dear director-general of africana studies, the caliphate of california,
na wa oh !
not lakunle the village schoolteacher who has so comically embraces his ill-digested values of western ways comes to mind, but his belle, sidi, in this short exchange:
SIDI: Is that the truth? Swear! Ask Ogun to
Strike you dead.
GIRL: Ogun strike me dead if I lie.
you ought not to be asking me such a question. such screaming, big, black, bold letters – oga i fear yu o! what is this - a query? messenger! bring me the file? what kind of answer do you want from himelberg? - himmel – that's heaven in german and in swedish too and as you know i'm still a zillion light years away from that place in outer space and by the way, my name goes under this variety of spelling - all the way to my great great grand father franz.
Well. Niggers don't own nothing,
got no flag, even out names
are hand-me-downs
and you don't change that
by calling yourself X:
sometimes that just makes it worse,
like obliterating the path that leads back
to whence you came, and
to where you can begin. (James Baldwin)
are you sure that you are not talking to the wrong nigger of nigerian ancestry when yu make these demands of me? maybe, you want me to break dance for you - to show-off dance, start with shaking my shoulders like my igbo brethren and the rump, all the way down to the heels and the toes?
Dear G. Ugo Nwokeji,
On Sunday, 1 March 2015 14:29:27 UTC+1, Ugo Nwokeji wrote:
"I guess it's cultural, your many crude expressions, your distasteful distortions, your many blows below the belt and just in case you don't know any better, let me tell you, that's enough to alienate any impartial observers you may be addressing." -- Cornelius HimelbergDear Cornelius Himelberg,Would you please clarify what is "cultural" and the alleged "crude expressions ... distasteful distortions," etc?Thank you in advance for your clarification.Ugo...G. Ugo NwokejiDirector, Center for African StudiesAssociate Professor of African American Studies
University of California, Berkeley
686 Barrows Hall #2572
Berkeley, CA 94720
Tel. (510) 542-8140
Fax (510) 642-0318Twitter: @UgoNwokejiFacebook: facebook.com/ugo.nwokeji On Sat, Feb 28, 2015 at 12:27 PM, Cornelius Hamelberg <cornelius...@gmail.com> wrote:Corrected:Kennedy Emetlulu:
I guess it's cultural. Gog and Magog. Dog (you) and underdog (Goodluck Jonathan) the incumbent, but when you so systematically vilify Muhammadu Buhari, he becomes the underdog (to an Englishman at least) and you remain the crude human being of the former colony, the only compensation for the Ministry of Overseas Development/ International Development being that like Robinson Crusoe's Man Friday you too now know how to speak Her Majesty's English and to be understood or misunderstood by her.
That's how you want to sell Muhammadu Buhari: as wholly unworthy? A wholly unworthy Nigerian? Are you more worthy than he is? That's what we always ask the guy with the Napoleonic complex or the guy who thinks he's Jesus of Nazareth or the Messiah: Where are your disciples? And that brings him back to earth.
I guess it's cultural, your many crude expressions, your distasteful distortions, your many blows below the belt and just in case you don't know any better, let me tell you, that's enough to alienate any impartial observers you may be addressing. One more thing and I know that you're not a poet, but short of your discourse being couched in the form of an epic poem, you ought not to tax your readers' patience or goodwill with such an extended boring political diatribe. Readers too have their rights you know, even illiterate readers.
So, who do you expect to be happy with you?
Let me take up some - just some - of your poorly written idiosyncrasies. Be patient. I'll deal with some of the others a little later.
Today, Nigeria is one country, one people, the same people : Nigerians.
Try to bear that in mind in your future discourse.
As you well know, the task facing anyone who wants to be an effective leader of Nigerians is nothing less than Herculean. Don't downplay this and in any of your future long, long write-ups, please try to avoid your old tendency of downplaying this and pretending that but for Boko Haram terrorism in the land, Nigerians are living in Heaven under the inspiring leadership of Azikiwe Ebele Goodluck Jonathan.
Apart from being so heavily one-sided and therefore out of balance even when standing on both legs or running around and playing the hooligan outside Chatham House, your other greater weakness is that you're still stuck on - mesmerised it appears, by the 1984-85 Buhari even though you know that Mr. Buhari has moved on, so has the world, so have you, so have I, and I was there from 31st December till late in August 1984 when I returned to Stockholm and was also quite a different person then, from what I am now, I assure you.
We will never know how things would have been if the INEC had decided that it was all OK and they had gone ahead with the elections. For starters, you and the Goodluck Jonathan supporters would most probably not have been doing outside Chatham House, what you report, in your own words:
"It was tough as the PDP and APC and the Goodluck Jonathan supporters like myself fought turf wars around the premises."
I shut one eye and what do I see? I see the scuffles: Goodluck Jonathan supporters like yourself behaving like hooligans. I guess that someone else – a non-partisan person unlike yourself will probably soon be reporting about running street battles between your lot and the peaceful APC supporters who had only shown up to pay homage to their man, whereas your people had only turned up to make trouble, maybe make a scene and hope that it gets reported with some bloody footage on BBC world news, for everyone to acknowledge your displeasure at Mr. Buhari being invited to speak in the UK, in peace. I understand the hooliganistic tendencies. Frustration often precedes the propensity to violence...
Since we are talking about democratic fare lets emphasise this one point: of the 180 million Nigerians, Mr. Buhari is the APC choice of presidential candidate, sufficiently popular to make you worried – the reason why you betook yourself to outside the premises of Chatham House– and that's the beauty of the democratic process you know - it's the people and not just you, the geniocracy or the noocracy who decide. As an earlier Mr Buhari made clear ten years ago:
"I think education will unchain our people from all their prejudices, whether it is ethnic, religious or whatever. And here, unusually, I have to place the blame squarely on the shoulders of the elite. It is not the number of degrees each ethnic group holds that matter, although that matters; what does is continuous education in politics, the economy and security."
And that includes the Boko Haram people too.
Let me correct a few misapprehensions that you are so keen to foster:
It was not "a hush-hush affair "nor was it meant to be – you and your crowd were there because it was well advertised, especially by the Nigerian media - albeit it was going to be just one meeting in the middle of many other important meetings taking place in London on any given day.
You have yet to qualify your statement that Nigeria briefly under Buhari more than thirty years ago was "the most unfriendly Nigerian government to the UK" - the Umaru Dikko debacle aside, what are your other reasons for saying so - and more importantly were you more deeply bruised than Her Majesty's government - the ones who granted him a visa?
You can't have it both ways. Was it a hush-hush affair or was it not? You say that, "First, they ensured that only Buhari supporters and a few members of the APC's foreign captive audience were there in the room to give it a dash of foreign colour." It would have been foolhardy of the organisers, don't you think, if they had allowed the Chatham House auditorium where Mr. Buhari was making his pitch, to be filled by the PDP rabble, the noise-makers that were only there to cause trouble?
About corruption, Mr. Buhari's words – of truth – are echoed here, earlier, by Sierra Leone's APC leader, currently President, Ernest Bai Koroma on CNN – as a result of "a serious fight against corruption", he said, "I'm sure the leakages that are responsible for the poor delivery services in the social sector, like education, health and employment situation will be turned around."
About the aforementioned endemic corruption, we know that the old PDP brigade is fighting tooth and nail and its is feared may even try their best by hook and even by crook to ensure that they do not lose this election for fear that by (presidential decree?) President Buhari might arraign them all before the corruption courts for trial and refund of looted assets.
"Why doesn't Buhari promises to let bygone be bygones and that he will only go after new cases of corruption?" asked my Swedish politician brother. Apparently that is what Mr.Buhari is saying although it's difficult for the old brigade to feel safe or to believe that he won't go after them , after all corruption is corruption is corruption and the ill gotten goods, the fruits and kickbacks of old corruption are crimes that should be punished.
We know that you don't wish Muhammadu Buhari with him as president, well - and that's why this is your silliest statement of all:
"Buhari should have seized the opportunity to come, stand on the porch of Chatham House and address Nigerians who were outside, sell himself and his programme and show them that he's serious about leading Nigeria to better days" –
i.e. that Mr. Buhari should have repeated what he said inside to the violent rabble foaming at the mouth, outside - who knows put himself in line – as a target for fire by some assassin's bullet and blame it all on lack of adequate British Security.
As promised, I'll return to take up some of the other delinquencies but for now this is something that I wasn't aware of before, but it's now bothering me: Is James Ibori one of Mr. Buhari's supporters? How do you explain that? Maybe he has repented, turned another leaf? The leopard doesn't change his spots?
You realise of course that some of Nigeria's money that could lawfully be turned to the state treasury will have to go to refurbishing the military which is now in a state of dilapidation and decay.
I was expecting to see an very charismatic Muhammadu Buhari, smiling like his brother, Colin Powell, not reading so tenaciously from a script all the important things that he had to say (what he said could have been published as an article in the guardian) - but I was expecting a more extempore rendition from Mr. Buhari - and a slightly different speech – with more emphasis on how he intends to take the bull by its horns. It may delight you to know that the first glimpse that I got of Mr. Buhari on the Chatham House TV - I saw all the signs that Lord Anunoby has been talking about so much, I saw entitlement and long- shuffering stamped on Mr. Buhari's face. He was not shmiling.
The saying is that the patient dog eats the fat, Juicy Bone and concerning the fat juicy bone, it should be good to hear more of "God Bless Nigeria!" from the presidential candidates.
From my winter corner,
…BUHARI'S CHATHAM HOUSE CHARADE: NOT A STATESMANLIKE PRESENTATION AND NOT A STATESMANLIKE EXIT!I enjoyed the outing at Chatham House. Though the Chatham House people had obviously organised this as a hush-hush affair to sell General Muhammadu Buhari, the tyrant who ran the most unfriendly Nigerian government to the UK as a convert to democracy who now champions its values in Africa nay Nigeria, the whole thing fell flat on its face.First, they ensured that only Buhari supporters and a few members of the APC's foreign captive audience were there in the room to give it a dash of foreign colour and listen to a drab speech for about twenty-five minutes. Typically, Buhari was made only to deliver a speech with no room for genuine questions and participation from a genuine audience, except the fits of clapping by claques well-schooled in celebrating poop flakes carried by hot air. When the APC bigwigs appeared outside after the sham Buhari talk inside, they met a wall of Nigerians chanting "Buhari-Ole (thief)! Tinubu-Ole! Atiku-Barawo! Amaechi-Ony'oshi! El Rufai-Ole!" I loved the chant and even did a little jig to it on the street of St James's Square! Of course, the APC posse attempted a copycat version of this, but again, it didn't resonate. Their frustration got the better of them as they began accusing every Goodluck Jonathan supporter in sight of collecting money to support the president. Meanwhile they were the lot caught sharing money in the Square.In the meantime, having witnessed what they considered intense hostility from the outside, the bigwigs who only got as far as the doorway retreated inside and for over two hours, they scratched their heads and wringed their fingers, wondering how to take Buhari out of the building without facing the wrath of Nigerians outside. A group of us had got wind that they were going to smuggle him out through a side door, so we went and acted sentinels there. It was tough as the PDP and APC and the Goodluck Jonathan supporters like myself fought turf wars around the premises. Though outside, it was mostly good-natured political bantering by the supporters of both parties and both leading candidates; inside, they knew the mood was not right for Buhari to step out. In the end, Buhari had to be smuggled out of the place furtively in a police van with Rotimi Amaechi in tow as Nigerians booed loudly at what was considered a cowardly show.My own main takeaway from the situation is that Buhari has again lost an opportunity to market himself better to Nigerians, even as everything was laid out for him. Chatham House had to shoehorn him into their programme when he was not scheduled to be there. I mean, spotting a boil on the left side of his jaw, Buhari is evidently in London primarily for some other reason and not for a talk (and that is okay, because of his age and the toll the campaign must have taken on his frail body), but they presented it as a "working visit". Yet, every programme organised as part of that working visit in London, he couldn't attend! To save face, Chatham House was conscripted into a conspiracy to keep its door open for Buhari, his followers and his foreign supporters while this same door was shut firmly against other Nigerians as they ran the charade of Buhari of all people talking the prospects of democracy in Nigeria! Expectedly, there was nothing inspiring or memorable in the speech. It was just a show to indicate Buhari is alive and well and not in an hospital bed. But it fooled no one!Buhari should have seized the opportunity to come, stand on the porch of Chatham House and address Nigerians who were outside, sell himself and his programme and show them that he's serious about leading Nigeria to better days. Instead, he was smuggled out in a police van and booed by the same people he wants their votes. Not a statesmanlike exit that!Now, having done with the light drama, let's attend to the tragedy. It happened on several fronts in the speech. He started by apologising for having to take his beloved country to the cleaners on a foreign soil where ordinarily he had happily played its "public relations and marketing officer, extolling her virtues and hoping to attract investments and tourists" in the past. He urged the foreign eyes ogling this new phantom Nigeria of today to keep looking. "So let me say upfront that the global interest in Nigeria's landmark election is not misplaced at all and indeed should be commended; for this is an election that has serious import for the world. I urge the international community to continue to focus on Nigeria at this very critical moment. Given increasing global linkages, it is in our collective interests that the postponed elections should hold on the rescheduled dates; that they should be free and fair; that their outcomes should be respected by all parties; and that any form of extension, under whichever guise, is unconstitutional and will not be tolerated".Yes, Buhari, the new darling of the West is calling on his friends and sponsors to play the vultures and pick up the carrion that is Nigeria once any form of extension is proposed "under whatever guise", because this would be "unconstitutional". Is it not a surprise that with so many SANs jostling for a seat at Buhari's table (and one of them his running mate), none could tell him that there is still room for the postponement of the election by INEC lawfully and constitutionally if need be? He has to create the impression that the postponement was the handiwork of Goodluck Jonathan and his people and not by INEC as a result of its clear state of unpreparedness. Buhari must blame Jonathan and the PDP, because that is his default position.It's such hypocrisy that took Buhari's speech to the next level of farce as he began talking as though he was not the democracy-killing tyrant of late 1983 who made the nation one huge prison as he tortured his fellow citizens mercilessly in the name of fighting indiscipline and corruption. He reeled out statistics of the democratic heartbeat of the continent throughout the eighties, the nineties and after and then concluded: "It is much more important that the promise of democracy goes beyond just allowing people to freely choose their leaders. It is much more important that democracy should deliver on the promise of choice, of freedoms, of security of lives and property, of transparency and accountability, of rule of law, of good governance and of shared prosperity. It is very important that the promise embedded in the concept of democracy, the promise of a better life for the generality of the people, is not delivered in the breach". The clapping claques at this point were going joyously bonkers! A Lincoln has come to judgment, they farted out loudly! When he turned to prosecute Nigeria, his self-serving proclamation was that peaceful alternation of power through competitive elections have happened in Ghana, Senegal, Malawi and Mauritius in recent times and that the prospects of democratic consolidation in Africa will be further brightened when that eventually happens in Nigeria. Hmm….Buhari is particularly invested in the world focusing on Nigeria, because "the elections are holding in the shadow of huge security, economic and social uncertainties in Africa's most populous country and largest economy". Buhari, who with his military chums massacred Nigerians in the name of fighting a civil war took the opportunity of addressing an audience in a London that was horrified by the images of kwashiokor children to say that apart from the civil war era, no other time has Nigeria been this insecure."Boko Haram has sadly put Nigeria on the terrorism map, killing more than 13,000 of our nationals, displacing millions internally and externally, and at a time holding on to portions of our territory the size of Belgium. What has been consistently lacking is the required leadership in our battle against insurgency. I, as a retired general and a former head of state, have always known about our soldiers: they are capable, well trained, patriotic, brave and always ready to do their duty in the service of our country."You all can bear witness to the gallant role of our military in Burma, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Darfur and in many other peacekeeping operations in several parts of the world. But in the matter of this insurgency, our soldiers have neither received the necessary support nor the required incentives to tackle this problem. The government has also failed in any effort towards a multi-dimensional response to this problem leading to a situation in which we have now become dependent on our neighbours to come to our rescue."Let me assure you that if I am elected president, the world will have no cause to worry about Nigeria as it has had to recently; that Nigeria will return to its stabilising role in West Africa; and that no inch of Nigerian territory will ever be lost to the enemy because we will pay special attention to the welfare of our soldiers in and out of service, we will give them adequate and modern arms and ammunitions to work with, we will improve intelligence gathering and border controls to choke Boko Haram's financial and equipment channels, we will be tough on terrorism and tough on its root causes by initiating a comprehensive economic development plan promoting infrastructural development, job creation, agriculture and industry in the affected areas. We will always act on time and not allow problems to irresponsibly fester, and I, Muhammadu Buhari, will always lead from the front and return Nigeria to its leadership role in regional and international efforts to combat terrorism".Well, well, well, now that is a powerful sales pitch by a hound auditioning for the post of Protector-General of the hares! I mean, since when is an attack on Boko Haram no longer an attack on the North? Since when did Muhammadu Buhari, the Commandant-General of Boko Haram and who is their biggest political defender and supporter convert to their shooter? Or is this not the same man that attacked the Nigerian Army for killing Boko Haram? Is this not the man whose supporters celebrate every Boko Haram attack as a victory against Jonathan? Is this not the same Buhari that was chosen by Boko Haram as their representative in a proposed negotiation in Saudi Arabia? Is this not the same Buhari that told the world that the Boko Haram boys should be treated like the Niger-Delta militants by being rewarded with money and positions? Is he now going to start killing them instead of commissioning them into the Nigerian Army? Where was Buhari's voice when more than twice the number so far lost to Boko Haram lost their lives to assassinations, government sponsored genocide, communal, ethnic and Sharia-induced violence under the rulership of his friend, Olusegun Obasanjo and that only in his first term as president? Who is zooming who?Buhari accused the government of not applying a multidimensional response to the problem. This is so dreadfully untrue that it could only have come from a fellow who in his highfalutin speech didn't consider education as a weapon against a group committed to killing education. His continued undermining of the necessity of the help we are getting from our neighbours as part of the multinational force against the insurgency is as vacuous and self-serving as the boasts of a clay-footed giant. There is no shame in having a multinational force against an internationalised Islamist militancy. Boko Haram is not only a Nigeria problem; it is a regional and world problem and the fact that the world and sub-region are waking up to this reality late is not an indictment of Nigeria or her leadership. Better late than never! There is more to fighting an internationalised insurgency than just deploying men and arms. There is diplomacy of the subtlest kind and the delicate navigation of regional sensibilities and historical fears. Enough of this ignorant rhetoric from this relic of a general!One thing is for sure, Buhari is aiming to win for Boko Haram through the ballot what
Listserv moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com
To subscribe to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue+subscribe@googlegroups.com
Current archives at http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
Early archives at http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "USA Africa Dialogue Series" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to usaafricadialogue+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
No comments:
Post a Comment