Kudos to Don Kperogi!
Kperogi could rime with Rogue - y. So, to be evn-handed he could spend 50% of his journalistic output on PDP intansigence !
Considering the sort of subject-matter that perpetually engages him, primarily, every kind of corruption - from political corruption & the general moral laxity, slow decay, collapse and downfall of the ethical mores of the Naija nation) from that to some of the known Nigerian varieties of economic crime - and from that to the sometimes wilful or ignorant deviations, improprieties and impertinence to be found in Globalised English with a special focus on the specifics of the corruption (a great sin) of Her Majesty's Mother Tongue as adopted, adjusted, busted, mistreated, manhandled and sometimes even "bastardised" by Her Majesty's former colonial subjects, now independent and free to do whatever they like with the language, even develop or evolve into a dynamic new pidgin with its own pronunciations, rhythms, inflexions, peculiar idioms, special grammar, vocabulary and orthography. About the latter, just the other day I was in a jocular mood with an anti-imperialist Cambridge educated Don whose main beef was, "Why is it that so many Brexiters can't spell?" As you all know, there always has to be some kind of explanation. In all politeness, moi-même, not a bona fide member of Her Majesty's Germanic tribe or race , only had this to say in response on Facebook , without blaming it all on colonialism or the British Empire under Queen Victoria or Robinson Crusoe's English Language Imperialism :
Tut-tut or Tutu ? NO contempt meant, Professor : To his credit he could have spelled it "Bexiteers "( to rime with pioneers, buccaneers), "remainders" ( in that awful New Testament theology sense of " remnant",- or the remains...)
As for "Showlda " for all you know Sir, if it's possible that the naughty boy just returned to Merry England with something like a brogue accent, then why shouldn't he be allowed to spell phonetically, the way he hears it ? Why shouldn't he be "allowed to say it for fear of being labelled 'elitist'. "?
As for "weel" a pure Scottish word for " well" , could be that in this context for the naughty boy of course , nothing less than an unconscious ( Freudian?) reference to the common "weal" ?
To remind us how far we have come, a twenty-first century English Language Buff could have apologised with the most famous prologue in the English canon or with earlier lines from Beowulf..
Once again – and sincerely - it's kudos to Don Kperogi : considering the ease with which we slip into thinking associatively, talking about Soyinka as "Africa's Shakespeare", currently talking about Razak Atunwa as "Kwara PDP's Kemi Adeosun moment ", where does the buck stop? Saddam as Iraq's Hitler? Machiavelli 's Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia ? So, prefixing Farooq Kperogi's good name with "Don" should in no way suggest - ( even remotely) the likes of Don Corleone of the Lower East Side , of Biafra (pardonnez-moi) or of Abuja.
My special Kudos is because Farooq has finally – but not entirely and convincingly - dispelled the fog that has been clouding (with foul air) the passionate sincerity of his interminable fault-finding with Nigeria's APC and his being at perpetual loggerheads with Presidential Brother Buhari , much of which ill-feeling has been attributed to his (Kperogi) being on the payroll of the Daily Trust, said to be owned by one Alhaji Abubakar Atiku who now wants to take over as commander-in-chief and not as "commander-in-thief" of the nation's treasury. I googled to find out : Daily Trust Management. There's no mention of who actually owns the enterprise. This means that despite his tender words of appreciation for the Daily Trust's generosity being extended to the big African/ extended family of its employees, the idea of not wanting to bite the hand that feeds him is till hanging like a cloud or like Macbeth dagger in the air., still not convincingly resolved. Otherwise, making bones about the minimum wage at the entry point, working for an elite Nigerian Newspaper should only take the uninitiated by surprise: higher wages attract and reward quality! It's that simple. This insight is supposed to negate or make a mockery of this Don Ochonu assurance: "I can tell you that nobody has enough money or power to make Farooq write anything on their behalf. "
Otherwise, back to the main subject matter. Given that Razak Atunwa is not being specially selected and targeted by Farooq Kperogi because "On 22 January 2014 he ( Razak Atunwa) formally announced his membership of the All Progressives Congress (APC) ", irrespective of party affiliation, there has to be some sense of proportionality – the gravity of any alleged crime has to be put in its proper context. I beg to agree with the reason number two, even more forcefully : "especially because he is a lawyer " by adding what is widely known: "ignorance of the law is no excuse!" and not only that: irony of ironies, according to Wikipedia, Razak Atunwa is currently " the Chairman, House Committee on Justice !"
One last question : considering how frequently the issue of otherwise patriotic public servants are being charged with avoiding / circumventing their patriotic duty of a year's service in the NYSC – I am wondering if this has been due to other extenuating circumstances such as really wanting to defer doing such NYSC service because of e.g. the exigencies of the political or military situation in the country, as the case may be from time to time....
On Saturday, 27 October 2018 06:33:53 UTC+2, Farooq A. Kperogi wrote:
Saturday, October 27, 2018
Kwara PDP's Kemi Adeosun Moment
By Farooq A. Kperogi, Ph.D.
Twitter: @farooqkperogi
Premium Times reported on October 22, 2018 that Razak Atunwa, the Kwara State PDP governorship candidate in next year's election, not only failed to participate in the mandatory National Youth Service Corps scheme, he also forged a discharge certificate to conceal this fact. The forged NYSC certificate, according to the Premium Times, had with it "a notarised affidavit sworn at the Kwara State High Court in Ilorin on September 10." That's three offenses in one: intentional evasion of national service, forgery, and perjury.
This is eerily reminiscent of former Finance Minister Kemi Adeosun's NYSC dodging and forgery. But Atunwa's is worse than Adeosun's for at least two reasons. First, although Atunwa got his bachelor's and master's degrees in the UK, he was born in Nigeria and therefore had no room for plausible deniability for avoiding the national youth service. He also has no reason not to know that it's illegal to take any public or private sector employment in Nigeria without first presenting evidence of participation in the NYSC scheme, especially because he is a lawyer.
Second, Premium Times' report showed that Atunwa forged the NYSC discharge certificate after the outrage that Kemi Adeosun's forgery excited in the nation. That's unnervingly brazen. But, more than anything, it bespeaks the man's questionable moral character and propensity for audacious fraud.
It's troubling that Atunwa was at various times a commissioner in Kwara State and was even a speaker of the Kwara State House of Assembly. He is currently a member of the House of Representatives and chair of its Committee on Justice. The act that established the NYSC states that, "[…] it is illegal to hire a person who graduated but failed to make himself or herself available to serve, or falsify any document to the effect that he or she has served or exempted from serving."
Atunwa, like Adeosun, is evidently a malefactor who should not only serve jail time but should pay restitution for all the time he was illegally employed in Nigeria since his return from the UK. How could PDP in Kwara pass over astute, virile, not to mention "loyal," politicians like former APC spokesperson Bolaji Abdullahi and House of Reps member Zakari Mohammed for a common crook like Atunwa who has intentionally contravened the law he said he studied and practiced?
In order to get around his forgery, it is rumored that Atunwa plans to present only his school certificate to INEC and to disclaim possession of a bachelor's degree since a secondary school certificate is the minimum qualification required to be governor. But how will he erase previous claims to being a lawyer, to having graduated from the University of East London for his law degree and from the University of London for his master's degree? How would he explain away submitting a forged NYSC discharge certificate to the PDP under oath?
Sadly, Atunwa may get away with this because others before him have. Kemi Adeosun was helped by the government to escape to London and evade justice. Minister of Communication Adebayo Shittu, who has admitted to not participating in the NYSC scheme on the basis of which the APC disqualified him from running for governor of his state, is still a minister. Okoi Obono-Obla, Special Assistant to the President on Prosecutions and Head of Special Investigation Panel for Recovery of Public Property, who fudged a school certificate—which, in all probability, belonged to his dead relative—to gain admission to study law at the University of Jos still has his job in spite of the public disclosure of this fact.
The fact of being in an opposition party might cause our overtly partisan law enforcement agents to hound Atunwa, as in being done to Senator Adeleke, but as someone from Kwara State, I am alarmed that a contemptibly unabashed moral cripple like Atunwa is in danger of becoming the governor of my state.
Senator Shehu Sani's ComeuppanceSenator Shehu Sani captured the imagination of Nigerians with his penetratingly coruscating wit against the incompetence, duplicity, and inefficiency of the APC-led federal government. We learned from Governor Nasir El-Rufai's leaked memo to President Buhari that the president was so anguished by Sani's piercing rhetorical punches against him that he ordered that he be recalled. Although the presidency has denied this, the denial was weak and implausible.
But Shehu Sani suddenly transmogrified into a forceful defender of the same President Buhari that he viciously pilloried and satirized with his inimitable verbal darts. He also betrayed his colleagues with whom he stood up to Buhari's tyranny because APC's cantankerous and emotionally unstable chairman promised him an "automatic ticket." Now, the APC Kaduna Central senatorial ticket for whose sake he betrayed both himself and his colleagues has slipped away from him irretrievably. He is now hoisting the flag of a practically dead PRP.
Sani wanted to simultaneously run with the hare and hunt with the hounds. That doesn't always end well. Now he is, as the English would say, hoist with his own petard, that is, he's been politically blown to shreds by his shameless duplicity and opportunism.
Misty-eyed Gratitude to Media TrustSince my wife's death in a car crash in June 2010, the management of Daily Trust, where she worked as Assistant Editor until her death, keeps her memory alive in our children and me in ways they probably don't realize.
The company has a policy to give yearly financial assistance to the children of its deceased staff. For the last past seven years, every time I get an email from the company notifying me that money has been deposited into my account for my children's education, I get misty-eyed. I know of no place of work where special funds are set aside to assist children of deceased staff members.
It is the symbolism of the gesture, more than the money itself, that gratifies, impresses, and touches me. Media Trust has shown itself to be a company that cherishes its workers both in life and in death. When I worked at the Trust, where I met my late wife, Zainab, I never ceased to be impressed by the management's commitment to the welfare of its workers.
Apart from our regular salaries, which were light-years above the industry standard, we used to receive extra money every quarter from the excess profit the company made from advertising—in addition to being paid "13th month" salaries every December.
In 1998 when I started work with Trust, graduate salaries in Nigeria were N3,500 at the federal level and N2,500 in most states. In Trust, graduates were paid N11,000. When Obasanjo increased the federal minimum wage to N18,000, our salaries at Trust more than tripled— without any prompting from workers. And the quarterly extra cash from advert sales didn't stop. Nor did the "13th month."
I have chosen to share this here because I realize that it's too easy to overlook or take for granted goodness and graciousness. As a culture, we also have a tendency to celebrate good deeds and good people only when they are no more.
My 10-year-old daughter and my 8-year-old son have no recollections of their mother, and my 14-year-old daughter's memory of her is hazy, but every year I tell them their mother's former place of work has sent money to them to help with their school, I sense the depth of joy they feel.
As my 14-year-old daughter said a few days ago, the yearly financial assistance from Media Trust indicates that their mother worked in a place that "valued her and respects her memory." I am certain that this sentiment is shared by all living family members of deceased Media Trust staff. Thank you, Media Trust!Farooq A. Kperogi, Ph.D.Associate ProfessorJournalism & Emerging Media
School of Communication & MediaSocial Science BuildingRoom 5092 MD 2207402 Bartow Avenue
Kennesaw State University
Kennesaw, Georgia, USA 30144
Cell: (+1) 404-573-9697
Personal website: www.farooqkperogi.comTwitter: @farooqkperogAuthor of Glocal English: The Changing Face and Forms of Nigerian English in a Global World
"The nice thing about pessimism is that you are constantly being either proven right or pleasantly surprised." G. F. Will
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