THOUGHTS OF A CALABAR BOY

I have just watched the Tennessee with fellow students and my professors and boy!! what an exciting time it was. We spent time quietly analyzing the issues as both candidates threw down their points and ascertaining whether there was something new about what they were proposing to do. At the end we sieved through all the rhetoric to find something voters can chew and digest in finding energy to rise and cast their votes for a candidate. Frankly, I admire the intelligence of both men in how they lay out their points. It takes an awful lot of reading to keep abreast with issues and also an extensive mental capacity to align ones thoughts with a multiplicity of intentions, considering the complexity involved in the American system. 

I had to imagine myself there and admitted humbly… “this thing no be joke ohhh!!” In alluding to the fact that both men have done a lot of preparation in getting to this stage, I also will say that the preparation has led to a manifestation (hmm…rhymes…in my mind ohh) that effectively situates both candidates in two seprate pedestal. Ones preparation has placed him with the Ordinary League of Boys while the other’s preparation has put him in the Extraordinary League of Gentlemen. 

Without doubt or begging the question everyone seems to see clearly that John McCain has consistently shown that his groundwork of his campaign is fundamentally faulty and the foundations which he has built for himself seems to be seriously obsolete considering the nature of 21st century challenges which leadership has to deal with. Barack Obama on the other hand, while not the finished product of natures perfection has inspired many with common sense and a modern reality which seems to deconstruct existing mindsets and offer simpler and plain strategies in clearing the mysteries surrounding America’s politics. 

For instance McCain is still espousing a totally free market approach to the economics of the country yet still pandering to the voters with a populist policy which mistakenly dropped out his mouth during the debate when he said he would ensure that government buys back all the bad mortgages. And this is the same man saying the government should get out of the way of Americans. Obama while stating that free market has its merits, but advances that it doesn’t work all the time and for that reason, government should play a role in ensuring that this free market plays by the rules to protect people from the adversities of capitalism. The old fable that allow the market to determine and create wealth then it will trickle down to the bottom of the system has been refuted time again. Thus Obama shows that he is identifying with the plight of the base in society, while McCain thinks that the ‘Invisible Hand’ will regulate things. You mean people are still thinking like that in this century? And come to ponder, has the market really determined wealth for a larger percentage of a country’s population? NO!!!

You know boys somehow believe that things will be alright without wanting to accept the responsibilities of making sure it really gets alright. Men will face the issues and say where the problem is and be willing to creatively proffer solutions to logjam situations. This is one way men have been separated from boys from this debating season. McCain has yet to be direct on what exactly his economic policy is other than freeing the economic turkeys to soar to heights unknown and when thanksgiving comes, no birds on the table. It is pretty encouraging to go into www.barackobama.com/plan and see a clearly articulated plan on every facet a government is involved with. 

Perhaps it’s a good time to bring this up. John McCain should stop imagining that America can go anywhere and do anything it wants anyhowly (permit that please). The reality of the way the world is now is that no single nation is absolute in its capacity to influence events on the globe. Therefore nations need other countries to carry out an effective foreign policy in international politics. America cannot unilaterally fight terrorism in the world and it will be foolhardy to think this is possible. But Mr. McCain has unwisely refused to show the place of diplomacy in getting things done. Obama has consistently said that we cannot cut off other countries, we have to engage in tough diplomacy even if the country’s name is Iran. This is what the world needs today, not the ancient practice of international thuggery, which was characteristic of empires and monarchies. I was at the UN when the Iranian Ahmadinejad address the Plenary session and guess what? Bush stood up and walked out of the meeting. What kind of boyishness is that? And this is what McCain is patterning his foreign policy on. If it hasn’t worked for all these years, what will make it work into tomorrow? Again we see how and man is distinguished from a boy.

I have so much to say but let me wrap this up and leave the rest for my readers to determine and I will respond appropriately with other issues I have to table. I will finally point to what happened in this latest debate in establishing the Boy-dom of Mr. McCain. This man has an unacceptable way of talking down on people. By referring to Obama as “That one”, he registered his membership in the class of uncultured persons and at best he should be declassified from the honour of statesmen. Also suggesting that what he doesn’t know is what Americans do not know is a serious blasphemy against the country. All these are mounting references to who is really prepared and who is not. 

Please don’t get me wrong. I am in no way saying that Barack Obama has satisfied every necessary condition for assuming the role of one of the most powerful men on the planet. However, for what is on the play ground, one has elevated his profile by leaving the things that belong to boys and taken up the main challenges and appurtenances of manhood, while the other has swindled himself unknowingly into a game of losers. If as it is, Barack Obama doesn’t win this election, it wouldn’t be on the fact that he wasn’t qualified on the issues, but it will be because of some other extraneous variable which we all know of… you judge for Yourself my friend.

As I sat down thinking of what to wear in attending a dinner tomorrow in honour of my beloved country, I was knocked over by a news item in the Punch Newspaper which read: 
“Sallah: Group berates N3m bonus for each Rep”
The news piece by one Bisi Olaniyi also claimed that the Senators were taking home 20 million and the Reps were taking home about 12 million naira monthly. If these claims are through, then I am utterly shocked at the impunity with which our elected officials are un-authoritatively allocating scarce resources to themselves as the epitomes of the wellbeing of their constituencies. You mean these things are happening under our very noses and no one is rising up to challenge the status quo? What is the basis for giving such largess to Assembly members? Are they all Muslims who require such motivations to celebrate the season as a prerequisite for acute judgment in dealing with the complex issues of the country? Or maybe the non-Muslims collected this as a symbol of one Nigeria: “what they get we get”? I mean can someone please tell me what is the justification for these monies transferring from public ownership to private pockets? Or can someone explain to me where these resources where taken from?

It seems to me that there is a deliberate conspiracy by leadership against the entire country. I say this because no where else in the world does this happen in a professed democracy. It may be condoned in a monarchy, since the king in that case is the sovereign, but even the Queen of England cannot call the House of Common and the House of Lords and show them her appreciation by doling out from the Royal treasury about 13,000 Pounds for each to celebrate Christmas with. Nigeria always seems to blaze the trail with dangerous traditions and precedence and we always seem to have an explanation for every brutal policy meted out against the Nigerian people. Someone indeed had identified this as a “Rogue Republic” and I differed on the basis that it was an extreme characterization of the Nigerian polity. But now I am already slanting the seesaw of my opinion in that direction because I cannot seem to understand how our leaders think.

How can leadership, in whatever capacity bold-facedly use public funds to rub the backs of our servants? Don’t we pay them salaries more than we pay ourselves? Don’t we already furnish them apartments in the capital city and give them cars and all kinds of allowances to ensure they focus on policy making? What else should we do as a people that we haven’t done already? When we sent them there, if at all we did, we looked forward to an assurance that our collective interests were being catered for and that they will prevail on leadership to open up opportunities for us and our children. So just like that almost a billion naira was spent securing the few days of Sallah holidays for these legislators? Does anyone know that that amount alone can successfully create a huge plantain plantation somewhere in the country that can secure our local consumption and expand the export frontiers for the product? I am really upset right now because a sensible mind would assess the situation in terms of the opportunity forgone to better the lives of ordinary Nigerians. Give me that money and I can get 10 health centers in 10 rural communities, or provide a 100 boreholes in the rural areas of Northern Nigeria, or build 5 Secondary and 5 Primary schools, or establish a good science laboratory for 10 schools, or………………

Now I am, beginning to see how revolutions starts in societies. If I can feel this way, I can begin to imagine how many more people are getting frustrated by the kind of men who lead us. The day that the streets are covered with people whose endurance has thinned out, then that day will be that of judgment; when everyone that has robbed us and conspired against our existence will be made to pay for what they have done. As we say in politics: “Time does not run against the state.” Even if they die, time will stand on our side and exhume their actions for appropriate measures. See what they do… see them frolicking around with wealth gathered by squeezing the sweat off the labouring man and then making them pay again to sustain his irresponsibility. They are bold to speak now, and are bold to splatter their flamboyance on the pages of glossy opulent magazines……. Let somebody warn them please. The monkey is not assured of retuning from the market square, thus it should find alternate routes to do so. 

Let me at this point give an advice to our legislators who may not have those they are accountable to. In the words of Lee Kuan Yew: “Leaders must have a sense of trusteeship that they are only temporarily in charge of the destinies of their people, and that their duty is not only to discharge that trust, but also to pass it on to equally trustworthy and competent hands.” They shouldn’t forget that our destinies are tied to their performance during their tenures. If they fail, we have have failed, and if they succeed we have succeeded. However, I am sure these men already know right from wrong, but something else guides them other than servant-hood. With time we will discover and know who the axe will fall upon.

As we celebrate a country at 48, I thought foolishness drops from the pocket of a forty year old. But it seems to me we still carry a couple of them; not in pockets this time, but within our national structures. As for this kind of foolishness…..we need badly A ‘ROD’ OF CORRECTION!!!