Political warlords

Also published in Daily Trust

If the rest of the world had taken Nigeria seriously, the current dramatic wave of defection from one political party to another among the country’s political elite would have certainly attracted huge international media coverage, in view of its potential impact on the balance of power in the country.

I am sure if it were in South Africa for instance, the leading global media would cover and analyze it thoroughly. By the way, I cited South Africa as an example because Nigerians rightly or wrongly tend to compare the two with each other in many aspects.

It is very unfortunate that, the extremely little international media attention on Nigeria is also largely attracted by events that often prove how unserious we are, which also explains why the rest of the world looks down on us with such unmistakable disdain.

Home-and foreign-based blame game

Also published in Daily Trust

In Nigeria where hardly anybody admits his portion of responsibility for our collective failure, people play the blame game thereby losing the much needed focus on the real issues bedevilling the country. Though Nigerians tend to play this game in roadside hangouts, academic, media, and political circles, as well as corridors of power of course, I find it particularly interesting when it involves home-based Nigerian government employees versus foreign-based Nigerians.

Though they both agree that the political leadership is primarily responsible for the mess in the country, the foreign-based consider the majority of the home-based equally guilty of facilitating corruption at all levels of government; a charge the home-based vehemently dismiss, and instead regard the foreign-based as mere armchair critics who could not stay back to confront the challenges and instead fled abroad from where they claim to propose solutions to the problems back home.

Dilemma of spokespersons

Also published in Daily Trust

Being in a position under whatever job title to speak on behalf of a public office holder as either spokesman, press director, PR adviser, media aid or even commissioner or minister of information, gives one a very tricky dilemma between fulfilling his contractual duty on one hand, and adhering to his moral principles and professional obligation to tell the truth, on the other.

This is particularly dilemmatic in a country like Nigeria where governance is largely characterized by lack of transparency, which is responsible for the endemic culture of corruption and impunity in the land. Obviously, a spokesman operating in this environment faces the difficult task of having to manufacture lies all the time, to justify the acts or omissions of his boss, misrepresent and manipulate facts in order to exonerate his boss and mislead the public. As a matter of fact, he has to be particularly “creative” in this regard in order to “properly” manage his boss’s flagrant incompetence, embarrassing blunders and indeed acute kleptomania.

From Mecca to Karbala? Relocating the Qiblah

(Note: This is the unedited version, while the version published in Daily Trust is substantially edited.)

The recent statement by Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al- Maliky that, the Iraqi city of Karbala must be adopted as the direction to which Muslims pray i.e. Qiblah instead of Ka’abah in Makkah was a reckless show of disrespect to Allah the Almighty who enjoins Muslims to face the direction of Ka’abah when they pray, as it was also extremely abusive to the sensibilities of Muslims. Yet it was not surprising in view of the illusionary religious beliefs that motivated him to make that statement.

Though Muslims shouldn’t have felt offended by his statement in the first place, however, the fact that he follows a religion that has ever since its creation claimed and indeed managed to deceive the naive that it is part of Islamic religion, justifies Muslims’ anger. (watch Al-maliky video below)