BASORUN GAA , HISTORIC VILLAIN OR VICTIM OF HISTORY

Of the many imposing figures embellishing the rich tapestry of its tumultous history, the Yoruba’s, unique in their intriguing propensity to produce commanding if contentious historic figures will be hard put to identify a man whose colossal impact on his era and the subsequent history of his people reverberates with a force as unanswerable as that of the last great Prime Minister of the once mighty Oyo Empire – Bashorun Gaa.

His notoriety, steeped in the bloody regicide of four kings echoes through the formidable history of this eternally restive naton residing in the south-western corner of modern day Nigeria, placing him at the peak of the pantheon of Yoruba pantomime villains, above the infamous clutches and not insubstantial claims of the likes of Kosoko King of Lagos, Madam Tinubu of the same city, Afonja and Solagberu the renegades of Ilorin and Efunsetan Aniwura the feared Iyalode of Ibadan. Gaa was the Prime Minster of Oyo whose reign preceded its collapse and the fall of Yoruba land into a century of revolution and bloody chaos which would only end with the dawn of the British conquest towards the end of the 19th century.

Gaa who reigned towards the end of the 18th century was a man of immense personal force and magnetism. Charisma, the ability to instil fire in the souls of men he had in abundance Authoritarian and combative, a born leader of men unafraid of controversy or open conflict, his name provoked fear and hatred amongst the many who denounced his perceived ruthless ambition and alleged personal cruelty as sufficient proof of his political and historical perfidy. To ba ni aya osika, bo ba ri iku Gaa, waa so oto, has been a popular curse and terrible warning aimed at the iconoclastic Yoruba rebel for centuries, echoing the fiery end of this man whose times coincided with and punctuated the most turbulent period of its history.

But history is never that simple, nor does the interrelationship between its personalities and its politics lend itself to the easy certainties of facile moralising. History is a tale, but not a fairy tale. Its rules follow the iron logic of necessity that prescribe the immutable laws of social evolution, complete with its treacheries and intrigues, its cruelties and passions. The faint hearted can read history, but make it they cannot. Unlike fairy tales the outcome is not predetermined to soothe, its characters not created to comfort through the easy categorisation of good and evil, wicked and righteous, denuded of social content and historical context. Historical characters are complex and their actions are informed by the historical role they play. Their morality weighed on the scales of the shifting equilibrium of bitter social and national struggles. Who is more virtuous a ‘wicked’ man thrust to the forefront of a progressive ideal or a ‘good one’ burdened with the imperatives of a championing a retrograde cause.

GAA, A TYRANT OR FIGHTER AGAINST TYRANNY ?
Was Gaa a tyrant, or was he, albeit ruthlessly, a fighter against royal tyranny. Was Gaa trying to usurp the royal power in Oyo, or was he resisting its attempts; outstripping its constitutional power, to control, beyond what had hereto been historically acceptable, the society it had raised itself above. Was he a historic villain or a victim of history? If this rhetorical argument might seem revisionist, it is because it is. If accepted history is the story of the victor, then it cannot justifiably lay claim to the last word on its legacy. Or as was so memorably intoned in the prologue to the epic 1995 film on the war of Scottish liberation, Brave heart, – History is often a story told by those who have hanged heroes.

YORUBA HISTORY, LIKE ALL HISTORY WAS WRITTEN BY THE VICTORS ON THE TOMBSTONES OF THE VANQUISHED
Yoruba history like that of most pre-colonial African societies was recorded orally, verbalised by full time poets who earned their keep ministering to the land’s royal houses, none of whom had any reason to remember the great usurper with any affection. It was later transcribed into the written word by the far from neutral pens of the first western trained missionaries and teachers, men like Ajayi Crowther and Samuel Johnson, the new Christians who shared the prejudices, preconceptions and purposes of the foreign empire they served. An empire whose emerging, still contested dominance demanded a corresponding revision of its newly conquered lands history, promoting a narrative favourable to local royalty and the absolutism of crowned heads without whose cooperation the cornerstone of colonialism – Indirect rule through a single unchallenged despot, dressed up in the paraphernalia and pomp of historic legitimacy, would founder on the rock of the lawlessness and rebellion which had engulfed Yoruba land for well neigh a century.

To understand history, it is not enough to understand personalities, it is necessary to understand, fully understand, the environment they lived and operated in, to comprehend the social currents and forces, the interplay of which alone determined their actions. To understand Bashorun Gaa, we need to understand not the morality or otherwise of this undoubtedly flawed figure or even his enemies, but the society they lived and died in, its struggles, its wars and above all the complex socio economic forces that force people, classes and nations into bloody collision.

THE OYO EMPIRE
At its height, from the 16th to 18th century, the Oyo Empire was the most feared force along the western coast of Africa, stretching from the borders of modern day Ghana in the west to the ancient Benin kingdom in the east, it was centred on the old city of Oyo, a walled metropole which had long been the most powerful of the Yoruba settlements in the south-western part of the territory of modern day Nigeria. While self-serving myths imply its prominence to the ancestry of Oranyan, the beloved grandson of the legendary founder of the Yoruba race, Oduduwa, its geography offers a more prosaic if more sensible reason behind its emergence as a regional power house in its own right. It was strategically located on the vast plains of the guinea savannah, dominating the natural routes of trade, communication and conquest, a site far more favourable than those of its sister Yoruba settlements such as the Ijebu's, and Egba's tucked deeper into the forests to its south or the Ekiti’s hemmed into their mountain ranges to its east. The city of Oyo, seizing advantage of its open surroundings quickly mastered the use of that universal instrument of military conquest, the horse, spreading its formidable reach across most of the region, reducing town after town to subjection and tributary status.

The complexity of a society’s structure like that of every living organism evolves to match the dynamic of its ever developing daily functions. Therefore compared to the smaller surrounding towns and settlements, Oyo developed a governmental apparatus of a certain subtlety and sophistication. With its rising prosperity increasingly stratifying society along socially hierarchical and invariably antagonistic lines, potentially concentrating too much power in too few hands; inevitably empowering the most privileged - the royal households from whose ranks the Alaafin and other important chiefs were chosen, a committee of seven lesser nobles, representing the seven districts of the city were constituted into an advisory cum legislative body, called the Oyo mesi, headed by a titled chief called the Bashorun who acted as the Prime Minister



While many have described the Alaafin as a toothless tiger in a decorated cage, the evidence implies he was not as impotent as myth suggests. He held the power to declare war and levy and collect taxes through a network of agents called illari scattered across the empire. The power to raise money and declare war was thus concentrated in royal not civil hands. The ultimate check on the power of the princes or akeyo of the royal families was the power of rejection held by the Oyo mesi under the bashorun or the power to force an oppressive king to abdicate by taking his own life.


Most empires are torn asunder by internal strife. Conflict provoked by external stimuli such as the arrival of new wealth or sources of it. This point was reached in Oyo with the sudden arrival of new and previously undreamed of riches, from a source few could have imagined would yield such sudden riches at so little expense – the bounty of the vast ocean with its endless traffic in humans – the Trans-Atlantic Slave trade

THE RISE OF THE TRANS ATLANTIC SLAVE TRADE AND THE POWER STRUGGLE IT PROVOKED IN OYO
Slavery had been a mainstay of the Oyo economy for generations increasing in profile and prominence as the city expanded its power and territory. All the noble classes including members of the Oyo mesi owned and traded in slaves. But the industrial scale of the new trade, unlike anything ever seen before opened up opportunities for the wealthier classes in the Empire that by their position, organisation, privileges and connections the royal party was best placed to exploit.

Commerce was the oil that lubricated the machinery of the empire, fostering travel, trade and communication across its towns and villages. And the biggest commodity by far was slaves. As the consequent prosperity flourished so did the machinery of government required to administer the ever expanding empire grow in complexity and organisation, an administration which in the hands of the ubiquitous and powerful Illari’s or king’s representatives and tax collectors gave the palace and royal princes a major economic advantage in the emerging struggle for wealth and power in the empire. The royal princes with their blood and social connections to the royal families of the various provincial towns and cities across the realm also had a readymade network to exploit to the maximum the opportunities presented by the new trade.

This was not the result of any organised conspiracy, but a natural by-product of economic expansion in any environment. Economic growth particularly from a low threshold is an impersonal and inexorable force demanding an efficiency much more easily supplied by an authoritarian rather than a collegiate state. The demands of managing a vast and far flung empire, of collecting taxes, administering trade and imposing law and order, of monitoring and managing hundreds and hundreds of disputes, small and large, between diverse communities, of the day to day tasks of running a complex and increasingly hierarchical empire, of achieving equilibrium between the centrifugal and centripetal forces whose tensions keep an empire together are of a scale beyond the scope of any committee regardless of how august. It takes an emperor to rule an empire. Hence, increasingly, real power devolved to the hands of the Alaafin, his illaris, the provincial leaders and the power on whose back the empire increasingly rested – the Army chiefs, amongst whom were counted many provincial chiefs, such as the Onikoyi of Ikoyi and the Timi of Ede.

Invariably the civil authority of the still powerful but increasingly marginalised Oyo mesi and the metropolitan chiefs was challenged by a royal party and provincial leadership who by their position had cornered to the detriment of the Bashorun and his followers much of the new wealth. The scene was set for a showdown. With the rise of the forceful and powerfully assertive Gaa to the post of Bashorun, it became inevitable. Five Alaafin's, Labisi, Awonbioju, Agboluaje, Majeogbe and Abiodun were raised to the throne under Gaa four of whom he disposed.

THE RISE AND FALL OF GAA
The simplistic conventional narrative of Gaa’s supposed tyranny suggests the Allafins he deposed were removed, killed or forced to commit suicide as a result of the Bashorun’s caprice or the cruel vagaries of his mercurial temperament. But this does not explain the acquiescence of the 6 remaining members of the Oyo mesi, powerful men in their own rights with substantial local followings without whose backing Gaa would have been dangerously isolated.

Another issue long ignored by the anti Gaa school has been the popular mood of the ordinary people of Oyo which seems at this point to have been largely suspicious of the royal party, as a result of a series of despotic and oppressive Alaafins in the period leading up the emergence of Gaa. These included Alaafin Amuniwaiye, known for ravishing the wives of his underlings and allegedly as malicious myth go the first Alaafin caught, literarily in the act by Magun. A fable suggesting just how low in esteem of the people the rapacious alaafins had become. Alaafin Gberu an oppressive tyrant ultimately rejected by the Oyo Mesi, Alaafin Osinyago and his immediate successor, Ayibi, both brutal and corrupt despots all of whom were rejected and overthrown just before the rise of Gaa to Prime Ministership.

The most comprehensive if far from unbiased account of Yoruba history to date, Rev Samuel Johnson’s tome with its fervent anti Gaa flavour was forced to admit in Chapter V page 178 –“Gaa had great influence with the people and a great many followers who considered themselves safe under his protection from the dread in which they stood of kings because of their cruel and despotic rule”

It is in this light that the emergence of this powerful prime minister has to be seen, with the popular will demanding an assertive and powerful personality in the position of Prime Minister or bashorun to check the growing abuse and oppression of royal power.

It was said of Gaa that he created a parallel administration mirroring the structure and spread of the palace officials and ubiquitous Illari’s or the kings provincial representatives, a network spread across the realm comprised of his sons and supporters who took upon themselves the responsibilities of levying taxes and dispensing justice, supplanting the king’s officers across the empire. The Bashorun had become a law onto himself.


GAA’S REGICIDE
Gaa’s regicide like that of similar upstarts in aristocratic states, such as Cromwell in 17th century England and the Jacobins in revolutionary France, who all gained undying infamy by separating monarchs from their crowned heads only seems abhorrent when seen through the eyes of the incorrigible royal romanticist, not those of practical men of action and politics in similarly unforgiving environments. There was no other way of removing an absolutist king except by killing him. If a King proved despotic as there is ample evidence most of the Alaafin’s, even predating Gaa, did, they couldn’t be voted out, nor forced into retirement. A king once crowned cannot be dethroned. Hence the old law of abdication meaning death or suicide. Kings don’t resign, neither do they do pension In pursuing this Gaa was only showing a will and decisiveness to push through his policy of checking royal absolutism through the only means possible – death. That this in the end did not prove sufficient only reflects how deep the corruption had eaten into the fabric of the state with the removal of individual kings doing nothing to deter those who followed them from taking the same path of absolutism the new changed situation demanded. It also showed the utter futility of Gaa’s brave but ill-fated opposition to the increasing absolutism of the royal party. He was a representative of a bygone era, a more simple age of small town politics in an epoch where the insatiable demand from across the seas for slaves on an industrial scale and the unimaginable wealth it brought in its wake had rendered the old borders, the old structures, assumptions and certainties redundant and obsolete. The age of the dictator and the warlord had arrived. Gaa and his constitutionalists had become yesterday’s men.

THE CRUSHING OF GAA AND THE OLD SYSTEM
Contrary to established myth there is little evidence that Gaa’s fall came about through a popular rising of the supposedly oppressed masses across the empire. Finally coming against an Alaafin, Abiodun, who matched the increasingly aged Bashorun in wit, cunning and ruthlessness, Gaa fell to a well-crafted and concealed royalist conspiracy whose success rested on an alliance of the metropolitan princes with the provincial kings, subject to the capital, and who also provided the bulk of its military muscle. The uprising in Oyo itself would have failed had not the provincial chiefs led by Oyabi, the Aare ona kakanfo or head of the imperial army marched on the capital for the first time in Oyo’s history. Seeing that the officer class and imperial staff – the Eso where well represented in the capital as were many ordinary soldiers, it seems the need for outside intervention which in the end proved crucial to the royal party’s triumph would suggest a lack of real support for the royal cause within Oyo or significant support for the Bashorun.

Whatever the reason there is a broad consensus that the resistance by Gaa and his supporters in the City was ferocious and only put down after protracted, intense and savage street. fighting. Gaa's followers fought to the death.. Again the strength of the resistance against what were clearly overwhelming odds implies men fighting not just for their lives but for something they felt was worth laying them down for. Gaa’s family and supporters were slaughtered across the breath of the empire. The Bashorun himself was taken alive, tortured, publicly humiliated and burnt at the stake, the taunts of his royalist enemies ringing in his ears as he died.

WITH GAA DIED THE EMPIRE
With him died the old empire and the power of civil authority that had underpinned it. The Oyo mesi never recovered, the people were cowed into submission before the triumphant princes and provincial kings. The consequence of his defeat was a new unchallenged absolutism by the Alaafin and the princes together with the increasingly unchecked power of the provincial kings and army leaders with their increasingly loud demands of independence from Oyo, as the price for their support in crushing Gaa and the old order. The Alaafin had won but his victory would prove pyrrhic for the royal line.

The next time the imperial army would march on the capital, this time led by Afonja, the Kakanfo, who succeeded Oyabi; it would come not to support the king, but to claim his head. The revolution had begun

The new struggle was now one between the centre at Oyo and the newly emboldened provincial kings and army chiefs. It would end up tearing the empire apart and hurling the entire kingdom into a century of revolution and turmoil that would only end with the arrival of the British who tiring of the impact of the chaos on the unimpeded commerce their new industries in Lancashire demanded, imposed a peace on a region exhausted by endless struggle strife and conflict.. The colonial era had dawned.

Rossikk: Your problem is that all you see about Nigerians and Africans is bad. Get rid of your inferiority complex then come in here and have a proper debate. Your lengthy diatribe in itself is proof of your arrogance. You have been away from Nigeria for many years. There is no way you are in a position to write all this stuff if you have not been following or experiencing the progress the nation has made since the days of Abacha when you fled the country. Return home and contribute your quota instead of sitting abroad and sniffing your nose at Africans and black people. Are you aware that power supply has doubled in the last two years? Are you aware that the railways, abandoned by the military, are now back on track? Are you aware that federal roads are being fixed? Are you aware that telecommunications have been transformed? Are you aware that agriculture is seeing its biggest boom in 30 years? Are you aware that Nigeria is now Africa's no 1 investment destination? Are you aware that the World bank has announced that poverty is REDUCING in Nigeria? Are you aware that annual GDP growth of Nigeria is among the fastest on earth? Are you aware that 10 million Nigerians moved up to middle class status in the last 5 years according to UK private equity firm Actis International? Are you aware that Nigeria now manufactures motor vehicles? Are you aware that we manufacture computers? Are you aware that we are now self sufficient in cement, and have turned a net exporter? Are you aware that there is a construction boom in Nigeria? Are you aware that many states are seeing genuine infrastructural transformation? None of this was the case when you were living in Nigeria. What more do you want? Nigeria to transform to Switzerland in the twinkle of an eye? Like I said, get rid of your arrogance, and get with the program, or STAY OUT and leave us the hell alone.

It is amazing how easily outbursts more suited to a beer parlour rant can be as easily passed off as something warranting serious attention.

I'll tgake some of these fallacies one by one

YOU ARE A DIASPOREAN WHO CANT SPEAK ON NIGERIA BECAUSE YOU'VE NOT BEEN THERE FOR A LONG TIME

By the same logic a graduate of Geography from a nigerian University has no business talking about rivers in America because he has not been there. Or perhaps the assumption that a british man living in London knows more about the economy of London than a Kenyan living in nairobi who has never been to london. On the surface it seems sensible. But its not. What if the Kenyan in nairobi actually spends his time studying the economy of London, while the english man in london spends his time exploring the pubs o0f london

DIASPREANS DONT LOVRE NIGERIA AS MUCH AS THE NIGERIANS LIVING THERE.

People don't leave a country because they don't love it. They leavew it because they get better opportunities elsewhere. I have been living abroad for over a decade. I have not come across a single Nigerian working in the west as either a cleaner, taxi driver, doctor, security man Engineer or accountant who has a father or close relative who stole public money in Nigeria. Not one For the simple reason that if they had such connections they would not be working away in a coold strange land for a living

Does that mean the thousands of Nigerians who come from families that have stolen public money, that have got jobs and contracts by conections to those who have stolen public money, does this mean they love Nigeria more because they cam stay there having looted our colective wealth.

IF YOU LIVE ABROAD YOU WORSHIP WHITE PEOPLE IF YOU LIVE IN NIGERIA YOU BELEIVE IN BLACK PEOPLE

On the contrary I have long discovered that Africans living aboraid are far more confident and bold in dealing with white people than Africans in africa who tend to adopt a very obsequious and ingratiating manner with the white man whenver they come across them in Africa. The blunt truth is if you an African have a fight with a white man in europe, you are more likley to be treated fairly than if you have a quarrel with a white man in Africa. Many white men have been jailed in Europe for assaulting black men there. How many white men have been jailed in Africa or Nigeria for beating up black men in our own country. Let us not fool ourselves. Our countries are glorified colonies of the west. A white man knows he can get away with far more in Africa than they can in their own country. Child sex for instance attarcts thousands of white tourists to Africa every year. How many of them do our police arrest

It is not accidental that the best nationalists were those who studied in the west and thus by living close up with the white man in his own land ended up demystifying them. Nationalism in Africa started during the first and second world wars when black men fighting in the trenches with their white colleagues saw their white masters shitting in their pants for sheer terror in the battle field.

Coming abroad and struggling on your own without local godfathers, getting jobs without letters from uncles. Working hard because your popsie doesn't know the Managing Director toughens you and prepares you for leadership. That is why every country that has developed that has moved forward has always done so wirth the support of those with the courage to leave their comfort zone and go and struggle in a starnge land

Rossikk: Your problem is that all you see about Nigerians and Africans is bad. Get rid of your inferiority complex then come in here and have a proper debate. Your lengthy diatribe in itself is proof of your arrogance. You have been away from Nigeria for many years. There is no way you are in a position to write all this stuff if you have not been following or experiencing the progress the nation has made since the days of Abacha when you fled the country. Return home and contribute your quota instead of sitting abroad and sniffing your nose at Africans and black people. Are you aware that power supply has doubled in the last two years? Are you aware that the railways, abandoned by the military, are now back on track? Are you aware that federal roads are being fixed? Are you aware that telecommunications have been transformed? Are you aware that agriculture is seeing its biggest boom in 30 years? Are you aware that Nigeria is now Africa's no 1 investment destination? Are you aware that the World bank has announced that poverty is REDUCING in Nigeria? Are you aware that annual GDP growth of Nigeria is among the fastest on earth? Are you aware that 10 million Nigerians moved up to middle class status in the last 5 years according to UK private equity firm Actis International? Are you aware that Nigeria now manufactures motor vehicles? Are you aware that we manufacture computers? Are you aware that we are now self sufficient in cement, and have turned a net exporter? Are you aware that there is a construction boom in Nigeria? Are you aware that many states are seeing genuine infrastructural transformation? None of this was the case when you were living in Nigeria. What more do you want? Nigeria to transform to Switzerland in the twinkle of an eye? Like I said, get rid of your arrogance, and get with the program, or STAY OUT and leave us the hell alone.

On the one hand people living abroad who criticise Nigeria are accussed of arrogance, of not being in touch with the country. On the other hand foreign bodies, like the ones quoted in the above rant who say the country is rosy are quoted with approval.Who then is suffering from inferiority complex.

In January this year milions of Nigerians took to the streets to protest the removal of subsidy and colapse of living standrds in the country under Goodlucj Johnathan. I would rather beleive those people than I would the World bank and its statisticvs. The only indicator of real econmoic development is the creation of jobs and the impact of infrastructure development on the nlife of the ordinary man. If there is a construction boom in Nigeria, then why are engineers still queuing up for non-existent jobs in Banks. If electricity output has doubled then nobody it sems has bothered to tel the man in the street. I f10 million more people have been uplifted to the middle class can you explain how - to what jobs in what industiries. |If millions of people have ben uplifted to the middle class that will sugest a growing econmoy that would have employed milions of people - pray what are these industries, where are these brand new spanking factories situated.

Let the world bank give the number of people employed in these factories every year.

The argument that a person who has not been back to Nigeria for years canot know what is going on there appears sensible at first sight, but it is a facile, beer parlour slur. I have never been to China yet I know that it is an economic miracle case. So why do i have to go back to Nigeria before I know it is still a basket case. Most people have never been to America, yetb they know it is developed. You don't need to go to Afghanistan to know it is underdeveloped Concrete development not isoalted one off examples of progress or false statistics is what makes a country developed. If I go back to Nigeria as many diasporeans do every year for a holiday or business trip. If you land in the airport and drive al the way to a freinds place in Ikoyi, or VI spend your time being entertained by your hosts all of whom will go out of the way to make you comnfortable (as African hospitality dictates) Then after 2 weeks you will of course return to wherever your base is claiming the country is getting better. The same way if I receive a visitor in London from Nigeria, I won't ration my heating, I won't ration electricity, so clearly many Nigerians return to Nigeria thinking the west is a paradise



Moreover being far from a country might even giver a surer view of its problems. Distance lends perspective. That is why a GPS SAT NAV might give more accurate directions than a road map on the drivers lap. Dunderheads like the twit who wrote the latest rant condemn Nigerians living abroad for criticising the country - but gladly wellcome foreigners who say themaked emperor is in fact dressed to the nines.

The idea that Nigerians living abroad are somehow less qualified to criticise the country than those who remained there is peverse. This argument wil lead to absurd conclusions like that of the intellectualy challenged individual who p-osted here last

MY ARGUMENT
I am not aware of any Nigerian whose father stole public money - who has come abroad. Infact most of those who came abroad are the people without connections without the backing of godfathers without the foundation of stolen public funds.

Hence on that basis the sons of theives who remained in the country because they could live off their fathers ill gotten wealth are better than the sons of people who did not steal, who hjad to go abroad to look for their own opportunities. I am not having a go at people, many of them hardworking who remain in Nigeria. However every and I repeat every Nigerian in the west working in any proffessional job in the west medicine, Pharemacy, Law, engineering would have got thast job on merit. Can you say the same of every Nigerian working in similar capacities in Nigeria.

Most Nigerians living aboraod actually work. The elite in Nigeria, their offsprings and hangers on do not actually work.



.

A lot of interesting responses to my original post and as expected a lot of twaddle and meaningless abuse

The abuse tends to centre on the fact that any African who points out the glaring wrongs in our society or the black race as a whole is a self hating African sufering from inferiority complex. A bit like any Jewish person criticising the endless crimes of the state of israel being dubbed a self hating Jew.

The post I originally made, for the discerning was clearly a critique not of the common or struggling African, it was a critique of what would undoubtedly go down in history as the least productive and most visionless ruling elite in Human history - The African ruling class and many members of the aspiring (or educated middle class) who ape their mannersims and their lifestyle.

With the usual intellectual indolence common to the 'educated' African, many have accussed me of just 'talking' 'not doing anything about it' etc etc. I plead guilty. You have to diagnose a problem before you profer solutions to it. You have to study a difficulty and come up with an idea of action, before you start to solve it. Europrean democracy arose out of years of study, debate and analysis before it bcame a practical reality in these societies. Debate is important because it clarifies ideas and without ideas no societty can move forward.

The most intricate civil engineering structures start on the drawing board. My original post was a critique of the lack of spirit, courage and character of the ruling elite of the continent, whose values, ideas (or lack of them) are ultimately the values of the societies they misrule.

One example is this class's fear of 'conflict' and love of compromise which I touched on in the original article. The most advanced societies in the world have political syustems based on robust conflict - not physical, but the ruthless conflict of ideas. Their political system actively promote this form of politics ideologically polarised conflict because they learned that it is only conflict that moves socieites forward.

Hence there is a healthy lack of respect and deference for authority in all its ramifications. Take a look at the Uk, where the Prime Minister of the country is regularly and publicly attacked and ridiculed in the house of parliament. In the US where the president is heckled in congress and torn to shreds on radio shows. Compare this to Africa where the presidents even when elected are treated with excessive deference, is not forced to face forensic questioning on public TV, are not subjected to harsh criticism in the public domain. It is this culture, a culture of resistance, a culture where any authority which does not relfect the peoples wish is open to direct political revolt that has forced these socities to move forward.

The excessive deference to 'elders' in Africa is a key obstacle to development and not just in Government, also in the academia, busiess world and even in families. It does not create the necessary environment - based on a healthy conflict of ideas for society to develop. About 12 years ago an undergraduate student in the US dreamed up a way to connect everybody using an internet to each other. Many of his professors thought he was mad, but they still allowed him continue with his research. The result was the phenomenon of facebook. Would max Zuckerburg have created what he did if he was a Nigerian. If he had criticised as he did his proffessors would we not have torn him down, ripped him to shreds for 'challenging his elders.

Bill gates and Steve Jobs are other names that come to mind men who chaged the way we live because they were in a society that inspite of all its faults gives the room for dissidents, allows them to thrive without being abused, victimised and insulted. The ideas that elders have some resipository of wisdom younger people lack is antedulivian nonesense and is one of the main reasons the African continent which moe than any other continent places an inordinate amount of regard on the suppossed importance of age has remained mired in backwardness. Our grandfathers beleived in black magic , our fathers believed in black magic and we the current generattion are passing the same nonesense to our children and we wonder why we are backward. How can we build roads, dams and bridges when many of us still think a man can dissapear in one place and reappear in a nother. True elders have experience, more than that of younger people. But a man who has been defeated by his experience, and our elders have been defeated by theirs which is why we are where we are today, men who are defated by theri experience are far more dangerous than those without any experience at all.

I mremember during the June 12 crisis, when nthe youths went into the street to chalenge the dictatorship. Our elders scoffed at us saying civilians could not hope to defeat armed soldiers. Obviously looking at the situation through the prism of their own experience of decades of oppression by the military. The youths ignored them that is why Babangida is not in power today but forced to waste his time plotting to return there. The youths struggled, they fought back, they refused to be weighed down by the bagage of experience, they belived. nad because of that we have had an uninterupted period 14 years of civilian rule. True its not the best but if we could elect an incompetent like goodluck, one day we will elect a competent person. Its al a matter of time, but we are on the right path. Only because we refused to believe in the nonesense told us by our elders. defeated men with broken spirits

More important than experince is courgae, audacity, and the willingess to take risks in search of a dream. That starts with ideas. Europe strted its development when the old ancient class, the feudal class, whose stupidity, superstition, cultural backwardness, corruption, immorality, and reactionary social views are a carbon copy of the current African ruling elite that after 60 years of independence has failed to induisttrialise and unify the continent forcing it to survive by seling raw materials to the advanced world.

My critique of the African elite clearly touched a few nerves on this site. Good. You don't like the medicine, expect a doub le dose.


WHO AM I TO CRITICISE OTHERS = WHAT HAVE I DONE FOR NIGERIA

Another slur has been the insult that since I am just another diasporean Nigerian, doing nothing fo the country, I have no right to criticise those ruling it. Rubbish. If you take a politicl post it means you have to be ready to be criticised by anyone. You don't like it stay out of politics. Can't take the heat don't enter into politics.

This is an anonymous site as it should be since that allows the free exchange of ideas without personalities getting in the way. Hence there will be no need to reveal my identity. However the lazy assumption that everybody posting on this board has never done anything fo the country is absurd. First I have nver stolen public money so thats a start. I am not a thief.

But then more seriously I spent the better part of my youth and young adulthood before moving abroad fighting in Nigeria for change. For 10 years In the student movement, the labour movement and the civil rights movement, working as a student activist, trade union organiser and civil rights movement I fought the darknes of dictatorhip, suffering expulsion, death threats, arresst, torture and penury. After the cancellation of the June 12 election in 1993, when most of the current political class headed either for their beds or Aso rock. I was proud to be a member of a selct few Nigerians organised in the civil rights movement who organised ourselves and openly called on the people to takle to the street to confront the despot sparking the biggest civil uprising in Nigerian history. I did not do it for publicity or fame or money, even I tell you my name most people will probbaly not recognise it. I don't want recognition. I wanted and still want progress for Nigeria. But behind the well known faces of the struggle to improve Nigeria, the great men like gani, Beko etc there were always many of us without whom nothing would have happened, without whom the darkness of military dictatorhip would still have enveloped this land. Some died, a few ran mad, many ended up in anonymous and crushing poverty. But the fact that you and others can write what you like on a public board like this without fear was down to their sacrifice.

I say this not because i want plaudits - as i said i won't reveal my name. I say it because when you bandy cheap insults about on this board and try and avoid questions by insulting people who post here just because their love for the country makes them sepnd time writing about its problems when they could as well be at a party - you don't really know who you are talking to.

Everybody who spends time on this board posting about our countries problems when they could be sp0ending that time doing something else is contributing to the countries progress. It miht look like nothing, but they could as well have spoent their time on th Manchester supporters website, or some pornography website, or on e-bay. I run internet businesses - I don't make money from posting here - I could as wel be on sites where i could. Like others i come here because I love the country and want it to progress. Postrers here are not receiving any money by posting here. They do so because they love the country and while it might seem just words to you one day you wil find that when this country does move forward, it is some of the people talking about it on this board who will be in the vabnguard. Do you know why, because they have beeen thinking about it, that is why they post on it. So show some respect

Nothing seems to provoke fury, indeed unbridled rage on this website and across the land more than when some prominent Nigerian goes abroad and criticises the brazenly obvious ills in our society. The response always revolves around the excuse that we should not wash our dirty linen in public, Americans and westerners don’t do the same etc etc.

This is more than people with something to hide not wanting exposure where they can’t use their powers of coercion and manipulation to conceal their crimes, as many otherwise innocent Nigerians tend to join in the chorus of hate towards anybody who dare says outside our shores the reality most people endure in it. There is something deep rooted in the African mindset that seems to abhor facing up to reality, a deeply embedded moral cowardice to be seen in offices, business and families in our society that accepts any condition no matter how bad, how humiliating as long as we can look good to outsiders.


People who struggle to feed their families, will never be short of money to buy clothes for the next party, men who can’t pay their kids school fees but will always find money to upgrade their mobile phones regardless of the expense, even when the replaced ones are perfectly functional. The disease affects even the Diaspora, Not a few Africans drive the flashiest cars yet head for the economy shelves of the big supermarkets for their groceries. There are families (from Africa in Europe) who ration the sugar for their families, but will never be seen without the latest designer clothes outside their front doors. There are people whose kids will never be seen without the latest computer gadgets but who shovel the cheapest, unhealthiest food down their throats to ‘save costs’

On any high street in the UK for instance many small Asian businessmen will be mistaken for labourers at first sight. The dress simply but most of their businesses are worth millions and have endured for decades. African businessmen on the same streets dress like kings and the average life span of their businesses tend to range from 4 – 5 years.


Why are we so obsessed with outward appearance, even when it’s not backed by any internal substance? The mindset of an Asian or western businessman is hard work, enterprise, risk taking and innovation. In Africa or amongst Africans, business means luxury, enterprise is equated with elegance. So profit is rarely re-invested, it is immediately spent on conspicuous consumption. So even when the businesses don’t collapse, they don’t expand. There is no drive to innovate, to take risks. The ultimate aim is to look the part. ‘Ah that man is a business man he has a new Lexus’. Not that man is a businessman; he opened a shop 2 years ago now he has 7. In Europe every ethnic group has produced restaurants that have prospered by conquering the western palate, except Africans. Go to any Chinese restaurant anywhere in Europe and most people there will be Caucasian, not Chinese. Go to any African restaurant and you will struggle to see a non black face.

What is the reason; it’s not as if our food is not tasty. Again it is a cowardly desire not to take risks, to innovate. The Chinese, Indian, Arab and Thai menu has evolved. The African menu has not. We still eat the same way our forebears did 200 hundred years ago in a radically changed environment. Our food has not changed – it is still the same old format – a heavy cereal with a separate stew. Eba, iyan etc. But these foods were created for a period that has been largely bypassed at least in the west. Our foods were created at a time when most people worked on the farms, hard punishing labour requiring foods heavy in carbohydrates, to burn off to release energy. Now many people work in offices – having eba or iyan at lunch means you won’t be productive when you return to your desk, because the work does not require you to burn off energy as our ancestors did. So we fall asleep at our desks. How can such a menu attract foreigners? But still we refuse to change because of a fear of risk taking allied to the desperation to keep up appearances


It is the same with the way we live. We have some of the most beautiful apartments in the world (lets leave aside the fact that most of the money used to build them was stolen). Compared to many luxury apartments in other parts of the world, they look good. However go inside and you find shoddy finishes, poor coordination, tasteless furnishing, and a lack of real refinement, which in the minds of the African bourgeois and aspiring classes means big, not necessarily brilliant. . In the homes of the wealthy Europeans or Asians the homes might not look that great from outside – but enter inside its another world, Persian rugs, old antiques, sculptures etc. A sense of real taste and culture. Why are we so shallow? We delude ourselves that we know how to live, yet we in reality don’t know how to even enjoy the life we pretend to love so much. We attend parties that we don’t enjoy, parties were we sit staring for most of the time like beheaded goats because we don’t want to do anything wrong, to draw attention to ourselves for the wrong reasons to look bad lojuagbo

Rich westerners have a love of high art, paintings, and exquisite carvings. I can count the number of times I have seen Africans in museums admiring the finest creations of human civilisation anywhere in the world. We prefer shopping - nothing wrong with that – but how many of the things that we buy can we produce. We buy the latest multimedia gadgets, the finest electronics, yet we can’t build a factory to produce simple radios at a technical a level achieved in other parts of the world 100 years ago.


In our families the problem is the same. There is a problem – take the easy way out blame everybody, so nobody is offended including whoever has committed the offence. We call that wisdom. Of course there are times when both parties could be at fault. But it also possible that one person is at fault, but you will struggle to find a family on this continent that will not seek to share the blame around, ostensibly to reach a compromise but in reality so they can remain on good terms with both parties or at least the offending one in a society where very principle is available for compromise, where standards exist on nothing where anybody who takes a clear stance on anything is immediately dismissed as mad, extreme etc. A man has slept with his house girl, ok blame the man, but also the woman for not putting enough salt in the food tempting the man to sleep with another woman!! A woman stabbed her husband; ok blame the woman, but also the man for not running away fast enough!!!- We are all to blame, so nobody is to blame; we are all responsible so nobody is responsible. All Nigerians are corrupt so don’t blame the government. Leadership has power and privilege but not responsibility and accountability. The government is ‘trying’ ‘they are trying’. What is the point of trying without succeeding? A society of endless compromises where the aim as always is to keep a clean front to outsiders for a home rotting and putrefying inside.


When we end up dying it is the same people screaming that we should not expose our ills to outsiders who will demand immediate outside medical intervention.


We condemn people for going to the west to criticise what we all know is true, trying to silence them. Yet when the problem, because it has not been treated, explodes, it is the same people who now insist we don’t tell the world our problems (problems the foreigners are far more aware of than we are – where is the stolen money kept UBA Ikeja?) it is these same people who will demand for armed western intervention to save their skins and their stolen property

coogar:

please provide the evidence....don't just throw conjectures at me and expect me to swallow it.

In the last party you held or attended - how many people were drinking ornage juice and how many were drinking coke



so english is the lingua franca in asia? blimey!!!!

English is the language of business in Asai. All indian students are taught english in schools not french Chinese students learn english not french - their combined population - almsot 2 billion - Blimey!!!!!!!!!



why do people make silly excuses just to forge their lame points home. language has nothing to do with it. football is a universal language. people don't care what language is spoken. people just want to watch football. asia has about 2 billion football viewers, how many of them understand english?



you are talking crap as usual.
the lingua franca in the world is english and french - so why is the french league not popular? why is the spanish league not popular even in south america where all but brazil speak spanish? your propensity to stretch the borders of daftness is exemplary. the english league attracts more viewers, generates more revenue, has better packaging and it's corruption-free. those attributes are the reasons the premier league is the numero uno league in the world. until there are about 6-9 clubs like barcelona/real madrid in spain, they don't even come close. 2 excellent teams in a league of 20 teams do not show quality.

Most People don't consider corruption when they look at football, the same way they don't bother about the rights of workers when they go to buy the clothes those workers made. If they did Next, Nike etc will have folded long ago. When people want to be entertained ability not morality is the main consideration. The most corrupt footballing nations on earth are Italy and brazil - They have won more world cups than any other nation on earth.

As for Real and barca, your arguments are a fallacy. The fact that Real and barca are the 2 best teams in spain does not mean that the 3 or 4 teams that come after them are not better than the the top 2 in places like the Premier league. Any one who saw the way Athletico Bilabao embarrassed Man U last year will testify to that.

Going by your arguments the 3rd best engineer in a big company like haliburton is not as good as the best 2 engineers in the republic of Togo Electric board authority. Or the thrid best graduate of the west Point military academy in the US is not as good as the best graduate in NDA. Take a 2 day course in philosophy and probably you will understand these issues better and stop making false comparisons

[quote author=coogar]

but many were not shocked when arsenal demolished real madrid in 2006, when tottenham eliminated ac milan or when chelsea murdered bayern munich in the last edition of champions league final.

beauty is in the eyes of the beholder - you prefer tiki-taka, some other people prefer the direct football. you prefer swashbuckling attacking football but some fans want to see a well organised defensive football. so let's use the popularity vote(democracy) to settle this....

if the premier league is so shyte - why does it have more fans watching it in the whole wide world than any other league? some league games in the premier league have had 1 billion viewers watching it live - are you aware of that?

the premier league reign supreme over the others - it's not even debatable![/quote



if the premier league is so shyte - why does it have more fans watching it in the whole wide world than any other league? some league games in the premier league have had 1 billion viewers watching it live - are you aware of that?

More people drink cocal cola everyday than drink ornage juice. It does not make it better.

If the Premier league was broadcats in portuguese, whic few speak outside England no one will watch it. England was once the greatest power the world has ever known. The heritage has been mosty of the world speak their language and folow their culture. We all here of Tom hanks, Leonardo De caprio, Julia Roberts - Thye are great actors. But there might be German actors who are better than them. Most people don't know that because most people outside Germany don't speak german.

Football will not be football without the commentary and build up. That is done in a language. The world's lingua franca is English. Only the more discerning and more intelligent can in such a culture actually note that what makes the loudest noise might not be the best. Clearly like many people on this website you don't fall into that category

Unbelievably daft topic/point of view. Assuming that there is indeed a "style" unique to English Football, the sensible thing to ask yourself is that : Is there a difference between "English football" and the Premier League? How many English players are in the top 4 clubs in the Premiership? How many English players are among the star players/top performers that make the Premiership so highly rated? To what extent, then, can English football be tantamount to Premier League football?

In any case, how many players in the present Nigerian team in the Nations Cup ply their trade in the Premier League? On what grounds, then, can anyone make such a sweeping claim as "The Premier League has destroyed our Football"? How, tori Olorun? ? ?







The only thing daft in this thread has been your response. And that is being polite

Of course there is a style unique to English football. It is a physical game based on pace, but not possession. Persistence, not patience. Strength not skill. If you’ve not observed that, then you’re probably on the section of this site. Try the section for different types of hairstyles or how to prepare Edikainkon soup.

You ask how many English players are in the top 4 premier league. Wow what insight. The answer is easy – all their top ones.

How many English players make the premiership so highly rated? Aren’t Rooney, Cole, Hart, Lampard and Wilshere the biggest brands in the premier league.

Of course the foreign players make it even better. But these much celebrated foreign players are still beneath a rung or 2 below the world elite. They don’t for instance dominate their national teams the way the top players in Spain and Germany do.

Van Persie is a premier league pin up but over the last 7 years he has not been as important for the Dutch national team as Robben or Sneijder. Messi is the colossus for Argentina, not Tevez or Aguero, Fabregas is great for Spain, but defers in the pecking order to iniesta and xavi. Suarez is great in England but Forlan dominates in Uruguay.

Not one premier league footballer from a foreign country has dominated any top International tournament wining team in the last 20 years. Van batsen for Holland, Zidane for France, Pirlo for Italy, Rivaldo and Ronaldo for Brazil, Matheus for Germany, - not one dominant figure in any national team that has won the world cup or Euros has plyed their trade in the premier league.

The so-called top foreign players in the premier league are the second eleven of foreign players internationally . Even Henry who was a God in Arsenal was messi’s water carrier in Spain.

There can no longer be any contest about which league is the better. THE FACTS ARE UNANSWERABLE. Spain has won the last3 major international tournaments, Spain has the best 5 players in the world. Spain’s best team, Barca is now regarded as probably the best to ever play the game. Spain’s third best team Athletico, crushed Chelsea (European champions) in the super cup last year. Spain’s third best striker Falcao is better than the premier league’s best Van persie.

You copy the best It is called best practise. Spain’s possession game is king, only dullards can dispute this the evidence is unassailable. When we used to play a bit like Spain – we won things including the Olympics which contrary to what one ninny said, actually attracted some of the great names in world football then including Crespo, Ortega, Ronaldo and bebeto.

We no longer play like Spain who are wining things. We now play like England who last one something just before the end of the last stone age and we want to win.

It’s a bit like paying money to an eunuch to train you how to impregnate your wife



Unbelievably daft topic/point of view. Assuming that there is indeed a "style" unique to English Football, the sensible thing to ask yourself is that : Is there a difference between "English football" and the Premier League? How many English players are in the top 4 clubs in the Premiership? How many English players are among the star players/top performers that make the Premiership so highly rated? To what extent, then, can English football be tantamount to Premier League football?

In any case, how many players in the present Nigerian team in the Nations Cup ply their trade in the Premier League? On what grounds, then, can anyone make such a sweeping claim as "The Premier League has destroyed our Football"? How, tori Olorun? ? ?








The only thing daft in this thread has been your response. And that is being polite

Of course there is a style unique to English football. It is a physical game based on pace, but not possession. Persistence, not patience. Strength not skill. If you’ve not observed that, then you’re probably on the section of this site. Try the section for different types of hairstyles or how to prepare Edikainkon soup.

You ask how many English players are in the top 4 premier league. Wow what insight. The answer is easy – all their top ones.

How many English players make the premiership so highly rated? Aren’t Rooney, Cole, Hart, Lampard and Wilshere the biggest brands in the premier league.

Of course the foreign players make it even better. But these much celebrated foreign players are still beneath a rung or 2 below the world elite. They don’t for instance dominate their national teams the way the top players in Spain and Germany do.

Van Persie is a premier league pin up but over the last 7 years he has not been as important for the Dutch national team as Robben or Sneijder. Messi is the colossus for Argentina, not Tevez or Aguero, Fabregas is great for Spain, but defers in the pecking order to iniesta and xavi. Suarez is great in England but Forlan dominates in Uruguay.

Not one premier league footballer from a foreign country has dominated any top International tournament wining team in the last 20 years. Van batsen for Holland, Zidane for France, Pirlo for Italy, Rivaldo and Ronaldo for Brazil, Matheus for Germany, - not one dominant figure in any national team that has won the world cup or Euros has plyed their trade in the premier league.

The so-called top foreign players in the premier league are the second eleven of foreign players internationally . Even Henry who was a God in Arsenal was messi’s water carrier in Spain.

There can no longer be any contest about which league is the better. THE FACTS ARE UNANSWERABLE. Spain has won the last3 major international tournaments, Spain has the best 5 players in the world. Spain’s best team, Barca is now regarded as probably the best to ever play the game. Spain’s third best team Athletico, crushed Chelsea (European champions) in the super cup last year. Spain’s third best striker Falcao is better than the premier league’s best Van persie.

You copy the best It is called best practise. Spain’s possession game is king, only dullards can dispute this the evidence is unassailable. When we used to play a bit like Spain – we won things including the Olympics which contrary to what one ninny said, actually attracted some of the great names in world football then including Crespo, Ortega, Ronaldo and bebeto.

We no longer play like Spain who are wining things. We now play like England who last one something just before the end of the last stone age and we want to win.

It’s a bit like paying money to an eunuch to train you how to impregnate your wife



Unbelievably daft topic/point of view. Assuming that there is indeed a "style" unique to English Football, the sensible thing to ask yourself is that : Is there a difference between "English football" and the Premier League? How many English players are in the top 4 clubs in the Premiership? How many English players are among the star players/top performers that make the Premiership so highly rated? To what extent, then, can English football be tantamount to Premier League football?

In any case, how many players in the present Nigerian team in the Nations Cup ply their trade in the Premier League? On what grounds, then, can anyone make such a sweeping claim as "The Premier League has destroyed our Football"? How, tori Olorun? ? ?








The only thing daft in this thread has been your response. And that is being polite

Of course there is a style unique to English football. It is a physical game based on pace, but not possession. Persistence, not patience. Strength not skill. If you’ve not observed that, then you’re probably on the section of this site. Try the section for different types of hairstyles or how to prepare Edikainkon soup.

You ask how many English players are in the top 4 premier league. Wow what insight. The answer is easy – all their top ones.

How many English players make the premiership so highly rated? Aren’t Rooney, Cole, Hart, Lampard and Wilshere the biggest brands in the premier league.

Of course the foreign players make it even better. But these much celebrated foreign players are still beneath a rung or 2 below the world elite. They don’t for instance dominate their national teams the way the top players in Spain and Germany do.

Van Persie is a premier league pin up but over the last 7 years he has not been as important for the Dutch national team as Robben or Sneijder. Messi is the colossus for Argentina, not Tevez or Aguero, Fabregas is great for Spain, but defers in the pecking order to iniesta and xavi. Suarez is great in England but Forlan dominates in Uruguay.

Not one premier league footballer from a foreign country has dominated any top International tournament wining team in the last 20 years. Van batsen for Holland, Zidane for France, Pirlo for Italy, Rivaldo and Ronaldo for Brazil, Matheus for Germany, - not one dominant figure in any national team that has won the world cup or Euros has plyed their trade in the premier league.

The so-called top foreign players in the premier league are the second eleven of foreign players internationally . Even Henry who was a God in Arsenal was messi’s water carrier in Spain.

There can no longer be any contest about which league is the better. THE FACTS ARE UNANSWERABLE. Spain has won the last3 major international tournaments, Spain has the best 5 players in the world. Spain’s best team, Barca is now regarded as probably the best to ever play the game. Spain’s third best team Athletico, crushed Chelsea (European champions) in the super cup last year. Spain’s third best striker Falcao is better than the premier league’s best Van persie.

You copy the best It is called best practise. Spain’s possession game is king, only dullards can dispute this the evidence is unassailable. When we used to play a bit like Spain – we won things including the Olympics which contrary to what one ninny said, actually attracted some of the great names in world football then including Crespo, Ortega, Ronaldo and bebeto.

We no longer play like Spain who are wining things. We now play like England who last one something just before the end of the last stone age and we want to win.

It’s a bit like paying money to an eunuch to train you how to impregnate your wife

baby-boy:


Look spain is dominating now because its their turn,


simple......

The league plays little part on a national team

'Look spain is domainating because it is their turn' - is this supposed to be a serious argument. America are rich because it is their turn, somebody passed his exam because it is their turn, Brazil has regular electruicty because it is their turn. With such indolent thinking no wonder we are behind in all facets of human development. Don't do anything just wait for your turn. Don't study hard to pass for your exam - wait for your turn, don't try hard to toast a woman just wait for your turn - Miss world will one day come loking for you in your hood, with condoms in her handbag.

Great forward thinking

Witty07:
Where is drogba, kalou, gervinho from? Guess china

You're not very knowledgeable about what you're talking about are you.

Ivorien players do play in the EPL, but they did not develop their skills there. Most Ivorien players developed their skills in French academies, the sam that produced the likes of Thuram, Zidane, Henry et all. Academies that emphasised the values of possession, flair and imagination which made France such a force in world football some years back. As for Ghana, many of their players have not headed to the premier league in the same numbers as Nigerian players. But even then the premiership disease is begining to affect them too. With all their talent they have not won the African nations cup in almost 2 decades. As for Zambia most of the team that won them the nations cup last year were local players

GOZILLA: make una no worry. This is spain's time to shine. We will see where they will be in the next six years. My broda, if spanish league is the best,why is their national team made up of more than half of barca and R.madrid players? If a league can only boast of two strong teams,what does that tell you about the league?

You call Athletico Bibao a poor team. Where were you then when the same Bilbao destroyed Man U in the Europa league last season. They owned them over 2 legs without even paying a dowry. They took them to bed morning, afternoon and night and woke them up in the wee hours for saare.

The only thing English clubs have is publicity - because the country's language is also the global lingua franca, so it's easier for them to sell their products. Most commentary is in english. Not that many people speak German or spanish. That is why the premier league dominates the media

GOZILLA: make una no worry. This is spain's time to shine. We will see where they will be in the next six years. My broda, if spanish league is the best,why is their national team made up of more than half of barca and R.madrid players? If a league can only boast of two strong teams,what does that tell you about the league?

You are talking through your hat. Two strong teams ? Athletico Madrid were not even amongst the top 4 in Spain last year and they crushed the so-called Champions of Europe - Chelsea 4-0 in the super cup. Did you watch that match - it was not men against boys - more like men against training cones.

Then take the Europa Cup - a tournament which because it involves the lesser teams in each countries league, showcases much more than the wealthy champions league - the real depth of local talent. For the last 10 years or so that tournament has been owned by Spanish clubs, Seville, valencia and Athletico. Saying that because Real and Barca dominate the spanish league, the others behind them are no good is like saying A person who comes third in the Olympics 100m race will come behind the first 2 in the Oshogbo South 100m race. Or because you are the 3rd best engineer in the one of the top enginnering companies in the world, like Haliburton, you will be behind the top 2 engineers in Burundi Electric power authority - Illogical

Nigerian football is now a joke. Infact it has been so for almost 7 years now. the last time Nigeria put out a decent team, that actually played football was probably 2004.

I have been saying this for the last 5 years, mocked and ridiculed by many - THE PREMIER LEAGUE IS DESTROYING NIGERIAN FOOTBALL.

The style of footbal played in England, based on their culture and climate is alien to us. How many passes did you see that team out there string together. They get the ball to the half way line then hoof it forward Steven gerard style to no one in particular. Thdere was not one player out there who was comfortable in possession, not one who could go one on one with a defender, not one with what used to be an innate ability of the Nigerian player - the ability to control and use, creatively, the ball under pressure. Because all our players now play like Englishmen. All graft and no craft, plenty of pespiration but very little inspiration, a lot of sweat, very little style. No creativity, no invention, no imagination. A creative midfield led by Mikel Obi - a man with not a single assist to his name in almost 6 years at Chelsea. But then his name well known to the African consumers of the premier league (appropriately called by Valdan, poo wrapped in nice packaging) - so good for the advertising boys.

At a time when the possession play of Spain has conquered the world more completely than any other version of the game in history, we are stuck with the stone age variety superbly packaged from England the land of the world's best and most brilliant advertisers, but its worst footbalers.

To see the culture of our football, go to a slum in Lagos and see the level of skill on display. How many long ballls do you see under the bridge, how many kids who can't control a football do you see playing on the street. What we have now is the gentrification of fotball, with many aje butter boys with access to london now securing prominence in the football world over and above many street kids with greater talent.

Nigeria's golden age in football coincided with a time when a connection was made between our street footballers and the national team - in the mid 80's to the mid 90's.

We have now regressed to our colonial football in the 60's to the late 70's, when the national team was dominated by middle class boys from the missionary schools or white collar workers in major establishments klike stationary stores, IICC, Bendel Insurance etc.playing the predictable ponderous football instiled in us by our old English masters. Send the ball to the wing, cross it into the 18 yard box and hope for the best. Good enough to beat the smaller teams but when we ended up against the likes of the Ghana's, guinea's Egypts and Algeria's we got our asess spanked.

Like our newly recolonised econmoy of jobless growth. Our footbal has gone back to the dark ages. I've stopped looking. Sorry to sound chuaavnistic, but the number of fine peperless girls we now see in the stadium looking at Nigerian matches suggests to me that it now is all about owambe - fashion parade - I was there. When a game of the masses becomes a plaything o fthe elite then we need to worry

Nigerian football is now a joke. Infact it has been so for almost 7 years now. the last time Nigeria put out a decent team, that actually played football was probably 2004.

I have been saying this for the last 5 years, mocked and ridiculed by many - THE PREMIER LEAGUE IS DESTROYING NIGERIAN FOOTBALL.

The style of footbal played in England, based on their culture and climate is alien to us. How many passes did you see that team out there string together. They get the ball to the half way line then hoof it forward Steven gerard style to no one in particular. Thdere was not one player out there who was comfortable in possession, not one who could go one on one with a defender, not one with what used to be an innate ability of the Nigerian player - the ability to control and use, creatively, the ball under pressure. Because all our players now play like Englishmen. All graft and no craft, plenty of pespiration but very little inspiration, a lot of sweat, very little style. No creativity, no invention, no imagination. A creative midfield led by Mikel Obi - a man with not a single assist to his name in almost 6 years at Chelsea. But then his name well known to the African consumers of the premier league (appropriately called by Valdan, Shit wrapped in nice packaging) - so good for the advertising boys.

At a time when the possession play of Spain has conquered the world more completely than any other version of the game in history, we are stuck with the stone age variety superbly packaged from England the land of the world's best and most brilliant advertisers, but its worst footbalers.

To see the culture of our football, go to a slum in Lagos and see the level of skill on display. How many long ballls do you see under the bridge, how many kids who can't control a football do you see playing on the street. What we have now is the gentrification of fotball, with many aje butter boys with access to london now securing prominence in the football world over and above many street kids with greater talent.

Nigeria's golden age in football coincided with a time when a connection was made between our street footballers and the national team - in the mid 80's to the mid 90's.

We have now regressed to our colonial football in the 60's to the late 70's, when the national team was dominated by middle class boys from the missionary schools or white collar workers in major establishments klike stationary stores, IICC, Bendel Insurance etc.playing the predictable ponderous football instiled in us by our old English masters. Send the ball to the wing, cross it into the 18 yard box and hope for the best. Good enough to beat the smaller teams but when we ended up against the likes of the Ghana's, guinea's Egypts and Algeria's we got our asess spanked.

Like our newly recolonised econmoy of jobless growth. Our fotbal has gone back to the dark ages. I've stopped looking. Sorry to be chuaavnistic, but the number of fine peperless girls we now see in the stadium looking at Nigerian matches suggests to me that it now is all about owambe - fashion parade - I was there.

TechRev: If you understood what the aim of the Islamist are, you would understand that abstaining from the conflict doesn't guarantee your security. Nigeria made the right decision in sending military support in terms of personnel and equipment. If you do not talk/act when they come for your neighbors, one day they will come for you and you will have no neighbors to act for you.

Yes there may be backlash from that decision but as a president, i will rather keep the Islamists busy in a far away country than have them keep me busy at my own door step. Only that Mali is not that far from Nigeria but still best to take the fight to them.

You are talking twaddle. The same Goodluck now rushing to aid the French in Mali, was the same president who refused to condemn, even openly supported the French aggression 2 years ago in Libya - a war whose dirdect result now is the conflagration in Mali. History did not start with the last CNN baner. It goes back a bit further than that. But it takes a bit of atention and dare I say some brains to understand it properly So lets start with a few elementary questions and answers shall we?

HISTORY 101

QTS 1 Where did the Mali militants get the arms now being used as an excuse for French intervention

ANS 1 - Supplied by the French, British, Americans 2 years ago to fight gaddafi

QTS 2 - How did the islamists now sowing havoc in Mali overthrow gaddafi

ANS 2 - The same French jets now bombing them in Mali, provided the air support toverthrow gadaffi

QTS 3 - Who trained the Mali militants and their cohorts

Ans 3 - The most western friendly monarchy in the middle east - Quatar

QTS 4 How did terrorism find a foothold in North Africa

ANS 4 - in 1992 a free and fair election in Algeria was cancelled because it was won by an islamic party. The Algerian government cancelled under french instructions sparking an islamic insurgency and the beginings of international jihad

Final Qts - How did the father of islamic terror Osama Bin Laden first reach Afghanistan

Final answer - he was taken there with his colleagues by the CIA, MI5 and DST (French intelligence)


Who armed the jihadi's now fighting in Mali

Rossikk:

''Half a trillion dollars blah blah''. What is half a trillion dollars earned over a 50 year period for 167 million people?

The USA makes over 5 times that amount in one single year, yet you're wondering why all Nigerian cities do not look like Los Angeles and New York. Even if ALL the money made by Nigeria in the last 50 years had been invested 'wisely' we would STILL have serious development issues because the wealth we generate is NOT as ''huge'' as mythorians like you like to make out. It will take several decades for Nigeria to become a fully developed nation, and if you cannot wait, there's the door.

At least the Nigerian govt provided mass education plus 120 universities for commoners like you to be educated. The colonial govt that ruled us for 87 years, how many unis did they build in that period despite exploiting and exporting our resources for a century? Answer: 0. What was the literacy rate when they left in 1960? Answer: 7%. Today that figure is 75% courtesy of Nigerian leadership. I've not even began with infrastructure where, incredibly, they left us without a national grid, producing just 270 mw, and without a single expressway, after their 87 year long rule. So count your blessings instead of seeing only bad. We're not where we want to be, but we are moving forward.

I can't remember mentioning Los Angeles and New york. Providing Pipe borne water and elctricity will not make a city look like New york. Just as providing a person 3 basic meals a day is not comparable to a 3 course meal in the ritz. But it is a start. We have not even started

You have not answered my question why not one town in Nigeria has working infrastructure. Surely the hundreds of bilions we have earned in oil should be enough to at least fund a minimum of infrastrutural development in a few towns. Who cares about what happened under the colonial leadership. They came to rape us - we all know that so why use that as a basis of comaprison with people who supppossedly came from amongst us to help us. we did not vote in the colonial leadeship, they never pretended to rule in our name unlike every indigenoues goverment ever since. It is a bit like a mother comparing her contributions to a child's life with that of his step-mother. Surely a more inteligent comparison will be with other mothers. But then I'm not holding my breath.

What about corruption - if according to you we have not got that much money, why is so much of it being stolen? All indices of development show Nigeria lagging behind other nations of its size and resources. Indonesai has a similar population as Nigeria, so does Brazil, perhaps you should visit these countries and see the level of development. Yes they are not New york or Los Angeles, but neither are they lagos or kano.

the nonesense - we are getting there has been the mantra of every Nigeria government since 1960, as they take us round in circles.

calling me a comoner suggest you don't consider yourself one. Probably you are not. maybe you are part of the elite. In other societeis the elite show their pride in what they have developed in their lands. You show your's by comparing your so - called achievements with a colonial master.

It is a bit like a man comparing his love making skills with those of his wife's rapist.

'Why are you complaining' at least i was more sensitive than the armed robber who raped you last week, be a bit more grateful now'


And why have you refused to mention corruption If the money we have is not according to you enough, why is so much of it being stolen.



On the public universities you mentioned - how many of them are being properly funded and have been so for the last 25 years. How many working labs do they have. how does the standard of eductation compare to that of other developing countries.

Malaysia is not a 3rd world country, but about 60 years ago they were at a comparable stage of development as us then.

[quote author=Rossikk][/quote]

Perhaps you should pay more attention.

A couple of years back an entire battallion in Akure mutinied over unpaid nonueses due them from their service on so-callled peace keeping missions. And those are soldiers who are living, what do you think happens to those who are dead. Go to any barracks and ask what happens to the families of police men killed by armed robbers. or what other proof do you want. A police report?. Or an army intelligence file. I'll give you that the day, cats begin to investigate the murder of rats by cats

It is not spiteful to call a thief a theif. The nigerian government is corrupt and has always been corrupt. What is spiteful about describing them the way they are. Why should people who steal money while their people can't get access to pipe borne water, to ggod roads be entitled to any respect.

Nigeria has earned almsot half a trillion dolars in foreign revenue from oil since its discovery in the Niger Delta in the 60's. There is NOT ONE town or City in the country that has a working elctricity, water, sewage or road transport system. Goodluck Jonathan has ruled for at least 5 of those years, so he is culpable. if he is not then let him bring the criminals to book or else be condemed as one of them.

Spiteful allegations against the countries leadership you say - I will say it is more spiteful for a leadership not to do its job - improve the welfare of its people, while engaging in foreign adventures at the behest of foreign powers like France who flooded the region with sophisticated arms after bombing Libya and killing its president and now expect young nigerian men to clear the mess they created with their lives

Don't delude yourself. The amount of force a government can bring to bear on any insurgency is determined by the moral authority of the rulers and the governing class that produced it. In countires like America, Israel and the UK. Soldiers and law enforcement officers willingly put their lives on the line, because they know that whatever happens to them, their families will be taken care of for life.

In Nigeria, dependants of policement and soldiers kiled in the lihne of duty, colapse from hunger on the endless queues fo rtheir salin breadwinners gratutiy. Policement and soldiers families get thrown of the barracks weeks, in some cases days after their family memeber in the force is killed. The money they are entitled to nestling and gaining interest in soe corrupt senior officers account. Is it such an army, that will risk it's lives for the thieves and cowards who send to fight wars, while they send their sons and daughters ot the best schools in Europe with stolen public funds.

It's alright for comfortable middle class arm chair warriors in the big Nigerian cities and the diaspora to demand for war, the soldiers who are going to fight it, many of whom are brave, but not stupid will not gibve their all for political and military leaders whome they know are theives who would loot their death money and watch their children starve. That is the reason why the Nigerian army has been unable to mdefeat Boko Haram on the Niger delta militants. To the uniformed poster who mentioned Odi as an example of the strenght of the Nigerian Army, it was Odi that actually sparked the widespread militancy in the Niger delta. The army used long range artilery to pund Odi, because after scores of Soldiers from the amphibious brigade in Port harcourt were killed in ambush, there was anear mutiny in the bhrigade.

It was fear of more soldiers being kiled in an unfamiliar area that pushed the regime to use long range artillery. It had the opposite effect or sparking an armed uprising al over the Niger delta of youths with nothing to loose.

If you were a soldier would you risk your life for the corrupt rulingb elite ruling this country.

Maybe you need to get off your playstation X box and go into the real world of real mostly underpriviledged and over cheated people the Nigerain army draws its recruits from

Nigeria’s interference in Mali is a foolish and ill thought out intervention on behalf of a colonial power –France and it will end in tears. Ours.

The idea that this will somehow subdue an ideology, Islamism that has thrived on positioning itself as an opposition force to western domination of developing countries is risible. I am no supporter of Islamist jihadism indeed I oppose it, however everywhere it has reared its head spawned by the mass poverty and degradation imposed by corrupt western friendly puppet regimes, western intervention has worsened not solved the problem. Only well governed countries that offer their people a life other than the hell many of them are subjected to can hope to defeat this cancer. Has anybody ever heard of Islamist groups trying to overturn Malaysia, a highly developed Muslim country, or Turkey?
If the better armed, better trained and far more martial Americans could not defeat islamist insurgencies in Afghanistan and Iraq, what hope has the notoriously flaky French , a country that has not on its own won any war in the last 100 years.

The Americans left Iraq under fire, with their enemies the Sunni and Shia Islamist militants still under arms, having lost almost 40,000 causalities – killed and injured. The power of the Sunni insurgency in Iraq, which the now disgraced Patraeus falsely claimed to have defeated, is currently manifesting itself in neighbouring Syria, where the ongoing anti Assad insurrection is largely led by ex Iraqi insurgents who cut their teeth fighting the Americans after the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

Is it not obvious that hundreds of members of Boko Haram will now go to fight in Mali and return battle hardened, better trained and armed.
Was it not the French led intervention in Libya that brought about the current debacle in Mali. Gadaffi was no islamist. He was actually one of their most determined enemies. The Americans, French and British armed thousands of his Islamist enemies provided them air support sweeping them all the way to Tripoli. The same people emboldened by their victory in Libya are now extending their reach south to Black Africa, with their former western supporters patrons now returning to stop the expansion of Islamic terror they unleashed in the first place! The hypocrisy is staggering.

Mali is a massive country. Can France hope to police the entire land mass of this desert region when the Islamist retreat from the cities to start an insurgency in the countryside. Or will they hand it over to the Nigerian army to bleed them for years as they were bled in Liberia and Sierra Leone.

Let’s not forget that the United States initially supported Charles Taylor’s rebellion against Samuel Doe, the victory of which sparked a bloodbath across the region engulfing Sierra Leone and Guinea in horror. Thousands of Nigerian soldiers died to help halt it. Then the British landed in Freetown for a photo shoot.
However unlike the bandits of the RUF and NPLF, the Malian rebels, regardless of how distasteful they are do have a cause which from experience they will not tire of. So unlike the Sierra Leone or Liberian rebels they will not be bought off.

This invasion of Mali by France will lead to a bloodbath across the region. Thousands of jihadist from across the world will make their way to Mali, bringing techniques, skills and know how from Somalia, Afghanistan, Iraq and Yemen to our backdoor. Even if they don’t ultimately win they will make the country ungovernable. To reduce its own casualties and the political costs back home France will rely increasingly on air power and high explosives. Ultimately there will be heavy casualties turning civilians against the intervention.
From Mali, battle hardened militants, their;’credential s’ boosted by fighting a first world power would make their way across Africa and Nigeria will be next.
Those cheering this intervention have forgotten something. The French are able to protect themselves from the resultant blowback. Can we?

Can a Country unable to defend itself from armed teenagers in the delta and armed street boys in the north – a Government so weak that it has to bribe rebels to lay down their arms because it hasn’t the political, moral and military muscle to crush, can such a country hope to deal with the blowback we can expect from this foolish piece of grandstanding by Goodluck.
The idea that an islamist takeover of Mali will spread terror across the region betrays a lack of real understanding of the dynamics of radical movements. Nothing tames radicalism as much as the responsibility imposed by power. Insurgents are dangerous because they have no fixed address. Blowing up buildings is easier than fixing pot holes in the roads or providing basic necessities to the people.

More importantly having a government with officials who have known addresses and can be targeted means once in power radical regimes tend to tone down their external interferences in order to avoid massive retribution, they can no longer escape by being permanently underground
Hamas in power is less dangerous than Hamas as opposition. The islamists in Libya spurned power for this very reason. The same will happen in Syria when Assad falls.
This is not about stopping the spread of so-called Jihadism in the region. It is about maintaining French colonial control over its West African client states. Nothing more. The Nigerian army is merely a pawn in this game.

Of the many imposing figures bestriding the rich tapestry of its not too recent history, the Yoruba’s, unique in their intriguing propensity to produce commanding and divisively contentious historic characters of a power and presence to match the energy of their tumultuous times, the Yoruba’s will be hard put to identify a man whose colossal impact on his era and the subsequent history of his people reverberates with a force as unanswerable as that of the last great Prime Minister of the once mighty Oyo Empire – Bashorun Gaa.


His notoriety steeped in the bloody regicide of four kings and the reach of his alleged tyranny to every corner of the vast empire he once so totally dominated, places him at the very peak of the pantheon of Yoruba pantomime villains, above the infamous clutches and not insubstantial claims of the likes of Kosoko King of Lagos, Madam Tinunbu of the same city, Afonja and Solagberu the renegades of Ilorin and Efunsetan Aniwura the feared Iyalode of Ibadan. Gaa was the Prime Minster of Oyo whose reign preceded its collapse and the fall of Yoruba land into a century of revolution and bloody chaos which would only end at the dawn of the British conquest towards the end of the 19th century.


Gaa who reigned towards the end of the 18th century was a man of immense force and personal magnetism. A leader of men not afraid of controversy or open conflict. He was also clearly authoritarian and combative, his name evoking fear and hatred amongst many who denounced his renown ruthlessness and alleged personal cruelty as sufficient proof of his political and historical perfidy. But history is never that simple, nor does the interrelationship between its personalities and politics lend itself to the easy certainties of facile moralising. History is a story, but a story book it is not. Its rules follow the iron logic of necessity that prescribe the immutable laws of social evolution, complete with its treacheries and intrigues, its cruelties and passions. It is messy, it is bloody. Bedtime reading for the faint hearted it is most certainly not. Unlike fairy tales the outcome is not predetermined to soothe, its characters not created to comfort through the easy categorisation of good and evil, wicked and righteous, denuded of social content and historical context. Historical characters are complex and their actions are informed by the historical role they play. Their morality weighed on the scales of the shifting equilibrium of social and national struggles. Who is more virtuous a ‘wicked’ man thrust to the forefront of a progressive ideal or a ‘good one’ burdened with the imperatives of a championing a retrograde cause.


A TYRANT OR FIGHTER AGAINST TYRANNY
Was Gaa a tyrant, or was he, albeit ruthlessly, a fighter against royal tyranny. Was Gaa trying to usurp the royal power in Oyo, or was he resisting its attempts; outstripping its constitutional power, to control, beyond what had hereto been historically acceptable, the society it had raised itself above. Was he a villain or was he a victim? If this argument might seem revisionist, it is because it is. If accepted history is the story of the victor, then it cannot justifiably lay claim to the last word on its legacy. Or as was so memorably intoned in the prologue to the epic film on the war of Scottish liberation, Brave heart, – History is often a story told by those who have hanged heroes.
Yoruba history like that of most pre-colonial African societies was recorded orally, verbalised by full time poets who earned their keep ministering to the land’s royal houses, none of whom had any reason to remember the great usurper with affection. It was later transcribed into the written word by the far from neutral pens of the first western trained missionaries and teachers, men like Ajayi Crowther and Samuel Johnson, the new Christians who shared the prejudices, preconceptions and purposes of the foreign empire they served. An empire whose emerging, still contested dominance demanded a corresponding revision of its newly conquered lands history, promoting a narrative favourable to local royalty and the absolutism of crowned heads without whose cooperation the cornerstone of colonialism – Indirect rule through a single unchallenged despot, dressed up in the paraphernalia and pomp of historic legitimacy, would founder on the rock of the lawlessness and rebellion which had engulfed Yoruba land for well neigh a century.


To understand history, it is not enough to understand personalities, it is necessary to understand, fully understand, the environment they lived and operated in, to comprehend the social currents and forces the interplay of which alone determined their actions. To understand bashorun Gaa, we need to understand not the morality or otherwise of this undoubtedly flawed figure or even his enemies, but the society they lived and died in, its struggles, its wars and above all the complex socio economic forces that force people, nations and personalities into bloody collision.


THE OYO EMPIRE
At its height, from the 16th to 18th century, the Oyo Empire was the most feared force along the western coast of Africa, stretching from borders of modern day Ghana in the west to the ancient Benin kingdom in the east, it was centred on the old city of Oyo, a walled metropole which had long been the most powerful of the Yoruba settlements in the south-western part of the territory of modern day Nigeria. While self serving myths imply its prominence to the ancestry of Oranyan, the most beloved grandson of the legendary founder of the Yoruba race, Oduduwa, its geography offers a more prosaically accurate if less fantastic pointer to the reasons behind its emergence as a regional power house in its own right. It was strategically located on the vast plains of the guinea savannah, offering a natural platform for trade, communication and conquest, far more favourable than the sites of its sister Yoruba settlements such as the Ijebu's and Egba's tucked deeper into the forests to its south or the Ekiti’s hemmed into their mountain ranges to its east. The city of Oyo, seizing advantage of its open surroundings quickly mastered the use of that universal instrument of military conquest, the horse, spreading its formidable reach across most of the region, reducing town after town to subjection and tributary status.


The complexity of a society’s structure like that of every living organism evolves to match the dynamic of its ever developing daily functions. Therefore compared to the smaller surrounding towns and settlements, Oyo developed a governmental apparatus of a certain subtlety and sophistication. With its rising prosperity increasingly stratifying society along socially hierarchical and invariably antagonistic lines, potentially concentrating too much power in too few hands; inevitably empowering the most privileged - the royal households from whose ranks the Alaafin and other important chiefs were chosen, a committee of seven lesser nobles, representing the seven districts of the city were constituted into an advisory cum legislative body, called the Oyo mesi, headed by a titled chief called the Bashorun.


To further check the potential for royal absolutism, the princes of the royal families, while trained in the use of arms were prevented from active service in the powerful army whose officers owed their promotion and privileges to the leaders of the civil authority – the Oyo mesi and its head the bashorun, effectively separating royal and military power. This was a crucial distinction whose pivotal historic significance would only become clear with the final defeat of Gaa, when the country would be plunged into the hands of powerful warlords, many of whom, like Edun of Gbongan, Afonja and Solagberu of Ilorin and Timi of Ede would legitimise their unchecked rapacity through strong links to the various Yoruba royal lineages.


While many have described the Alaafin as a toothless tiger in a decorated cage, the evidence implies he was not as impotent as myth suggests. He held the power to declare war and levy and collect taxes through a network of agents called illari scattered across the empire. The power to raise money and declare war was thus concentrated in royal not civil hands. The ultimate check on the power of the princes or akeyo of the royal families was the power of rejection held by the Oyo mesi under the bashorun or the power to force an oppressive king to abdicate by taking his own life.


Seeing that the seven chiefs of the Oyo mesi had authority over the seven districts inhabited by the commoners of the city, it would follow that however indirectly they would express the popular will much more accurately than the relatively less accountable princes of the royal households, many of whom would ruthlessly exploit their commercial privileges, such as paying lower than the market rate for commodities, in building up economic empires of a scale and power that would threaten and later shatter the threadbare social contract established in Oyo’s early days between the emerging social groups and to which the Oyo mesi was the most determined defender. However the very nature of this system was based on a tension which never too far from the surface, and rapidly rendered obsolete by the unstoppable force of changing socio-economic circumstances, offering opportunities to some and posing threats to others, was bound sooner or later to explode into open civil violence and strife.


As is usually the case this point was reached in Oyo with the sudden arrival of new and previously undreamed of wealth, from a source few could have imagined would yield such riches at so little expense – the bounty of the vast ocean with its endless traffic in humans – the trans Atlantic trade


THE RISE OF THE TRANS ATLANTIC SLAVE TRADE AND THE POWER STRUGGLE IT PROVOKED IN OYO
Slavery had been a mainstay of the Oyo economy for generations increasing in profile and prominence as the city expanded its power and territory. All the noble classes including members of the Oyo mesi owned and traded in slaves. But the industrial scale of the new trade, unlike anything ever seen before opened up opportunities for the wealthier classes in the Empire that by their position, organisation, privileges and connections the royal party was best placed to exploit.


Commerce was the oil that lubricated the machinery of the empire, fostering travel, trade and communication across its towns and villages. As the consequent prosperity flourished so did the machinery of government required to administer the ever expanding empire grow in complexity and organisation, an administration which in the hands of the ubiquitous and powerful Illari’s or king’s representatives and tax collectors gave the palace and royal princes a major economic advantage in the emerging struggle for wealth and power in the empire. The royal princes with their blood and social connections to the royal families of the various provincial towns and cities across the realm also had a ready made network to exploit to the maximum the opportunities posed by the new trade.


This was not the result of any organised conspiracy, but a natural by product of economic expansion in any environment. Economic growth particularly from a low threshold is an impersonal and inexorable force demanding an efficiency much more easily supplied by an authoritarian rather than a collegiate state. The demands of managing a vast and far flung empire, of collecting taxes, administering trade and imposing law and order, of monitoring and managing hundreds and hundreds of disputes, small and large, between diverse communities, of the day to day tasks of running a complex and increasingly hierarchical empire, of achieving equilibrium between the centrifugal and centripetal forces whose tensions keep an empire together are of a scale beyond the scope of any committee regardless of how august. It takes an emperor to rule an empire. Hence, increasingly, real power devolved to the hands of the Alaafin, his illaris, the provincial leaders and the power on whose back the empire increasingly rested – the Army chiefs, amongst whom were counted many provincial chiefs, such as the Onikoyi of Ikoyi and the Timi of Ede.


Invariably the civil authority of the still powerful but increasingly marginalised Oyo mesi and the metropolitan chiefs was challenged by a royal party and provincial leadership who by their position had cornered to the detriment of the Bashorun and his followers much of the new wealth. The scene was set for a showdown. With the rise of the forceful and powerfully assertive Gaa to the post of Bashorun, it became inevitable. Five Alaafin's, Labisi, Awonbioju, Agboluaje, Majeogbe and Abiodun were raised to the throne under Gaa four of whom were later disposed.


THE RISE AND FALL OF GAA
The simplistic conventional narrative of Gaa’s supposed tyranny suggests they were removed, killed or forced to commit suicide as a result of the Bashorun’s caprice or the cruel vagaries of his mercurial temperament. But this does not explain the acquiescence of the 6 remaining members of the Oyo mesi, powerful men in their own rights with substantial local followings without whose backing Gaa would have been dangerously isolated.


Another issue long ignored by the anti Gaa School has been the popular mood of the ordinary people of Oyo which seems at this point to have been largely suspicious of the royal party, as a result of a series of despotic and oppressive Alaafins in the period leading up the emergence of Gaa. These included Alaafin Amuniwaiye, known for ravishing the wives of his underlings and allegedly as malicious myth go the first Alaafin caught, literarily in the act by Magun. A fable suggesting just how low in esteem of the people the rapacious alaafins had become. Alaafin Gberu an oppressive tyrant ultimately rejected by the Oyo Mesi, Alaafin Osinyago and his immediate successor, Ayibi, both brutal and corrupt despots all of whom were rejected and overthrown just before the rise of Gaa.


The most comprehensive account of Yoruba history to date, Rev Samuel Johnson’s tome with its fervent anti Gaa bias was forced to admit in Chapter V page 178 –“Gaa had great influence with the people and a great many followers who considered themselves safe under his protection from the dread in which they stood of kings because of their cruel and despotic rule”

It is in this light that the emergence of this powerful prime minister has to be seen, with the popular will demanding an assertive and powerful personality in the position of Prime Minister or bashorun to check the growing abuse and oppression of royal power.


This is not to say the Bashorun or Oyo mesi were disinterested saints. They were but a section of an increasingly powerful and arrogant ruling party, which however due to its connections to the poorer classes whose interests it was forced to reflect in order to better defend its own, were forced to confront the palace on behalf of an oppressed people facing up to an increasingly out of control royal authority treating its interests with the same contempt as it did those of the noble classes cut off from the network of royal patronage.


It was said of Gaa that he created a parallel administration mirroring the structure and spread of the palace officials and ubiquitous Illari’s or the kings provincial representatives, a network spread across the realm comprised of his sons and supporters who took upon themselves the responsibilities of levying taxes and dispensing justice, supplanting the king’s officers across the empire. The Bashorun had become a law onto himself. The kings who opposed or resisted his power were either killed or forced to kill themselves.


Again rather than a convincing charge sheet these facts only point to the depth of the power struggle that gripped Oyo in an era of unprecedented wealth from its entry into the Trans Atlantic slave trade. Trade, particularly foreign commerce had been a particular monopoly of the princely cast or the akeyo, who had distinct commercial privileges denied to the other classes. It was inevitable that they and the provincial chiefs and crowned heads with whom they had strong links of blood and lineage would corner most of the new wealth at the detriment of the non royal nobility whose metropolitan authority in the old city now seem dated and overtaken by a fluid and rapidly changing economic situation. Hence the attempt by the metropolitan chiefs under the Bashorun to extend, ‘unconstitutionally, their local authority across the empire to effectively combat the power and connections of the royal party


GAA’S REGICIDE
Gaa’s regicide like that of similar upstarts in aristocratic states, such as Cromwell in 17th century England and the Jacobins in revolutionary France, who all gained undying infamy by separating monarchs from their crowned heads only seems abhorrent when seen through the eyes of the incorrigible royal romanticist, not those of practical men of action and politics in similarly unforgiving environments. There was no other way of removing an absolutist king except by killing him. If a King proved despotic as there is ample evidence most of the Alaafin’s, even predating Gaa, did, they couldn’t be voted out, nor pushed aside. A king once crowned cannot be dethroned. Hence the old law of abdication meaning death or suicide. In pursuing this Gaa was only showing a will and decisiveness to push through his policy of checking royal absolutism through the only means possible – death. That this in the end did not prove sufficient only reflects the depths of degeneracy of the royal caste, how deep the corruption had eaten into the fabric of the state with the removal of individual kings doing nothing to deter those who followed them from taking the same path of absolutism the new changed situation demanded. It also showed the utter futility of Gaa’s brave but ill-fated opposition to the increasing absolutism of the royal party. He was a representative of a bygone era, a more simple age of small town politics in an epoch of where the insatiable demand from across the seas for slaves on an industrial scale and the unimaginable wealth it brought in its wake had rendered the old borders, the old structures, assumptions and certainties redundant and obsolete. The age of the dictator and the warlord had arrived. Gaa and his constitutionalists had become yesterday’s men.


THE CRUSHING OF GAA AND THE OLD SYSTEM
Contrary to established myth there is little evidence that Gaa’s fall came about through a popular rising of the supposedly oppressed masses across the empire. Finally coming against an Alaafin, Abiodun, who matched the increasingly aged Bashorun in wit, cunning and ruthlessness, Gaa fell to a well crafted and concealed conspiracy whose success rested on an alliance of the Royal princes with the provincial kings, subject to the capital, and who also provided the bulk of its military muscle. The uprising in Oyo itself would have failed had not the provincial chiefs led by Oyabi, the Aare ona kakanfo or head of the imperial army marched on the capital for the first time in Oyo’s history. Seeing that the officer class and imperial staff – the Eso where well represented in the capital as were many ordinary soldiers, it seems the need for outside intervention which in the end proved crucial to the royal party’s triumph would suggest a lack of real support for the royal cause within Oyo or significant support for the Bashorun.


Whatever the reason there is a broad consensus that the resistance by Gaa and his supporters in the City was ferocious and only put down after intense and savage fighting. Again the strength of the resistance against what were clearly overwhelming odds implies men fighting not just for their lives but for something they felt was worth laying them down for. Gaa’s family and supporters were slaughtered across the breath of the empire. The Bashorun himself was taken alive, tortured, publicly humiliated and burnt at the stake, the taunts of his royalist enemies ringing in his ears as he died.


WITH GAA DIED THE EMPIRE
With him died the old empire and the power of civil authority that had underpinned it. The Oyo mesi never recovered, the people were cowed into submission before the triumphant princes and provincial kings. The consequence of his defeat was a new unchallenged absolutism by the Alaafin and the princes together with the increasingly unchecked power of the provincial kings and army leaders with their increasingly loud demands of independence from Oyo. As the price for their support in crushing Gaa and the old order. The Alaafin had won but his victory would prove pyrrhic for the royal line.

The next time the imperial army would march on the capital, this time led by Afonja, the Kakanfo, who succeeded Oyabi; it would come not to support the king, but to claim his head. The revolution had begun

The new struggle was now one between the centre at Oyo and the newly emboldened provincial kings and army chiefs. It would end up tearing the empire apart and hurling the entire kingdom into a century of revolution and turmoil that would only end with the arrival of the British who tiring of the impact of the chaos on the unimpeded commerce their new industries in Lancashire demanded, imposed a peace on a region exhausted by endless struggle strife and conflict.

I feel this post is a trifle foolish.

If you have lived in a country where everybody is treated fairly,wherebasic rights are respecvted,where you can get job on merit not rely on an uncles letter,or Godfather's message where women can hope to be promoted without opening their legs to their managers. where theives are in prison not in power then its hard nottolookback at wasted youth its hard nottolook back in anger

If diasporean Nigerians werea hated nigeria why would they bother with coming to sites like naira land. They come because having seen the way advanced societies are organised, they feel angry that socieites without half the resources we have are doing so much better.

In reality those in the Diaspora represent the cream of Nigerian society.There are thousands of Nigerians in the west working in variety of professional felids, finance, engineering, teaching, engineering IT,Project Management etc. Many performing briliiantly in asociety where african migrants are at the bottom of the food chain. I can assureyou that unlike in Nigeria EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM GOT THEIR JOB ON MERIT. You know why becos no whiteman is going to act as a Godfather to a black african in the west. Lets be honest togood jobs in Nigeria go tothe best candidate.

If you see any Nigerian holding down a good job in the west one thing is clear he gotthe job and is keeoping it because he orshe deserves it..Can you say the same thing of all professionals in Nigeria

Many diasporeans are bitter because a lot of them were denied opportunities they deserved in Nigeria to the advantage ofthe well onnected, but not necessarily more deserving people abroad and securing even better opportunities on merit makes you look back in anger.

I know of a chemical engineer who went foran interview in Chevron Nigeria - he had a good first degree from a reputable iversity in Nigeria.He did notget the job and he found a out that a lot of less deserving people wereemployed including humanities gradutaes in a technical ield.

He challenged this with the American recruiter who told him he simply wasn'tgood enough for them.

He finally madeit abroa,got ajob in Chevron's head office - did very well and was quickly promoted. One day he went for aseminar in Toronto and metthe samelady whoinsulted himin Nigeria. He was handling a class in the seminar - she was one ofhis students .Its hard nottolook back in anger at that kind of society

If you feel all nigerians abroad arewashing plates then you are living in the past.In London which Iam familiar with there is no local government no hospital, bank, insurance company IT company where Nigerians are not holding their own in responsible and professionall positions against the best brains in the world.London is the business centre of the world.

And if you are an immigrant working abroad you will WORK -there is no big brother to gocry to if you don't perform

How could Awolowo have taken the west out of the federation when he had no political control in the region at the time. Ojukwu could secede because he held political control in the east during the crisis He controlled the civil service,the police,judiciary and the treasury in his region -allthe levers of politicalpower without which the best and most honorable political plans amount to little less than political masturbation. Awolowo controlled nothing and nobody beyond his personal compound. The west was leaderless because it's Governor,Ojukwus equivalent in the west, Lt. Col A|dekunle Fajuyi, had been killed in the July Counter coup (as it turned out protecting the Igbo head of state Maj Gen Aguyi Ironsi) that sparked the progroms which led to the civil war. If Ojukwu had been killed in that coup, as he could conceiveably been have, would Awolowo's political equivalent in the east, the equally popular and equally powerless Nnamdi Azikwe have been able to take the east out of the federatiobn. If Ojukwu had been killed in the July counter Coup and a Pro - Oligarchy Igbo officer (and lets not fool ourselves that if Ojukwu had been killed along with Ironsi and Fajuyi, there would not have been a queue of igbo officers willing to take his place and do the North's bidding) If Ojukwu had been killed in the July 1966 bloodfest,there would have been no secession. Fact

True Awolowo displayed his opportunism when he joined the federal cabinet to prosecute its war of aggression against Biafra, however he was only displaying a trait quite common to pioliticians of his age and era. Let's not forget that the Igbo political class had shown a similar shamelessness and lack of principle when they remained in alliance with the Northern Leadership in the NPC in 1963 even as they imposed using state power the hated Akintola on the region throwing the west into chaos. Ibo leaders also looked the other way when the fuedal establsihment imposed on the country by the British framed and Jailed Awolowo and other yoruba political leaders decapitating the wests political leadership and allowing the internal occupation of Yoruba land by the North's placemen . At independence the Ibo political class spurned Awo's offer of a progressive alliance between the Southern nationalists who had fought for independence to contest power at the centre and prevent the British puppets in the North who had fouught against independence from reaping the rewards from it.Azikiwe and Okpara refused and entered into alliance with their enemies in the NPC and helped prevent a progressive government in Nigeria at its birth,allowing state power to fall into the hands ofthe country's most retrogade and retrogressive section with devasting future consequences for the country in general and the igbos in particular. If the NCNC and AG had won poweratthe centrein 1960,there wouldhave benn no coup in 1966 and the north would not have been able to frustrate the country's democratic evolution since they would not have been in aposition todominate the army by overidding merit

The Northern Monster that devoured the Igbo from 1966 - 70 was fed,indulged and feted by the igbo leadership for half a decade before it turned on its people. They have nobody else to blamea butthemselves

As for the civil war itself, It was Ojukwu's hair brained plan to invade the west in 1967 that brought the Yorubas to the Side of the North,not Awolowo's undoubted opportunism.


If igbo soldiers had occupied Lagos,they would never have left - why leave the richest part of the country when it had fallen into your hands. The world does not work that way. The yoruba people wouldhave traded aNorthern ocupation for an eastern one with the addedd disadvantage of adestructive waron their land for the purpose of exchanghing one oppression for the other.The choice forthe yorubas was Hausa occupation with no destruction oribo occupation with destruction - a No brainer The Biafran invasion of the west was an act of crass stupidity, that succeeded in throwing the yoruba people behind a faltering federal war effort and lost the east the war. It was a strategic blunder of the Biafran high command, a blunder of the highest order

The notoriously indecisive Ibo political leadership, historically the most inept and least strategically astute in the country with an unparralled record of defeat and failure largely obscured by its almost neurotic penchant to indulge in endless self pity was solely responsioble for the Biafran defeat. You do not appeal to the sympathy of other regions by invading their terriotry. The Biafran war was not lost in Enugu,Port harcourt or the bloody battles in Owerri. It was lost in the early days when the first Biafran shelll landed in Ore. Ojukwu clearly did not take his tactical lessons in Sandhurst very seriously if he had he wouldnot have attcked the west to fight the north, because by doing so he ended up uniting 2regions against one. But then although brilliant in business Political strategy has never been the strong point of the politically promiscous but incapable Ibo elite

"This writer must be a big fool for his continuous usage of Ibo instead of Igbo"

Semantics idiot, although I suppose its easier talking about that than discussing the real issues. For the mentally indolent, trivia like this is understandably far more stimulating.

Regarding the other posters, on this issue who have adopted the tone of exasperated indifference to a suppossedly overflogged issue - it shows how far we have to travel. You see that is our history and until we make sense of it, yes and that can only be achived through intellectual conflict no mater how difficult that might be. We won't move forward.

A war was fought and whether we like it or not the issues that led to that war being fought are still with us today and even if they weren't - every serious society constantly studies and asseses its history. There is no advanced country in the world today, The United States, the Uited Kingdom, Russia, China or japan where major flashpoints in its history are not studied and debated oer again and again. The french revolution is as topical in France today as it was when it occurred 200 years ago, the British never tire of debating the second world war, the Chinese, the achivements and mistakes of Mao. That is what great countries do, that is how they develop. they don't white wash history, they don't ignore it, they constantly investigate and study it and that is done through debate.

I know it might be mentally tasking, but for those fearful of such exertion I know there is a Nololywood section somewhere on this site, direct your attentions there.

Of course debates on nigeria arouse passions, anger and partisanship. TWell that's how the truth emerges. As a popular yoruba saying goes, if two brothers always emerge from their discussions wreathed in smiles they have said everything to each other apart from the truth.

If this country is going to develop if we are going to provide a tomorrow better for our kids than our today, we have to discuss the mistakes of our fathers and learn from it. The only way the human race has developed to do this is through debate. You cant stabnd the heat - get out of the kitchen

The most enduring accusation against Obafemi Awolowo, particularly by many Ibo pundits was his refusal to support the Biafran secession, as he had allegedly promised its Leader Emeka Ojukwu, by taking the west out of the British contraption called Nigeria at the same time as the eastern secession
This accusation has become so embedded in the political history of the country, that one thing which seems to be ignored by both its pro and antagonists is whether the Yoruba leader actually had any power at the time to secede with the west.
In a way this is a compliment to the colossal political impact of a man whose support amongst the masses of his region on account not of his charisma but his centre left polices is unrivalled for its sustained fervour in the nation’s history.
The fact that he was adjudged powerful enough to remove the west from the federation merely by willing it. But in politics will is crystallised in reality through the structures of the state.and in 1966 Awolow was in control of nothing beyond his own compound
All revolutionaries or radical change seekers might have the best and most noble ideas, the greatest vision but without being in control of political power it remains just that a vision. Gani Fawehinmi was probably more principled than Awolowo, more passionate, but his inability to muster his undoubted popularity into a force capable of galvanising the people and himself to a position where he could actually practise what he preached, something Awolowo did at;east in the western region, means Awolowo would always be the greater historical figure even if Gani can be adjudged possibly the more ethical man.
But in 1966 during the araba riots in the north which led to the Civil war Awolowo who had just been relapsed from prison by the Gowon regime had no political control in the western region, so how could he have seceded with the west even if he wanted to.

The only regional governor killed in the July 1966 coup was the western region Governor, Lt Col Adekunle Fajuyi. An Awolowo supporting officer who sacrificed his life defending his boss and Ibo head of state – Aguyi-Ironsi. Having lost two leaders in 6 months to violent coups, the west after the July 1966 coup was leaderless. Awolowo was still popular, but how could a man who did not control a single civil service stenographer or government clerk actually secede.
How practically would that have been done? what civil servant would have prepared the speech, who would have done the million practical things required to effect a new state, from paying the invoice for the new flag, to changing all government letter heads, not to talk of effecting the normal procees of government.

Ojukwu could secede because he had political control in the east, not because he was any braver than Awolowo. The new Governor in the west Col Adebayo was the first in a long line of Yoruba military officers who would go on to make a fortune by pandering to the feudal north. Unlike fajuyi he had no truck with progressive ideas. Infact by the end of the civil war all the most progressive Yoruba officers, most of whom hated the Northern oligarchy and its local satrapies, Banjo, Ademoyega, Oyewole and fajuyi were either dead or marginalised.
Let’s be honest there would have been no shortage of ambitious Ibo military officers who would have accepted his post on the terms of the north. So

So the question is how in practical terms could Awolowo have seceded like Ojukwu did when he had no political control over his region.

hello Guys/Girls

I am curently writing a play and need help with native male Ogoni names - any sugestions. The play would include a character (male) from Ogoni land

[b][/b]If you need to go back to school, please do so, cause you sound so much like one of the goofballs who think all laws and rules we live by today fell automagically from the sky.

Yes, slavery was once legal on this planet. In fact Africans, who you probably think where the only victims of the slave trade openly traded slaves for much of their history. If you cannot deal with then then, again, I suggest you stay away from issues you are unable/unwilling to wrap your mind around.

Stop coming up with some more lame-brained analogies please. You are making me feel more and more that you are probably not full-developed up in the head.[b]If you need to go back to school, please do so, cause you sound so much like one of the goofballs who think all laws and rules we live by today fell automagically from the sky.

Yes, slavery was once legal on this planet. In fact Africans, who you probably think where the only victims of the slave trade openly traded slaves for much of their history. If you cannot deal with then then, again, I suggest you stay away from issues you are unable/unwilling to wrap your mind around.

Stop coming up with some more lame-brained analogies please. You are making me feel more and more that you are probably not full-developed up in the head.[/b]If you need to go back to school, please do so, cause you sound so much like one of the goofballs who think all laws and rules we live by today fell automagically from the sky.

Yes, slavery was once legal on this planet. In fact Africans, who you probably think where the only victims of the slave trade openly traded slaves for much of their history. If you cannot deal with then then, again, I suggest you stay away from issues you are unable/unwilling to wrap your mind around.

Stop coming up with some more lame-brained analogies please. You are making me feel more and more that you are probably not full-developed up in the head.

The African trans atlantic slave trade in his industrial scale brutality, is widely regarded as almost genocidal in its impact on an entire people. Uncounted millions died on the ships and in the plantations. On a scale of savagery, unparalled and unprecedented it stands alone. No other epoch of slavery in human history comes close. even begins to come close.

If historical crimes are determined by what was legally permissible at a particular point in history, then it means no historical crime can be considered a crime since the powers of the period for obvious reasons legitimised it.

Crimes, slowpoke are determined not just by what the rule books written by the criminals said, but by the impact on the victim. For people like you whose understanding of history is what was written for you by those who enslaved your fathers - little can be done. You probably think Mungo Park discovered River Niger and that Jesus Christ was a blue eyed, blond Caucasian when there is no historical example of any human with such caucasian features existed at the time in Palestine.

But then those are the pictures you saw in the story book from England when you were growing up so they must be true.

I used to think Uncle Tom lived and died in the US. seems he is alive, well and writes on this board.

Again, When George Washington owned slaves, it was LEGAL to own slaves in America. If you are having a hard time wrapping your mind around that, please consult the law of the time. I know to such ignorant minds such as yourself facts like these essentially fly over you. Gassing and incinerating of humans was never legal in Germany, so please stay away from the bubble-brained comparisons.

Slavery was outlawed in the 1800s. A simply try to google would help educate you.


Your logic is warped if 'legality' the enshrined will of power (unnacountable or not, democratic or not) is the sole determinant of what is right or what is wrong, then we will havwe to re-write human history in its entirety.

It would mean that it was RIGHT to jail Nelson Mandela for 27 years, since at the time - IT WAS LEGAL TO JAIL 'TERRORISTS'.

It would mean that there was nothing wrong with Apartheid since at the time it segregation was LEGAL in South Africa

It would mean that the June 12 Annulment was right because at the time based on the right to make law by the internationally recognised government in Nigeria _ that of Ibrahim Babangida

It would mean that Rosa Parks was wrong not to give up her seat for a white man since at the time it WAS LEGAL for black people to give up their seats to white ones in the American south.


Now where do I stop.

I don't need to consult unatributable google sources before I know what I'mm talking about - Like most people I had an education independent of lazy surfing of the internet quoting and misquoting unreferenced paragraphs.

It is a sad commentary on our colonial education system when you see an African adult justifying one of the worst atrocities ever against his race and indeed agaisnt humanity - the Trans Atlantic slave trade - the effects of which we are still suffering today (you being a perfect example) by saying it was LEGAL at the time. Of course it was legal - because the slave masters made it so !!!

Like an obedient house nigger you quote the main justification of the apologists of the slave trade that forcefully removed over 100 million Africans from their land to racial bondage abroad by saying we also had slavery in Africa. Are there any levels low enough for you to plumb

Yes we did have slavery in Africa but it was of a totally different nature than the horrific western version. The slaves in Africa could rise socially, some of the most important minsterial positions in the Old Oyo empire fror example were reserved for slaves - inlcuding most of the high palace officlas - the head of the army - the Kakanfo, was usually a person born into slavery. Slaves in Africa could own property and many of the more enterprising ones became very rich. The essence of slavery in the west was that slaves could not own property since the slaves themselves were PROPERTY. Slaves in many African societies were regarded as part of the family and were regularly alowed to marry into it. The slaves had rights which is were the yoruba saying of o le bu iya eru (you cannot abuse a slaves mother) came from

There were no such rights for Africans held in bondage in the west. They were treated worst than dogs. Thousands were thrown overboard on the ships, virtually all the women were gang raped on the ships and on the field, there was no hope of social mobility and the slaves had NO RIGHTS. It was hell on earth. A few slaves were brought into the house and tossed a few crumbs - they were called house niggers - those 'promoted' slaves who took great pride in cleaning the masters toilet and backside rather than cutting his fields. You want to know what they looked like - you don't need to go far - take a look in the nearest mirror.

Sorry, this does not work.

When George Washington owned Slaves, it was LEGAL to own slaves in America

Oh, really, in the same vein when Adolf Hitler gassed 6 million jews in his cincentration camps - it was legal to kill jews in Germany. So he did no wrong then.

to such warped conclusions does your logic lead. Please don't ever go to America and tell the African americans what you just said on this board, you might not like their reaction

Were dun wo ni oja, ko sebi lomo (we all applaud the antics of the bold and unconventional, but would not want to share a name with them)

That is the only way to describe the juvenile reaction of Unilag students to the renaming of their school to honour a man who laid down his life in the struggle against dictatorship. There have been a lot of spurious arguments not least on this board defending the students and condemning the name change Let us examine them


STUDENTS WERE NOT CONSULTED - Kongi wades in

24 hours before the name change, most of those demonstrating students would probably have sworn by MKO and June 12. However when called upon to put their money where their mouth is, they revealed their cowardice and treachery.

Many of them have been emboldened by the statements of our dear old kongi - Prof Wole Soyinka and have concealed their selfish reasons for not wanting the name change behind the supposedly undemocratic nature of the change

However apart from the Pyrates Confraternity, who did Wole consult in the populace before he unleashed his zealous road safety corps on us. Did he consult the key stakeholders (Nigerian motorists) before he took a dictators gold and set up his road safety brigade in the 90’s.

If GEJ had decided to award the students #1m naira bursary each, would they have rejected it because he did not consult them beforehand.


UNILAG IS A BRAND NAME

Of course it is, but you have to be alive and safe before you can enjoy any brand. If the military had not been forced out in 1999, this country would have been engulfed in a civil war of proportions so horrific it would have made what happened in Sierra Leone and Liberia look like a Sunday school outing. If a democratic way had not worked in removing IBB/Abacha and Abiola’s refusal to surrender his mandate was the catalyst of the six year struggle and the undying flame that kept it alive, if democracy had not succeeded in removing the military, inevitably at some stage, some people, out of sheer frustration would have taken to the bush, similar to Charles Taylor and the RUF and hell would have descended on this country.

Let the idiots now demonstrating ask the students of Monrovia university and Fourah bay college Freetown what happened when the war came to their cities. This was no Nigerian/Biafran war with professional soldiers on both sides. This was an army of agberos, garage boys, escaped convicts, armed robbers, murderers and ritual killers. Thousands of University girls were dragged out of their halls of residence and forcefully ravished by queues of ‘fighters’ in broad daylight, for days on end before being assaulted with their bayonets. Hundreds were killed thousands more ran mad. Do you want to know the proportion of people in Sierra Leone classified as amputees – almost 30%. They had their hands legs or feet cut off with axes. That is what the removal of Dictatorship prevented in Nigeria


THERE HAVE BEEN NO ADVANTAGES FROM DEMOCRACY

How many of those Unilag students demonstrating on 3rd mainland bridge have been shot dead by soldiers? how many of their leaders have been detained and tortured by the intelligence services, have the police invaded their schools and molested their women. Because that was what used to happen under the dictators people like abiola died to remove.

They mobilised themselves using their mobile phones, they condemn the move on Nairaland. Who had mobile phones under the military, did anybody have access to the internet under the dictators. Dictators want to control the means of communication which is why it took democracy to flood the country with mobiles.

They say foreign schools would not recognise MAULag – but you need visas to go abroad. How many visas were issued under military rule. The same spoilt kids would say people like fashola are doing well, did we have any fashola and Donald duke under military rule – is it not the same democracy Abiola fought for that brought about some Governors (few but you start somewhere) who have introduced beneficial reforms. True a lot needs to be done, but we have at least made a start. How many bursaries or scholarships were issued under the army, how many mass transit projects did the army introduce, how many free education at primary and secondary level did the soldiers implement. We take a lot for granted. Of course GEJ is useless, but at least now we can say it openly. How many dared say that under Babangida or Abacha.

If Nairaland existed under the military it would have been banned and Seun the owner would by now be dead. Many now posting here would have been in prison and probably run mad after endless torture

THE NAME CHANGE IS NOT SUPPORTED BY MOST NIGERIANS

Says who ? Go into any bus, any tailor’s shop, any beer parlour, any factory, any shop, any place where ordinary Nigerians congregate and you will struggle to find anybody who sympathises with the students on this matter. Because most of them while familiar with MKO’s flaws still respect him immensely for his sacrifice on June 12. He could have surrendered his mandate and enjoyed a life of ease but he chose to go to risk going to his grave rather than surrender it.

This guy was locked up for six years in the same compound as a psychopathic monster , who amused himself by feeding people to lions and wild animals in that same compound, Abiola’s wife was murdered, his children threatened with it on a daily basis and he still refused to give in and these childish twits whose greatest single challenge in their live's has probably been mustering the courage to toast their classmates challenge his right to have a school named after him? After all he did.

The fact that a noisy minority have kicked up a fuss about this does not in anyway negate the fact that an overwhelming silent majority support the move to immortalise the symbol of the most momentous struggle in Nigeria’s history. Wole Soyinka we all love, but he has never contested and won any election in this country – so what makes anybody feel he speaks for the majority. If he is that popular let him leave his ‘life long ‘critic’ comfort zone and form a political party the way people like Mandela and Nkrumah did. Let him enter the ring not just comment endlessly from the sidelines where he can only be right and never be wrong seeing that he is unwilling to put his principles to the test. Or perhaps he is afraid he might actually win the election and then be judged on what he does not what he says.


ABIOLA WAS CORRUPT SO DOES NOT DESERVE TO BE HONORED

Agreed he was corrupt George Washington was also a slave owner. Winston Churchill was an avowed racist, as for the civil rights activist Rev Martin Luther King, he was a dyed in the wool hypocrite – he cheated on his wife so many times she became suicidal – that has not stopped their people loving them

it is only in Nollywood films that people are either totally good or absolutely bad. In real life there is always something in between. Most people have a mixture of both. People can only be judged by which of the two currents dominates in their character. Awolowo also made money from Government, but he also used public money to educate millions who would never have been educated if not for his policies. Akintola made money from Government but did nothing else for the people. So people liked awo but hated Akintola. That is the way the real world works. I don’t want my father to chase other women. But a man who chases other women and spends all his money on them cannot be compared to a man who chases women but still educates his children. Not perfect, but neither totally bad..

yd849ja: This only goes to show how unintelligent the likes of Rueben Abati, Pius and co. really are. These are supposedly his advicers. It's a shame this nation has finally gone to the dogs. How unearth would they have allowed him to make this blunder. Institutions of higher learning are not political toys that you switch their names as you so desire. They are status of heritage and they are historically positioned to tell us how far we have come development wise. No idiot there toys around with Oxford, Cambridge, Havard, etc. More so GEJ you are not a military president that you can unilaterally make such decision. You require nation wide consultation for such move. I therefore call on the National assembly to reverse this silly mistake. Can someone tell Jonathan Goodluck that University of Lagos was established by an act of Parliament in 1962 and the name can only be change through an amendment to that act. I think this president is being chased by the shadow of military mentality. Let us challenge this act of illegality in the court of law.

Do people in thi country think at all. Oxford cambridge etc reside in a country that has been a democracy for over 300 hundred years. We just fought for our democracy 20 years ago and people died because of it. Abiola was one of them. If the military had not been removed when they were this counctry would have been engulfed in the kind of horrendrous chaous that consumed Sierra Leone and Liberia where violence became the only means of removing despots. That was the warning of the Orkar coup. If a civl war of the Liberia variety had descended on this country thos idiots now protesting on campus would not be in school they would be child soldiers in the bush.

The school does not belong to the students it belongs to the people who respect the sacrifiecs MKO made. If UNILAG students doubt me let them carry their protest from their campus to nearby Bariga or shomolu - there will be no need for police - the people in these areas would discipline them on their own.

Unilag was built with the peoples money not the priavte funds of the students parents. If they want an eleitist education let them go to Oxford and cambridge. In Nigeria a poor and underdeveloped country our culture must reflect the sacrifices of tho0se who have paid the supreme sacrifice to bring us where we are.

If they are not happy tough. the masses are not complaining