[size=14pt]General Buhari: A Whole Former Head of State! By Pius Adesanmi[/size] Sep 27, 2014
If you are in your thirties and above and anybody is deceiving you that the just and fair Nigeria we are struggling for will happen in your life time, please do not deceive yourself.
If you are in your thirties and above and anybody is deceiving you that the just and fair Nigeria we are struggling for will happen in your life time, please do not deceive yourself. Struggling for the dreamable, refusing to relinquish the imaginable, hanging on stubbornly to the possible, as some of us are doing 24/7, are all praxes that must be rooted in pragmatism and an acknowledgment of the degree of the rot.
The rot that will prevent you and this writer from seeing a reimagined and remade Nigeria is not corruption. It is not Boko Haram. It is none of the unending dysfunctionalities and irrationalities of statehood that have turned the Nigerian tragedy into a nightmare from which Africa struggles to awake.
The rot that will prevent the Nigerian renaissance from happening in my life time is not even summed up by the fact that we have now effectively surpassed every available model of the corruption, abuse, and misuse of sovereign statehood known to man. Although I will not hold my breath, I want to wager all the same that the record set by an irresponsible sovereign state when she goes to the doorstep of another sovereign state to claim and own such grievous crimes as cash trafficking and gun running, all in the bid to shield powerful interests, will not be broken quickly. And if this record will be broken at all, it is safe to bet that it is only this international crime-owning state that will ultimately beat its own prolific record in the manufacturing of horror.
Again, this is not why I will not see the Nigerian renaissance. I will not see the Nigeria of the promised land because we have too many citizens who have been so deprived of civic education that the mere mention of the crime owned for the Nigerian state in South Africa by Nigeria’s irresponsible rulers is sacrilegious and unpatriotic. The mind that has been manufactured to constantly justify, rationalize, explain, and identify with every horror while criminalizing the faintest manifestation of critique is the greatest threat to the emergence of a new Nigeria. The mind that mistakes a fetid personality cult of the incumbent for patriotism is the greatest obstacle to national becoming. It has taken the rulers of Nigeria some five decades of abject postcolonial statehood to produce this mind. It will take four to five generations to undo the damage because it is easier to destroy than to build. I repeat: if it took them five decades to destroy the Nigerian psychology and produce the mass mumufication we witness today, it will take five generations to demumufy the Nigerian psychology. And that is where there is the will o.
I have written time and again that the collapse of Nigeria’s educational system is not an accident. It is deliberate. It is purposed. A state that is going to be run based on ethos and practices deemed crude by the standards of Orangutan society needs a sedated and diseducated citizenry that is hostile to critique in order to survive and perpetuate herself. And when that state succeeds in manufacturing a critical mass of consent and conformity such as we see in Nigeria, the triumphant ruling class has only one responsibility unto itself: the sustenance of a wrongly-wired psychology in a vast majority of the citizenry.
That is why I pity members of the Nigerian community of conscience who are fighting corruption without paying attention to public instruction. Without civics, the diseducated – and I have deliberately created that word, diseducated, to imply deliberateness on the part of those doing the diseducating – citizen is in the pocket of his oppressor. He will identify with his oppressor on the basis of ethnicity, faith, language, etc. If you insist, he will abuse your father and abuse your mother. He will ask you: “wetin be your own sef? Na your money e steal?” You struggle for Nigeria in vain in the context of this sort of mass psychology.
Public instruction is therefore the place to start. A sustained struggle in the arena of public instruction may create the conditions that could facilitate the emergence of the Nigeria of our dreams five generations from now. Time is of the essence. Every teachable moment must be grabbed to work on the Nigerian psychology. Yes, it has been so damaged, so corroded, so wrongly wired that you don’t even know where to start. But start we must.
An occasion presented itself to me today. In the fevered brain of the leadership of APC, it is somehow okay to ask aspiring presidential candidates to cough out twenty-seven million naira for nomination forms! I thought this was madness. I thought that this constantly fumbling political party has bungled yet another opportunity to stand apart from the ways of PDP. I issued a statement on my Facebook Wall condemning the fee. I zoomed in particularly on three of the party’s aspiring candidates: General Muhammadu Buhari, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, and Mr. Sam Nda-Isaiah. If these men succeed in paying twenty-seven million naira, I enjoined the party to insist on an open declaration of the source of the money as a way of showing that they are different from PDP.
As reactions flowed on my Wall, one compatriot preferred to send a private note to me by email. He identifies with the spirit of my argument, he says. In fact, he likes my submissions a lot. But, as a Buhari loyalist, he is somehow irked by my suggestion that “General Buhari, a whole former Head of State”, may not have twenty-seven million naira and may need some help to find it. Haba Prof, he says. Twenty-seven million may sound like big money to you guys out there, he continues, it is weekend party money for boys “around here”. Of course, I am familiar with the fact that certain layers of Nigerian society crawl in loads of easy, free money.
I pondered what to say to him, realizing the immensity of this teachable moment. I wondered where to start since the opinion he expressed is a window into a mindset that is deeply rooted in the Nigerian psychology – and there can be no progress until we reteach and rewire this psychology. Do I begin by telling him that in responsible democracies, the fact that General Buhari has held that office is the first and loudest reason why he should find it difficult to afford twenty-seven million naira? Do I tell him that the fact that Generals Ibrahim Babangida and Abdusalam Abubakar occupied the same office and ended up with hilltop mansion way beyond the totality of their entire earnings in their military careers is the first reason why they both ought to be serving life sentences in Gashua prison? Do I tell him that public office is a huge sacrifice in responsible democracies because you foreclose the possibility of making money? Do I tell him how long it took the Clintons to get out of debt after office? Do I tell him about the student loan and Chicago mortgage of the Obamas? They finally paid off their student loans but I am not sure about that Chicago mortgage.
Do I tell him why people resign after a short stint in the cabinet in serious democracies? They resign to go and make money. They cannot make money while serving in public office. Ask Ari Fleischer how much he was making on the podium in the White House and how much he now makes as a conservative pundit. Do I tell him that Karl Rove makes more now than he could ever have made working in the White House? Do I tell him that in France, our friends, Jacques Chirac and Nicolas Sarkozy, are struggling with legal bills - and all kinds of bills?
Do I tell him that if anybody comes out of public office rich and comfortable, it is your duty as a citizen to raise eyebrows and pester the tax authorities until they open an investigation? Do I tell him that the mindset which produces that famous Nigerian sentence, “a whole so and so cannot be expected not to have such and such amount of money”, is a function of the psychology that the Nigerian ruling class is sustaining in order to mass-produce a citizenry that permanently justifies looting? Haba!, goes the Nigerian, how can you expect a whole State Governor not to be able to afford such and such? How can you expect a whole Senator not to be able to afford that house? The man don arrange o. You better keep quiet, you hater!
And we ask no questions even when they brandish stuff beyond their legitimate income in the public sphere. Not so long ago, the outgoing Governor of Ekiti state, Dr. Kayode Fayemi, made a lot of noise about students he was sending for University education abroad from his own pocket. More than a dozen or so students enjoyed a personal scholarship of Dr. Fayemi to go to OxBridge in Britain and Ivy League destinations in the United States. People who ought to know and people who don’t know went to town celebrating and praising Dr. Fayemi. Nobody bothered to think about a year’s tuition as an international student in an American Ivy League. Nobody bothered to weigh the tuition fees of the students he sent to Britain and the United States from his own private pocket against the backdrop of Dr. Fayemi’s legitimate monthly income as a state governor. Why did it not occur to anybody to ask questions? You guessed right: howu, how can you say that a whole state governor cannot afford it? Na poverty mentality dey worry you!
So, dear friend, when the candidates of APC begin to pick up presidential nomination forms for twenty-seven million naira, your responsibility as a Nigerian citizen is to ask questions about the source of the money. And if any Stockholm Syndromed compatriot abuses you, saying, “how can you expect a whole Lagbaja and a whole Tamedun not to be able to afford twenty-seven million naira”, do not abuse him or her in return. Show some sympathy. Show some understanding. Show some love. Show that you know the origins of his or her psychology. Remember, unless you act and teach this wrongly-wired psychology, you will not witness Nigeria’s renaissance in your life time. For the greatest tragedy is that the consequence of ignorance is democratically suffered. Those who know suffer the consequences of the ignorance of those who do not know in equal measure. Alakoba ni won.
Therefore, you must educate that psychology so that your children’s children may stand a chance of witnessing the beginning of Nigeria’s renaissance. And if they abuse you as you try to educate their psychology, shake off the dust of thine feet in testimony against them.
His satire is always top class. I've been following his articles since 2009 when he wrote about Yar'Adua and Omisore. I never miss them.
He makes you laugh and gets you thinking and he always speaks truth to power (you need to see his tweets to people that are in government and are his friends. He is never afraid to tell them the truth).
bily: Take your time to read the story below... Hope it answers your question
Raccoon Orientation for Canada-Bound Nigerians
By *Pius Adesanmi*
I promised I was going to get around to tell you all this story. Eventually.
Happened last summer – before my accident.
The jazz of all my political enemies in Nigeria finally crossed the Atlantic and caught up with me here in Ottawa.
The trouble with Homo Occidentalis North Americanus is that as soon as he arrives within a certain income bracket that is no longer middleclass but not quite upperclass but dangerously close to upperclass, he will move far away from the city and create a new paradise he calls upscale suburbia. Swanky neigbourhoods with manicured lawns, removed from the rabble of the city.
That is where you will find high-earning doctors, engineers, accountants, lawyers, etc. If you are a Professor who negotiated a good pay when you were hired, you also tag along, buy property among them, and begin to form associate big man.
Trouble is suburbia in Canada or the US is always encroaching on the habitat of much older residents. Man steals land from these residents but cannot always predict consequences. That is why a family in Florida will return from work to an alligator chilling in their swimming pool. That is why a family in Arizona will grumble about rattle snakes all over their yard. They call animal services. Never mind that these animals have called that place home for millions of years before man put one leg on top of another leg and developed his suburbia there.
In Ottawa, if you live in the suburbia called Riverside South as I do, you have encroached on prime raccoon territory. As in Florida and Arizona, these raccoons have a way of behaving like omo onile in Lagos. Occasionally, they let you know who truly owns the land (This is where you google raccoon).
Because the jazz of my political enemies in Nigeria worked as I was saying, a family of raccoons elected residence in our roof last summer. We’d been hearing mawuru mawuru in the ceiling for months. The noise would come only at night. Tise said it was the tooth faerie. I thought it was squirrels, but we couldn’t fathom how squirrels could tear into the roof of a duplex from outside and make their way into the attic.
One day, madam called me urgently and asked me to hurry home. I arrived to a small situation in front of our home. Our otherwise very friendly neighbours had converged on our front lawn. It was quite a scene. Bloodshot eyes everywhere. No friendly faces. In upscale suburbia, we are naturally the only non-white homeowners within a certain radius so when normally friendly white neighbours converge, looking sorrowful and unfriendly, you worry.
I exited my car to behold quite a scene. Unknown to us, we had accommodated a pregnant raccoon for several weeks. Mama Raccoon eventually gave birth to six pups. On this day, she suddenly went crazy like she found a mixture of codeine, sniper, and tramadol in our attic. She began to fling her babies down on the lawn one by one. From the roof of a duplex fa.
That explained the sadness and sorrow of our neighbours. Remember, this is an animal-loving civilization. It also explained their hostility. Somehow, it must have been something we did that got that poor animal so crazy that she began to murder her own kids. Everybody was looking at us one kain, like, what have you guys done now?
The only analogy for you in Nigeria is if your home was invaded by destructive giant rats. You’d tried everything from traps to rat poison. Then, one day, Mama Rat begins to miraculously kill her own children before your very before. Only for your neighbours to gather around sorrowfully because those awesome baby animals are dying. Only for them to be hostile to you for not doing enough to keep the baby rats alive!
Anyway, animal services eventually arrived to rescue some of the babies that had not yet died. Come and see interrogation! Even Tise did not escape questioning! Are you guys perhaps a little noisy in the house? What time do you all normally sleep?
Nigerians, believe you me, Oyinbo was trying to determine if we did something to cause the postpartum depression of Mama Raccoon, which led her to killing her babies!! They began to explain the characteristics of raccoons to us. How it was still too early for her to bring her babies out, let alone fling them from the roof. There was the unsaid: you guys must have done something.
When we were eventually “acquitted”, the animal services people went into our attic to inspect. They screamed in excitement: three more babies that Mama Raccoon had yet to fling! We said: thank God. Now you can evacuate Mama Raccoon and her remaining babies.
I hope you all know that in Obodo Oyibo, public animals are government property. All those doves you see in Trafalgar Square or the squirrels you see on lawns, geese, ati bebelo, are all government property. Una wey dey go holiday in London from Nigeria, go to Trafalgar Square and touch a dove, that is the day you will realize that the life of a public animal is worth more to the government of obodo oyibo than your life is worth to the Nigerian government.
So, we asked Obodo Canada to please carry their raccoons from our ceiling. We were in for another shock. She is a nursing mother, the animal services people replied, we don’t move nursing mothers. By law, Mama Raccoon has the right to remain here and nurse her remaining babies. We will keep checking.
I have been in Obodo Oyibo for 22 years. I didn’t see that one coming. Apparently, the Raccoon had eminent domain! The best they could do for us was to come and move her at the end of the biological breeding cycle or something to that effect. With that, they entered their van and zoomed off.
I looked on in wonderment, lost in one of those na-who-send-me-come-obodo-oyibo moments that every Diasporan goes through on occasion. With which mouth am I even going to tell this sort of story to a Nigerian audience?
Then I noticed that Tise all along had had the same attitude as our Oyinbo neighbours.
Now she is glad that some Raccoon babies had survived and would not be moved.
I realized that only her parents had a problem.
I realized that we were two Nigerians raising a Canadian.
This is her country. This is her culture. These are her people. These are her baby raccoons.
I jejely borrowed myself brain and joined the little girl in rejoicing that three baby raccoons had survived.
naptu2: Another masterpiece from Professor Pius Adesanmi. He is so good that it's hard to choose which of his articles is my favourite, but here are nine fantastic articles that he wrote.
Ishilove: This is not leg bending. This is k-legging
I forgot to include one of the crazy things that he said.
Look at the car in the 3rd picture above. It looks like an old coach, right? The passenger compartment is covered, while the driver's compartment is out in the open.
Gulbenkian said that he designed it that way because he never knows if he is dry except when he is looking at somebody that is wet. (So he designed it that way so that the driver will be wet and then he'll know that he is dry).
His father made billions from the oil industry (Nuba also made his own money from the oil industry, apart from the money he inherited from his father).
He worked in his father's company when he was younger and developed the habit of ordering expensive lunch and charging his father's company for it. His father found out and was angry and scolded/punished him for it. In reply he sued his father for $10 million. It cost both of them around $60,000 to pursue the case in court (his father eventually paid the costs). Nuba said that it was probably the most expensive chicken lunch in the world.
He undertook spying missions for Britain during World War 2 (he did it because he was bored).
He absolutely loved Rolls Royces and he designed several unusually shaped Rolls Royces that were built for him. The Rolls Royce company did not like a lot of his designs, but they couldn't do anything about it.
Gulbenkian once said that one of the advantages of his cars is that they are so odd that people always remember them and they always stand out. So when he comes out of an event, people are already telling him where his car is and he doesn't have to look for it.
He designed this car and sold it to the Emir of Kano shortly after it was delivered to him
A man who was a British colonial officer at the time, wrote in his memoirs that the car should have been driven by the Governor-General's driver, but, probably because of racism, they didn't allow him to drive the car (the Governor-General's driver was Nigerian).
He also said that, probably because of the colonial officer's deep trust in "British engineering", they got the chief engineer of the colony to drive the car.
He said that, in his opinion, the Queen probably would have been better able to fix the car than the chief engineer (the Queen trained as a mechanic during the Second World War). In any case, the car broke down (I can't remember if he said that it broke down in Warri or Port Harcourt).
AutoReportNG: My oga, thanks for your input... I always look forward to reading your well research and robust input.
Meanwhile, pls do you have images of the Nigeria's Presidential Fleet? I saw a thread you did some years back but I can't get them again... Pls, if you have them, biko PM me
2) Queen Elizabeth's Rolls Royce in Northern Nigeria (you can see that it's a different car). This is the Emir of Kano's Rolls Royce.
3) The Rolls Royce in the Emir of Kano's fleet (he has a lot).
This Rolls Royce was taken to the UK for restoration by a famous Rolls Royce restorer in 2009. There are a lot of Rolls Royces in the Emir's palace, but this is their most precious possession because
(1) There's only one of it in the world (it was designed by eccentric billionaire Nubar Gulbenkian).
2) It was one of the last things that Emir Abdullahi Bayero bought before he died (he died before he could use it).
Techwriter: Please verify very well because Forbes says it's Louis Odimegwu the father of Ojukwus rolls Royce that was used. Read below
Shortly before Nigeria’s independence in 1960, Louis Odumegwu Ojukwu, reportedly Nigeria’s first black billionaire, and founding president of the Nigerian Stock Exchange, was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II. The royal honor came after he helped the British during World War II with his fleet of trucks. He was so wealthy that during the Queen’s visit in 1956, she was chauffeured around in his Rolls-Royce – apparently the only one in the country at the time – on the request of the colonial administration.
Profiled in September 1965 by TIME magazine, Ojukwu made his money by importing dried fish for resale, and diversifying into textiles, cement and transport. When he died a year later, his wealth was an estimated $4 billion in today’s economic value.
Depot: But history said that no Nigerian had a car worthy of a queen, they had to borrow Ojukwu's car. Check well oo
phoenix90: That car belongs to Sir Louis Ojukwu, it is still parked in his commercial building at Apapa. The sad news is that it rusting and decaying without care. Go see it for yourself at 1/3 creek road Apapa. Nnewi building
The queen used several Rolls Royces when she came to Nigeria. She used the Royal Rolls Royce in Lagos, Ibadan and parts of Port Harcourt. It broke down in Port Harcourt. I suspect that this is when she used Sir Louis Phillipe Odumegwu Ojukwu's Rolls Royce to tour the east (Port Harcourt, Enugu, etc).
She used the Emir of Kano's Rolls Royce (in the picture above), which previously belonged to Nubar Gulbenkian, to tour Northern Nigeria (Kano, Kaduna, Jos, etc).
In my view, Gulbenkian was a madman, but he was a billionaire and so he could do almost anything that he wanted. He designed some crazy Rolls Royces, including one that looks like a tank. The Rolls Royce company were not happy about his designs, but they couldn't do anything about it.
Gulbenkian designed this Rolls Royce. It is a Silver Wraith, but it is the only Silver Wraith in the world that has this type of lights. He then sold it to the Emir of Kano shortly after he made it.
Nubar Gulbenkian was an eccentric Armenian-British millionaire who was crazy about Rolls Royces. He had many custom made Rolls Royces (the Rolls Royce company was not always happy with the designs that he chose for his cars). This particular car was designed by Gulbenkian in 1952. It's a Rolls Royce Silver Wraith, but its lights are different from any other Silver Wraith.
The Emir of Kano, Abdullahi Bayero (Emir from 1926-1953) bought the car shortly afterwards. Bayero died and the car was inherited by his successor, Alhaji Mohammed Sanusi I. The car was used to convey Queen Elizabeth II when she toured Northern Nigeria in 1956 (Kano, Jos, Kaduna, etc).
The car was also inherited by the late Emir of Kano, Alhaji Ado Bayero and it has now been inherited by the current Emir, Muhammad Sanusi II.
naptu2: It's a Silver Wraith, but it was designed by Gubenkian and its headlights make it the only one of its kind in the world. It's been in the Kano Royal Family since 1952. It was restored in 2009.
Politics › Re: A List Of All Professor Pius Adesanmi's Articles On Nairaland. by naptu2(op): 5:50am On Mar 11, 2019
