Friends of Nigeria Newsletter Selections, Winter 2003

Of course, and alas, all has not gone smoothly. The local elections, re-re-scheduled for December, did not happen. There have been a myriad of reasons. Not to spend this whole article on the welter of bewildering details, let’s just say that there have been intra-party squabbles galore over nominating procedures, and new and old court cases over voting procedures.

For instance: as of mid-December, the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) was trying to hold its nominating conventions, but strife continued, as incumbents and upstarts jockeyed for position. The Alliance for Democracy (AD) has formally divorced itself from Afenifere, the Yoruba ethnic organization, and the All People’s Party (APP) is in disarray. (See below.) Six new parties have recently been registered, bringing the total to nine, and there are twenty-one others still knocking at the door. A major “change your party” dance is also underway.

On Dec. 20, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) announced new voting dates: February for municipal offices, April 19 for the presidency and governorships, and early May for federal and state legislatures. While this timetable would meet the May 29 constitutional deadline, it is also problematic: it would subvert constitutional nominating procedures and the right of new parties to a three-month campaign season. Meanwhile, the courts are still deciding whether they or the beleaguered INEC has jurisdiction to decide the constitutionality of a one-day election next Spring for all offices, local and national. That case is now moot, presumably, and it will probably be replaced by challenges to the new timetable. Of course, there is always Independence Day, Oct. 1.

One bit of good news: the voter-registration drive was completed in September, and the official lists are to be published in January. These lists are, of course, a sine qua non for fair elections. It is said, however, that only half the country approves of them. (I do not know which half.) To insure fairness on Election Day(s), one proposal would place poll watchers from every party at every one of the several-thousand polling places in the country. That sounds neither practical nor safe.

All this uncertainty breeds violence and more uncertainty. In recent weeks, for instance, at least one high PDP official has been shot dead, a female AD legislator was the victim of the latest acid attack, and several rallies have turned into lethal brawls. Conspiracy theories are rife, some of which make the grassy knoll read like Dick and Jane. (Of course, here in the land of the dimpled chad, we should not get too cynical, too superior: “See Al run. See Al win. See Al lose.”)

Pro-Democratic candidate for the Oshun governorship, Jumoke Ogunkeyede, repeats what is becoming a mantra: “In Nigeria, anything can happen.” Says another pro-Democrat: “We need an autocratic democracy.”
And, perhaps,”anything” has happened. Several weeks after returning from a summer campaign visit to Nigeria, Jumoke checked into a New York hospital with what was thought to be appendicitis. A large black mass was removed from his intestines, which unnamed sources have told me was ... . While he was in hospital (four weeks), Jumoke heard that the AD had held its gubernatorial caucus and renominated the incumbent, ‘Bisi Akande. “Money, of course, is a very big factor.”

No relation to expatriate billionaire and presidential candidate, Harry Akande—who was expelled from the APP for “anti-party activity.” This expulsion may have been prompted by the emergence of a serious presidential candidate from the oil states, Chief Pere Ajuwa, an Ijaw who ran in 1999. But the courts have now ordered Akande’s “case” re-examined, and the party has split into two factions, one of which goes by the new name, the ANPP; the other, by the old, the APP. (In the last issue, the ANPP appeared as the APPN by mistake. We apologise for any confusion this may have caused. Ed.)

Since much of Nigeria practically closes for the holidays from about December 20-January 5, Jumoke thinks he still has time to salvage his campaign, which he says went very well “on the ground.” His rallies drew many people; his candidacy was favorably spoken of; a videotape was made; his village plans to bestow on him a chieftancy. As the expression goes, Jumoke has good “pull-out.” When he has medical clearance to travel, possibly in early January, he hopes the Governor will invite him to campaign for Deputy-Governor.

Second Republic President Shehu Shagari, 1979-1983

Oshun, of course, is the epicenter of the Ige murder case, and the present status of that case leads us back into the thicket of local politics. The accused remain in jail, but the case has not gone forward. Present Deputy-Governor Omisore is suspected of involvement (Ige was investigating him), and the Oshun legislative assembly has just expelled Omisore from his post. The feud between him and Governor Akande affects voting patterns in the province, where “favorite son” politics are very much in force. Contrary to previous rumor, a new one —again, from unnamed sources— says that Obasanjo would not have wanted Ige murdered, one reason being that this might have provoked too much backlash. But the likely mastermind, according to the new rumor, was Minister for Internal Affairs, Afolabi, the man who was in charge of Ige’s (nonexistent) security, and who is now in charge of the go-slow criminal case.

This man, Afolabi, was once then-Governor Ige’s Deputy Governor in Oshun, but they had a falling out when Ige switched his support to Akande. One of the men in jail has said payment for the assassination came from “the Presidency,” which “people on the ground” think, means Afolabi. Akande may now be involved in a deal with Obasanjo, backing him and not making too much noise about the Ige case, in exchange for Obasanjo’s support on the home turf of Omisore. That area, which has a large number of voters, has switched from AD to PDP, and the plan may be for Obasanjo’s supporters in the district to just stay home on election day, so Akande and the AD can win. Of course, now that presidential and gubernatorial elections are scheduled for the same day, the maneuvering has presumably shifted.

The pro-Democrats, in so far as such a group can still be defined and said to exist (since most of the thirty

Former MilitaryRuler Yakabu Gowon

parties have either “democratic” or “people” in their names), have been actively and importantly involved in recent developments. Chief Enahoro’s Movement for National Reformation (MNR) was rumored to have entered into something called the “MNR-PDP Accord,” but that accord, if it existed, has been abrogated, because Obasanjo was dragging his feet regarding demands for the national conference to consider MNR’s first principles: looser federation, with attendant reversal of revenue flow.

A national leader and pro-Democrat like Enahoro has a dilemma: he has no real constituency, but his popularity depends on his being above ethnic, partisan politics. Perhaps in response, the MNR has sponsored a newly registered party, the National Reformation Party (NRP), which plans to contest some offices, but not the Presidency, in 2003. That sounds as if the MNR were hedging its bets.

Meanwhile, the push for a conference gains force. Mediators in the recent impeachment crisis included Enahoro and two former rulers, Second Republic President, Shehu Shagari (1979-83), and General Yakubu Gowon (1966-75). Mediation has quelled the legislative-executive feud, but the impeachment push has been replaced by a loud “one-term- only” outcry, one of the sponsors of which is eminent jurist, Chief Rotimi Williams. Of course, this is a strange time to initiate such a momentous constitutional change. Enahoro’s name has been linked to another large idea, a return to the “Westminster” system, which in the Nigerian context means a return to the dual-leadership system, in which the president and prime minister–hence, north and south–share power. (Remember Zik and Tafawa-Balewa?)

Meanwhile, the three non-partisan “elder statesmen,” who together represent the North, Middle Belt, and South, are working toward the conference, which has the interest, at least, and probably the support of, among others, Ogun state governor Segun Osoba, Afenifere leader, Abraham Adesanya, and most of the Nigerian press. Adesanya may have been right when he said, in reaction to the Miss World catastrophe, “Those who want to continue to run Nigeria as a unitary state must be told in clear terms that they are running against time.”

So where are we? The stakes are the same; the odds remain long. A student of mine from “those days,” who is now a scientist and businessman in Pennsylvania, says, “I have not been following politics at all.”•
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Igue 1965: Celebration Of The Head

By Dave Sugarman (10) 64–66

Members of a chief's family accompany him to the festival.
Photo: Dave Sugarman

Art Matthews (10) 64–66 and I shared several unique incidents and experiences together, but one stands out as special.

During the Benin Igue festival, one of Art’s students from Otwa, invited us to join his family for the festival. They were a royal family, and so engaged a priest to conduct their ‘celebration of the head’. About 20 family members, young and old, and Art and I gathered in a 10’x15’ room lighted only by a tinned milk can kerosene lamp. The hour long ceremony began with the oldest female beginning to lead the group in chanting the family name.
Obongwanye………Obongwanye……….Obongwanye.

Throughout the evening, the chant continued. Sometimes slow, sometimes faster, occasionally softly, and then swelling and loud. Amidst the chanting, the priest began to offer blessings and provide offerings and sacrifices to family members and especially the ‘heads’ in attendance. As I remember so vividly, his first ceremonial was to approach each member of the circle, and place a spot of chalk on the forehead and chant his cant as he progressed.

One of the many chiefs approching the Oba's compound.
Photo: Andy Philpot

I was about halfway around the circle, and when he came to me he hesitated slightly and passed to the person on my right. This happened to be the student who had invited us. There was a quick exchange of words, the priest retraced his steps, and with a large smile administered my very own chalk and blessing. From that point on, I was part of the family celebration, chanting Obongwanye……….Obongwanye……….., and received my anointment of coconut milk and a drop of the blood of the guinea fowl sacrifice, like the others. We then shared broken kola, coconut, and a shot of kia kia (palm wine gin), congratulated each other and left into the city streets teeming with others moving from celebration to celebration. We joined a large family group of 50 or more, but it was a raucous, loud affair, nothing like the intimate celebration of family we had just left. The next morning, children running from house to house blessed us with a bit of leaf stuck to our foreheads as we ‘dashed them small’, and then ran on. We also joined other Benin PCVs at the Oba of Benin’s public ceremony, which in part honored him as the ‘head’ of all of Benin.

The culmination of the small family group ceremony was also performed that next morning. We returned to the home and were offered pounded yam and stew made from the guinea fowl of the previous evening. It wasn’t till after we left and I had taken two large helpings that I realized that all of the family members who had celebrated together were to partake of the blessing meal. This wasn’t the first or last time that ignorance of culture and custom resulted in my seeming insensitivity.

On further reflection, I have a strong feeling for what we experienced. It was a celebration in some ways similar to the family Thanksgivings my family has always practiced. It also had many of the elements that the Jews incorporate in their Passover celebration. In the past few years a friend and his family included me and my family in their family traditional Passover commemoration, and it was very reminiscent of the experience on that night long ago in that faraway place of Nigeria.

The celebration of family, the inclusion of outsiders, the symbolic foods, and the feeling of closeness were universal.

I will never forget Obongwanye…………..Obongwanye…………..Obongwanye.•
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Nigeria After Peace Corps Service

By Lawrence Shirley, Sierra Leone 69–71

I am an unusual Friend of Nigeria. No, I’m not one of the “youngsters” who served in Nigeria after Peace Corps returned and I wasn’t PC staff in Nigeria. Rather, I went to Nigeria after my Peace Corps service. My experience in Nigeria was influenced by my earlier PC life, but it was not like a typical PCV experience.

From 1969 to 1971, I was a fairly typical PCV, teaching secondary mathematics in Sierra Leone. I extended one year, doing teacher workshops to help change to a new curriculum.

Lawrence Shirley at work at ABU

Meanwhile, I fell in love with West Africa and wanted to maintain a connection after my Peace Corps service. I did so by earning a Master’s degree in International Education at Illinois (which had AID links to Sierra Leone). Still excited over the new curriculum I had been introducing in Sierra Leone, I wanted to do doctoral research on mathematics curricula in West Africa.

When Professor Babs Fafunwa, from Ibadan (later Federal Minister of Education) visited my campus, I asked him about research opportunities. He suggested inquiring at the six Nigerian universities. Unknown to me, Ahmadu Bello University had lost a mathematics educator as a Nigerian junior faculty went to Canada for doctoral studies. The Department Chair jumped at my letter: he replied that I could come for research, but why not take a job also? I did. By January 1974, I was a faculty member at Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria.

Arriving during the Harmattan (the cool dry dusty wind from the Sahara that hits northern Nigeria especially hard), I found a very different climate from Sierra Leone where annual rainfall was 160 inches. But Zaria seemed very familiar, with market stalls, kids selling things along the street, Lebanese shops for imported goods, big lorries carrying freight and passengers with mottos written on the cabs, minibuses packed with passengers, and chickens and goats wandering in the streets. Immediately, I felt at home. Although I didn’t realize it at the time, Zaria was to be my home for fifteen years.

I should stop using first person singular, but plural, because while in Zaria, I met my wife, Alberta, a Ghanaian. Our two children were born there and started school at the ABU Staff School. Soon, keeping with African patterns, we were an extended family, as my step-daughter joined us from Ghana, followed by my sister-in-law, then her husband, and eventually they had three kids. Another sister-in-law came with her child, and several members of my sister-in-law’s husband’s family also were in the area. For each of our baby deliveries, my mother-in-law came from Ghana to help.

Shirley with four other colleagues being inducted into the Mathematical Association of Nigeria

We had a mixture of US-type life and Nigerian life. I drove a VW Beetle (and later, a Nigerian-assembled VW Igala hatchback); we participated in the PTA; during biannual home-leaves, we shopped at the K-Mart near my parents’ Arizona home. Meanwhile, like Nigerians (and earlier PCVs), we shopped in the open-air Sabon Gari market; we coped with power outages from NEPA (Nigeria Electric Power Authority—or Never Expect Power Anytime); we celebrated Sallahs (Muslim festivals) by watching the area chiefs gallop their horses to salute the Emir of Zaria. Following her family’s baking tradition, Alberta baked hundreds of small cakes to be sold at kiosks around town. I listened to VOA on my radio, but we also got a television. Even that was a mixed culture: our kids watched imported episodes of "Sesame Street" and I saw old shows of “Hawaii 5-0,” but we also caught the nine o’clock news from Kaduna TV and some interesting locally-produced dramas, such as “The Village Headmaster” and “The Cock Crows at Dawn” (the latter is about an urban family who moves out to a village in the bush).

The civil war was over, but the military government continued. Occasionally military coups shut down the country with curfews and road-block check-points. However, by the mid-70s, the boom from the oil money was already beginning to take over the public consciousness and there was a sense of growth and development. Highways and even freeways were constructed and the goal of Universal Primary Education (UPE) was announced. There were lingering issues that showed up in politics—such as the creation of more and more states, and questions of loyalties when military coups were attempted—so ethnic differences were not forgotten. On the other hand, the National Youth Service Corps (two years of service required of everyone finishing tertiary education) had an interesting rule to encourage national integration: members could not serve in their home states and were encouraged to serve in faraway areas (I even heard that NYSC members who married someone from outside their home state received some kind of bonus!)

My work was interesting and gave me a sense of purpose, much like my Peace Corps job. The UPE campaign created a huge demand for teachers. ABU began several new programs to meet the need. By the time I left Nigeria, I could count over one thousand students who had been in at least one of our mathematics education programs. Also, I served on committees preparing new curricula where, usually, I was the only non-Nigerian. At the lunch break of one meeting, amala (like pounded yam) was served. The places were set with silverware, but I didn’t notice and followed my usual practice by digging into the food with my hand. One colleague happily said, “Good! The oyinbo (Yoruba for white man) is eating with his hands, so we all can!” I felt accepted as an honorary Nigerian!

The 1980s brought continued successes. I completed my Ph.D. at ABU and guided several students to Master’s degrees. I organized a program to observe Halley’s Comet (it was much easier to spot in Nigeria than in the US). One session brought out several hundred people at 3:00 am; I claim it was one of the largest public events ever held in Nigeria at 3:00 am! Then NEPA went off: electrical blackouts usually brought groans, but this time the crowd cheered as the darkened campus now allowed a spectacular view of the sky and Halley seemed to jump out at us.

However, there were also concerns. I was succeeding in working myself out of a job. Several of my students with Master’s degrees were now taking faculty positions. The oil-boom was over and ABU competed with a bunch of newer universities for funding, so money for both facilities and salaries became much tighter. I wanted my kids to get into the American educational stream before they had to take SATs and contend with college admissions. So, after a couple years of job-searching, I ended up at Towson University, near Baltimore.

We remain in Baltimore, but we maintain our West African ties. My wife phones her family in Ghana. We have visited twice and plan to go again soon. I attended a mathematics conference in Kano, Nigeria, and also went to Cameroon for two weeks to evaluate the Peace Corps education program there. I have occasional contact with my former colleagues at ABU and assisted an ABU grad student via e-mail this past semester. We own a house in my wife’s hometown in Ghana and have twice hosted visiting Americans.

We speak of returned PCVs, but I didn’t physically return for almost twenty years and spiritually I haven’t returned yet!•
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Africa and NEPAD: What About HIV/AIDS?

By Chinua Akukwe, FON member
(This article first appeared on April 23, 2002 in The Perspective from Atlanta, Georgia. Akukwe spoke to those attending the FON dinner in Washington in June of 2002. This is the first of two parts. Ed. )

Dr. Chinua Akukwe addressing the FON dinner in June, 2002.

The African conceived and led New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) is an ambitious attempt by African leaders to jumpstart development in the continent. However, NEPAD, as currently articulated, lacks a serious focus on the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Africa. As a vehicle for Africa’s renaissance, based on indigenous initiatives and focused external support, NEPAD must be seen as a vehicle for tackling major impediments to the economic growth and political stability in Africa. The HIV/AIDS epidemic is unarguably the greatest threat to Africa’s development at this point in time. I discuss why HIV/AIDS should be on the shortlist of any NEPAD strategic priorities.

CURRENT FOCUS OF NEPAD
NEPAD is touted as a “holistic, comprehensive integrated strategic framework for the socioeconomic development of Africa.” NEPAD provides a “vision for Africa, a statement of the problems facing the continent and a program of action to resolve these problems…” The goals of NEPAD include (a) promoting accelerated growth and sustainable development (b) eradicating widespread and severe poverty, and (c) halting the marginalization of Africa in the globalization process. Sectoral priorities of NEPAD include bridging the infrastructure gap in the continent; human resource development initiative (poverty reduction, higher education attainment levels, reversing brain drain, and health); agriculture; the environment; cultural issues, and science and technology.

As African leaders prepare to engage their G-8 counterparts during the June 2002 meeting in Canada, the current focus of NEPAD is on five areas of development:

1. Capacity building on peace and security.
2. Economic and corporate governance.
3. Infrastructure development.
4. Financial standards and the establishment of a Central Bank.
5. Agriculture and market access.

These focus areas of development in NEPAD are appropriate and deserve commendation. However, it is difficult to contemplate a serious attempt at jumpstarting development in Africa without urgent attention to HIV/AIDS, a condition that can negate not only the vision of NEPAD but also its goals, priorities, and current areas of focus. I briefly review the effect of HIV/AIDS on NEPAD’s goals, priorities and current areas of focus

HIV/AIDS AND GOALS OF NEPAD
HIV/AIDS is a formidable foe of accelerated growth and sustainable development in Africa. According to the World Bank and UNAIDS, HIV/AIDS in the hardest hit countries of Africa is directly responsible for an annual loss of 0.5-1.2 GDP. This is in a continent that must achieve a growth rate of 7 percent to meet the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDG) of halving poverty levels by 2015. By 2020, heavily infected countries may lose up to 20 percent of their GDP to AIDS. HIV/AIDS is also fingered as a major factor in the current life expectancy in Africa of 47 years instead of 62 years, without AIDS.

HIV/AIDS is also a deadly opponent of any serious poverty alleviation effort in Africa, where at least four of every ten individuals live on less than $US1 a day. By picking off the most productive segments of the society, AIDS creates a cascade of poverty enhancing effects at family, community and national levels. The World Health Organization’s Macroeconomic Commission in its recent report estimates that regions that suffer truncated lives from early deaths and chronic disability stand to lose billions of US dollars a year. According to the UNAIDS, in Botswana where one of every third adult is living with HIV/AIDS, one quarter of households can expect to lose a breadwinner within 10 years, and per capita household income for the poorest quarter of households will fall by 13 percent. As breadwinners fall sick and die, household income dries up, food becomes increasingly scarce and/or rationed, children are pulled out of school, and poor families spend limited savings and household holdings on fruitless AIDS palliative treatment. Communities are deprived of their best-trained leaders, and nations suffer from the untimely deaths of its best bureaucrats, technocrats, doctors, nurses, teachers and other professionals. Public expenditure on healthcare will go up at a time of declining tax revenue from limited numbers of productive workforce.

Africa’s marginalization in the globalization process is exemplified, according to the World Bank, by its almost zero share of global manufactured goods, less than 2 percent of global trade, and its reliance on volatile commodity prices as sources of foreign exchange. As a continent that exports mostly non-processed goods, Africa, in addition to the impediments of massive agricultural subsidies imposed by the West, must deal with its small domestic markets that are dependent on the HIV/AIDS ravaged tiny middle class. Business organizations in many parts of the AIDS hard-hit Southern Africa have to hire two or more persons for the same job, and are incurring heavy costs in absenteeism, insurance premiums and death benefits. At least 28 percent of miners in South Africa are believed to live with HIV/AIDS. According to both the World Bank and UNAIDS, private investments are not likely to flow consistently to countries that are losing their best workers to AIDS because of stagnating demands and high labor costs. Farmers are also at the receiving end of HIV/AIDS: the International Labor Organization, an arm of the UN, estimates that at least 7 million farm workers in Africa have died of AIDS, and millions more are still at risk. In addition, critical investments in soil enhancement and irrigation are drying up because of the epidemic, according to the UNAIDS.

About the author: Dr. Chinua Akukwe is a former Vice Chairman of the National Council for International Health (NCIH),Washington, DC now known as the Global Health Council. Dr. Akukwe is a member of the Board of Directors of the Constituency for Africa (CFA), Washington, DC, and the Nigeria Peace Corps Alumni Foundation, Washington, DC. . Dr. Akukwe is also a member of FON.

This article has been reproduced by kind permission of the editor of The Perspective P.O. Box 450493 Atlanta, GA 31145 Website: www.theperspective.org E-mail: editor@theperspective.org
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