the fundamental irony of his work. A bold liar who traffics in alternative facts and optional truth, despite the scorn and contempt that greeted his charade, even though  he is lying and knows everyone knows he is lying, the Kogi-West Senator can still go ahead to think himself as that smart guy who scammed the nation.

Everything surrounding the book stinks corruption and raises more and more integrity questions. Unavoidably prolix, the book must have been ghostwritten by a mediocre PA who Dino refused to mention.

The price of the book has yet called for another indictment. The essence of work is to be read. The book is tagged $131.57, fifty-thousand naira local currency. How could a writer who wants to be read put such ridiculously high price for a book meant for public good?

The whole business of launching the book was carried out in near secrecy. Points of sales digitally or otherwise were not disclosed. So far, one can tell with degree of certainty that not a single higher institution across the country has gotten a copy of the book.

Saraki-Melaye crop are group of people who approach truth and ethic if not with subversion, then with absolute indifference. The urge to lie without conscience in this sort of politicians is compulsive. They are greatly obsessed with publicity and fame that in as much as they get mentioned, they don’t mind whether they appear in negative light or not. This explains why they gathered and threw jibes at anti-corruption fight, and tried so hard without success to project themselves as honorable men and women. Otherwise they would have avoided this outlandish self-inflicted damage.

Melaye is not alone in this joke. He is the foreman of corrupt politicians who receded to the background to scam the nation. The result of that drama is an evident desire to escape their own lives, an expression of inner turmoil. They are mocked, they are ridiculed and held in contempt. They look at themselves and look at others and feel bad. They are unhappy with themselves and seem to be saying “we are not corrupt.” And the public seem to be replying “yes, yes, we agree fools.”

I see phony people pretending the dream of being men of letters they never would, thus inevitably gravitating towards where they belong to: corruption. Melaye’s book can best be described as what Timothy O’Brien called “nonfiction work of fiction.”

 

You can’t lose a bet not even Dino has bothered to read the book, for these people lack interest in anything beyond money, power and sex. He might have just okayed the final manuscript. I can imagine the scene in his room, Dino sipping beer, fingering a baby and waving off a pathetic PA.

Emir Sanusi II, Northern Governors and Other Stories

You may not know what droved Emir Muhammadu Sanusi II to depict the ugliness of our society in the open. Before his ascension to the throne, the Emir might have been speaking as a private citizen, from a detached position, with no contact with the real tragedy.

It is anger. It is pain. It is the deluge of human tragedies reaching him as a royal father. Daily, he sees supposedly normal humans do silly things. Daily, he sees incredible cases of irresponsibility. The radical, militant stances he took will make sense to you if you take a deep reflection, or imagine yourself in his shoes, or you experience one or two scenarios. One nearly feels like justifying the Emir’s action but for the channels, means and ways available to him.

The problem is deeper than we assume it on the media. It is sad and painful to admit, but our society is an eyesore and in terrible mess.

Of such irresponsibilities I have learnt recently is a man who divorced his wife for not dropping at his sister’s after visiting the area. Another man wanted to take a third wife through government-sponsored marriage, beat his wife with a fracture in her hand. He already has two wives living in different tenements. Feeding is no picnic, so also tenement paying. The first wife, who was beaten, did not object to his new marriage but argued that as pre-requisite for his marriage he should first of all assume his role as a father and start paying the school fees of his kids.

In a society full of people who can barely feed themselves, this man’s story is not the worst. Given a chance, each one of you can narrate thousand and one stories that will sure eclipse this.

I have hard time with the idea of being rough to women. Perhaps people who are willing to give up their male privileges and who can feel shocked upon hearing disgusting words said about women, or nasty action done to them, naively believe in the dignity of women. Someone asked me if I could wake my wife up and ask her to do things for me. Oh, you mean like a dictator? No, God forbid I become a despot or tyrant. Marriage is a partnership, not acquisition. We shall work and earn a deserved respect. But the painful thing is that women, even those who have been to colleges and universities, are made to internalize their oppression.

Emir Sanusi overlooked other great tragedies of human stories. What he overlooked is the plague of beggars and madmen in our streets. And the loss of young adults and adolescents to drugs – wasted humans, wasu sunci kai, wasu sunci rabin kai – largely due to parental failure.

When state failure is glaring, hopes must shift to community and individual. But we are confused. Maybe used to seeing the ugliness of our society made us internalize it and see it as normal. All that the Emir asked is a move along with time, that women need education to live a decent, dignified life even in marriage. For nothing, you need education to be a citizen of the 21^st century.

Lack of ambition and total confusion stand the society out. People lack techniques to survive the challenges of our time, they make almost no effort to acquire them, and when they suffer, they relate their suffering to God. That is the real tragedy, because if they know that their condition is unnatural, there can be hope of making effort to act on it.

The way people relate their suffering to God often makes me wonder: Has God hated us so much that He tests us so harshly than anybody? Blaming everything to God is simply a cunning way of avoiding responsibilities. Like believing that poverty is a good virtue. Or it is a sign of piety that will endear you to God. By being content with bare existence, one can see that there is something that kills ambition in our people.

We give birth to children and dump them to the mercy of luck and auto-pilot. As if we don’t really believe that we need good life for our sons and daughters. We fail to understand the simple fact that the more educated a boy or a girl becomes the more chances of better life, and the chances of swatting off irresponsible partners.

If your ancestors passed through a tragedy, and generations after them passed through similar challenge, like persistent female and child mortality, divorce and other social issues, and the same trend tends to befall you, then there definitely is something wrong. You have newer knowledge and techniques and newer, quicker access to them than your ancestors. For that, your ancestors should look at you admiringly and wish they were you.

Twenty-First century does not require only the ability to read and write. It needs more sophisticated techniques to enable one to solve complex human problems. The challenges facing humanity are blind to color, gender and belief and demand uniform skills from everyone. The reason why every child, male or female, should be educated. But the saddest thing is that in the next fifty years there would be some kids who would not be able to attend school as their parents do not attend today.

Who loses if the status quo remains?

Many may mistake Emir Sanusi’s new stand as cowardice. Their assumption cannot be dismissed outright. Careful observation, however, will reveal that the Emir’s stand is born out of a mixture of resignation and lost of hope in our people. But he does not lose if the status quo remains. Northern governors and their elite enablers do not lose; they are in fact beneficiaries of the hatch and breed system of the commoners’ kids that will swell the numerical strength of their votes.

The Emir was rightly indignant and tuned down. There won’t be rapid changes as he hoped for in a place where the visionless outweigh the visionary.  It will take a very long time before most people become aware of the horrible consequence the Emir is seeing now.

The sad reality in our society today makes it necessary that focus must shift to the self. Influence those who can still be influenced to get away from the grip of tyranny and exploitation.

Emir Muhammadu Sanusi II and the Debate of Social Reforms

In a speech at Bring Back Our Girls first annual lecture event, represented by his daughter, princess Shaheeda, last Friday, HRH Emir Muhammadu Sanusi II presented hard facts with brutal force. If previously unplanned, it seemed there was conscious effort this time to embarrass his critics, especially the elite class. He must be smiling after that lecture. The targets had been hit hard. By given more figures, he brutally punished them. Disturbing figures were reeled out which exposed the complicity, collective neglect and inaction of the region’s leadership.

In the first place Emir Sanusi must have been disappointed by stakeholders of the region, who obviously did not turn out to be cooperative to his reform mission in a possible background stakeholders meeting. He must have been angered by the amount of backlash his first speeches generated. Seemingly, he was surprised, even amused, by the rejection of his proposal by the masses, the very class he seeks to protect. Fact is truth backfires. People tend to reject truth when they perceived seeming tendency of denigration. Consequent to that he intended to shame the region and its leadership by going public with figures of the social ills of the region.  But it is obvious the targets are not the masses. The targets are religious, political and business leaders, but particularly the former groups who wield enormous influence. 

Emir Sanusi’s argument is on point, which many believe and are ready to support. We frequently run into conflicts at home over what we consider abnormal practices in family issues that are inconsistent with modern sensibilities. For instance, how can you marry four wives when you don’t have means to cater them? But the fault with Emir Sanusi’s line is the method, particularly his condescending tone and sheer arrogance. In Emir Sanusi's speech words walk looking over their shoulders, deriving pleasure at the successful hitting of the target and waiting joyfully for response for more and more data to be reeled out. It seems Emir Sanusi is more happy at this than fixing the issues. No one could tell.

Instead of using the right channels, he took to public platform and engaged in exchange of verbal bitterness with his subjects. The administrative structure of the Emirate provides an effective way of making policies and implementation. The Palace- through Hakimi, Dagaci and Mai-Unguwa - in collaboration with state and local actors can formulate policies and enforce them regarding issues he is trying to address like it is used in Polio Immunization program which thus far has recorded spectacular success.

To be conservative is not a bad thing. I will like to see newspapers, think-tanks and strategic organizations funded and operated by Conservative elements to defend their interests. Societies exist on the basis of opposition and conflicts.  Name-calling for holding certain views is certainly ineffective in winning public discourse. Instead of winning over hearts to his side, Emir Sanusi hardened more and more people and turned away fence-sitters.

Hard figures are real, however, fact exists in mind. While education serves as critical impetus for improved life quality, large number of adolescent women in marriage cannot be seen as social ills for a culture that sees chastity as virtue. Yet, we are not denying fact that no development for society where children are giving birth to children. The point is that marriage in itself should not be seen as problem.

Challenge must be mounted at some questions raised. For instance, what Sanusi and co., mean when they say 80% of women in the north couldn't read and write? Because to read and write means different things to different people. Do they mean reading and writing only in English language? Or do they mean general ability in the landscape of literate culture? We ask this so as to avoid confusing English, mere language, as knowledge and civilization. If reading and writing in English language only means knowledge, then a little decolonization is important here.

If English is defined as totality of culture and advancement, then what about people who read and write in other languages? What about other communities and nationalities the world over that thrive on their own language and define their life by their inherited values?

Hausa is the most massively written indigenous language and the most widely read language on continental Black Africa and beyond. Every single day sees the publication of books; the bulk of the authors are females. The swathes of readership are young and middle-aged women. Hundreds of thousands made reading these books their second nature. They read simply for the fun of it. They read in the kitchen, in Adai-daita Sahu; they utilize every single opportunity that comes their way to read these novels. Given this beautifully gigantic number, may we not beat our chest and proclaim that no other regions have the bulk of female readers than ours?    

What is worrying and what the northern Conservative blocks and not-so Conservative are resisting is an attempt in whatever form to denigrate them. Which they perceived in Emir Sanusi's manner.  Random men everywhere may have the habit of beating their wives, which is not limited only to the north, but the way Emir Sanusi made his case, scolding and paternalistic, in warning traditional rulers to stop beating their wives, you may assume beating women is the only thing every man is doing in the region.

Debates are not won on Channels TV and applauding social media audience. Persuasiveness as a leader is the simple, most effective way in changing people's mind. Going this way, Emir Sanusi is not like to succeed. It will be a big loss to miss the fruit of the reforms he intends to bring.

Africa's most populous Black university celebrated Black History Month

By Abubakar Sulaiman Muhd

Zaria, Kaduna State, Nigeria 


In a grand ceremony, the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, celebrated its maiden Black History Month 2017, organized by the university’s Department of English and Literary Studies, in collaboration with United States Embassy in Nigeria. Themed around "Crisis in Black Education," the event that lasted two days -  between 20^th and 21^st February 2017 - began with movie show at the Centre of Excellence in Communication, after which  followed a public lecture held at the University’s Assembly Hall, bringing together experts from across departments and the United States to discuss Black experience.

Courtesy: Atiku Kangiwa. Section of the audience

H.O.D English Department, Professor T. Y. Surakat, kicked off the event with greetings in various native languages, in honor of International Mother Tongue Day. In a sense of reunion, keynoter at the event, Dr.  Barry Lee, a Morehouse College Professor, Atlanta, Georgia - the alma mater of Martin Luther King Jr. - spoke in Ebonics to greet the audience - a distinct dialect of the African Americans in the United States. He expressed happiness at his first visit to Nigeria.

Dr. Lee talked about the role of Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) to the Civil Rights Movement history and the United States. 

"As a Black, you realize that your life can be taken away from you unjustly. You don’t need to commit a crime. The importance of Historically Black Colleges and Universities is to train and inspire social justice fighters," he said. "In the past we were ashamed of our race. The importance of Black History Month celebration is that Black people are proud of their race." 

Professor Tanimu Abubakar, a senior staffer at the Department, and a discussant, said that the event came coincidentally when the world is full of chaos. 

"To understand what constitutes blackness," he said, "we must go back to the historicities that shaped our today’s discourses." Tanimu expressed happiness, urged the university management and the US Embassy to work together and make the occasion an annual event. On  Black education, Tanimu said the system aims at satisfying market needs, not the development of community. 

Courtesy: Atiku Kangiwa. Section of the audience

Professor Raymond Bako, of the school of Educational Psychology, and immediate past President Fulbright Alumni Nigeria, spoke about opportunities open to students and staff available at the Embassy. The US Education Exchange Program offers educational services to international students. "Feel free and approach any of us, we will mentor you on how to benefit from these opportunities."

Interlude of poetry recitations, work song performances and speeches re-enactment interspersed the session, making the atmosphere swinging, from heavy somberness at the performance of the work songs to spirited cheerfulness at the re-enactment of two key Black activists’ sermons: Martin Luther King Jr.’s "I have a Dream" and Malcolm X’ "The Ballot and the Bullet."

In what could be judged near perfect oration, David Ejeh’s reenactment of Dr. King’s  historic "I have a Dream" speech broke the hall into standing ovation.

As part of the remembrance for the Black History, a film session was held, a night earlier, featuring Roots, Haley’s most famous movie that recounts the Black experience of the Middle Passage and slavery. At the Centre, while the movie lasted, were joyful shouts as well as emotional tears.

"It is a summary of their past," said Karen Awan, a senior in Literature who went to watch the movie, "a kind of what happened in history. The problem of what is happening today did not start today. It started in history when the Whites came to America as masters, Blacks as slaves."

The event ignited interest among students. “It makes us more conscious of Black History,” she said.

To understand Black condition, Ahmad Dahiru compares his experience as a small boy. "I simply can’t imagine, I can’t understand," said  Dahiru, a senior at the Department majoring in Language. "They are just treated like animals," he said after a scene at slave market. The scene, he said, reminded him of his experience as a young boy when his father took him to the market to buy ram during Sallah period. 

At the end of the morning session, the event moved to the university’s Centre of Excellence in Communication where a discussion took place between the university officials and students’ representatives. Students’ activism, said Dr. Lee, who was billed to talk to students about campus activism, is an important part of the Civil Right Movements and social justice in the United States.

The gathering at the Centre was a refreshing experience, hosting several student bodies, religious representatives and campus activists from diverse background. Ahmadu Bello University is adjudged to be the best university to host such event, the breadth of its federal character admission has touched every state, every local government, than any other university in the county.

"Here is the right place," said the Deputy Vice Chancellor in charge of Administration, Professor Kabiru Bala, standing in for the Vice Chancellor. "The United States is the most powerful country, Nigeria is the most populous black nation, our university is the most diverse, most populous. The university is the largest and most cosmopolitan University in Africa south of the Sahara," he said, "it wouldn’t have been better anywhere than here. We are ready to work with the Embassy to make the occasion an annual event."

As part of the celebration, the event tonight moved to the university’s Drama Village, where packages of traditional performances, dance, music and songs were dramatized by Theatre and Performing Arts students.

Courtesy: Damilola. Performance at Drama Village

Dr. Edward Abah, Chairman Local Organizing Committee (LOC), at the end of the performances which officially marked the closing of the event, thanked his colleagues, the school management, students and everyone who worked to make the event a success.