Dear Sir, well done, fine and philosophical Colonel. Our ex-this and ex-that are like the proverbial oil decked sparrows of the Sahel and mangrove that croons songs in variations as situation demand, just to secure and sustain natures’ protection in their face saving gambit. They are solid replicas of bad judgement, as they often strive to repackage the brainless skeleton with rotten and stinking flesh, no kindos to the renditions of irrational minds. Great. Mazi Amaechi Ezeugonna 08091214564

Dear Sir, Great write up. Jimanze your write-up turns me on. Your objectivity and clarity of details show great efforts in research, and records. You are very retaintive and a realist, with a soul and brain that has not been corrupted by politics, religion or money. You are an invaluable historian and writer. Keep it up. People like Gowon, Murtala, Buhari, IBB, Abacha, Abdullahi are traitors to this nation, but patriots to their ethnic Northern region. Iyke Ogbonna. 08082409351.

Dear Sir, Given the chance I will nominate you to consult for Ohaneze and the five Eastern governments. Only then shall the Igbo get their bearing right. Even Nigeria. Let them, great writers and eggheads come and learn; for yours is logic beyond error. Ahiazuwa 08033778384

Dear Sir, As long as your page appears in the Daily Sun on Thursday, I’ll continue to buy the paper every Thursday. Obunikem Okonkwo. 08022824087

Dear Sir, just read your piece in today’s Sun and as a key player in some of the things you mentioned, it is clear you lack facts Moreso, who do you think are the real enemies of Ndi-Igbo in Nigeria, Hausas or Yorubas? Who benefits more from the political and economic misfortunes of Ndi-Igbo since 1967? 08078848815.

Dear Sir, ‘On the Remembrance of Things that never were? You are too much today, fantastic. God bless you always. 08060701228

Dear Sir, you are good. You understand the Nigerian leaders very well. You have made me hooked to the Daily Sun. Please if  you have books you have written I will like to buy. God bless you Azuka. 08035686556.

Yes we have 3 books and interested readers may reach us. 2TG

Dear Jimanze, I sincerely enjoyed your thought on the issue of zoning. I think what is militating against Nigeria’s peace and development is countless. When Jonathan indicated interest to contest the presidency in 2011 we were told that zoning was dead and buried for good. In line with the tradition of hypocrites and traitors, after elections, zoning of political offices become the best option once again. Today, criminals in the Niger Delta are threatening to go to war if Jonathan is not allowed to complete his two terms of 8 years. Under which policy can this be possible now that zoning is dead? Ifeanyi O. Ifeanyi. 07030981551

Dear Jimanze, just read your usually thought provoking column this time On the Remembrance of Things that never were. Its profundity is truly marveling. History, not hysteria will findicate you! Just keep it up. 08037261963

Dear Sir, why should the House of Representative call for Asari Dokubo’s arrest because of his stern stand where he said Nigeria will be on fire if President Jonathan fails to win 2015 election, when somebody said Nigeria will be made ungovernable if Jonathan wins 2011 election and have been ungovernable after the statement, and he was not arrested? Jonathan is a bull in a China or potter’s shop and must be led out after uninterrupted eight years. The north should bear with us, and can as well tell their time. Since we cannot find who is a Boko Haram, that means all the North are Boko Haram destroying their rumps. Okey. 08033059380

Dear Jimanze, your piece On remembrance….. was a masterpiece. Nonetheless you made a wrong assertion on Baba not winning a ticket to hell. Pray for revolution to wipe them all away. 08067236310

Dear Jimanze, The Turf Game as published in Daily Sun of May 9 was a regret and only equal to a child learning the art of basket wearing. Your sense of history is replete with realities only as you interprete them, not as they are. Please take a course on sociology of knowledge and understand what is subjective reality and objective reality. Thanks .T. Aminde. No 6 Ayaka Street Off J.S. Tarka way. Gboko Benue State. 08033764880

Dear “Zimanze” you are also a regent journalist. Thump up for you. 08030954596.

Dear Sir your On Remembrance of Things that never were did not quite hit the Proustian height of in Remembrance of things Past. Ango Abdullahi was right. Asiodu and super perm secs of that era made a fatal error in misreading “their manifest destiny” of keeping Nigeria one minus justice. Hence his jeremaids on realizing their error. 2015 must be contested for and not given on a platter to your candidate. Agu Onwuzuruoha 08034034878

Dear Sir, Thanks for your insightful piece of 9/5/13. The Yorubas and their Northern allies who connived to eliminate the minorities and take over their oil wealth can’t stand an Ijaw man ruling over their kingdom for eight years, hence their impatience in forming APC to take over power to protect their hold on our oil wealth. Our brothers who cannot read between the lines right from the reasons for the civil war are busy castigating. Jonathan for poor performance. Mfon Iniunam. 08184249565

Dear Jimanze, your holier than thou attitude in your pieces, especially on the military and civil war, is nauseating. Have you not always doctored your historical “mis-facts” on Biafran war to suit your tribal inklings? Now you have the guts to indict yourself by admitting that “to narrate is to make a messy human sequence seem smooth and inevitable”. What a colossal self-indictment! The likes of Asiodu and other intellectuals who served the military helped Nigeria to be on the administrative track, else we would have been worse off for it. And on your Obasanjo Regency Presidency, It was a military design which did not involve the Yoruba leaders I doubt whether the Yoruba and even Nigerians who voted massively for Abiola, would ever forgive IBB for annulling 1993 Presidential election. Dream of the North ruling others forever is over. state supremacy it is to many. It appears universal. Lai Ashadele 07067677806

Dear Sir, thank you so much for putting the issue of zoning in proper perspective. The tree of failed Nigerian state was planted and fertilized by the military dictatorships and all the civilian governments. We have had since 1970s were contrived by them; hence the entrenched  corruption. Jonathan should run in 2015, at least equity and posterity demand that he dies so. If we want Nigeria to work, its high time we sat down and negotiate our existence. 08034205517

Dear Elder Jim, I was the first to announce that our “Turf Game” was getting tougher by the day, but very few seemed to be aware. Today we have won more “converts” than most of the jet-setting Pastors. My fear is that we may be schemed out at the toughest stage of this Game. As for the supremacy of the state, it did not start with Caesar. Socrates gladly swallowed poison and insisted that the state was “One Great thing? With the ultimate power. Anyone who does not like to see Jonathan’s face till 2019 should go and break the sky. Chikina Ndudi 08067810754.

Dear Sir, Zimanze, I agree it will only be cool to allow Dr. Joe to complete his own 8 years not to add to him his Yar’Adua interregnum. But will the northern oligarchy allow this? Even the mention of 8 years for Dr. Joe sends shock waves down their spines, and you are writing and campaigning for it…. You may give them a heart attack or at least a stroke o! Iyke. Owerri. 08033903716

Dear Sir, it is the victor mentality that is giving rise to this orchestrated messiah-ship mantra of the like of Asiodu, Murtala, Gowons etc of this nation. If our intellectual could join hands and subject their individual and collective roles to critical analysis they will be given their real status – anarchists and harbingers of the poor state of the nation. 08166016979

Dear Sir, you are the man. Here are three gbosaa for the scholarly generalissimo. 08188247405

Dear Sir, all the talks of state well being without justice, equity and morality is used to hoodwink only the fools. They are not patriots, but power drunk fraudsters. Your write-up exposed this. 08096349435.

Dear Sir, that the society may not be enslaved to the state, the aspirations of equity, fairness and fraternity must be upheld. If Jonathan and his kiths perceive their seclusion to 2015 presidency due to the power brigand of the northern feudalists, we are simply asking for an Abacha with the face of Ghandi, albeit the examples of Ibori and Amechi will suffice. Philip from Ondo. p_nnaa@yahoo.com

In the end historians and memoirists are epic dramatizers. But the best of them however won’t allow internal contradictions to infest their narrative or series. That is why Machiavelli, Histories, or Okigbo, Path to Thunder, makes for beneficial reading today as each did many moons ago. Reading through Chief Asiodu The Guardian, 05-05-13, I was certain the great man was full of remembrances of things that never happened, that never were. In simple language he was not just reconstructing, he was inventing facts and sequences.

That is he was telling historical lies, creating facts that can’t stand on their own or upon inquiry, on logic. He speaks; but once you destroy the ability or the will of the civil service to do necessary the civil service is no longer fearless and competent enough to implement them, you get into this downward cascade of bad governance. The above as high minded as it sounds is completely off the mark. In a dictatorship there can be nothing like a fearless or competent civil service. What you have are courtiers. Once you allowed a dictatorship to run, you all become worms.

And little is the matter your designation or how highly paid you are; as perm secs, ministers, vice chancellors… fools. So the only citizen moral courage in the reign of a dictatorship is in plotting to sack the dictator. It is not in being courageous palace eunuchs or courtiers. That of course is a contradiction in terms, almost like one was speaking of holy Satan. And history has affirmed time and again that courtiers to be successful must best be clowns.

Or you thought the pithy saying a king and his clowns, is just another clowning? Perhaps you did not notice how wonderfully well Alibaba prospered under his Baba, the civilian dictator? So in every meaningful sense of the word, under every dictatorship, any successful senior civil or public servant, including those professors who sodomized their souls for a mess of career pottage, were clowns. There is no other way to the top under a dictatorship than to clown and entertain his lordship. It is like in the animal kingdom, you surrender your anus to be snorted and smelled. So it was not the sacking of the civil service by the misanthropic and morbidly sectional General Murtala Mohammed that ruined that service.

What ruined the civil service was the very presence and triumph of Gowon as a dictator. Murtala completed or merely accelerated an already downward cascade, to use Asiodu’s words, that Gowon (or more properly that started with Nzeogwu/Ironsi who failed quickly as coupists) triggered. That is why we have said it and we repeat; the best thing that happened to Nigeria is that Nzeogwu coup failed. The worst is that Gowon’s coup succeeded. And Asiodu continues; but the recklessness and impunity after 1975, it was as if anybody could do any job, which is not true.

But is a coup, including General Gowon’s own not an act of impunity? And is the underlining logic of every coup, not that anybody, here specifically the coup maker, could do any job? And hold it, here, the fanciest job in town, which is the total hijacking and running of a country and its resources? At the age and stage Gowon and virtually the rest of them, took over the country, nothing specially qualified them to high command in a British legion, say. Yet Asiodu thought little of the impunity of Gowon running Nigeria like it were his mom and pop shop for 8 long and ruinous years.

So if Gowon or just about any gun totting character can run a Nigeria, a whole country and its resources, for “X” years, why can’t any fool be a perm sec or minister? In a related development Professor Ango Abdullahi continued in this tradition of the past as a sequence of historical lies or invented facts. He claims in Punch of 05-05-13: He (Obasanjo) was the first beneficiary, (of zoning), he was in prison when he was picked up, cleaned up, pardoned, given money… and he became the president but he was the first to say there was no zoning.

Obasanjo was the first beneficiary of the zoning arrangement. This again is not just utter lies, historical lies. It is just that it couldn’t have happened. What happened is nearer this than furtherer away from it. After the annulment of June 12 by the Northern Armed Forces of Nigeria, and the near total humiliation of the Yoruba, their erstwhile allies and apparent co-security council member, the north truly feared for their tottering Nigerian empire.

They feared that a humiliated Yoruba if not quickly pacified were bound to agitate for confederation or even secession. And since nobody, not even the north believed in a true Nigeria, events forced a reality check on them. So the north, kneeing down begged Obasanjo (how many presidents do you want to make of me he asked them) to stand in as a Regent to their power and succession lines. The purpose was to pacify the Yoruba and de-activate any triggers towards confederation or breakup. And that decision to beg Obasanjo it is well to remark happened before PDP was formed, and was taken outside the PDP. It was a private feudalistic arrangement to rein in the Yoruba by bribing them with office of the Regent-Presidency.

And it worked. But like in all human contrivances it had its own K-leg, in fact one can say, I or Ijaw leg. Remarkably even during the first days of the Obasanjo Regency, the north became impatient for power. This perhaps was understandable. From Atiku to Balarabe Musa, the country Nigeria has existence, only when northerners have exclusive claims to the succession lines of the presidency, either in elected or coup-centric guise. So for them the Obasanjo Regency was not to last longer than necessary. And the north showed its power hands.

Atiku acting out the old script gathered traitor and gullible governors, and intrigued to dismiss Obasanjo, his nominal principal from office. Even IBB, by proxy staged in and was claiming that the Obansanjo regency was a temporary arrangement. Added up, these were vernacular-speak, that successions to the Nigerian presidency are an inheritance of the north. So the Obasanjo presidency could not have been a beneficiary of zoning save in their futile and vain imaginings. Obasanjo’s Regency-Presidency pre-existed the PDP as a functional party. And zoning is a PDP formulation and no historical revisionism can alter this fact. Of course an Obasanjo left alone, without northern generals and feudalists fixing things, is an electoral liability.

There was no way he would have won a ticket, not even to hell. However despite the play of high-minded civic spiritedness there lie hidden behind the works and words of these two men, grander issues. But first this story: I was once a retained minion to one of the most powerful families in Nigeria. And I was scheduled to accompany one of their dauphins to Switzerland for his deals. As he checked into a palatial resort I struck an amazing friendship with a certain French national and as he told me later, a Professor of history.

And this is the gist of all I learnt from Professor Jean Stemiel, for such was his name: The man who saved Europe was a monastic Swiss historian, Jacob Burckhardt. Or at least it was the tendency he represented. He was Stemiel told me the first great modern historian. His achievements I was further told was to separate culture, state and society and an insistence that the great purpose of the state is not to enslave culture or society or drive them to serve her. That is that the state is not a supreme value.

The state is one of several human values and constructions. The greatest of the constructions, the Graces, are as Paul said in the Bible, Stemiel claimed; those things that survive to the end. And the state is not one of those. Haute culture is; that is justice, freedom and fraternity. Before Burckhardt, Stemiel asserted all Europe had believed in Caesarism, which is the deification of the state as the end in itself and the highest goal of man. It was this Caesarism he stated that led several European powers at one time or the other, to want to pacify all Europe under one tribal rule. Germans, French…. Italians all tried it and failed.

The results he asked rhetorically are Waterloo, Dresden, Stalingrad, Flanders, and the ruins of our human all too human destruction. But with the triumph of what Burckhardt represents, Europe has come to knowledge that there can be no pacification under the rolling wheels of the state or its armed brigands. Burckhardt has liberated society from the state or being an agent of the state. A gun bearer Zimanze, as he mispronounced my name, is not a saint of or sent by God. Now behind the words and works of Ango and Asiodu is the completely passé and even misanthropic position that the state is the highest and most sublime expression of man. Therefore anything can be done to preserve the state.

For instance Asiodu has self-celebrated he was a part of the team that advised Gowon to repudiate his own humanity or his signed agreements apparently to preserve and prosper the state. But the logic of repudiating freely signed agreements, a hallmark of our free humanity, is what haunts all of us today. If Gowon is to count now as a hero, we are condemned to keep his key ways and means. That is we must act unilaterally whenever we can for the sake of the state. And this includes the sacking of Gowon’s or any regime so long as in our imagination or calculation it is in the good of the state. This is the logic that sanctifies every counter coup.

So Murtala’s coup was state-tropic and state-centric and therefore moral, which are the only required credentials. This is because in following or imitating his christ, Gowon, Murtala righteously usurped Gowon’s usurped powers. In fact Professors Tam David-West and Ogaga Ifowodu have severally accused one certain Asiodu, and it is up to them to prove which of the Asiodus, of canvassing the mass murder of the minorities and taking over their oil so that the Nigerian state will know the most peace and prosper. For Ango it is the same issue of deification of the state only here with the sole purpose of an Arab-Sultanate style of succession.

That is if you are not born into power you, not even votes may empower you. And this is the danger we run. It therefore follows that the Nigerian state must be debriefed, de-Nazified and made human all too human. It therefore serves our greatest common good and safety that Jonathan runs for his whole eight year term, even if Nigeria has to break up and go to pieces. And the reasons are as the old educator Burckhardt will tell; it is better to sacrifice the state for equity, for fairness, for fraternity, than to sacrifice those for the state. In the end there may be no state, but there will always remain the human hunger for fairness, for equity and for fraternity.

And if we gave up on fairness, on fraternity, on equity for the sake of the state, that state will in its logical realization generate a Hitler. Or an Abacha? That is if Jonathan is denied a fair chance we are racing against time to produce a Nigerian Hitler; and holy Satan, without German brains? Ahiazuwa. •And Pini Jason died. Now where shall we find the tears to mourn such an incomparable fellow? We are dazed, We are inconsolably lost for words. Adieu Pini.

Dear Jimanze, thanks a lot for your article, the place of the woman is in the house. I quite agree with you. And a lot was learnt from it. God bless. Ken Udechukwu J.P. from Lagos. 08033465243

Dear Sir, good piece on Thursday, April 11, Daily Sun. 07038635766

Dear Sir, your article on the place of the woman is interesting, but as a woman I believe that wise counsel from the woman should be taken by our husbands. 08036757186

Dear Sir, your satirical piece on the place of the woman… could have been inspired by your encounter with Allah De, a past master in that genre or may be the scales fell off your eyes (no pun intended). But I disagree with your take that men are mere pawns sent off by women to do their bidding. Human society has always been male-dominated. Society frowns at men who are hen-pecked. It is also true that many a man have been brought to ruin by women. See Samson and Delilah; Helen of Troy; a former police DIG and the sugar in his tea; Iyabo Olorunkoya affair. Iyabo Olorunkoya was the woman, who dismissed Brigadiers Adekunle and Sotomi from greatness in the mid 1970s. Agu Onwuzuruoha. 08034034878.

Dear Jimanze, thanks a lot for a change and simpler way of writing. It shows that you are one of the best. Your articles are always interesting to me and my fellow analyst friends. Your PhD is not a fluke. Nothing will remove the fact that women are more disciplined than men. You check families without women, and disorder is the order of the day. Keep up your with your works. Okey Ezigbo. 08033294939.

Dear Jimanze, when my husband was in total control he never achieved anything. Then when he saw how God was blessing me and the achievement I made, he then decided to make me to be in control. Under three months he started to build his duplex in the village. So you are correct. 08061210106

Dear Sir, the Roman Empire collapsed because Julius Caesar wanted to dominate rather than allow himself, to be dominated by a woman (she doesn’t necessarily have to be your wife, but a woman all the same). Remember she was created when man was in deep sleep, read most vulnerable, and that is the position man found himself. Women rule the world forget all our pretences. 08034205517

Dear Jimanze, the more I read your piece on woman’s dominance over men the more it looks a sign of the end time. God in his infinite knowledge created Garden of Eden before Adam, who obeyed every decreed law of the creator to the letter. Later he created his helper Eve and made Adam the head of the home. But Eve made Adam eat God’s forbidden fruit through connivance of the devil, the initiator of Eve into evil doings. And that was where man’s relationship with God suffered a setback. Man’s fending for the home was assigned by God and not as end point in compliance with woman’s legislative processes. In good marital home it is normal for husband to keep his wife abreast of whatever would impact on the home. That was what Obama did. But where a woman dominates the husband all the time, there is more to it than meets the eye. Remember devil is a banned angel from heaven with its acquired power intact. Lai Ashadele. 070676778806

Dear Sir, house should refer to House, so that people will know that you are talking of the woman’s place being in the legislature and not mere residential accommodation as your caption portrays. As a woman, I hold that a woman should not legislate everything for a man, except where the man is daft. Rather both man and woman should come together, legislate and jointly execute all decisions which must be fair to both parties and the children (where there are children of the marriage). That is the best way and I will adopt this style when I get married. Everybody is important. Barrister Miss Chigozie Ifeoma Nwagbara LLM self published law author. FCT. 08033335091

Dear Sir, your luck is finished with a bad wife to obey. Adam for is one recorded example. Many men have met their waterloo from bad women. Your article on the place of the woman is in the house is only on lucky ones. Jezebel, lies, lies, lies, why don’t you go to hell? A man run by a woman is a slave. Man must use their brain, but love and listen to women sometimes. 08083839654

Dear Sir, I have read your piece and I am really fascinated by your introduction. By way of addition I want to say; if you see an Nnewi man and see money steal an Nnewi man and leave the money; for he is bound to make for you ten times the amount you wanted to steal in the first instance. My apologies to Nnewi people.08034205517

Re: Confirmed Nigeria has no public intellectuals!

Dear 2TG, after reading your article: Confirmed Nigeria has no public intellectuals! plus the many other articles of yours I have read in the past ( do I need to state that I look forward to Thursday every week to keep a date with 2TG), it became clear to me that your writings are revolutionary. Ahiazuwa. Yes, you have demystified all those past military ex-heads of this and that. And now you are including those public intellectuals, who sold their conscience by accepting to work with those strange fellows – the Buharis and Babangidas – to put this country on its head instead of its feet. What of those media men like Duro Onabule to IBB, Olusegun Adeniyi to the late Yar’dua and now Reuben Abati to Jonathan, that ate or are eating their vomit as media aides to these people? They defend what they criticised as private citizens. They are men without principle, controlled by their stomach. Keep your ink flowing. Charles Nwaigwe. 08056193286

Dear Jimanze, your sweeping condemnation of Professor Nwabueze’s confession is a misjudgment on your part. Jimanze, when will you stop reminding us of the ugly past? Lai Ashadele. 07067677806

Dear Sir, I agree with you on all points except on Soyinka’s accepting under IBB to found the Road Safety Commission. Many people did not support his acceptance of that appointment given the integrity of that regime at the time but it is one error of judgment I believe Soyinka should regret. Every coup d’etat like suicide, if it fails is a crime! But if it succeeds it becomes fait accompli by the reason that society accepts. Soyinka is clearly a true public intellectual who has been true in his vocations and ideas. During the Biafran war, he was incarcerated for his beliefs against injustice and oppression against the Igbo. He has not joined in the idea or action to subvert the republic and its ethos. He transcends ethnic and religious bigotry. He also interrogates the verity of our republic and its military imposed constitution and its praxis. Please, give him his dues; he deserves it. Onu john onwe. Abakaliki.08035033723

Dear Sir, Oga sir you are just too much. 08064049725

Dear Jim, we have always known these facts. The only thing new is that you have decided to mention the blade by its proper name. By the way where is the super cop, Alozie Ogubuaja. Ahiazuwa. 08188247405

Dear Sir, and hi first I see unparalleled journalism in you. Definitely you are after my heart. Charles. 08030750065

Dear Sir, may god bless you. Thanks a lot. 08172836884

Dear Sir, may god continue to sustain you. In other climes intellectuals are the catalysts and arrow-heads of civilization. They feel challenged in their different areas of callings. Until our own intellectuals become conscious of their roles Nigeria will never get it right. Eronini Ugochukwu. 08166016979

Dear Sir, good morning. Giving that the government made a mistake, by not writing to Shehu Sani before announcing his name as a member of the boko haram amnesty committee, he should have accepted the offer and still complain to government. It is ironic that a civil society stalwart will reject the offer to serve and bring peace to the whole region. A.I. Olisadebe 08033119751

Dear Sir, good day please keep firing on. What is the cost of your book; How Intellectuals under-developed Nigeria? 08185978397

Dear Sir, poor poor pitiful jonathan your piece on the above subject matter was a good one. I agree with you that the president has a lot of bad press. Is it because he is from the minority? No matter what he is the president of this country.  Can Obama be disrespected like this? Etim E. U. Wukari Taraba State. 07031695041

Dear Sir; My oga I read and enjoyed your article in Daily Sun of 25th April, 2012, but you need to explain the meaning of Ahiazuwa, a word you used in paragraph 5 of the article. Best regards as I await your response. Anuli Nwogbo anuli.nwogbo @gmail.com. *Ahiazuwa means let the conversation go on.

In this matter of Yushau A. Shuaib

In a recent hot button issue, a certain Yushau A. Shuaib was sacked (?) apparently for expressing opinions in public. I support his being disciplined but not being sacked. Firstly, he is a civil servant. The civil service code does not allow the free expression of opinions save through internal channels that are dedicated to that. It is a universal practice. And that one has been doing it and getting free is no excuse.

If, however, one feels so strongly about certain matters and can’t reconcile his situation as a civil servant with his conscience, he should resign and canvass those opinions as vigorously as he can. His attempts to separate his opinions in his personal and official capacities just don’t wash. It is all in his mind.

The needed silence of civil servants just comes with the territory and we need to preserve it for the sake of our society and its sanity. We have all been civil servants in several incarnations. And he should stop writing as a civil or public servant excerpt government promotional materials.

If the writer’s itch is too much, he should seize the courage and quit his day job. It is better to be a eunuch for the sake of the kingdom of the word, than to burn. Paul did it and he is immortal.

Maybe, the few kobo Shuaib picks up for emoluments stops us from having him a greater than Shakespeare! Anyway his “crime” is not so much that he should be punished with more than a warning letter and a promise of greater discipline on further infraction. Ahiazuwa.

If there were, those were impostors, profiteering on our ignorance and theirs. Of course, Maxwell might as well have been the great physicist as famous as any in history. We have preferred him because he is one of the three successful great official unifiers in history, especially of science. Tragically alas, this same imaginary Maxwell scenario is happening live, real time Nigeria. Professor Nwabueze has been making the rounds, confessing and we quote: Quite frankly, there are many flaws and many errors in the content of the constitution. So many errors and I as a person was partly responsible….

I was not only a member but chairman of one of the sub-committees that produced Chapter 2, the fundamental objectives and one of the cardinal flaws in the constitution is the concentration of powers in the centre. And the result is the almighty Federal Government but what we discover was that instead of producing unity, we produced disunity… Vanguard 22-03-13. See also Punch 10-03-13. Now, between 1978 and the present, no Nigerian intellectual, public or otherwise, has criticised these careerist intellectuals and apparatchiks except those, who allegedly stole a kobo or more.

As is evident, the errors of these careerists are legion. It is not only that they conspired to manufacture defective and counterfeit constitutions; they are also guilty of going into brand alliance with dictators, among other errors of concepts and executions. And worse they pretended, under Kalashnikov cover, they were great visionaries and even unifiers, the Maxwells of political and sociological engineering. Ahiazuwa. Now that Nwabueze in a new reincarnation has adjudged himself to be in error, we are left with no options than to conclude that there were/are no public intellectuals in Nigeria in the years between 1978 and the present born-again interventionism of Nwabueze.

If there were they would have pointed out these errors before Nwabueze and company ran away with it, being hailed as eminent persons, wise men and constitutional experts…all tinted with error, at least by self admission. The whole of intellectual life is built on the necessity to falsify the logic of every proponent. That is whatever you propose is to be rigorously doubted and every attempt made to falsify her. It thus follows that all these great names blotching ink over newspaper pages and their cousins, the internet/radio/TVs pundits are in business retailing ignorance for profit.

The tragedy is not that they ruin themselves, which is ok, but that they ruin us, commoner peoples too. Yet the question must be asked how did we come to this deadly pass? My first conjecture is that we are the creations of our poor mental abilities or pettiness. As I write, with the possible exception of Fela and Adekunle Fajuyi, I don’t know of any Nigerian who has been courageous enough to transcend the curse of the victor and other sectarianisms. For nearly all Nigerians, their operating logic is, we are right because we are victorious. This would have been alright if they had the patience or genius to think the matter through.

Let us give examples. Perhaps one of the best known of public intellectuals, human rights lawyers and worrywarts, is Femi Falana, SAN. Now Falana is a beneficiary of one of the gravest modern swindles in Nigeria. Ekiti State by the open admissions of Professor Sam Aluko was created as a favor to him by the dictator Sani Abacha, his partner in the political hijacking of the Nigerian State and its resources. Of course Ekiti State deserves or serves no purpose as a State, even unto itself. But it was created all the same as a medieval-style favor to a vizier, Professor Aluko, in our internet age.

The financial implication of this by one calculation is that Ekiti state and related peoples, Falana included, have had trillions of dollars of Nigerian oil money funneled to them exclusively. In fact the amount is so earthquake inducing, that Falana, apparently a dedicated Lagos lawyer, elected to trade-in his lucrative shingle for a day in the sun, to run the huge and unearned oil allocations to Ekiti State. Now there is nothing absolutely wrong with all those. It gets wrong when Falana, having secured a political robbery and its benefits, turns around to publicly canvass against state creation.

The question is why in logic must the swindle not go round, if beneficiaries of earlier swindles won’t confess to their robbery and return the loot? Another related example is the crap that IBB is Nigeria’s Mr. Corruption personified. It might as well be. But the sore and unasked question is why are those IBB traducers not indicting Professor Wole Soyinka, for example, who was brand alliance partner to the IBB hijack of the State and its resources? Any public intellectual, not excluding lawyers, fools, coup-makers, kidnappers… concerned professionals, who served and serviced a dictatorship has lost the locus standi to speak or complain of corruption; or not to be rated as one of the most corrupt persons alive. And the reason is simple. It is that he and his household have nothing left to lose from corruption.

This is because they have gained everything there is to gain, from corruption. To have taken office at all, even under the decoy of work no pay, as some are claiming, is a worse form corruption than the type Alaiyamesia has been accused of. At least the guy is/was a straight crook and we know. But you are a worse crook and are disguising the fact… and almost succeeding. Now if today’s public intellectuals cannot call the Soyinkas, Aminus, Nwabuezes, and DavidWests to order because they are of their kinds, or of their tribes or their in-laws or are brainy, what moral right do they have to speak on the corruption of more innocent or other persons?

This is especially so when the main issue is the illogic of a constitution we never bargained for, that has been hung on our necks because of the connivance and complicity of our scholars? Of this our utter dehumanization, aka counterfeited 21st century constitution and political jurisdiction creations and recreations, one can even grant state pardon to the coup makers.

They had only guns, and the best of them added starched uniforms to those. But what of those scholars who should have had brains? How come our eggheads were seduced, fooled, and approved the fooling of the rest of us just for the thin mess of careerisms? We have earlier put it on notice and we repeat; it were better all the military juntas and their brand alliance partners, scholars, lawyers, fools etc, stole Nigeria blind, than that they went about reconfiguring Nigeria and counterfeiting a constitution for us. And that alone is the real and only corruption in Nigeria.

That is the only corruption that spawns, authorizes and sanctifies the rest. If we allowed a forgery as a constitution then we must allow everything. And on this hang the law and the scriptures. That is, what we are being told, is Ahiazuwa, let the corruption go on. And in obeisance, it does. God is great! But our worst enemies will accuse that we are also intellectuals. Now here is our confession on the matter. We are only living men and that is both beneath being a scholar and sufficient unto us. We are only scholars in the sense that the snail is a two horned animal.

It is only when the bulls can’t defend the barn that the snails roll out their turrets to do the best they can. It is an act of desperation, because all else have failed and Armageddon were about to roll in. And we did. On our 17-01-13 column-essay we had course to write: Nwabueze, Soyinka, Akinyemi, Abubarka, David-West, to name their best, have lost their moral certainties, if not compasses. Consequentially their best nationalist theology should now be conducted in unmapped and boundless silences, except preceded by unreserved apologies for serving, servicing and stabilizing the mindless robbery of our human dignity and freedom. And this despite, alas, their being scholars.

To be scholar is the highest state of grace, a man can attend to. Even before that, we had in one of our earlier books alerted this nation to who her greatest enemies are; the intellectuals. And the book was: How Intellectuals Underdeveloped Nigeria. It is the failure of brains rather than the misfiring of Kalashnikovs, or weakness of leadership, that lays low mighty nations. If the brains fail all else has failed. It is really true a fish rots from the head. But we can confess that head is not the empty scull of leaders. That head is the brain of scholars, poets and prophets, of religion or of science.

There is nothing to gloat on that we demanded the apology and the great man offered one. Though we guess history will absolve us on this matter, yet we insist that the other eggheads, all bright and fragile, queue behind Nwabueze and confess their many and terrible sins, playing turf with armed political robbers. More, journalists must also rally to banner. Any journalist, who addresses an ex-coup maker as former head of state, is complicit to, an accessory to, and beneficiary of the crime; of the criminal hijack of a state and its resources, even if only after the fact.

These men are what they were, dictators, not ex-anything or everything else. They are only currently out of breath, panting for our unguarded hour, to strike and humiliate the nation. Journalists biko ronu. •This is a condensed extract from a longer piece.

Of all Akpabio said, one struck my heart in utter admiration. And that is his narrative of how his administration had abolished a certain human tragedy. It is the tragedy of the Akwa Ibom young and vulnerable persons being farmed out by their guardians as commercialised house helps. It is now a criminal offence for guardians to lease out their wards as house helps. And to match compassion with vision, Akpabio has not only built new schools but is granting the children of Akwa Ibom free education.

Now the question suggests itself, could it be that earlier governors of Akwa Ibom were not aware of the tragedy: that the children of their poor, who constitute about 80% of the population, had no greater vision or ambition in life than to be house boys? The answer to this question is at the root of the crisis of Nigerian development. It is the tragedy of attending to that which is popular and fanciful, rather than that which is important and primary. And this is where Caesar comes in.

Caesar was the great, perhaps the greatest statesman ever. His outstanding genius was the visionary insight of what to do with victory, which, not known to many, is never an easy task. Caesar was the first to call for all inclusive government or to dismiss the arrogance of the victor, here himself. Even in his betrayal and assassination, the world pays him a certain tribute it pays no other. Today, to speak of Czar in Russia, Kaiser in Germany, Cesarz in Poland, Qaysar in India etc is to re-enact that call of the noblest statesman of them all, Caesar, that victory belongs to all: to the poor, the defeated, the vulnerable, the house boys, the all.

And it is not for nothing that Germany’s greatest footballer ever, Franz Beckenbauer, our own Christian Chukwu in disposition, is called the Kaiser. This of course is in sharp contrast to the sense in which Nigerians run their victories. IBB just confessed as much in his ThisDay back page piece of 12-04-13. Nigeria ronu! But I have to warn Akpabio, that every Caesar comes with his Brutus. Yet he should not relent in the noble task of our creation; which is giving lift to the many that are weak and vulnerable.

Perhaps Akpabio’s next great task is to help repair and resuscitate the old East as one geography of cooperation, opportunities and progress. And this should be without prejudice to Akwa Ibom and other relevant South-South states’ commitments to South-South geo-polity. With his Caesar-like mind, Akpabio should drive this repaired old East and represent her at the larger Nigerian space. And of my new book, my commissioning editor suggested we dedicate it to Akpabio, to help immortalize and proselytize his vision. We are about the same task, which is how to give a lift to the vulnerable, he says.

Akpabio achieves his, by use of electoral mandate and you do by new knowledge scholarship he concluded. The book has been hailed by peer reviewers and assessor-professors as one of the two or three greatest theoretical expositions of, and contributions to economics in Nigeria. But what dear The-Turf-Game stars are our views? Ahiazuwa.

Something is rotten?

Yes something is rotten in the heart of the kingdom of Denmark, sorry the Republic of Nigeria. Otherwise how do we explain the absurdity that armed robbers are turning up moralists and moralizers? And not a few are upping their game by blaming the current administration of Goodluck Jonathan. Apart from the ignorance of the assertion, one shudders to see those comments are not moderated by reporters.

In a sense perhaps the reporters are suggesting these armed robbers are our moral philosophers. It is true poverty predisposes to crime but that is not a justification. If you are caught, yours is to be in shame and not to moralize on poor economy as triggers. In Sun of 11-04-13 a certain armed robber Taofik was quoted; I am not saying that crime is good but what else can someone like me do if not crime.

According to him with the bad economy rocking the country the government would not be able to curtail crime. We recall the first big-name Nigerian to mention the issue of all pervasive corruption and poverty is General Muhammad Buhari. He observed that the incidence of corruption is worrisome in Nigeria. He made mention that India too has pandemic poverty but corruption is not so democratic there as it is with us. We have taken the General up on the matter in one of our books.

Part of the explanation is that we lack genius and not leadership. Despite appearances we are not India’s equal in any meaningful sense. Take the issue of religion, a veritable and vital economic safety net. India has founded up to four or more world class religions; Buddhism, Hinduism, Sikhism and Jainism amongst others. Besides India has been a Switzerland of the religiously persecuted, both in ancient and modern times. Now a great agenda of all religions is economic, to keep the poor calm and contented.

That is religious peoples are likely to be found congregating at the temples and shrines than at the barricades and picketing lines. And to found great religions you needed supreme genius. Like we have observed in an unpublished manuscript, a great religion is simply put, E=MC2 devoid of the charm of mathematics. That is religious founders, an ancient and now rested clan, were the Einsteins and Newtons working at the same supreme levels of conceptualizations, of heightened mental energy, but without the tools of algebras.

That is compassionate Buddha and Lao Tzu, etc are Newtons, Einsteins working out the theory of everything, TOE, without the aid of calculus, while Einstein is just another Buddha converting OMs, yeeeh kparikpata Ogboni chants, etc into elegant equations. And it is not enough to import religions. If you did you are consumers. To be truly religious you must be founders of new or innovators of received religions.

That is why truly we are irreligious peoples. All the major religions we have, are imports (and much of them without Nafdac, Customs or Immigration clearances; accounting for why they breed so much bloodshed and death), from the Arabian and related deserts or as reworked by the religious gray market in Rome. Importing great religions is the equivalent of importing a Rolls Royce say, and riding same in Lagos pot holes.

That our brainless rich ride in Rolls Royce does imply that our finest brains can build a Volkswagen beetle. All it implies, as historical data suggest, is that we can consume but we cannot build. That is all these fast moving consumer goods, FMCG-pieties that Nigerian folks wear on their agbada sleeves, amount to nothing. It only adds up to we are still irreligious in functional terms.

In fact the key reason why these sociopathic evils, corruption, coups, armed robberies etc, are ravaging us is because we have not demonstrated or possessed religious genius in its real terms. It is not because we are poor. In fact we are poor because we are irreligious, have never been founders of great religions or TOEs. We have just finished a little economic paper. The paper has provided we believe insights that are the first of its kind. And the discovery? All great religious belts are also belts of great economic prosperities or renewals: Israel, the Asian/Confucian Archipelago, the West, India, etc.

The only exception is the Arabic basin. And the question is why? And the answer is known. However a lot of the concerned practitioners won’t want their religion to come under any purviews save of worship. Anyway a studied attention to Reading the Book by Rabi Burton L. Visotzky may offer insights for interested economists and other parties. That is prosperities are co-terminus with a deep religious vision. In fact economics is the prosperity of the truly religious, of they who know God either through psalms or mathematical functions.

In the end the two are one. For a region to be a centre of economic prosperity, its Pope and Caesar must share one nationality. No offshore Pope, history has consistently recorded can preside over an onshore prosperity. It may happen but it has never happened. Not known to many, the Reformations in Europe were nothing other than an economic war carried out by other means. Their attempts to indigenize or nationalize the scriptures and or powers to their interpretations were in the end economic liberation theology or warfare. No offshore interpreter has or can prosper onshore economies.

That is, Nigeria as a satellite or import dependant religious centre is not just undeveloped, but is not developable. It is not for nothing that China insists on local or if you liked political control and licensing of non-native religions, whether Islam, Christianity, Ogboni or Ofo. At its heart the Chinese procedure is their own Reformation. A pious African Moslem or Christian is, even if not intending it, an economic liability. You need religious independence to drive material prosperities.

That is if Nigeria is a haven of corruption, coups, bribery, armed robbery, etc, it is because on balance we don’t have the genius to be otherwise. That is we lack the TOE or perhaps borrowing a more appropriate term from a German philosopher, Karl Jasper, the axial thinkers, to found great religions or its equivalents. Leadership has nothing to contribute to the founding of great religions or its equivalents. Leaderships, like the rest of us are rather heirs and beneficiaries. Only the scripture or genius saves. Anything outside the scriptures, not excluding leadership is apocrypha. Nigeria ronu.

So, I was recommended to St. Edmunds, a specialist eye clinic in the Surulere area of Lagos State. St. Edmunds was reputed to be a busy clinic and the Nnewi advice was that if one made it early enough before the crowd trooped in, he would save on time. Apparently, to be Nnewi is to know the value of time, which of course is money.

On my first visit, I had obliged my guiding advice and was early only to be beaten to it by an elderly and rather handsome lady. Pretty talkative, old peoples are wont to be; she gave me a snap history of the hospital and its fame. The lady, as elegant as age would let her, told me she was one of the first clients of St. Edmunds, when it opened in 1967. And she spoke how the founder-surgeon ran shop impeccably, in the best practice traditions as one could meet in Europe. And as he retired, he passed on the baton and tradition to his only two female children. The only boy of the family apparently is gone on to other things, leaving the girls to be heiresses. Perhaps, to be founder is the greater game and lot of a man.

Now, if I am qualified to speak on these things. I guess what I received at St. Edmunds was really great service. There was plain orderliness, meticulous attention to detail, even as the prices looked one needed to own an oil well to be attended to. Anyway, I met Alade Odunewu (aka Allah De), possibly the greatest columnist, who ever wielded a pen on our shores. It is not for nothing that the great Zik, himself a prose stylist, tagged Allah De the dean of Nigerian satirists. Not to miss such a chance, I quickly introduced my humble self and took a handshake. Perhaps the handshake made whatever charges the clinic brought upon me seem cool. If I am in the way of the masters, of an Allah De, in matters of vision, sights and sounds, then I just can be wrong I thought. In fact, I must be in grace. Allah truly dey.

But the St. Edmonds was not run by just the two inheritor daughter doctors. It was an all female great service team, except for a young boy, who looked unexplainably too robust and happy to match. May be, he had become aware of his importance as the only male around or on demand. The other was a generator handyman, who showed up almost invisibly. You just glanced at his flank, as he ghosted across the outer door to do the change-over whenever PHCN struck.

And I was wondering, is this a sign of things to come when our women rule? Wouldn’t Nigeria or indeed the world be seamlessly well run as a matriarchy, just like it is with St. Edmunds? The women will rule and we will be their customers or patients?

So, I had to take up the matter with the female optician, who was to examine me after her juniors couldn’t come up with any great answers. Why are they running an all female or almost, shop? Is being all female part or explanation for their great service? And she spoke about the eye being delicate and how that suited the nature and delicacy of the women, their genius for patience and care. And she concluded anyway that the men of their own seemed to prefer fleeing from the profession.

And I thought of the matter and it came to me that was, perhaps, the wrong question to ask. It narrowed our options. The greater question is, what and where is the role of the woman best for her and for men? And the answer suggested itself; it is in the house.

To be fair to the woman, it is she, who founded the home or house historically; or gave inspiration for its construction and building by a service man, the male. The sociological and historical reconstruction of this might be beyond this paper. So, we will skip it.

Yes, it might have been her handicap as a pregnancy-bearing being, etc., that made her ask for home, for a house. But that singular request inaugurated our civilisation. That is, civilisation is feminine, is founded upon or inspired directly by a she and not a he. It is not for nothing that nearly all the known gods of creativity are feminine. The feminine has inspired the men the most. Or in more democratic speak, the feminine has legislated for the greatest glory of man.

And since she designed and inspired her construction, the house was made expectedly to her specifications. That is a home, a house is a woman’s native laager and turf. This, perhaps, explains how and why she is at her strongest there. That is where she most presides and overrules.

But things moved and move on. Originally again, men were organised in houses. Historically, in city states, a jurisdiction was a community of houses; that is of female units, even if men stood in for them. The women were the éminence grise, the powers behind the thrones. So, when you hear the House of Rothschild or lately the House of the Igbinedion, they are taking us back to our primary beginnings as purposed and envisioned by women, our mothers, lovers, wives and our inspirations.

So, the men, who represent us originally represented the houses or group of houses. And things have also moved on and the men have mis-managed this representation. Look at the mess they have made, the wars and the bloodshed in our national history, for instance. Is it not likely that if women were in charge, as mothers and carriers of pregnancies, there would have been less and less bloodshed except, perhaps, at delivery wards?

So, rather than canvass a revolution of sacking all the men we thought up of an evolutionary way to correct things. Why don’t we sack all the men representatives and replace them with our women? Even if this is too precipitate a demand, why don’t we start with the modest game of sacking all the principal officers of the houses and senate and replacing them with their female counterparts?

This will be symbolic of the original design of the house or home as the fortress of women.  Meanwhile, the men, faithful to the initial ways, will be in the wilds and fields, battling beasts like lions, cows or farming for top crops like yam. Only victory qualifies them to return home as Ogbu-Agu, Ogbu-Efi, Di-ji, etc. and to be worthy of welcome. Otherwise theirs is to remain in the wilds and never come home until victory is delivered.

In today’s terms, the wilds and fields will be at universities being professors, in newsrooms being editors, at Ochanja market being importers, exporters and sundry businessmen. And to be successful in contemporary terms will be in possessing a Lexus Sport Utility Vehicle (SUV) say, rather than an eagle feather for proof. But it is all the same game our forefathers were at. And it was, perhaps, a peaceful world. It had to be because the women legislated and the men executed.

Perhaps, we can’t miss to report on this. And I was at my favourite barber’s shop at Obalende, Lagos. And a similar matter was the subject of discussion. A man was furious, Mrs. Jonathan was dominant and dominating her husband, as he claimed.

But that is how it should be, the other man, who later gave his name as Soji, challenged. Any other arrangement is or will lead to a failure. Ask Obama.

And I had to wonder why Obama. The man replied, ‘oh, you have not been attentive and you claim you are a journalist?’ During his acceptance speech, Soji continued, Obama openly confessed that when the idea of going for the presidency first occurred to him, he first consulted two higher powers, my wife and God. ‘And I am quoting Obama,’ Soji emphasised. It was their approval or legislation that prompted him to be the executing officer, that is what led to his being the President of the United States of America, the most powerful man on earth. That is, the greater choice is to let the woman legislate or dominate you. It is enough you executed her wish. That could make you an Obama. Or even a Jonathan. At least, the man is not complaining.

And Soji was not finished with his tales. Just after Obama won his second term, he went out to take a bite at a Mr. Biggs-style restaurant in America. And a man accosted Obama for a tip on the making and running of great families. He gave him one liner: Just do all she tells you to and continued with his fast food bites. That is, let you wife legislate for you, dominate you. Now, are you smarter or wiser than Obama or more achieved?

Not done, Soji claimed Jonathan was in the right to find himself under a dominant wife, if what you say is true. That is, the way of grace, of the wise. And can’t you see how far he is gone? And come to think of you, Soji was not almost getting angry with the other discussant; you have a wife you dominate. And here we are and you are asking a barber for frequent user discount. And Jonathan is at Aso Rock and to be his barber is the equivalent of owning an oil well or something just as good. And yet you can’t see the difference?

Perhaps, Soji was right. It is the woman’s game to rule and men to execute. And it is an ancient thing. Even Napoleon lost his invincibility immediately he thought he had, had enough of his talismanic wife, Josephine, and sacked her. Immediately you don’t allow the wife to dominate the house and legislate for you to go abroad and get things done, then you have lost both at home and away. It is dominant wives, who drive their men to be Ogbuefi, to enter the wilds and give a great account of themselves.

And this matter is as universal as the oceans. It is not just about Obama and the USA. Here, it happens too. If the rumour is that the Nnewi man is the wisest, the fact on the ground is that it is the Owerri man, who really is. And this is, at least, in this matter. The Owerris have a song made popular by Ralph Amarabem of Peacock fame: Wu nyem merema mu ma awuli we elu. Loosely translated; as my wife dominates and controls me, it is time to celebrate my grace and fortune. The dominance of women over their men is for the good of the men. And they do it best when they legislate and we execute.  The Senate or the House, those are the best places for the women. Or don’t you think so? Ahiazuwa.

Dear Sir, Chinua Achebe was the last Mohican. A moral avatar. He was a literary sheriff illuminating with his pen, the dark night of the Nigerian soul. Lest we forget, he constantly reminded us of the wasteland of our leadership trapped in corruption, ineptitude and officially sanctioned cornucopian. His works have earned him a gambol in the corridor of immortality. He is already writing on heaven’s walls! Agu Onwuzuruoha. 08034034878.

Dear Sir, Chinualumogu Achebe spoke for all Africans. A true ambassador who showed the world the good that was in Africa before the whites landed! The Fela Kuti of African literature! A prophet! A wise one! And a honest icon who was never moved by mediocrity! Fearless! A legend! He can’t die! His legacy lives! Its on us to build on it! Africa is rich! -Kamsi Atuchukwu,Lagos. obi2661@yahoo.com.

Dear Sir, The news of the death of the foremost African writer, Prof. Chinua Achebe was shattering as it marks the nunc dimitis of pioneer African writing. This indeed shows what stealth death can do even to those whose lives and works have become institutions. The death of Achebe underscores the immortality of all living creatures even as their good works will live on. Described by President Nelson Mandela as the “writer in whose company the prison walls fell down”, Achebe in writing sought   to and did liberate souls and people who were captives of man’s inhumanity to fellow men. By his death, we have lost a gem, an archive of historical developments and an agent of change. Adieu. The Hon Barr. Nwabueze Ugwu. efestus2003@yahoo.com.

Dear Sir, Professor Chinua Achebe lives on. Indeed the whole world will miss Achebe. I am particularly consoled by the fact Achebe stood for the truth and development. Things are really falling apart.  Noble. N. 08060969697.

Dear Sir, Achebe is not dead. He merely transited to paradise of fecund muses. Things fall Apart has been translated to over sixty world languages and read and studied by millions all over the world. To live in the hearts of those who love you and love your works is simply the attainment of eternity, immortality and deification. It is good he penned There was a Country…capturing his personal experiences of the Biafran holocaust and the Nigerian dilemma. My condolence to the Achebe family, Nigeria, the world literati. Onye obuna dienu. Onwe.OJ 08035033723.

Dear Sir, Chinua Achebe’s death was just heart breaking. Chukwuebuka. Anaebo NAU Akwa. 07030053847.

Dear Sir, The great Professor Chinua Achebe won my respect and love not just because he has improved my knowledge of African culture and tradition through his books, but because he rejected 50 cents I million dollars, a huge amount which many of our politicians will never turn down? For the integrity of his book Things Fall Apart and again because of his moral value and humanity he refused to share national honors with ill-gotten millionaires and criminals? Oh Prof RIP. I will miss you. 081305344807.

Dear Sir, though I have found one or two comments in the time past by a certain Lai Ashadele as irksome and disturbing, I however agree with him this time in his response to your last article. In making reference to the civil war in your last article as he said “of what contributive advantage was that in big rich kids and entertainment?” your thought about the injustice of the civil war in the past have been made and understood by discerning minds. When sensitive matters like this become over stretched, it gives the do-gooders more room to twist one’s thought. So, I agree with him even though… and my tribute to Achebe. Oh Chinus! The master story teller. He was finely rooted in culture as reflected in his work and appearance. He came to simply fulfill a mission and he did so well. Njideka. 07038694227.

Dear Sir, the eagle is still on the iroko and will forever remain there. Okait, ugonabo, odenka, omenka, thank you for the good job you did for us. Ya gazie. Nwokedi Owerri. 07035200002.

Dear Sir, Achebe in your first novel, you told how the British in their civilizing mission destroyed Igbo norms and values; in your last you told how Nigeria  a product of the British and in collaboration with their civilized masters massacred and genocided Igbo people. The truth you told the world will forever remain with them. Achebe uwa nile you will live forever in the minds of truth lovers. 08034205517.

Dear Sir, my hero and father even if literary, Albert Chinualumogu Achebe is dead. My world! My woes! It is the end of an era. I mourn for the paragon of Igbo nationalism… a paragon of virtue that bent to no evil wind. The noble author and defender of African literature. I agonize. I am in anguish. With what will they measure my tears. The pride of Igbo race. The defender of Igbo cause and the black man’s history bows to mortality. My world! My woes! G. Nebechi Ezeoke ESQ. 08033779010.

Dear Sir, a rare gem and a colossus of the literary world, who would take up the battle started by his recent exposition in there was a country published as a personal account of the Nigeria Biafra civil war?  Azuama.S. I. Owerri. 08063045665.

Dear Sir, Chinualumogu Achebe was a great man. He came he saw and he conquered. If not for anything l love his last book, There was a Country. May the soul of Chinua and the soul of the departed rest in peace. Amen.08035804917.

Dear Sir, he was a prolific literary icon, the arrow that shot him into the world belongs to the god. With him the literary sun was set at ease. If they had listened to him things wouldn’t have fallen apart and now that he has gone they remember there was a Chinua Achebe. Adieu Achebe. Engr. Owhor Honest Obi. Port Harcourt. 07084148116.

Dear Sir, Chinua Achebe is the greatest Igbo man that has passed through this evil riddled land called Nigeria since 1914. George Ibecheozor. Owerri. 08036737985.

Dear Sir, truly The Arrow of God struck and A Man of the People passed on. For this reason, Things Fall Apart and it was no longer at ease at the anthill. Truly there was a country. Rest in peace Achebe. Sonny Ehimare. Inegbenose, Uromi Edo State. 08052140849.

Dear Sir, from primary school at St Phillips Central School Ogidi, Anambra State and Central School Nekede, Owerri, Imo State, Achebe left his footprints as a very brilliant student having obtained full scholarship to Dennis Memorial Grammar School Onitsha and Goverment College Umuahia. At Umuahia he completed his secondary school in a record four years instead of the five-year time frame, passing the Cambridge ordinary level in five distinctions and one credit.The credit ironically was in english literature. For a student nick-named “Dictionary”, he must have felt disappointed. Achebe proceeded to University College Ibadan through a nation-wide entrance examination in which he was first or second in the country and his proud Government College Umuahia put up a sign which stayed for years announcing his performance at the University entrance examination.  After his university education at Ibadan, Achebe moved on and commenced a career with the Nigerian Broadcasting Service (NBS) in 1954. He moved rather rapidly up the ladder and ultimately appointed Director of External Broadcasting.Whilst at NBS he utilised his spare time in writing.

The turning point however was an encounter at Ibadan with his English professor when she could not explain to him the meaning that Achebe’s’story entry in a short story competition” lacked form”. Achebe declared thereafter “And it dawned on me that despite her excellent mind and background, she was not capable of teaching across cultures, from her English culture to mine. It was in these circumstances that I was moved to put down on paper the story that became” Things Fall Apart”. Yet” Things Fall Apart”, the epic ground-breaking novel would have been lost to the world. Achebe himself told the story of how in his naivety he sent the original and only manusript of the novel to a typing agency in London for an expert touch in typing and preparation for publishing.

Achebe reminisces “I look back now at those events and state categorically that had the manuscript been lost,I most certainly would have been irreversibly discouraged from continuing my writing career.” And the world never would have read such intriguing, captivating and enthralling stories of not only” Things Fall Apart” where Achebe expressed himself in naked gratitude to his Igbo culture and history but also” No Longer At Ease”, “Arrow Of God”, “A Man Of The People”, “Anthills Of The Savannah” etc. Nigerians especially would probably  not have known Achebe’s perspective in what is arguably the most lucid diagnosis and remedy of the Nigerian problem in” The Trouble With Nigeria”. And indeed a most revealing account of the Nigeria-Biafra war may also have been lost in” There Was A Country”.

Achebe was not just a great story-teller,he was a literary Pan-Africanist.Through his writing he contributed immensely in redirecting the orientation of the rest of the world on their dim perspective of African culture and history. He was literally saying particularly to our Colonizers—before your arrival,we had a story and are proud to tell it. One of the more common features in the barrage of tributes and eulogies following the news of his death is that  he was a great Patriot apart ofcourse from his obvious literary feat.This is just as well because in his essays, lectures, interviews,books etc he had continued to engage the Nigerian question by not only pointing clearly at what the problem is in “The Trouble With Nigeria” where he put the problem squarely on leadership but also by suggesting remedies.

His now famous rejection twice of the national honours was not as disrespect to Nigeria but as a protest of inept leadership. Similarly when he ignored sometime ago an appointment to the board of the Federal Radio Corporation Of Nigeria (FRCN)made over the radio,he was simply telling the Government that things are not done that way.

The story is told of a popular American musician who chose to title his upcoming film “Things Fall Apart” and when informed that Achebe had a copyright to the title he bragged that he would pay him off and offered a million dollars which Achebe rejected, informing him the title was not for sale not even for one hundred million dollars. Achebe would be leaving not only a legacy of principle, forthrightness, uncommon courage, classic story-telling etc, but an intellectual family of a wife who is professor of psychology, four children,two of whom are professors of history, one assistant professor of medicine and the other a writer all in the USA.

As Achebe departs…we obviously need a leader who is A Man of The People who will repeatedly shoot at our problems with Arrow Of God atop the Anthill Of A Savannah until we have not a country that was but one that is. Adieu. Victor Emeana. Abuja. 08033054474.  vemeana@yahoo.com.

Dear uncle Jimanze, keep the good work you are going you are gradually building a new generation. Ahiazuwa. Okechukwu Aguzue. 08037195315.

Dear Sir, The story you wrote on the tabloid Daily Sun rich kids and entertainment don’t you have what to write again or you are out of ideas because that is a stupid story. Next time think before you write. 08108914984.

Your equation solves the Nigerian tragedy and not the leadership theory. It is entirely provable mathematically that “good leadership” is not possible in Nigeria.

You cannot give what you do not have. Without the contemplative mind in high doses among us, visionary leadership is only a mirage. You can only give what you do not have if you are able to import it. Now, colonialism seems to be one known way of importing “good leadership”. We all are aware, however, that colonialism is antithetical to human dignity and human design and not a workable solution.

How then can we advance in self rule as it is today? Two things (I have learnt from Sir Jimanze): One, redesign the environment to produce contemplative/socially and mathematically efficient institutions and two, educate our people on how things are, in mathematics and contemplation. Do these and all other things shall be added unto us including good leadership, electricity, no corruption, water, hospitals, security Etc. These are the mathematical products of the equation developed by Sir Jimanze. These are the dividends of mathematics if you like. And this equation is both provable and solvable. The leadership equation collapses on one of the major principles of logic. “You cannot give what you do not have”.

To put a figure to the dose of contemplative minds necessary for Peace, Progress and civilisation, I would propose, at least, 30 per cent of the citizenry should be able to subscribe to a contemplative approach to life and reason. My estimate is that the figure at the moment stands somewhere below one per cent in our environment. We need a national programme to improve on developing the contemplative mind as a prime developmental objective. Sir Jimanze is playing a prime role in this crusade already and I pray that God’s Blessings be upon him. Dr Jude Ugwu. jiugwu@hotmail.com

Dear Jimanze, I am now a regular reader of your Turf Game column in the Sun newspaper. Jimanze, you are the master of abstract philosophy and sociology. I am amazed that the usually intellectually challenged Nigerian newspaper reader can appreciate the satire in your works. Your excursion into the convoluted world of Nigerian rich kids and entertainment is really a work of art (Sun Newspaper of Thursday March 21, 2013, page 54). However you nearly lost the plot.

The intensely seminal late Tanzanian leader, Julius Nyerere , lamented the convoluted state of affairs in Africa in the 1970s and came to the conclusion that the African lives in an “inverted” society, where the cream sinks to the bottom and the dregs  rise to the top. Perhaps this observation of a genuine sage (as opposed to the Nigerian definition), is responsible for the contradictions you noted in your ill-fated excursion.

Jimanze, do you know the pedigree (or rather the absence of pedigree) of the young people you used as examples in your article? It is because Nigerian society is “ inverted”, a la Nyerere ,that these little rascals are supposed to be children of the Nigerian elite. Pray my dear Jimanze, when did the parents of the rich kids you mentioned  become  members of an elite?  One of the parents came to Abuja on a night bus in 1998 and worked her way into the PDP elite after “serving” ,in so many ways , the cave man who occupied the Aso Villa. And who the hell is Davido, the Omo Baba Olowo? Who is his Baba? How was the Owo acquired? What a penklemesi!!!

These kids are doing what they should be doing. They are not the products of a real elite. Therefore they will always regress to their true status in society,since water will always find it’s own level as we were taught in elementary physics. Jimanze, I hope you studied physics and mathematics, at least at the elementary level,if not you will lose me, since then in all true sense you will not be an educated man as you so eloquently surmised.

The “rich” kids you mentioned in your treatise cannot give what they don’t have. They are the products of a fake and inverted elite and are entertaining the hoi polloi as they should, as this is their natural endowment and status.  One of these rich kids even has a Masters degree in Petroleum Studies, but you cannot explore the intricacies of the petroleum business if your natural inclination is to entertain those who really appreciate their natural obligation to develop their societies, using the natural endowments of those societies.

Jimanze, I hope you haven’t lost me. Ahiazuwa!!!! Iheanyi Ohiaeri.

<i_ohiaeri@yahoo.com>

Dear Sir, You started off this article with wonder, then tapered off to the unnecessary; the bulk of the ideas in that article are also untenable. I don’t know whoever made the rule that rich children must think for a country and that their thinking tool must be mathematical. I don’t also think that children from poor backgrounds cannot juggle great thinking with their everyday efforts to make a living. Many have done so. Chinua Achebe, Origen, Homer, Abraham Lincoln were all from disadvantaged backgrounds, but they thought and worked.

Must we proceed in the old Greek tradition that a thinker must be a man of means and must not work and think at the same time? That’s not the African intellectual tradition. Here we work and think? And who told you entertainers are not thinkers? I think you didn’t handle this subject well.  Your thought on this failed in a dismal way.  Thanks. tordue. salem@yahoo.com

Dear Sir, Jimanze, the essence of your making reference to the military coups, in every piece you treat, even when such reference makes no meaningful contribution to the subject of the piece I regard as a mere subterfuge to drum the beat of hatred against characters on the Nigerian side of the civil war. Of what contributory advantage was that in Big Rich and Entertainment? Your weekly reference to the civil war characters is a reminder of ugly past to those of us who lost some loved ones to the war and we don’t need such reminders. And to your poor created to entertain the rich, everybody came to the world empty handed. And those regarded as rich were only luckier to strike it before the poor. So if rich kids are now entertaining the poor, they have merely gone back to source. So Jimanze, there is no big deal about the change after all life is from dust to dust. QED. Lai Ashadele. Lagos. 07067677806

Dear Sir, please come to think of the trash these spoiled kids offload on us! I have since gone back to old school. I have dumped these so called musicians. Thanks my noble philosopher king. 08035617260

Dear Sir, having read The Turf Game of today, I can’t but only say; big brother speak for we are listening. Ahiazuwa. 08032876868

Dear Jimanze, keep up the good job. I bless you for blessing my children with your incontestable Nigerian historical truth. The sword of your articles in Daily Sun shall also be a tool with which our people shall defend who they are.  07057382975

Dear Sir, your well crafted piece on rich kids… missed the point. Wealth and aristocracy or breeding are not necessarily synonymous. This is very much so in the third world where public funds easily find their way into private pockets and a rich man is made. Entertainment is an easier way of making money in the modern era as rich kids have an edge in terms of access defined as capital and contacts. Botswana, Mauritius and Seychelles do not have any mathematics and they have left us behind in terms of development. They have good leadership, minimal corruption and no pardon! Agu Onwuzuroha. 08034034878

Dear Jimanze, what will it take for one to comprehend your article? Are you not writing for the public? Is there a class of people you want to be reading your articles? Please bring down your tenses so others will follow your work but you are writing for the public consumption so come down a bit. Thanks. Okey. 08033294939

Dear Sir, Re: Rich kids and Entertainment? All I know is that the impression you gave that music is for the lowly is a fallacy. Whether from rich or poor background is irrelevant as far as heavenly gift is concerned. That is the only profession you can’t learn or go to school unless you are gifted. Thanks Teddy. 07066160070

Dear Sir, your column today is on point… straight into the bull’s eye. Talk to those evolutionary misfits who instead of fitting into dear affluent shells are now fitting into shame. 07088185739

Dear Sir, mathematics hypothesis have been part of Chinese culture for thousands of years. Lee Kuan Yew adopted, adapted and applied it in Singapore as none before him did. Luca Paciolo invented the hypothesis, Americans adopted and applied it and produced development. Where was Paciolo’s Italy? Today the entire hypothesis needed to make Nigeria a technological, industrial, cultural world power are in the bookshelves and news media columns world over. As lee did in Singapore, let Jonathan, Peter Obi, Rochas  or Fashola apply them and generate development. Real and critical matters of development should be addressed. 2TG should also apply mathematics hypothesis. 08063178021

Dear Sir, please help us write about Etche LGA, which is a synonym for marginalization in Rivers State. Etche is one of the biggest LGAs in Rivers State and on paper gets one of the biggest Federal allocations in my state. But out of more than 560 communities in Etche land only about 10 communities have light and road, but we have more than 30 oil producing communities. And some of the government infrastructures are decaying. Example is the Etche Girls Secondary School, which has produced a lot of action women in Rivers State and beyond. Permit me to use this world Etche ronu. 08130544807.

Chinua Achebe: A man of the people!

The Turf Game, 2TG, will devote our entire next week’s page to our readers’ tributes and eulogies to Chinua Achebe, who just transited into high glory. This is in homage to the fact that whatever else Achebe was, he was and still is above all, a man of the people. Readers are encouraged to keep their tributes short and sharp. Chinua Achebe, 16 November 1930-21 March 2013. Ahiazuwa!

They are all the wards of posh privilege, of local potentates. Davido comes real clean on his super rich background. In fact he has a hit track I am told, titled O.M.O, meaning Omo Baba Olowo, which is Yoruba for the son of a wealthy mogul. But reading in a blog recently I got this; that Obi Asika, who himself is something of a godfather in the entertainment business is an uncle to Asa Asika. Now everybody knows Obi Asika is the son of Ukpabi Asika, the corrupt quisling, ex-administrator and ex- proconsul to General Jack Gowon at the then East Central State. And we warn, the opinion that Ukpabi Asika, now dead, was corrupt is not ours.

It was canvassed and decreed by one General Murtala Mohammed, now late. General Mohammed for all you cared may have been the most corrupt General in Nigerian Army since 1914. His luck or genius, please chose one, life is a lottery, was that he had the cunning or foresight to acquire innocence by a bigger gun. The logic of a coup is my gun is bigger than yours. Otherwise coups and coup makers are all in the same game of armed robbery, even if of the political kind and worse. That is, the last coup maker is the most innocent, the most god-sent and saintly. Murtala was one of the last of the great coup profiteering merchants in all Africa.

Now we are reliably informed by our in-house youth correspondent that most of the big names in showbiz, Dbanj, Don Jazzy, Naeto C, ASA, etc all are all scions of the rich, the famous and the powerful. And lately as if that was not enough the son of one of the great evangelizers, turned up cheeky devil enough he is left inheriting his father as a pulpit entrepreneur to trade as a fashion designer. Not to be beaten to it, the son of an internal affairs ex-minister is now in the business of showing off his biceps or torso to earn his fare about the earth. They are all into soft and commercial entertainment or related show businesses.

Now the question is why are the kids of the Nigerian big-rich, kids who are brought up in gated neighborhoods all in show business when there is so much work real work to be done elsewhere? And if these kids flee into entertainment who then are they entertaining? Could it be fellow, but other Nigerians who earn less than a dollar a day? Is there not some disconnect, that the sons of the fancifully rich are entertaining the multitudes who are dirt poor? Out there in Europe, showbiz is to entertain the hard working and well earning. And it was the same with us traditionally before the white man came and things no longer could stand at ease.

In the villages we all grew up, entertainment as community theatre was climaxed in Iri Ji, for the Oru na Igbo for instance. And those were the seasons before and up to harvest. You were not to be entertained prodigiously, or in today’s terms commercially, before harvest or during tilling and farming. That is you were not to be entertained before prosperity, as the seasons before harvest, were sometimes called oge ugani, famine season. You were entertained because you were or soon to become well earning.

And it is still the poorer ones or children and not the rich or their children who put themselves together to entertain the public or more exclusively the rich, the obiukwus. But apparently in Nigeria to be modern everything, not excluding sanity has to be turned upside down? Take the added example of Europe again. Kids born into affluent backgrounds do other things, especially the most primary things of life, which is contemplation, and in contemplation. That is theirs is to be scholars, to bring in new or revolutionary knowledge, to advance civilization. The results are breakthroughs in the more primary sciences, like mathematics, history etc.

The logic or even economics of it is that only the rich have the leisure to engage in contemplation. It thus follows that to make for comparative advantage, lower non-contemplative economic activities like showbiz, bricklaying etc are now left to the multitude that are poor. That is justice. Anyway that is the only way the low and lowly can find employment and roles in life at all. And because of this society progresses as it is stabilizes. It is by granting the poor a chance in life that Europe becomes all inclusive and is stabilized we repeat. Any persons reasonably informed of the British pop for scene instance, will recall the justly famous Spice Girls. Of course the football personality David Beckham married one of those. His wife Victoria nee Adams was famously styled the Posh Girl, more as derision than admiration.

And the reason was that nobody expected her, a daughter of middle income Brits to strain cheap to earn a buck or two. She as the Yoruba would say, met wealth at home and should have left things at that. Monopoly of economic space or contention leads to instability whether in Lagos or London. And this unstated but insistent structure of enlightened society has been since the days and times and of Socrates.

The original marathoners and gladiators of Greece and Rome were slaves or of lowly classes. Plato it is well to remark was a gifted boxer in his early youth and justly famous for vicious uppercuts. But being an aristocrat, especially of the spirit, he gave up those for the superior, life saving and economy boosting, acts of contemplation. In all it makes for logic and greater economic prosperity that the poor entertain the rich, and the rich push for new knowledge, since only they have purchased the leisure. Yet every Nigerian monument or pyramid is built upside. Today alas the children of the rich are suddenly so clueless their duty is to entertain the hoi polloi.

It is not impossible to hazard that part of the boko haram, kidnapping etc, going on may not be unconnected with the callousness of the Nigerian big-rich, their sons and daughters, crowding out the poor in their own turf of lowly and commercial entertainment. It is an explosive and unstable moral architecture in which the rich price out the poor, literally from existence, while giving up on their most sacred roles, which is to advance the course of civilization. Yes boko haram is a product of Nigeria’s clueless and brainless tribe of the rich and the powerful. But a greater question arises: if these fugitive rich kids flee from their historic responsibilities to shelter in the popular, non-substantive enterprises, who will innovate the mathematics, the philosophy, the physics upon which we can claim to be the equal of others, of Europeans, and even more importantly of being able to run our economies and our lives? The beginning of all knowledge and learning is in mathematics Plato says and we concur.

The singular matter, besides which others are secondary, is who is going to solve the central issue of our society and economy, which is in mathematics? And the only way to solve extant problems is to invent new solutions. That is without continually renewing and inventing new mathematics, no economy can run or add up. Every sitting economy will stagnate, just like Nigeria’s, if there are no production of true and not copy and paste mathematicians. Yes every economy needs humour and entertainment, but only after it has resolved its mathematical problems, not before. No mathematics no economy is a dictum that has served man since the times of Caesar. Of course mathematics here stands on itself and as symbol of all primary sciences of which it is first amongst equals.

Lest we are misunderstood, these kids are truly heroes, even if in a narrow sense and are not to be blamed at all. The blame comes upon us their grand uncles and grandfathers. Our tragedy began when we received the education of slaves from the British and were proud and happy in it. That is what makes our highest value to be money. But that is even harmless. The greater harm is that money is also our measuring rod and measure of all values. It is this slave education that we ingested that we have evolutionarily transferred into our innocent but creative children. These children if they were Europeans would have been Keynes, the Aristotles, etc of Africa. But they being ours may never be. Theirs is to be entertainers, humorists and as Americans would cuss shoe shiner millionaires. But Europe knows money is not the currency of all things or even of any significant thing.

The real issues are scriptural, of the fundamental things. As the Oru would say oje ana bu isi ije and we translate loosely: the greatest measurement is in the final/scriptural issues not in early advantages. The other time I witnessed a Senator exhibit the popular Nigerian weeping eyes ignorance. He was scandalized about how it is little Singapore has beaten us to it economically because of poor quality leadership.

The question is what does any Nigerian know about Singapore? And the usual answer is that Singapore was made by Lee Kuan Yew. No greater lie has been told on and about a country. And I hold those academics, who after writing lines of poetry declare with a yawn; the problem with Nigeria is leadership responsible for sorry state of affairs in Nigeria, for misleading a generation of fellow nationals. Because of space let us summarize roughly. Currently there are three schools of mathematics in the world. They are the USA, the Russian and the Chinese. Singapore is expectedly of the Chinese school. She is however one of the top ten centres of mathematical science in the world. And we don’t mean knowledge of extant mathematics but the advancing of mathematical knowledge and concepts. Now we have this pet theory which washes and wears well against time and space.

It is what we call the mathematical index or premium to economic prosperities. We just discovered that all centres of mathematical learning, in ancient or modern times were also the leading belts of economic prosperities. That is to prosper you are better off as a mathematician and not as a business or showbiz man. That is prosperity is in mathematics, in new knowledge. And it is not for nothing that arguably the single greatest seminal contribution to business and consequently economic prosperity was by mathematician, Luca Paciolo. He founded double entry accounting, the basis of any business that may prosper beyond being mom and pop, beyond subsistence. This is our tragedy. We just don’t seem to know that mathematics and not economics is the economy.

It is mathematics stupid, not leadership. Leadership is brace not constitutive science. It may only come in as the last rite of action. Just like Plato decreed of the academe, let he who is bereft of mathematical reverence or knowledge not make an entree into the economy, at least not as its hero. And this is even if he is a billionaire, whether certified by Forbes or fraud. Our apologies go to Professor Bolaji Akinyemi. Seek ye first the kingdom that is in mathematics, and economic prosperities will be following you like signs and wonders follow those that truly call upon Christ, and not vice versa. Ahiazuwa.

That is no place to apply Ortega. What we have in essence is dominant party dictatorship. Agu Onwuzuruoha. 08034034878. Dear Sir, if you are so politically enlightened you would have known that Nigerian politics is in the opaque. Your article today is very poor. If you will excel, don’t take sides. The democracy you talk about is far. 08034699131. We think we should attend to the matter of our much abused local culture. Culture, a way of life, cannot repeal existence. Any culture, so called, that repeals existence is no longer culture. It is now genocide in slow motion.

And genocide comes in several guises. There is the more famous kind. Ready examples: Hitler against Jews and Nigerian federation led by Gowon against the Igbo. But there is the other no less pernicious kind. It is what partisans sometimes call culture. Examples abound but let us take only one. Before the Europeans came our forefathers were executing newborn twins with a sense of rightful worship. At bottom it was not culture, it was genocide, slow motion genocide spawned by superstition and ignorance. What they thought were evil portents, have explanations in natural science.

The Europeans were more knowing and had in that respect, what may be called culture. What we had was, we repeat, slow motion genocide. Mary Slessor was perhaps a goddess that came upon us in that respect. The question one might ask is; would some of our contemporary men, if they were of the times of Mary Slessor have approved statutory twins-infanticide on the alibi it is cultural? It is true one may can appraise, but one should never approve anything on the grounds of culture, so called. It is only logic that approves. Even more, we should be proud to copy that which is foreign, but makes greater sense.

If another cuts a straight path, wisdom demands we travel by it, than insist on our corrugated, crooked or so called cultural ways. Redemption must be rationally, not culturally determined. That is why Christ, Mother A’Endu et al came; to transcend culture and induct logic. For illustration let us take up secret ballot as a tool of democratic practice. Modern secret ballot, founded in Australia, is the brain-box of current democratic practice. Its logic is not just to prevent voter intimidation. Her greater logic, even if unstated, is to foreclose on any pre-arrangements that are not in the public domain.

That is secret balloting does not allow for a priori arrangements as to how a man should vote. This is so because the very essence of secret ballot makes it impossible to determine how the said man voted. And if you can’t determine how he voted, you can’t hold him responsible one way or the other. And you cannot in law or public morality indict a man you can’t prove he voted for or against your secret agreements, so called. That is the very heartbeat of the democratic process; openness and the abjuring of secret orders. That is why in enlightened jurisdictions there are no laws against cutting political deals.

But it is trite knowledge that backroom deals are not only non-justiciable, but are amoral. So no Euro-American politician will be insane enough to complain in the open that a secret deal partner was about to fail him. Even in the moment of voting, a voter in a liberal democracy is free to swing his preferences and votes. To insist on pre-fixed results is anti-democratic, anti-secret ballot, anti-liberal democratic existence. It is slow motion genocide of the system that gives it berth.

It is not culture. It is not contextual, it is genocidal. The morality against a politician cutting backroom deals is further confirmed by the fact that the politician is not his own agent or existent. The politician is an agent of the people. And he cannot close deals without prior knowledge or authority of his principals, the peoples. If he did he cannot demand his principals approve of it. In fact he would be sacked for upending his principals. I think the fault is that we are encouraging politicians to turn up as dictators, the peoples’ tyrants, rather than their agents.

That is both Jonathan and Aliyu remain common agents, servants of the people. And worse they begged to be agents, and this confirms their inferior and secondary status to the people, on whose behalf they only may act. And contrary to the supposition in African societies the basic need of agent not upending his principal is universal, at least as much as we know. Take Nkwerre, an Imo State village known to this correspondent. It is generally agreed that igahu eri oke rie nkota. The agent is under duty to report details of his transactions to his principal even if he enjoys beneficial possession.

That much is Igbo even if not African. And that position we canvass is logical, and should trump any other slow motion genocide masked as culture. My guess is that folks are mixing up the debasement of the system by coup-genic Generals, as what should be. When the military boys and their intellectual accomplices stole power, they inverted the pyramid. Subsequently they turned up the principals of the people, now made mere chattels. Thus these coup-genic Generals cut deals amongst themselves and in total disregard of the peoples or the state. So a coup-genic head of junta will claim he has created say states or local governments, and this over and above the people.

Usually it was a backroom deal between gun-toting Generals, their condottieri, mad specialists and specialist madmen. Recall OBJ imposed statutory traditional rulerships, so called, in all Oru na Igbo in the name of one magical African culture. And Oru na Igbo became burdened with new, but diseased riches. Thanks to OBJ, Igbo society is now under locusts-style invasion of a billion number and more traditional rulers; rulerships it would have been better off abolishing, whole and entire.

That is these men would have been most useful to themselves in particular, and the society at large, if they worked full time as carpenters, bricklayers, traders, mathematicians, journalists, etc rather than as traditional rulers. Traditional rulership, in London or Buganda is an atavistic form of the institutionalized oppression of the multitudes by the few. Kingship is the con-game of erecting a throne, a palace where there should have been a way, a free way. Ahiazuwa. Once I was part of a team that conducted a census, and it was said of the Yoruba that they had more kings than twins, and more princes than the sands of the beaches.

Now OBJ has made it the Igbo have more kings than Yoruba have princes. What else is genocide, slow motion genocide? That is why I have argued I am not an African. I am Igbo or more properly Oru. Ofo na Ogu abhors tyrannies or nepotisms, even if dressed up as kings and their kingdoms. It is sufficient unto me and my household, that we are of those things we are aware of, can account of in Ofo na Ogu, not Iledi ati Ogboni terms.

Let OBJ remain Ogboni and happy, and Gowon happy and Arewa. Let Ekwueme remain Ofo and in joy, I am already Oru and in celebration. Geography we warn is not culture, is not sociology. Finally we concede there is honor amongst thieves, but insist there is no honor in being a thief, out there in Abuja, Nkwerre or London. So a criminal is not made innocent on reporting himself. One can only recall in utter shame and horror, how one character once used the fraud of reporting himself, and allegedly returning his loot or part to the state he claimed, to wash up as the head of a military junta.

Today he is branded a moralist, a nationalist, an Africanist, having done things the African way. Yet we are lacerated with human rights lawyers, public intellectuals, led by their Alice in Wonderland ignorance. Little wonder the nation is dying? O! We are reconciled to a culture that is slow motion suicide. Today it is literally honorable to be a thief in Nigeria, in one guise or another, not excluding that of being an armed, coup-made messiah.

Ahiazuwa. Stop Press: And this: “The truth is that I am a victim of power play between two powerful political figures. I heard that there was an agreement reached between my elder brother, Chief Martin Agbaso that the governor should be in office for one tenure and give way for him to contest. It is possible the agreement is about to be breached and the best they want to make sure I am out of the office at all costs.” Chief Jude Agbaso. Imo State Deputy Governor. Daily Sun 11-03-13. And the same madness goes on. Politicians at all levels it appears are fixing things like they are their own principals, without recourse to the peoples, whose servants they are and must remain. Nigeria, what a penkelemesi?