A PEOPLE IN DENIAL

"Boko Haram has not committed any wrong to deserve amnesty. Surprisingly the Nigerian government is talking about granting us amnesty. What wrong have we done? On the contrary, it is we that should grant you (government) pardon"- Abubakar Shekau, the spokesman and leader of Boko Haram speaking to the French News Agency AFP. 
 
Whilst our President is still busy offering amnesty to those who have rejected it and whilst the Nigerian people and intelligensia are involved in a barren and futile debate about the merits and demerits of granting amnesty to terrorists, Boko Haram continues to kill, maim and destroy. It is clear to me that our people are in denial and that our government is deluded, irresponsible and insensitive. As we are busy debating about amnesty or no amnesty for Boko Haram, the Niger Delta terrorist organisation known as MEND have quietly given us notice about their sinister plans for our country. After killing 14 policemen in a ruthless attack just last week they have told us through their spokesman, one Jomo Gbomo, that it is their intention to "start killing muslims and attacking mosques as from 31st may, 2013 in order to protect and save christianity in Nigeria". This warning and statement of intent was published and reported in the American website magazine called Bloomberg.com on the 14th April 2013. 
 
Yet despite all these troubling signs and signals the Nigerian people and the Nigerian Government, in their usual manner, are still napping and pretending as if all is well. Perhaps we all deserve what is coming. A people that do not even have the guts to courageously demand that their government rise up to the occassion and do their job by protecting the lives and property of its citizens deserve prayer and pity. When Boko Haram and MEND finally face one another in a terrible war of reprisal killings and bombings that is when our people will understand the implications of tolerating a government that is incapable of doing its job and confronting terror with a firm and decisive hand.
 
 Meanwhile Nigeria continues to bleed and die as many of her citizens are bombed to pieces, maimed and have their throats slit open every day by islamist terrorists who do not know, or care to know, the meaning of peace, restraint, decency or dialogue. President Goodluck Jonathan has handed our country over to a bunch of butchers who have no value for human life. Under his watch our people continue to die and die whilst he sits in the Presidential Villa and drinks champagne.
 
Worst still is the sheer irresponsibility and shameless behaviour of one or two of our northern governers who, instead of attempting to provide more security for their people in their respective domains, are besides themselves trying to either get on the lucrative gravy train known as the Boko Haram Amnesty Commitee or are actually speaking for Boko Haram and explaining their actions. If the latter were not the case how do you explain the illogical and frankly absurd contribution from my old friend Governor Isa Yuguda of Bauchi state who said that ''the real Boko Haram will accept amnesty'' and that ''it is their criminal and political sect members that are rejecting the offer?'' (Leadership Newspaper, 15th April, 2013). 
 
I have three questions here. Since when has a democratically elected governor of one of the largest and most important states in northern Nigeria and a man that was a Minister of the Federal Republic of Nigeria under President Obasanjo's government for almost eight good years become the official spokesman for Boko Haram? How come he appears to know who is who within that terrorist organisation and the attitude and nature of each of it's factions and why does he seek to absolve his preferred faction of the evil that they have collectively visited on the Nigerian people in the last two years? The third question is this- since when has any part or faction of Boko Haram not been criminal and political? I daresay that every part and every faction of this wicked organisation of heartless men and women is not only criminal but they are also political and religious.
  
Boko Haram is an islamist organisation who are dedicated to imposing and establishing an islamic fundamentalist state in northern Nigeria through the use of violence. They also wish to wipe out christianity and true islam in the north and they reject the idea of living in a country where christians can take any position of leadership let alone be President. Yet these are the type of people that Governor Isa Yuguda and a number of other northern leaders is now speaking for and trying to absolve? A vicious group of people that have slaughtered no less than 4,200 Nigerians and non-Nigerians in the last two years and that have burnt down and bombed virtually every church that existed in some commiunities and states in the north? If anyone doubts that they should find out from the catholics what happened to 50 of the 52 churches that they established in Borno state. 
 
The implication of Yuguda's contribution is that there is a faction of Boko Haram that is wholesome and righteous. Yet nothing could be further from the truth. Every single person and group that is a part of or is in any way associated with Boko Haram is evil, is destructive and has blood on their hands. And anyone, no matter how highly placed, reverred or distinguished, that tries to rationalise their actions or absolve them of their murderous ways is equally evil and equally guilty of murder. Nigeria is a country in denial where leaders are always ready, willing and able to rationalise, defend and forgive the actions of beasts. Yet this has not always been so. Remember the public beheading of Gideon Akaluka in Kano in the 90's by an irate mob of islamists for allegedly using a page of the koran as toilet paper and General Sani Abacha's decisive response to such madness?
  
When Abacha was in power he knew exactly how to handle the islamist tendency that plagued Kano in his time, including those that organised and incited the mob to kill Akaluka. He had them killed quietly one after the other until the problem was solved and the plague of islamist terror was abated. One of the leaders of those that killed Akaluka, as a consequence of his royal connections, survived and escaped death only because he was hidden in a Sokoto prison for two years whilst Abacha was told that he had been killed. That individual certainly came bouncing back into the public space and the circles of power and has now reached ''high places'' but that is a story for another day. How I wish that the present leadership of our country could learn a lesson or two from General Sani Abacha's approach to the islamist rebellion that we have been confronted with. They can also learn a lot from the approach of another moderate muslim by the name of Kamel Attaturk who was the founder and father of the modern Turkish state. He knew what to do to the islamist terrorists in his midst and he did it without thinking twice or batting an eyelid.
 
Yet sadly Nigeria is not blessed with such leaders today. Instead we are saddled with a President who, only a few weeks ago, described Boko Haram as his ''siblings''. We have a President who does not appreciate the fact that it is his job to provide security for our nation and to protect the Nigerian people from the enemy within and the enemy without. We have a President who is on his knees morning, day and night begging the islamist terrorists to accept an amnesty that they never asked for in the first place and which they have consistently rejected. We have a President and a people that just don't know what they are up against. We have a President and a people that are suffering from the worst form of denial. May God save Nigeria and may He send us a deliverer.

Boko Haram and the tortoise doctrine By Obi Nwakanma

President Goodluck Jonathan,truly found his vocation: with a doctorate in Zoology, there could be no better place for him to put his skills to work than in the Zoo called Nigeria. Nigeria is a zoo, with all kinds animals: the benign and the ferocious; their instincts are the same. At the top of this zoological food chain, are the big animals – the elephants of the jungle – where ever their footsteps fall – the grass was forbidden to grow.

But let me tell a little Igbo story, and Chinua Achebe had told it in some part in Anthills of the Savannah: the peaceful and indistinct tortoise was walking down a pathway one day when the lordly lion met him on his way, and roared: “aha! God done catch you today!” He said to the Tortoise; “I have been looking for you!”

The Tortoise of course knew the lion’s reputation for bullying, but he retained his dignity. “Beg your pardon,” he said to the lion, “but why have you been looking for me?”

“To beat you!” said the lion.

‘Is that so?” said the Tortoise.

“Na so e be” said the lion.

“In that case give me a minute” said the Tortoise, “grant me my last wish…”

“Ah. Take ten minutes” said the Lion, amused, and feeling very generous. Well, the Tortoise began to trample on the ground, scatter the soil; and beat the grass; to make the place generally rough and well acted upon. The Lion was taken aback by this, and he couldn’t contain himself.

“Tortoise, what’re you doing?”

“Writing down my own story…”

“What? You crazy little thing. You no get sense!”

“Balogun lion, look at me, what do you see?”

“A crazy little thing whom I’m going to beat up soon.”

“Good. But you do not see it yet. I am a small thing, and you ask why I scatter this place.”

“Yes…”

“Well, you’re powerful and I cannot match your physical strength. So, you’re going to beat me, I have no doubt. However, when people come here, and see this place, they will say, “the great tortoise put up a fierce fight against the mighty lion. They will know I did not go down very easily.”

It is the uncommon wisdom of the oppressed to rise to the occasion of history and deploy, by all means necessary, their own means of resistance. Nigerians too should not go down too easily. It is obvious that this ship called nation is sinking, and very fast, and a firefight is going on.

It is obvious that Nigeria’s political leadership has been withholding the absolute secrets of Nigeria’s final days from the Nigerian public. They seem to have prepared for themselves means of escape, nest eggs in various secret banks in foreign lands; emergency evacuation of their families and close friends; simply, at the high places are the Nigerian equivalent of the “Noah’s Ark projects” that will save only a few privileged species of the Nigerian animal, while the fire and conflagration that is close by burns the land.

In preparation for the final days of Nigeria, while Nigerians hide and pray, the Nigerian elite has systematically stripped every public institution of its meaning: Nigeria’s University and research facilities have gone to the dogs; Nigeria’s electric and energy delivery system has been sold part for part and in bits to the highest bidders; its oil fields have been mortgaged to foreign interests in the knowledge that there will not be a future generation; its strategic telecommunication infrastructure was the first to be farmed out, as no other country in the world does.

No nation other than Nigeria has ever handed its national telecommunication system – the basis of its national security – to private foreign interests, nor its core strategic national industrial infrastructure – steel and aluminum plants – bought and sold, and those that could not be sold, allowed to slide into decay.

It is clear, that the purpose of the Nigerian government in the last fifteen years, at least, has been to oversee the liquidation of the shared space of nation; to make Nigeria irretrievable, to supervise its demise, and seal its final treaties. The federal government itself acts like an enemy of the Nigerian people.

Those who have held power at the center and the states in Nigeria in the last fifteen years are not our brothers or sisters, our neighbors, our kinsmen, our classmates, they do not care for us as Nigerian citizens; they are not out to build the future of this nation; they are the millstones on the neck of the Nigerian people, acting out the orders of powerful global forces to reduce and erase what is currently Nigeria from the face of the globe. Boko Haram is the final nail in the coffin of Nigeria. What is Boko Haram? Nobody knows.

They are “ghosts” said the Nigerian president. “Give them amnesty” says the Sultan and the so-called leaders of the North. “Bring them out and we’ll begin negotiation” says the Jonathan government. In this case, the president is right. No one can offer amnesty to ghosts. If Sultan Abubakar and General Buhari knows them, let them bring out Boko Haram, and then any talk of amnesty might rightly begin.

But at the moment, and as General Azubuike Ihejirika, Chief of the Nigerian Army said last Monday, Boko Haram’s method is “baffling.” Well, this might just be because, there are too many Boko Harams. It is now a franchise with many mimic groups, including “Black Ops” groups within government, milking dry the national security vote which is now higher than the budget for education and research, industry and labour, put together.

Everybody is now Boko Haram. And Nigeria is like tinder, right at the edge, about to combust. And I say, Nigerians should not go down too easily. They should adopt “the Tortoise doctrine” of resistance, and they have two options: either commit mass suicide, one agreed “national suicide night” at the family tables, or organize and fight, and take back the sovereign mandate.

Nigerians should protest and reclaim their rights, create inter-community defense pacts to defend themselves in the coming anarchy because the federal government, it increasingly seems, no longer has the capacity to defend Nigeria or guarantee the rights and internal security of Nigerian peoples.

Everyone thought I’ll fail – Udeme Ufot, SO&U boss

Remember that popular Guinness TV commercial “My friend Udeme is a great man”? Until I spent over an hour with this innovative middle-aged man who actually produced that ad, I couldn’t grasp why he had to adjudge ‘Udeme’ great. Mr.Udeme Ufot is the Group Managing Director of SO&U, one of Nigeria’s most influential advertising agencies, affiliated to Saatchi & Saatchi, a global advertising agency. ‘A great seat!’, you might exclaim, but believe me, that isn’t the reason our friend Udeme is a “great man”. In 1990, Udeme Ufot had resigned his rewarding employment with a foremost advertising firm, Insight Communications, and had ventured into private practice relying solely on his creativity and dynamism, knowing well that the field was highly manipulated by the “bigger and older practitioners”. He seemed too brave and almost everyone thought it won’t be long before he crumbled, but it’s over 23 years on and Udeme Ufot is still making great strides in the world of advertising, even to the extent of winning the Fate Model Entrepreneur Award 2012.

Courageous beginning

When 23 years ago he became restless about venturing into private practice, Udeme Ufot did not have the ideal prerequisites for setting up an advertising firm. But today, Udeme is a great man. He had studied industrial design and specialised in graphic design at the Ahmadu Bello University where he graduated  and then worked for several years with Insight Communications as a creative artist. That knowledge was of course not enough to run a successful advertising business considering the presence of people who had perhaps studied advertising and managed frontline seats in the industry. “What a disadvantage!, one would ordinarily think. But Udeme was smart and decided to rely on the main substance visible in advertising- creativity, and within 18 months, the agency was named the most creative in the country.

Naïve team

“Getting started was not easy. We had a bunch of very green, naïve young people. SO&U is an acronym for Gbemi Sajay, Julia Oko and Ufot. We used to be among the backroom guys who get things done in the advertising industry. I have a creative background, Sagay was an art director and Oko was a copywriter. So, in the first instance, setting out to establish such business was an anomaly in the industry.  This made people laugh at us. But what have seen us through are resilience, determination and focus. We said to ourselves that we’ll go by a very simple strategy- nobody can deny seeing a good thing when he or she has seen it.  What was important to us was to ensure that we very quickly make a mark in our calling”, Udeme reveals.

“Therefore, we agreed that any work we found to do, we must do it differently and well. We rendered outstanding services above what we were paid for! We put our people through intensive training, and we virtually turned the agency into a school. We gradually turned our entire agency into an environment for continuous improvement and learning”.

Gift of creativity

Udeme didn’t just stumble into the creative world of advertising- he had dreamed of it as a teenager! He co-incidentally discovered he had the skills and made conscious efforts towards improvement. Being the son of the Registrar of the University of Calabar at that time, he had access to the university library and read voraciously. While studying a journal on advertising and marketing one day though he had wanted to be a political scientist, he came across an illustration of an impressive looking fellow, and the caption under that illustration read: “A Trendy Art Director”. Immediately, Udeme fell in love with the art director and his work and began dreaming and working towards becoming one someday. That was between 1975 and 76.

He adds: “What helped me was that I was talented creatively. Right from my primary school, I could draw very well, I could act in plays and I was very good in literature. In fact, when I sat back and analysed myself, I saw that I had the relevant skills. That’s why I always tell people that it is easier to succeed when you’re doing what you enjoy doing”.

Between passion and success

To Udeme, the relevance of passion to success was invaluable. Having been in business for 23 years, and with a clientele comprising conglomerates and the banking sector, you cannot but wonder how he became one of the few doyens of the industry. “Passion makes the difference! It drives everything. It’s one thing to have the talent and resources, but you must have the drive, and that drive comes from the passion to succeed. Because we had nothing when we set up SO&U, everyone told me and my team we’ll fail. For the first six months, we couldn’t afford a telephone in the agency, not even curtains. The first furniture we had was my dining table in my own house. We all sat round that table to do our work! The first furniture in my office as MD was a sofa I brought from my house. I didn’t have a worktable, so, I would write my notes on my thighs. Of course, these lacks aren’t the things that will make one fail, unlike what many think. I believe it’s about knowing what you lack and being able to improvise. But when you have the passion and drive to succeed, nothing can stop you. That passion drove us and every income we made, we invested in ourselves to acquire knowledge and upgrade our skills. We invested in our business too to furnish the office, buy computers and make ourselves more efficient because we had the vision of where we were taking our agency. If you lack passion, you’ll sit back and lament about what you don’t have: ‘I don’t have a godfather, I don’t have money, I can’t find clients because I’ve not worked with clients before…’, but when you’re being fired up by passion, nothing will stop you”. 

Financial barrier

True to his word, not even financial constraints could make him jettison his aspiration of going into private practice 23 years ago. “This company was started with N60,000 of my life savings in 1990”, Udeme was quick to add. He had started the business in the guestroom of his house, and when in the third month he found an office in Apapa that would cost him a hundred thousand naira rent, not even his age-long bank was willing to loan him N60,000 to augment what he had. A childhood friend came to his rescue and in less than two years after SO&U took off, because he had become influential in the industry, a delegation from the same bank came to woo him to bank with them!

FEYI BANKOLE