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C M Y K Those who came into this world from the 80s upwards and are not into music, may not know who James Brown was. He was the quintessential musician and showman; one of the best performers of his generation. I can almost imagine the nostalgic smiles on the faces of those of my generation as they remember JB - the ‘hardest working man in showbiz’ as he liked to call himself - and his many hit songs. At a point, almost all his songs became hit songs and youths of the 60s and 70s avidly collected them irrespective of colour. Even then, there were hits within hits. And a song like ‘It’s a man’s world’ will always be an evergreen. He was more than a musician however. He was also a black icon who tried to use his enormous influence to awake the consciousness in Blacks all over the world but especially in America. His song ‘Say it loud, I am black and proud’ was about the ‘loudest’ of the songs he used to send his message of black awareness. I was probably caught up in the black consciousness of the sixties and seventies when I wrote a poem titled ‘White is for leprosy’. I was in my teens. The poem was about kids playing outside in the park. The black kids were so proud of their luxuriant black skin that they saw the ‘paleness’ of the white skin as a disease. They jokingly and derisively pointed to the white kids and asked a parent if the white kids had leprosy. I had never seen a leper before I wrote the poem. All I knew was how the Bible described a leper. The Good Book said his skin was ‘as white as snow’. Hence the title of the When will we ‘say it loud, I am black and proud’? poem. In my young mind, I was hoping for the time when our melanin rich skin would be seen as an advantage rather than a disadvantage; when those of the black skin would pity rather than envy those with the white skin. It was a futuristic poem which envisioned such a time when Blacks would have come to their own in the affairs of the world and be more confident of their skin colour. The poem was written about fifty years ago. It is sad When Africa earns its respect – and it will happen – then we can actually live the song ‘Say it loud. I am black and proud’ instead of just singing it. that nothing much has changed in the way the black skin and what it covers is regarded. It is even sadder that people of my generation are not likely to witness any significant change. The dream for the future that the poem was wrapped around is still a pipe dream. Last year marked another watershed in the battle over race discrimination with the killing of George Floyd. Sports that had significant black representative forced the world to pause and acknowledge the injustice Blacks face on an everyday basis. This led to some multinationals making sympathetic noises and effecting cosmetic changes. But nothing fundamental has changed as the recent shootings in America have shown. In my mind, nothing fundamental will change until Blacks get more comfortable in their own skin – forgive the pun- and stop chasing the White calendar and milestones. The narrative that white is good and black is evil has to be changed. The notion that only Whites can define what civilisation is has to be expunged. The mindset that Blacks are inherently inferior to Whites has to be adjusted. None of these assumptions is based on truth and so must be challenged. The lie that some White explorers discovered Africa is just what it is; a lie. The history of the world has always been written by Whites. It is time for Blacks to visit the past and begin to write their own story. We are told that civilisation started from Africa. What happened to that civilisation? Blacks had learnt to fend for themselves according to the dictates of the time. They learnt to feed themselves; they learnt to heal themselves; they learnt what herbs to use for difficult child births; they learnt to defend themselves by ‘fortifying’ their bodies against the weapons of their time – knives, machete, arrows and Dane guns. They developed their own recreation and their art forms. But it was in the area of spiritual SATURDAY Vanguard, , MAY 22, 2021—19 prowess that our forefathers had an edge. They learnt the power of the spoken word and used the power to magical effects. They could speak to the elements and be obeyed. Some could disappear from a dangerous scene and reappear elsewhere. Our ‘masters’ didn’t understand these powers. And because they didn’t understand, they feared them and labelled them evil. We believed them just because they said so. So we lost our knowledge, we lost our mysticism, we lost our potency, we lost our spirituality, we lost our edge. We allowed them to define good and evil on their terms. Despite the passage of time, our leaders still look up to the West. It must stop. Despite past marginalisation and manipulation, some of our people still believe in the goodness of the West. It is wishful thinking. We have to stop relying on the West for our every need. It is a beggarly mentality. We must look inwards and develop those things that are unique to us. Like a good chess player, we must objectively appraise our strengths and deploy them. We must look at our assets and seek to develop rather than exploit them. We must seek to feed ourselves and educate our minds. All other forms of ‘civilisation’ will follow. The earlier we can wean ourselves off age-old attachments, the better for the Black race. The first battle to be won is the battle of the mind – our minds have to be at the right place - and we desperately need the set of leaders who can help us achieve this. For Blacks all over the world to be respected, Africa as a continent must earn respect. One can imagine for example how Blacks all over the world would feel if the most efficacious Covid-19 medicine or vaccine was developed in Africa by Africans. It would have been a defining moment. Instead, we are typically waiting for the West to heal itself and send the left-over crumbs to us. Or worse, we are waiting for them to tell us why we have survived the worst of the virus when it has brought the rest of the world, especially the ‘mighty West’, to its knees. Why can’t we tell our own Covid-19 story? In justifying his defection from the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP to t h e All Progressives Congress, APC, Governor Ben Ayade last Thursday cited his determination to forge a national consensus around President Muhammadu Buhari for Nigeria to move forward. “Instead of us rising as an orgasmic whole to see how we can support the President to deal with these foreign herders that are colonising our various roads and farms, we rather sit back; we tend to create an impression as if the government is not doing well,” he said in a television interview last Thursday. But for a presidency that has been severely challenged with showing positive performance indicators, the governor’s assertions are easily questionable. What input would Ayade give to the Muhammadu Buhari presidency despite the voracious support, many in the APC gave it at inception and the blueprint laid for it that it discarded? Indeed, one of the governors present at Ayade’s defection was Dr. Kayode Fayemi. Fayemi, who was one of those who authored the blueprint for the APC had in a television interview on Channels Television last March firmly affirmed that the APC federal administration had failed in the three key areas of security, economy, and anti-corruption it campaigned on prior to 2015. So, as Chief Dan Orbih, the South- South Zonal Chairman of the PDP said in his reaction, the rationale for Ayade wishing to identify with failure is shocking. Beyond that, Ayade is undoubtedly among the most educated of governors in the country with advanced degrees in Microbiology and Law. Assessing Ayade’s yardstick So, his action was not without scientific reasoning. Indeed, it was the consequence of much cogitation and political permutations over a period of time. For one who is given to often speaking impromptu, it was not difficult for the secret reason for his defection to flow out as he spoke last Thursday. “(What) We want to achieve is a country where we all can sit with the President and agree on our South succession process, we don’t have to fight,” Ayade explained. In effect, the governor opened to all that for him in Cross River State the issue of his succession was a difficulty, a fact that lured the governor towards fraternization and alleged pummeling of the PDP. So, as Chief Dan Orbih, the South- Zonal Chairman of the PDP said in his reaction, the rationale for Ayade wishing to identify with failure is shocking. GWG.NG, an online newspaper had in a report last March, https://gwg.ng/2021/03/09/exclusiveayade-leaving-pdp-as-party-snubs-courtorder-against-s-south-congress/ referenced this seeming hounding in an exclusive report of Ayade’s planned defection. The report had also shown how a tendency reportedly aligned to Ayade tried to scupper the South-South zonal congress of the PDP last March. Though he tried to deny the claim in his television interview last Thursday, it is globally known that the governor lost control of the PDP structure to the National Assembly members from his state during the last congresses. Sources in the PDP have revealed to this correspondent how the governor took the congresses for granted perhaps believing that the structures were pliable to his verbose ventilations. What he lost was taken over by the National Assembly members, some of whom are playing along the historical political pathway that was postulated even before the governor left the classroom for the political arena. Indeed, before Ayade joined politics, the trio of Liyel Imoke, Gershom Bassey and Donald Duke, famed in Cross River as the three musketeers, and with Victor Ndoma- Egba as a helper, had carved a political corridor through which governors of the state would come. In 2007, Imoke was literally, a shoo-in after the first of the trio, that is Duke. The next was to be Gershom Bassey who was the chairman of the party while Duke was governor. However, by happenstance of zoning and logic, reason prevailed that the governorship should not return to Bassey’s Cross River South just after eight years of Duke without the North having its feel of the seat. Hence, Ayade came in. Ayade’s emergence also came after the three musketeers of Duke, Imoke alongside Ndoma-Egba had their famous falling apart in 2014. Duke and Ndoma-Egba fell out of the mainstream and it fell on Imoke and Bassey to ensure the emergence of Ayade as governor despite the desires of those who left the PDP. Indeed, what makes Ayade’s defection interesting is that a number of the political leaders of the state like Senator John Enoh left the PDP for the APC because of Ayade. By Thursday night as Ayade’s defection became formalized, there was a whispering campaign in Calabar on the prospects of some of the defectors returning to the PDP. As was expected, the governor has been crowned as the leader of the APC. But which faction of the APC he will superintend over is one that will in the next few days become an issue given the historic bitterness among the factions of the party in Cross River State. It is a bitterness that has seen the factions fight over virtually everything. If Ayade coming in, will help cement them will be a welcome development. But the yardstick with which a governor who lost power within his PDP caucus would be able to enforce his succession agenda on the whole state without the coercive instrument of the Federal Government is one that will be a wonder!
20—SATURDAY Vanguard, MAY 22, 2021 And that was the benign picture. Someone said he saw a bigot. Another saw an ethnic jingoist. My grandmother had warned us not to prattle. That way, we could hide our ignorance from the world. That way, we would not soil ourselves in public with bitterness in our hearts. Now Malami, Senior Advocate of Nigeria, thinks that a ban on open grazing is akin to a ban on sales of motor spare parts. And he said it, gesticulating like Aristotle. Tomorrow, those naughty Ghanaians will start mocking Nigeria again. I had once told a few friends to spare Malami, cut him some slack. Brilliant people can suffer stage fright. We had watched him during the first senate screening. Tense, rigid, voluble and loud. His composure and elocution were that of a clumsy secondary school student floundering in a debating competition, lobbing jargons and ill-fitted sentences at his audience. An amateurish and futile eagerness to come across as intelligent. That day, I stood by Malami and reminded my friends he was a learned Senior Advocate of Nigeria. There have been occasions when these friends came back to mock me. They knocked me the day Malami sweated profusely and mopped his brows with his bare hands while being badgered by a house committee investigating the smuggling of human contraband, Abudulrasheed Maina, back into the civil service. They ridiculed me when Malami started chasing Magu with the kitchen sink. Now they are back at me. That Malami’s motor-spare-parts performance on television was like a child appearing at a party, dancing excitedly with his shoes mixed up, on the wrong feet. Ebullience without grace and rhythm. He could have quietly sent one brilliant young lawyer to convey his ethnic bias. Ministers and Governors have many of these special assistants who cover their asses. Someone praised Malami for being himself. An adult doesn’t try to be himself by baring his anus to the world. Okay, take away the animosity for the Igbo hidden in the “motor spare parts” analogy. What shall we do with the puerility of his logic. Malami appeared like a representative of Miyetti Allah, overcome by emotions. A Chairman of Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association might be forgiven for thinking that the state governments cannot regulate the movement of cattle. I have heard some of them say it’s their culture. Their ancestors might have misinformed them that the forests belonged to them. But I am optimistic that even Miyetti Allah wouldn’t liken open grazing to the sales of motor spare parts. Wonders will never end, so the saying goes. I never thought I would see the day when a sitting Minister of Justice and Attorney-General of the Federation, would exhibit the kind of crude illogicality one would expect from a primary school dropout. Yet, Alhaji Abubaka Malami (SAN) did just that last Wednesday when he termed the Southern governors’ “ban” on open grazing, unconstitutional. Malami explained that the governors’ position “does not align with the provisions of the constitution, hence it does not hold water. It is about constitutionality within the context of the freedoms expressed in our constitution. Can you deny the rights of a Nigerian? For example: it is as good as saying, perhaps, the Northern governors coming together to say they prohibit spare parts trading in the North. “Does it hold water? Does it hold water for a Northern governor to come and state expressly that he now prohibits spare parts trading in the North?” Then, in a stinking example of “the bad being filled with passionate intensity,” the same Malami who left the express way for the jungle, advised the Southern governors: “If you are talking of constitutionally guaranteed rights, the better approach to it is to perhaps go back to ensure the constitution is amended. It is a dangerous provision for any governor in Nigeria to think he can bring any compromise on the freedom and liberty of individuals to move around,” he said. It is terribly easy to see the two things glaringly wrong with Malami’s utterance. This becomes clearer if we recall what the Southern governors said about open grazing; one, they “resolved that open grazing of cattle be banned across Southern Nigeria; noted that development and population growth has put pressure on available land and increased the prospects of conflict between migrating herders and local populations in the South.” “Given this scenario, it becomes imperative to enforce the ban on open grazing in the South (including cattle movement to the South by foot); recommended that the Federal Abubakar Malami: A Beer Parlour Logician? Because the sales of motor spares should be the equivalent of sales of cattle and onions. Miyetti wouldn’t make such pedestrian arguments. Miyetti should have the experiential knowledge that marching around thousands of kilometers on foot with cattle in 2021 is inhuman and degrading punishment for the herders and cruelty to the animals. A knowledge that might be lost on even a former cattle herder who has come by buttered living. Malami sleepwalked on television. The constitution guarantees the right of freedom of movement. That right is for humans. And not for chickens and goats. But even that human right is not absolute. That right can be abridged for the right reasons. The right reasons include the attainment of stated national security or public health goals. Every cobbler knows the government can regulate the movement of persons for the right reason. Our governments routinely restrict movements on election days. Governments can place curfews. Governments locked down entire nations during the COVID pandemic. Malami should know that the constitutional freedom to move from place to place isn’t absolute, inviolable freedom. That was why watching Malami discuss basic constitutional rights like a novice made a hard watch. The southern governors placed a ban on open grazing. The states would enact local laws to enforce the ban. The role of a peeved Open grazing: Abubak bubakar ar Malami’s fallacies Government should support willing states to develop alternative and modern livestock management systems.” Yes, the governors agreed to “enforce the ban.” If some states have banned open grazing through acts of their state Assemblies, and such have been signed into laws, what would any sane person make of Malami’s position that such does not “hold water?” What really, if not a call to anarchy? In states where such laws have been enacted, would Malami not be guilty of inciting herders to openly and reprehensibly disobey the law? And is that what is expected of the attorney-general of any country? Yet, he was advising the governors to attempt to amend the constitution first. Why didn’t he advise those opposed to federal Attorney General would be to challenge the constitutionality of those laws in court. Nigeria is a federation. Cattle do not enjoy the rights granted to humans under the constitution. If they did, we wouldn’t be killing and eating them as we like. The proposed Miyetti ban on open grazing by the southern governors open is moral and lawful because it is a nondiscriminatory m i n i m u m m e a s u r e But I am optimistic that even Allah wouldn’t liken grazing to the sales of motor spare parts. the enforcement of the ban, to go to court to first shoot down the ban if it is unconstitutional? This is disappointing. Second, I take due notice of Malami’s baseless claim that the banning of open grazing negates certain constitutional rights of There is a limit to the constitutionally guaranteed freedomof movement, so I’ll use Fela’s lyrics for Malami: “Teacher don’t teach me nonsense necessary to achieve a stated public security objective. Malami had watched open grazing occasion massacre after massacre. He didn’t flinch. He forgot that as the nation’s chief law officer, he had a duty to promote and protect justice, justice for those who were being slaughtered. Perhaps, he didn’t know that prevention of crime is justice. Open cross country grazing has fostered cattle rustling, the militarization of cattle herding, the proliferation of militias, clashes and massacres with a wanton waste of lives and property. Where has Malami been? What were the Justice Minister’s answers to the Criminal Justice questions asked by open grazing? The open grazing ban didn’t fall from the Nigerian citizens. Section 41 of the constitution upholds the right of citizens to move freely throughout Nigeria, to reside in any part thereof, and not to be expelled from the country, or be refused entry or exit therefrom. If that is where Malami got the shamefully defective idea that banning open grazing is akin to Northern governors banning spare parts selling in the North, then, Nigeria has no effective Attorney- General. This is because it is only defective logic, a case of crass and galloping illogicality that would make a man take that leap to a most unfounded conclusion. Open grazing may be a kind of business, sky. Northern governors proposed an open grazing ban in the south three months ago. They did it to safeguard national unity while Malami was slumbering. The Attorney General’s office should have grazed on the relevant jurisprudence and saved the Attorney General from the constipation he suffered in public. Many of our lawyers detest philosophy and often march around the field of legal theory with mental handicaps. But this wasn’t complex. Okadas have been banned in many places for many good reasons. Street hawking has been banned in many wellrun cities to curb road traffic accidents, crime and littering of public spaces. These didn’t need constitutional amendments. Cows are cows; they are no Sacred Cows. The constitution aside, Malami’s hypocrisy is startling. Malami knows that alcohol movement has been prohibited in many places in northern Nigeria. The reason was to service religion through sharia. Malami knows there are no compelling reasons for that particular ban. That ban is therefore unconstitutional. But the ban has stayed. Why hasn’t Malami told the northern governors and their Hisbah commanders destroying beer bottles that they needed a constitutional amendment to deter bottles of beer from flowing from place to place? The alcohol ban is unconstitutional, yet he allowed it. Open grazing ban is constitutional, yet he is conjuring inane bigoted analogies to oppose it. A chief law officer doesn’t need brilliance to be sensitive. The country is tense. Yet, Malami chose a childish and divisive analogy that could pass for a dog whistle. His gesticulations made him look like he was warning the south to desist, or a certain southern ethnic group associated with plying the spare parts trade could be chased away from a section of the country. Sometimes ignorance could be criminal. Malami’s wayward analogy made him sound like an advocate of trouble. And what could be worse? Now adept at scoring own-goals, the federal government has lost the initiative to the governors. Akeredolu, a Senior Advocate Of Nigeria, chairman of the southern governors’ forum, who belongs to the same party as the Attorney General, described Malami’s logic as embarrassingly shallow. Ordinarily dogs don’t eat dogs. And Alsatians should never eat Alsatians. I feel for Malami. I wish there were a way he could say he was quoted out of context. The southern governors must pay no heed to Malami. Not to his ignorance, not to his mischief, not to his belligerence. Open cross-country grazing is antediluvian. Malami doesn’t understand the times. Law is interpretive. But suppose anything in the constitution is misconstrued to support Malami’s beer parlour logic, that provision of the constitution will fall into immediate abject redundancy in the south because the people have already moved on. Yeah, half of the country has moved. No open grazing! but it is totally different from running a spare parts shop. A spare parts seller does not invade other people’s farms or shops, destroying their crops or merchandise. He has to set up his shop in a legally approved place, say a market. But an open grazing herder has proved to be a destroyer of other people’s farmlands and crops. He obeys no rules of engagement and roams from other peoples’ farms to other people’s farms. While the spare parts shopkeeper has a shop, the herder would only resemble him if the herder has a ranch; yes a ranch. Will someone please point this out to Malami! And, Malami, have spare parts shops in unapproved areas not routinely destroyed? Now, Malami has to explain why he can’t appreciate the difference between the business environment of the spare parts seller and the open grazing herder, and the implications of how each of them does his business, and the effects of their activities on other people’s properties and RIGHTS?. What is his problem; crass ignorance or deceit? That brings us to “ignoratio elenchi” or fallacy of Red Herring, a distraction from the argument typically with some sentiment that seems to be relevant but isn’t really ontopic...just as Malami’s appeal to the constitution is a blatant distraction from the issue at hand. Also, Fulani apologists have told us that the mad and maddening criminal herders are undocumented foreigners. Then this: In Malami’s Northern Nigeria, Section 342 of the Penal Code (applicable to Northern Nigeria) provides that ‘Whoever enters into or upon property in the possession of another with intent to commit an offence or to intimidate, insult or annoy a person in possession of that property, or, having lawfully entered into, or, upon that property, unlawfully remains there with intent thereby to intimidate, insult or annoy such person or with intent to commit an offence, is said to commit criminal trespass.’ Is that too against the citizen’s right of movement? There is a limit to the constitutionally guaranteed freedom of movement, so I’ll use Fela’s lyrics for Malami: “Teacher don’t teach me nonsense.” Or, am I free to saunter, gun in hand, into Malami’s home, take what suits my fancy, whimsically destroy things I can’t cart away, and leave as he claps for me for exercising my freedom of movement? Haba, Mallam, Haba!
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