All posts tagged injustice

A New Year Appeal To The Conscience of the Black Middle Class in the West

It is time for the Negro middle class to rise up from its stool of indifference, to retreat from its flight into unreality and bring its full resources its heart, its mind, and its checkbook to the aid of the less fortunate brother.
Martin Luther King

But it must be acknowledged that in the black elite’s strained relations with poorer blacks, white supremacy got two for the price of one. The overly watched black aristocracy over-watched the black poor, themselves already fixed by a damning white gaze in the optics of racial paranoia.
Michael Eric Dyson

Our people in the Negro community are trapped in a vicious cycle of ignorance, poverty, disease, sickness, and death. There seems to be no way out. No way of escape. The wealthy, educated Black bourgeoisie, those uppity Negroes who do escape, never reach back and pull the rest of our people out with them. The Black masses remain trapped in the slums.
Malcolm X

Happy New Year.

Ninety-one years ago, in a paper titled “An Appeal To The Soul of White America”, Marcus Garvey wrote, “Surely the soul of liberal, philanthropic, liberty –loving, white America is not dead.” Garvey in the same paper made an appeal to the conscience of white America to listen to the cries of the “awakened Negro for a place in the sun.” As we start 2015, I appeal to the conscience of the Black middle class in the Western world to attend to the cries of millions of black masses trapped on the wrong side of the color line. Surely the soul of the black middle class in the West is not dead.

The black middle class in many Western countries such as Australia, Canada, Britain and the USA has overcome many barriers to enjoy some of the milk and honey of the land.  The black elites ability to defeat racism, prejudice and poverty and still remain standing is a testament to their resilience, intelligence and commitment. They have worked hard, studied hard and sweat hard, so they surely deserve to enjoy the trappings of the middle class life. Even though a few Blacks in the West enjoy the middle class lifestyle, there are millions of other blacks caught up in what Martin Luther King referred to as a, “Lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity.” As a collective group, the black middle class has not used its vantage position to fight for the cause of its struggling brethren. It is for this reason that I am appealing to the soul and conscience of the black elite to wake up from its apathy and respond to the cries of its unfortunate brethren.

Throughout the West, the black masses are under siege.  The black underclass is one of the most severely impacted groups affected by the consequences of the Great Recession. With the emergence of extreme right wing groups throughout the West, mainstream political parties have gone on the offensive against the most marginalized. Racism in both its overt and subvert forms is on the ascendency. In Australia, the cultural genocide of the Aboriginal community is in full swing while in Britain, the media are constantly dehumanizing immigrants just as the main political parties engage in battle to see who can be more hostile to “those who do not look or speak like real Brits”. In America, the police are gunning down innocent black men at the same time as the black underclass serves as a source of profit for the privatized prison industrial complex.

Why am I appealing to the conscience of the black middle class? I could have made an appeal to your intelligence, but I know that one could find some logical explanation for not responding to the plight of the black underclass. I could have made an appeal to your pockets, but throwing money at the problem confronting the black masses will not address the structural issues facing the masses. Instead, I appeal to your conscience because as human beings with blood flowing through your veins, I believe you have some measure of compassion and empathy stored up in your heart which should enable you to look at the injustice in the West from the viewpoint of your less privileged brothers and sisters.

Before I proceed further, I am aware that I might be accused of making sweeping generalization about the black middle class. Some may argue that I am committing a fallacy of composition. I am also conscious of the fact that there are a number of individuals from this privileged strata of society who are actively involved in the emancipation of their less unfortunate brethren.  However in spite of these potential counterarguments, as a collective block the black bourgeoisie could do more to help out the “least of these.”

As the black elites climb higher up the Western social ladder, move deeper into the suburbs and mingle with the privileged of all races, they have become more detached from their less privileged cousins. This has consequently led to a situation whereby the tears, wail and pain of the black masses have gone unnoticed. Members of the black middle class who choose not to respond to the cries of the black working class can be classified into three categories namely the Bootstrapist, the Self-absorbist and the Fatalist.

The Bootstrapist is an advocate of the bootstrap philosophy, which suggests that for people to succeed in life, they have to do it by their own effort; in short they have to lift themselves up by their own bootstrap. The Bootstrapist black elite often believes that the less fortunate find themselves in that position because they fail to take personal responsibility. This type of bourgeoisie has made a conscious decision to side with the classes to the detriment of the masses. He often feels uncomfortable being around “unsuccessful” members of his own race. If a black underclass tries to explain his misfortune on racism or poverty, the Bootstrapist would quickly interject saying, “You are always using the race card” or “You are always blaming the white man for your woes”. A Bootstrapist takes pride in being colorblind. Because she has succeeded against the odds, the Bootstrapist shows no compassion for her less privileged brothers and sister. The Bootstrapist takes a simplified view of racism and would argue that the black masses are on the wrong side of the privilege line because of the hoodies they wear, the way they talk, their family structure or due to moral bankruptcy. The Bootstrapist suffers from a troika of Racial Myopia, Poverty Alzheimer and what President Obama calls “Empathy Deficit.”

The Bootstrapist fails to see the structural causes of the misfortune affecting the “least of these”, such as racism, the prison industrial complex, bias in the criminal justice system, economic policies that stifle the 99 per centers etc; instead they focus on token gains by the few black elites sitting on top of the social ladder. Because the Bootstrapist wears “boots”, he assumes that everyone has boots and should therefore be able to pull themselves by their own bootstrap. But how can the bootless black masses be expected to pull themselves by their own bootstrap? Martin Luther King once said, “It’s all right to tell a man to lift himself by his own bootstraps, but it is a cruel jest to say to a bootless man that he ought to lift himself by his own bootstraps.” The Bootstrapists are loved by politicians and are often used directly or indirectly as stooges to keep the black masses in check. Politicians will point to the successes of the Bootstrapists to castigate the black masses that are below the breadline. The Bootstrapist black elite is often supportive of Western government policies that suppress members of the black and non-black underclass such as Western governments harsh anti immigration and austerity policies – which is a clear case of a turkey voting for Christmas or a ram voting for Eid-el-Kabir (as such policies indirectly impact the black middle class).

In contrast to the Bootstrapist, the Self-absorbist does not exhibit any hatred for his less fortunate brethren. While the Bootstrapist sees the suffering masses but refuses to see the structures causing the suffering, the Self-absorbist is so caught up in his own world that he fails to see neither his suffering brothers and sisters nor the structures causing the suffering. The Self-absorbist is focused on only one thing: SELF.  The Self-absorbist elites concentrate solely on their career, their family, their children, their leisure, their comfort and their happiness. As a consequence, they are unable to see the injustice taking place around them. They suffer from an Alice-In-Wonderland syndrome where they live in a fantasy world where everything is good. Since they are doing well, they have a blind faith in the system even though the system has left many of their black brothers and sisters on the margins. They are so engrossed pursuing the so-called American, British, Canadian or Australian Dream that they fail to see the American, the British, the Canadian or the Australian Nightmare holding the black masses down.

The Fatalist is the most compassionate of the irresponsive black elite. Unlike the Bootstrapist and the Self-absorbist, the Fatalist is not only aware of the suffering black masses and the structural causes, but is also sympathetic to the plight of the black underclass. However, the Fatalist does nothing to alleviate the suffering of the masses because he feels that his effort to change things will amount to nothing. The Fatalist believes that there will always be injustice and racism so there is no need doing anything to change the system.

With the demonization, ostracization and criminalization of the black underclass continuing unabated in the West, the black elite should not and cannot continue to maintain its wall of silence and apathy. Some may say, “But why should I be bothered about the black underclass when I am doing fine? After all, I have a good job, drive a nice car, live in a good neighborhood and my children are in good schools.” I beg to disagree with this line of reasoning as it assumes that life is not interlinked. It assumes that we all live in an island. As Martin Luther King wrote while in a Birmingham jail, “We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.” The Black classes and the Black masses are tied in a single garment of destiny. The black bourgeoisie in the West can never be truly respected as long as the black masses are disrespected and dehumanized. We may be the only black person in our office, we may be the only black person at Wimbledon, we may be the only black person in the theatre, we may be the only black person on our streets, our kids may be the only black children in their schools, but so long as the black masses are looked down upon by the dominant Western culture, the black middle class will not be immune. In case you think that that my claim is a hyperbole, perhaps you may want to examine the plight of Lawrence Otis Graham.

Graham is a black upper middle class attorney living the quintessential American dream. He graduated from two Ivy League institutions, married a beautiful and intelligent wife who was the first African American woman to become a partner at one of the worlds leading management consulting firms. They live in one of the most exclusive neighborhoods in New York, which is populated by White people, and their children attend one of the top private schools in the area. Although Graham grew up experiencing discrimination, he tried everything within his power to protect his children from facing racial discrimination. Their children had the perfect diction and Mr. and Mrs. Graham’s developed a set of rules to immunize their kids from being racially profiled such as: “Always zip your backpack firmly closed or leave it in the car or with the cashier so that you will not be suspected of shoplifting” and “If you must wear a T- shirt to an outdoor play event or on a public street, it should have the name of a respected and recognizable school emblazoned on its front.” Graham said he and his wife, “Believed that if we worked hard and maintained great jobs, we could insulate our children from the blatant manifestations of bigotry that we experienced as children in the 1960s and ’70s.” Despite all the efforts to shield their children from racism through their elite upbringing, one day when his son was walking, a car pulled up in front of him and the occupants called the boy a nigger. Graham raised the issue with the school authorities who just waved the issue aside.  The Graham’s were shaken by the racism experienced by their son with Graham saying, “The boarding-school incident this summer was a turning point for us — particularly for my son and his younger siblings. Being called a nigger was, of course, a depressing moment for us all. But it was also a moment that helped bring our surroundings into clearer focus. The fact that it happened just days before the police shooting of Michael Brown increased its resonance for our family.” The morale of the Graham’s plight is that no matter how high up a black person is on the Western social ladder, one is not immune from some of the problems confronting the black underclass.

Another reason why it is in the interest of the black middle class to come to the defense of the black underclass is because many members of the black middle class are just one, two or three pay cheques away from slipping from the heights of the middle class into the depths of the underclass. The black elite cannot remain silent as the black underclass continues to suffer because the numbers do not lie. Earlier on, I gave a high level overview of some of the issues confronting the black underclass in the West. I would now go further by detailing some of the disturbing statistics, which show that the plight faced by the black masses in the West is not a fairytale.

There is an over-representation of blacks in the Western criminal justice system. According to the Equality and Human Rights Commission, between 2010 and 2011 a black person relative to a white person was eleven times more likely to be stopped by the Metropolitan Police. A research conducted by Release, the drugs charity concluded that the policing and prosecutions of drug possession offences in England and Wales is unduly focused on black and minority communities. It notes that relative to whites, blacks are 6 times more likely to be stopped and searched for drugs, more likely to be charged for possessing cocaine and less likely to be cautioned even though Black people use less drugs than white people. The same trend occurs in the USA. According to Michelle Alexander in her book The New Jim Crow, relative to a white male convicted of the same drug crime, an African-American male is given an average of 20 to 50 times longer prison term. She also notes that of the over 2.3 million men imprisoned in America, seventy percent of them are either blacks or Hispanics.

A study by the Center for Economic Policy and Research revealed that in the USA, the unemployment rate for black college graduates between the ages of 22 and 27 was 12.4% compared to 5.6% for non-black college graduates. The study notes that black and other ethnic minorities workers are twice as likely to be unemployed as whites. In Britain, the youth unemployment among blacks was 20% compared to 8% unemployment rate for white youths in 2013. In Australia and Canada, ever since the Aborigines had their land confiscated by the colonialists, they have been treated as third class citizens in their own land. The Aboriginals rank at the bottom of most social indicators ranging from life expectancy to literacy. Sam Cooper of the Province magazine summed up the attitude towards the Aboriginal in Canada when he wrote, “Racism against aboriginals in B.C (British Columbia) runs so deep that we barely recognize it. It’s in our DNA, it’s in our children’s vocabulary, it’s absorbed by new immigrants as soon as they land.”

Before I proceed further, I would like to briefly discuss a particular trait exhibited by a few African elites in Diaspora, who grew up and were educated in Africa before moving to the West. As a result of growing in Africa were racism is rare (although tribalism prevails) these African elites in Diaspora were accustomed to seeing people of their own skin tone rise to the pinnacle of society. Shortly after relocating to the West, they had the fortune of securing good jobs and living a comfortable middle class life. Upon assuming this Western middle class lifestyle, a few members of Africans in Diaspora have developed a mindset where they feel that other blacks have not taken advantage of the “opportunities” that the West provides. This has led to some of these middle class Africans based in the USA, Britain and Australia looking down on their African Americans, Caribbean and Aboriginal brethren. As a consequence some African elites make derogatory statements against their brethren such as, “African Americans have a chip on their shoulder always blaming racism for their misfortune” or “African American men are always in prison and the women are single mothers,” in Britain, some middle class Africans suggest that their Caribbean brothers are lazy people who do not want to work. My message to these African elites who have this mindset is that they need to realize that the token gains that they obtained in the West is as a result of the struggles and blood shed by the very people who they look down on. If the African Americans had not fought against Jim Crow, educated Africans would not have had the opportunity to come to America to study and work; if the Caribbean’s had not stood their ground in the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s the token gains enjoyed by the British African middle classes would have been none existence. So rather than having a sense of entitlement, the African middle class in Diaspora should show some humility and acknowledge the struggles of their fellow brothers and sisters.

Through its silence and apathy, the Western black elites have betrayed their black working class counterparts. Betrayal occurs not only when one party provides information to an enemy, which exposes that person to harm; it also occurs when a person is hurt as a result of someone not giving help. In comparing traitors of different races, Marcus Garvey said, “The traitor of other races is generally confined to the mediocre or irresponsible individual, but, unfortunately, the traitors among the Negro race are generally to be found among the men highest placed in education and society.”  It is time for the black middle class to do some soul searching. As a collective group, the black middle class in the West like Nicodemus must become born again. There needs to be a change in the mindset of the Western black bourgeoisie. The black middle class should start to look at life in the West through the lens of the humanity of the masses rather than through the lens of the humanity of the classes. The black elite should strive to see things from the viewpoint of the broader confine of the collective black underclass rather than through the narrow confine of his own individualism. With this change of mindset, the black elite will no longer be deceived by token gains, which put a few blacks at the top and leave the majority of blacks at the bottom of the pile. The elite will then start to acknowledge that all is not well with the black underclass, which should hopefully spur him to action.

For long, the black underclass has been told to accept personal responsibility by their more successful brothers and sisters. It is now time for the black elite to accept its own responsibility in helping out its less fortunate brethren. For the Fatalist who justifies his inaction because injustice will always be around, he needs to realize that most of the benefits we enjoy in our world today occurred because sometime ago someone somewhere acted. There was a time when it seemed that slavery would never end, but some people acted and slavery ended; there was a time when it was normal for women not to vote, then some people acted and women were allowed to vote. Your voice no matter how low the tone can make a change. As Obama eloquently put it, “One voice can change a room, and if one voice can change a room, then it can change a city, and if it can change a city, it can change a state, and if it can change a state, it can change a nation, and if it can change a nation, it can change the world.  Your voice can change the world.” For the Bootstrapist who shows no compassion towards the black underclass to paraphrase a comment by Robert Kennedy, if the Bootstrapist black elite continues to insist that the black underclass should lift himself by his own bootstrap, let him be willing to lose all his money, all his influence, live in the ghetto and be tortured with racism and poverty. Then and only then has he a right to such a claim.

For the sake of clarity, I am not suggesting that every black elite in the West should suddenly become a Martin Luther King or a Malcolm X. However, the black elite could strive to take up a personal cause impacting the black underclass and run with it. There are lots of causes begging for attention such as racism, poverty, gang warfare, income inequality, poor educational attainment, immigrants drowning in the sea, criminal injustice, racial profiling etc. There are also many ways in which the black elite can help – if you can’t shout, you can march; if you can’t march, you can lobby, if you can’t lobby, you can protest, if you can’t protest, you can finance, if you can’t finance, you can mentor, if you can’t mentor, you can petition. Just do something.

The black middle class should also extend its compassion to non-blacks. Throughout the West, the underclasses of all races are getting a rough deal. In the USA, the Hispanics face the same level of discrimination as blacks; in Britain, Eastern Europeans and the Roma community in particular have been caught up in the cross fire of the anti immigration rhetoric emanating from the media and politicians. At the same time nearly a million people in Britain from all races rely on food banks.

Finally, the black elite should become good stewards by striving to make things better than the way they found it. The benefits which the black middle class enjoys in the West today is as a result of the collective efforts of individuals from previous generations who stood up and said enough is enough. The black underclass is increasing exponentially and if this trend continues, the next generation will face a life of misery. It is therefore critical that the present day black elite add their voices, intelligence, influence and resources to stop this trend.

The black middle class can still be passionate about living in good neighborhoods, perusing school league tables, monitoring property prices and driving flashy cars at the same time as fighting for justice and equality for the black underclass as all these commitments are not mutually exclusive. So I plead to the conscience of the black middle class on the basis of love to heed to the cry of the black underclass. As you ride along the road be on the lookout for the wounded man by the wayside. When you see the wounded man, please come out of your car and attend to the person who Jesus Christ calls the “least of these”, who the occupy movement calls “the 99 per centers”, who Frantz Fanon calls  “the wretched of the earth” and who Michael Eric Dyson calls “the ghettocracy” – who has been left naked, beaten and half dead on the Western road to Jericho.

Selah.

Ahmed Olayinka Sule, CFA
01 January 2015

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The Soliloquy of a “Nigerian Big Boy”

by Ahmed Olayinka Sule, CFA

suleaos@gmail.com

http://www.scribd.com/Alatenumo/documents

Nigerians respect power, and they respect money. People believe ‘my time will come’, Whereas there’s that sense in many other places that where you find yourself in society could be permanent, here everybody is rich-in-waiting.-Folarin Gbadebo-Smith

That Rolex wristwatch is worth more than 3 million naira at least that was what I was told by a friend who works at a Rolex store in Britain-Comment on a Nigerian blog

 

The figures, from research company Euromonitor, found that Nigeria had the fastest growing rate of new champagne consumption in the world, second only to France, and ahead of rapid growth nations Brazil and China, and established markets such as the US and Australia.-Guardian

 

I’m rich, I’m Nigerian and I’m proud.

When I look at my humble beginnings, I have cause to thank God. Nollywood stars, musicians, footballers, politicians and bloggers all want a piece of me and I’m ready to give them the whole of me. Would they have wanted to know me ten years ago when I was just a bloody security guard in New York? Of course not. But who cares. I’m a new creature, old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.

[Puts on glasses and smiles as he looks at his image on the front page of the Focus Magazine titled “The 40 Most Influential Nigerians Under 40] Am I not a fine boy? Everything that I have, I’ve worked hard for.

You only live once, so I have to make the most out of life. I will not hold back from letting anybody and everyone know that I’ve arrived. Last week, I went on a spending spree. On Monday I got myself a platinum iPad Air, on Tuesday I bought a gold plated iPhone, on Wednesday I got a Breitling wristwatch while on Thursday I wore an Anderson & Sheppard suit and took delivery of a bespoke K50 suit on Friday. Ha ha money sweet o. In my car park, I have many toys like the Porsche Panamera, Mercedes Benz G55 AMG, Audi Q7, Chevrolet Camaro and the 2013 Infiniti FX. Each one has been given a unique name – Ajibade 1, Ajibade 2, Ajibade 3, Ajibade 4 and Ajibade 5.

*** Charge them that are rich in this world, that they be not high minded, nor trust in uncertain riches, but in the living God, who giveth us richly all things to enjoy ***

I’m a great husband and father. I may not shower Jumoke and my lovely twins with the love and attention they deserve, but at least I shower them with money, which is more important. Jumoke can afford to shop in the great shopping centres of the world. This year, she has flown three times to Paris, four times to London and two times to New York spending £3,000 in each city for every visit.

[Steps out of his N300m Lekki mansion and walks towards the car park, takes several pictures of his car. Writes an email to a popular blogger in Nigeria, reading out as he types]

Dear Yinka, How are you doing? Been a while. Just to let you know that I have decided to spoil myself with a Mercedes Benz G55 AMG, which I got for N21million. Please find attached a picture of the car and the car key. I would be grateful if you could publish it on your blog with the headline “Lagos Big Boy Ajibade acquires Mercedes Benz G55 AMG.” To let them know that it is authentic and new, I have left the nylon on the car seat. MAKE SURE THAT THIS IS SHOWN.

Kind Regards

AJ.

Thanks to modern technology, it’s easier for Nigerians to know that I have arrived. When I bought Jumoke a diamond encrusted special edition Rolex wristwatch on her birthday, she uploaded a picture of the watch on Twitter with a tweet saying  “He loves me – at the Ritz.” The tweet went viral and was published on a number of blogs. I loved the comments from some Nigerians like the one who said, “My time will come o”; “Congrats girl! If you’ve got it flaunt it.”

*** Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity ***

[Reads the Apostolic Exhortation of Pope Francis, 2013]

“As long as the problems of the poor are not radically resolved by rejecting the absolute autonomy of markets and financial speculation and by attacking the structural causes of inequality, no solution will be found for the world’s problems or, for that matter, to any problems. Inequality is the root of social ills.”

[Frowns] What does he mean by that? How can inequality be the root of all social ills? The poor have themselves to blame because they are lazy people who expect to live of the crumbs of hard working people like me.

[Continues reading]

“….Jesus, the evangelizer par excellence and the Gospel in person, identifies especially with the little ones. This reminds us Christians that we are called to care for the vulnerable of the earth. But the current model, with its emphasis on success and self-reliance, does not appear to favour an investment in efforts to help the slow, the weak or the less talented to find opportunities in life. How can it be that it is not a news item when an elderly homeless person dies of exposure, but it is news when the stock market loses two points?”

This Pope is really beginning to annoy me. Why can’t these religious leaders just shut up and focus on spiritual matters instead of addressing social and economic issues. Ministers like Desmond Tutu, Tunde Bakare and Pope Francis are all attention seekers. If he continues focusing on the poor I will stop going to mass and might consider changing religion.

*** For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows ***

Can’t stand it when I hear or read about people saying that there are many poor people in the world especially in Nigeria. The other day I read that the World Bank claimed that 100 million Nigerian are destitutes. Where is the paper?  [Picks paper from bookshelf and reads]

“….According to the World Bank boss, the number of Nigerians living in destitution makes up 8.33 per cent of the total number of people living in destitution all over the world which she said the bank aimed to reduce drastically by 2030.”

[Throws the paper on the floor] How can this be true? 100 million ko, 100 million ni. They say millions of Nigerians live on $1.25 a day. That’s impossible. Can’t see any of them on my street. Or is it only me that sees it this way? Not at all, even Jumoke will agree with me. None of her friends are poor, neither are any of the kids in my daughters’ school.

How can Nigeria be a poor country when it is one of the largest importers of private jets, has some of the richest people in Africa and very soon will become the largest economy in Africa once it revises the GDP calculation? Nigerians are the sixth largest spenders in Britain and the second largest consumers of Champagne in the world.

[Walks towards the champagne fridge and brings out a Dom Perignon White Gold Jeroboam, uncorks it and pours into a glass]

This is refreshing. It’s not that I detest the poor; I’d rather prefer to hang around successful people because poverty could sometimes be infectious. It is better to deal with paupers from a distance and once in a while like Christmas. Last December, I visited the Hearts of Gold Children’s Hospice in Surulere and gave the children ten cartons of Indomie Noodles and Bournvita, which was reported in Yinka’s blog. On New Years Eve, I plan going to the Lagos Motherless Babies Home to take some pictures with the babies and donate some money. I will then forward the pictures to Yinka to put on her blog.

[Takes another sip] I’m the Serena Williams of the champagne arena. Nobody can defeat me in any champagne war. I will never forget the day at the Maddox Restaurant when one yeye guy sent a waiter to put a bottle of Veuve Clicquot on my table. Imagine! What an insult. I was so happy when I saw the guy’s mouth open as the waiter put 30 bottles of Krug Rose on his table courtesy of me.

[Kneels down] I should say my prayers [puts hands together and looks up towards the ceiling]

The Naira and Dollar are my shepherds, I shall not want. They make me to be happy and lead me to sleep in hotels in Paris, London and New York. They restore my bank account, dignity and connections. They guide me in the path of selfishness, vanity and ignorance. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of bankruptcy and poverty, I will not fear, for thou art with me. Amen.

I’m bored. What should I do? Let me check my online bank statements.

[After a couple of minutes checking his statements, gets his iPhone and walks around the house]

What else can I photograph and upload to Instagram? My 24 carat Macbook Pro. Can’t do that it has already been published on Foluke’s Blog. Should I take a selfie with my Ozwald Boateng suit? That wouldn’t really get peoples attention after all many Nollywood stars now wear solid suits. Perhaps I should send Yinka a picture that I took with Prince Williams while playing golf? That should get heads turning if it is published. Or should I upload a picture of Roger Henry’s autographed basketball T-shirt onto Facebook? Why not? After all I’m his business partner and we are always together, that’s why some people say that I am like the other woman in his marriage.

Forget it; don’t think it will capture anyone’s attention. Nigerians only respect three things MONEY, MONEY and MONEY. Perhaps I should l get my designer to make a suit made of Dollar, Euro and Pounds and send the image to all the leading Nigerian blogs and celebrity magazines. I could even upload the image onto Twitter using the heading: MY COAT OF MANY COLOURS – HARD WORK PAYS.

*** And he said unto them, Take heed, and beware of covetousness: for a man’s life consisteth not in the abundance of the things, which he possesseth ***

When last did I have the house all to myself? Once Jumoke and the kids get back from Monaco, I will have no access to the TV [Puts on television]

“Good evening and welcome to Channels News. In a new dimension in the war against begging, the Special Offences Court in Ikeja has sent 320 beggars to Kirikiri and Badagry Prisons for soliciting for alms and other offences. The Lagos State Government had charged them to court for constituting nuisance in public by begging for alms.  The government says it is no longer going to be business as usual as it has vowed to prosecute erring beggars on the streets of Lagos.”

[Stands up and applause]

I never knew that Lagos had so many beggars. The government has to be radical or else Lagos could turn into a haven for the poor.  [Heads to toilet]

*** Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me.***

[Returns from toilet and sees an image on TV of a man wearing a cap standing with his right hand in pocket in front of a woman wearing a pink top kneeling down begging the man]

“During a sanitation exercise in Benin City, a woman’s goods were seized by State officials led by the Governor Adams Oshiomole. The woman who claimed to be a widow begged the Governor to pardon her acknowledging that it was illegal to sell on the roadside. In response, Governor Oshiomole told the woman – You’re a widow, go and die.”

Hmm. What is this country turning into? We can’t allow illiterates and poor people to continue to spoil this great country. Thank God we have capable leaders that are trying to put things in order. That’s why we voted for them.

[Yawns] Let me go to bed early since I have a busy day tomorrow. [Turns off television and goes up the stairs to sleep]

Selah.

Ahmed Sule, CFA

© Ahmed Sule 2013

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Love Serena Hate Racism

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I once said that I am the most underestimated Grand Slam winner. Every article says she overpowered her opponent. It is a lot more than I never get credit for mental and it is kind of frustrating.

-Serena Williams

It was a tough crowd out there … the story of my life.

-Serena Williams

When people like me, they tell me it is in spite of my color. When they dislike me, they point out that it is not because of my color. Either way, I am locked into the infernal circle.

– Frantz Fanon

She is Frank Bruno with lipstick. Bigger arms than Frank too.

– Online comment

INTRODUCTION

“I could not believe what came out of his mouth…he said some awful things… and as an African American I’m not going to stand for it” she said as she approached the umpire pointing in the direction of a middle aged man sitting at the stadium.”  She continued, “I was shocked. I couldn’t believe it. I had to do a double take. I think I hit a double-fault on that point.” After sitting down, she put the towel on her laps and spoke on, “He was harassing me throughout the match, and I should have said something sooner. He was saying things he shouldn’t have and it was totally unethical. It was derogatory.”

Is this story fact or fiction? Who said the above and to whom and on what occasion? This incident actually took place in March 2007 during a match between Serena Williams and Lucie Safarova at the Sony Ericsson Miami Open. The middle-aged man watching the match had just yelled at Serena saying, “Hit the ball into the net like any nigger would.”  In response, Serena approached the umpire to complain and to have him ejected from the match. Six years after this event, the racial slurs directed at Serena still continue although they have become more polished and less obvious.

Williams is one of the finest players of any gender to have graced the game of tennis. She has won 16 Grand Slam singles titles (and counting), 13 Grand Slam doubles titles and 4 Olympic gold medals. She is the only human being to complete a career Golden Grand Slam in both singles and doubles. In addition, Williams is one of only two people to have ever won Grand Slam singles titles in three different decades and to have won each of the Grand Slam singles and doubles titles at least twice. Despite these achievements, Williams is quite possibly the most unloved, underestimated and underappreciated tennis player of all time.

Tennis, like most other sports, has had its fair share of “goodies and baddies”; the heroes and the villains. While it’s obvious that Williams falls into the baddie/villain category, unlike the angst directed at other “villains of the game” such as John McEnroe, the angst directed at Williams is not only troubling, but also sickening and unprecedented.

Why is this the case? Is it because Williams is evil or is it because she has a bad attitude? Is she wicked? Has she committed any serious crime? Otherwise, are there other sinister reasons for her to attract such vitriolic hatred in the Western Hemisphere? Can the hatred towards her be construed to be racist? If yes, what form of racism and who are the protagonists? Is Williams treated fairly, relative to her peers? What are the implications of the racial attitudes towards her? What can be done to curtail or minimize the hatred towards Williams? The answers to these questions will be addressed in the next couple of pages.

 WHY THE ATTACKS?

To get a clear understanding as to why Williams is loathed, one may have to pick up the history books and turn to the chapter on colonialism. When the people of Africa, Asia and Latin America were colonized, there emerged two types of colonized people. The first type comprised of those who accepted colonialism. They saw themselves in the image of the colonialist. In the French colonies, they were called Assimilée (one who could be assimilated into the French “superior” culture), in the Belgian colonies, they were known as Évolué (someone who has evolved), in the Portuguese colonies they were called ‘Civilisado’ (one who is civilized) and in the Anglophone countries they were called the Colonized Elite. Like the biblical Lazarus, they ate the crumbs that fell down from their colonial masters table. They were subservient to the colonialists who loved them in return for the obeisance. They were trained in the colonialist’s etiquettes and owed their existence to their masters.

On the other hand, there was another type of colonized people who refused to accept colonialism. This group resisted their colonial masters and did not feel inferior to the colonialist. They were always in conflict with the colonizers because they believed that they did not owe their existence to the colonizers. These group of people were not interested in conforming to the colonialists way of life, all they wanted was freedom. Unlike the evolue, assimilee and civilisado, these nonconformists were feared and hated by the colonizer.

Williams can be described as a modern day non-evolue, non-assimilée and non-civilisado. Back in the days she would have probably been called a colonized native rather than a colonized elite because she would have refused to eat the crumbs that fell from the colonialist table. She is a bold and confident black lady who refuses to be shaped by the mores of the tennis fraternity. Williams does not owe her existence to the tennis establishment because she got to where she is today by hard work and tenacity. For a number of people, they can’t understand why Williams should be so sure of herself after all, “she should be grateful that she is even allowed to be playing the game, because the game is not meant for people like her.” Because of this self-assurance, many people detest her as they see her as a threat to the tennis world.

Selah.

Another reason why Williams is always under attack is because her physique does not conform to the Western definition of how a woman’s physique should be like. Unlike other players on the tour, Williams is curvaceous. Before she started playing tennis, people were not accustomed to seeing a lady with African features playing and dominating the game of tennis. Since Williams came onto the scene there has been a fascination with her body because it does not fit the model we are used to seeing on the catwalks of the various fashion cities of the West.

Is this fascination with Williams’s body something new? Not at all. Once again, one needs to open the history book and turn to the chapter on Sarah Baartman to understand this fascination. When the colonialist first came into contact with Africans, they were intrigued with the African woman’s physique, which differed from that of their wives whom they often left at home. In 1810, a colonialist in South Africa convinced Sarah Baartman, a curvaceous South African lady to relocate to Britain. He thought that bringing her to Britain would generate interest among the Brits who would be willing to pay to see Sarah’s body. When she got to Britain, she was put in a cage and displayed for the English spectators to look at her body. She was ridiculed and some spectators touched her buttocks and other parts of her body. After being exhibited in Britain, she was taken to France were she became an object of scientific research. When she died in 1816, her body was displayed in a museum until her remains were taken back to South Africa in 2002.

Unfortunately, Williams has replaced Sarah Baartman as the “Noble Savage” of the 21st century. Besides the negative reports about Williams’s body in the Western media and the snide comments by tennis fans, some players on the tour have also resulted to ridiculing Williams’s curvaceous body. During an exhibition match between Caroline Wozianki and Maria Sharapova, Wozianki stuffed her bra and skirt with towels to imitate Serena’s body. In another exhibition match, Novak Djokovic did a similar thing. In contrast, when tennis players imitate other players, they imitate other aspects such as the way players hold their rackets, how they scream, adjust their clothes or hit the ball instead of focusing on their physique.

Is it fair that Williams should be treated as sub-human because she is not blonde? Is it fair that Williams should be seen as a noble savage because she is not skinny? Is it fair that Williams should be regarded as inferior because she is not blue eyed? Is it fair that Williams should be compared to Mike Tyson because she is not ‘flat’? Would all these criticisms stop if Williams changed into a Barbie doll?

Selah.

To understand another reason why Williams is such a hate figure, we must again open the history book and this time turn to the chapter on Hitler and the 1936 Olympics. Hitler saw blacks as inferior and wanted to use the 1936 Olympics as a showcase to prove the superiority of the Aryan race. Contrary to Hitler’s expectation, Jesse Owens, an African-American, became the star of the Olympics winning four gold medals, thereby dispelling Hitler’s racial theory.  After the Berlin Olympics, racial theories about the inferiority of blacks began to evolve.  As blacks began to excel in certain sports like athletics, football and basketball, the theory was revised. Rather than attributing the excellence to hard work, scientist instead suggested that blacks were genetically suited to excel in sports. In sports where blacks did not excel such as golf and cricket, some people suggested that these sports required a high degree of intelligence rather than power and due to the intellectual inferiority of black people, they were incapable of excelling in these  ‘intellectual sports’. This was the prevailing notion until one “Mr. Tiger Woods” began to dominate golf and the West Indies team dominated the game of cricket in the 1970s and 1980s.

Tennis, like swimming, rugby, golf and cricket is a sport dominated by white people. Prior to the arrival of the Williams sisters, there had only been three black Grand Slam tennis champions, since the first Grand Slam took place at Wimbledon in 1877. A look at the images on the Wimbledon Champions Hall of Fame from 1877 reveals that, pre 2000, the only black face among the ladies champions was that of Althea Gibson, the 1957 and 1958 Champion. This was the backdrop before Serena and Venus Williams came onto the scene. Once they started playing, they rewrote that tennis history.  Unfortunately, for a number of people, this change was an unwelcome development. The people resistant to change began to say, “Blacks are intellectually inferior, so they are not supposed to dominate a sport that requires the use of intelligence.” These people live in the 21st century but have a 19th century mind-set, so cannot understand why two black sisters have won 10 of the last 13 Wimbledon Championships. Left to them, Serena and Venus have no business playing the game and should be mowing the Wimbledon grass instead of collecting millions of pounds in Wimbledon winning earnings. To justify the earlier racial theories about blacks in sports, these people often suggest that the sisters excel because of their power.

As Williams continues to dispel the preconceived notion about blacks in sports, the suppressed prejudice, which was hidden, has finally come out to the surface and that is what we are seeing today.

EXCUSES, EXCUSES, EXCUSES

Because Williams has been so dominant in the last decade, those uncomfortable with her success have come up with a number of excuses to downplay her accomplishment. These excuses come not only from the media, but also from fellow players and tennis fans. The next couple of paragraphs detail some of these excuses.

a) Tennis fans that are hostile to Serena often attribute her dominance to the use of performance enhancing drugs (PED). Although they have no basis for such claims, they have developed a syllogism along the following lines:

Premise 1: Williams is dominant in the game of tennis

Premise 2: Lance Armstrong was dominant in cycling

Premise 3: Lance Armstrong used PED

Conclusion: Therefore Williams uses PED.

Some Serenaphobe’s suggest that the reason why Williams was diagnosed with pulmonary embolism in 2011 was because of PED, even though the disease occurs when a blood clot gets wedged in an artery in the lungs. They fail to acknowledge that Williams is one of the most tested players on the tour and she has never failed a drugs test.

b) The Serenaphobe’s also downplay WIlliams’s achievement by arguing that her dominance is because of a weak field. They fail to acknowledge that Williams has played in three different eras and has dominated each one. Earlier in her career, she played the likes of Monica Seles and Steffi Graff and had a head-to-head count of 4-1 and 1-1 respectively (it is important to  note that Williams played these two legends of the game when they were at the tail end of their careers). In the second stage of her career, Williams faced the likes of Justine Henin, Lindsay Davenport, Kim Clijsters, and Jennifer Capriati and had a superior head to head count of 8-6,10-4,7-2 and10-7 respectively. Now in her third era, she is dominating the likes of Sharapova, Azarenka, Li Na and Radwanska. She holds a superior 62-7 head-to-head count against the current top ten seeded players. It is important to note that Azarenka and Sharapova who Williams has a winning head-to-head count of 12-2 and 14-2 respectively are formidable players who would have made an impact in the previous eras of other tennis legends. So for Williams to continuously outclass these two good players is a testament to her greatness.

c) It is often suggested that because of Williams’s domination, the ladies game of tennis has become boring. This is quite an interesting argument as over time certain players have dominated their era. For instance in the 1970’s and 1980’s, Martina Navratilova and Chris Evert were the dominant forces in ladies tennis winning a total of 36 Grand Slam titles between them. In the late 1980’s to the 1990’s Steffi Graff dominated the game winning a total of 22 Grand Slam titles. However, despite the domination of tennis by these individuals, there was no suggestion at the time that the game was boring; on the contrary, since Williams began to excel we now hear comments like, “I’m so tired of Serena. She’s already proven her worth so it’s time for her to stop being greedy and give way to new blood. Tennis will be more exciting if we can’t predict who’s going to win.”

There are now suggestions that the ladies game should be extended to five sets because of the ease at which Williams wins or that women should not earn the same prize money as men. One wonders why all these calls for lesser pay for women and increase in match duration are becoming louder. When Steffi Graff defeated Natasha Zvereva in the 1988 French Open final 6-0, 6-0 where were the calls that the game of women tennis was boring? When Navratilova won nine Wimbledon titles, where were the calls that women should be playing the best of five sets rather than the best of three sets? When Chris Evert won 125 consecutive matches on clay, where were the calls that the competition was weak? I guess it’s a case of different strokes for different folks.

d) One of the most common arguments used to undermine WIlliams’s accomplishment is the suggestion that she has an unfair advantage due to her power. Blacks have always been stereotyped as strong, aggressive and angry and Williams being an African American is not immune from these stereotypes. The media, tennis fans and even some tennis players have overemphasized her power as her number one weapon. While Williams possesses the fastest serve in the history of female tennis, this is not a sufficient and necessary condition to excel in tennis. For instance, some of the biggest servers in mens’ tennis include Andy Roddick, Goran Ivanisevic, John Isner, Milos Raonic and Juan Del Potro, however in spite of the power of their serve, they only have a combined total of three Grand Slam titles.  On the women tour, besides Serena and Venus Williams, there are six other women who have served faster than 124.2 mph and with the exception of Ana Ivanovic, none of the rest have won any Grand Slam title.

While the spotlight is on Williams’s so-called power game, the media and tennis pundits downplay Maria Sharapova’s playing style which involves using her power to outhit her opponents from the back of the court. However, if one reviews the media reportage on these two players, one begins to notice a pattern. For Serena, one reads headlines like:

‘Incredible’ Serena Williams powers to another title

Super Serena Williams slays Dominika Cibulkova in Rome

Williams outmuscles Sharapova

In contrast, reports regarding Sharapova’s victory often have the following headlines:

Maria Sharapova Defeats Sloane Stephens to Advance

Sharapova rallies past Jankovic at French Open

Maria Sharapova shrugs off Victoria Azarenka to set up French Open final date with Serena Williams

The media conveniently ignore other aspects of Williams’s game such as her mental toughness, ground strokes and accuracy of serve on the ‘T’.

Related to the overemphasis on WIlliams’s power are suggestions that her physique gives her an undue advantage. When Maria Sharapova was asked of her thoughts on Williams’s serve, Sharapova who has a 3 inch height advantage over Williams responded by saying, “I think if I was built like Serena I hope I’d be able to hit a big serve like that, too.”  In an earlier competition at Madrid, when asked how Williams compares with other top players she had faced in her career, Sharapova said, “She is certainly the strongest, physically the most powerful and the biggest hitter.” In an article about Williams published in the Rolling Stone Magazine, the journalist wrote, “Sharapova is tall, white and blond, and, because of that, makes more money in endorsements than Serena, who is black, beautiful and built like one of those monster trucks that crushes Volkswagens at sports arenas.”

A number of Serenaphobe’s have also made derogatory remarks about WIlliams’s gender on online forums like:

“Must be all that excess testosterone making her so irritable.”

“Why is a man disguised as a woman allowed to pretend to play under the guise of a female aka Williams in this Tournament”?

“It’s a man.”

“The Williams sisters have been a disgrace to tennis since they first appeared. Instead of talent and finesse, they have nothing but pure BRUTE force. Somebody should do a DNA test”

ONLINE SERENAPHOBE’S

While Williams has been on the receiving end from, fellow tennis players, the media and tennis fans, the most rancorous Serenaphobe’s are the online commentators who hide under the cloak of anonymity to spit venom from their keyboards. Unfortunately, the media have not done a thorough job in moderating these comments even though these websites usually state, “libellous and abusive comments are not allowed.” Here are some samples of online comments about Williams made on websites which claim to moderate abusive comments:

“You can take the athlete out of the Ghetto, but you can’t take the Ghetto out of the athlete, sadly.”

“Jaws in a dress.”

 “Ugly inside and out!”

“She is an Amazon. No class in her or her family. Tired of reading about them.”

At the conclusion of the 2013 French Open tournament, there were two feature articles published on the BBC Tennis home page about Serena and Nadal’s victories. Reading the comments on both articles reveals a lot about the hatred toward Serena. Nadal’s article had 296 comments while Serena’s article had 335 comments. So far, so good.  Of the 296 comments relating to the Nadal article, there were only two moderated comments (0.68% of comments) whereas the Serena Williams article had 77 moderated comments (23% of comments). One wonders what was written in the original comments that warranted the BBC to replace these comments with the phrase “”all these users posts have been removed” and “this comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules.”

21st CENTURY RACISM

Even though Williams is the most vilified tennis player on the planet, she is not in uncharted territory. She follows a long list of black sporting icons that had to endure racial prejudices as the price of their success. She follows the footsteps of Jack Johnson, the first African American world heavyweight-boxing champion who once said, “I’m black… They never let me forget it.” She follows the footstep of Jackie Robinson, the first African-American to play major league baseball who once said, “I’m not concerned with your liking or disliking me… all I ask is that you respect me as a human being.”   She follows the footpath of Tommie Smith, the 1968 US 200m Olympic Champion who once said, “If I do something good then I am American, but if I do something bad then I am a Negro!”

Unlike the racism which the likes of Arthur Ashe, Muhammad Ali and Althea Gibson had to endure, Williams faces a 21st century form of racism which can be described as unconscious racism. So what is the difference between conscious racism and unconscious racism? Conscious racism occurs when a person commits a racial act fully aware of the implication of his/her action, whereas unconscious racism occurs when the perpetrator of the racist act lacks an awareness of the effects of his/her action on other people. While conscious racism can be described as spoken, acknowledged, direct, exposed and not so subtle, unconscious racism is often unspoken, denied, indirect, hidden and subtle. Surprisingly, people who engage in unconscious racism are not aware of it and would often come up with excuses to reassure themselves like ”some of my best friends are black”; ”I once dated a black girl” or “I can’t be racist because I send aid to Africa.”

So what can we make of the hostility towards Williams? The answer would depend on the classification of the protagonist. Fellow players on the tour who mock WIlliams’s physique will say that they are “having a laugh” or are “just joking”; the media who often have nothing good to say about Williams will say that they are doing their job; the tennis fans will say they have a right to support whoever they want to support, while the anonymous online contributors will argue that they are only expressing their opinions. However, if one is to be true to oneself, one has to acknowledge that Williams has become the poster child for racial prejudice in tennis. Some may say, “Here we go again, he is bringing up the race card” or “Blacks are always playing the victim.” While some may suggest, “the fault lies with Williams, after all Sloane Stephens, Dustin Brown and Wilfred Tsonga do not attract such hatred” even though we know that these tennis players are not as dominant as Williams.

Is it then right to argue that anyone who does not like or support Williams is a racist? Absolutely not. There are many people who do not support Williams for genuine reasons. This sort of stance is acceptable, however what is not acceptable is when people’s dislike towards Williams crosses the race line.

In spite of the continuous hostility against Williams it does not seem to bother her. This could be because of her upbringing. According to her father, Richard Williams, though Serena was born in the 80’s, “ …she was taught like a child who was being brought up in the ’40s and the ’50s, and that’s why today if you see Venus and Serena, and we’re at a tennis tournament, and you boo us, it doesn’t hurt us, because we were taught for things like that many, many years ago, we came up in the ’40s and the ’50s.”  Even though Williams has been booed at Indian Wells, jeered at Roland Garros and cheered at Wimbledon in response to her defeat, she continues to rewrite history.

IMPLICATIONS

Although Williams seems unfazed by the racial attacks against her, does it mean that these attacks should continue? Certainly not. If not, then what are the implications of these attacks against Williams? One potential impact is it could discourage people from ethnic minority backgrounds in the West from taking part in the tennis. A young black girl might ask, ”Why bother to play tennis at the highest level, if I am going to face the ordeal that faces?” Another impact is that there could be a risk to her life. As Williams continues to get better with age, there are many people who are not happy about it and there is a remote possibility that a rogue fan could try to harm her to stop her from achieving more greatness on the tennis court, just like the Steffi Graf fan who attacked Monica Seles in 1993. Some may think drawing comparison with the deranged fans that stabbed Monica is sensational, however when one reads the vitriolic comments directed at Williams, there should be cause for concern.

WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?

In the preceding pages, I have detailed the factors contributing to the hostility directed towards Williams, the historical background of these attacks, the protagonists, the forms of racism and the implications of these racial attacks. Is it possible to completely end the insults directed at Williams? Can these prejudices against Williams be finally stopped? Can one pick up the newspaper or read online comments about Williams without ever seeing the vitriolic statements about her? Not likely. However, certain measures can be taken to minimize the continuous barrage against her.

Firstly, journalists should be more responsible and professional in their coverage of Williams. They shouldn’t let their unconscious bias or prejudices becloud their professional calling. If they are unsure of how to respect Williams, they could accord her the same level of respect that they give to other players on the tour. Furthermore, online editors should be more diligent in ensuring that online comments about Williams adhere to the house rules. They could take a cue from BBC Online Sports page, which effectively moderates online comments about her.

Secondly, fellow players on the tour should be respectful and refrain from reinforcing racial stereotypes when speaking about or imitating Williams.

Thirdly, the Tennis establishment should adopt a zero tolerance towards racism. The International Tennis Federation (ITF), Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) and The Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) in addition to the tennis associations around the world should develop a comprehensive anti-racism strategy that should apply to all players on the tour. The anti-racism policy could specify what constitutes unacceptable behaviour and players that breach the rules should be punished. These bodies should also consider setting up racial awareness campaigns to educate fans on the need to be racially tolerant. This point is very essential because as we continue to see non-white players join the tour, it would be a shame if the racial expletives we are accustomed to hearing on the football field starts to surface in tennis venues.

CONCLUSION

While Williams has been welcomed with open arms in Africa, one wonders if she will ever be accepted in the West for her contribution to the game of tennis or if her fate will be like that of other black icons who were never accepted in the West during their active years, only to become global icons when they were no longer in their prime? History is full of examples of Black icons who were recognized in the West when they were dead, old or infirm. Martin Luther King was despised when he led the civil rights movement, only to be idolized upon his death; Nelson Mandela was hated and called a terrorist because of his refusal to accept Apartheid, only to become a global elder statesman when he was frail and old; Muhammad Ali was vilified when he took a stand not to go to Vietnam and spoke against racism, only to be revered when he was struck down with Parkinson’s Disease. Hopefully, it would not take too long for Williams to be appreciated in the West.

To rephrase what Winston Churchill once said many years ago, never in the history of tennis has someone been so much hated by so many and loved by so few. While not everyone who hates Williams is a racist, it is probable that every racists that knows of Williams most likely hates her. She is a human being who happens to be black. She is only playing a game, which she enjoys and is good at. Like other players on the tour, she is an entertainer and that is why we pay money to watch her play. However, because she happens to be good at the game of tennis, must her gender be questioned? Because she happens to be good at the game of tennis, must she be accused of using PED? Because she happens to be good at the game of tennis, must her physique be mocked?

Finally, Williams is 31 going on 32 and her playing days are numbered. Once she hangs up her rackets, we will no longer see her play competitive tennis. Before she hangs up her racket, let us cast aside our prejudices and marvel as one of the world’s finest players plays her game.

So let us LOVE SERENA & HATE RACISM

Selah.

Ahmed Olayinka Sule, CFA

suleaos@gmail.com

http://www.scribd.com/Alatenumo/documents

http://about.me/ahmedsule

June 2013

The views stated in this article are personal to the writer and does not represent the view or opinion of any company or organisation with which the author is or was associated.

Cc

Women’s Tennis Association (WTA)

All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club (AELTC)

United States Tennis Association (USTA)

International Tennis Federation

International Olympic Committee

Daily Mail

BBC

CNN

ESPN

Sports Illustrated

Daily Telegraph

Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP)

Fédération Française de Tennis

Tennis Australia

NAACP

Operation Black Vote

Tournament Director: BNP Paribas Open

Tournament Director: Sony Ericsson Open

Tournament Director: Mutua Madrid Open

Tournament Director: Rogers Cup

Tournament Director: Western & Southern Open

Tournament Director: Brisbane International

Tournament Director: AEGON International

Tournament Director: Family Circle Cup – Charleston

Tournament Director: BNP Paribas Open – Indian Wells

Tournament Director: Bank of the West Classic – Stanford

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The Condemn Summit Against the Poor, the Marginalised, the Infirm and the Vulnerable

image

He said also to the one who had invited him, “When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, in case they may invite you in return, and you would be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.”

 Luke 14: 12-14

“I am sympathetic to cutting the deficit, but I am highly sympathetic to sick and vulnerable people not being subjected to something that will make their lives even more miserable.”

 Lord Patel

“We’re all in this together”

George Osborne

Prologue

With the third year anniversary of the signing of the Conservative – Liberal Democrat Coalition Agreement fast approaching, some selected leaders of the CONservative and Liberal DEMocrats Coalition Government aka CONDEMN Coalition gathered together at the Rose Garden of Downing Street to mark the occasion. The theme of this year’s summit was aptly named “The Condemn Summit Against the Poor, the Marginalised, the Infirm and the Vulnerable”. The coalition leaders met to discuss the government’s treatment of the poor, the marginalised , the infirm and the vulnerable (PMIV) and map out strategies to make life more unbearable for the PMIV.

Later that day, while Alatenumo X was on his way to send the video recording of the summit to the government’s Director of Publicity, he accidentally dropped the DVD on the floor. Bipasha Patel, a DJ found the DVD on the floor and put it in her bag. When Bipasha got home, she took the DVD home, inserted it into her computer and realised that the DVD contained the recording of the Condemn Summit Against the PVIM.

The next couple of pages detail the proceedings of the Condemn Summit.

Ahmed Olayinka Sule, CFA

http://about.me/ahmedsule

April 2013

Characters

Davido CAMERONGATE, President of Rich Great Britain

Nicholas CLEGGATE, Deputy President of Rich Great Britain

Vincent CABLEGATE, Secretary of Commerce, Rich Great Britain

Boy GEORGE GATE, Minister of Finance, Rich Great Britain

Ian DUNGATE, Secretary of Welfare, Rich Great Britain

and introducing……

SIR. ALTER EGO GATE

Chronological Table

6 May 2010 British General Election takes place
 
11 May 2010 David Cameron becomes Britain’s youngest Prime Minister in 198 years.
 
12 May 2010 David Cameron and Nick Clegg hold first press conference at Downing Street Rose Garden
 
23 April 2012 Tory MP, Nadine Dorries describes David Cameron and George Osborne as: “two arrogant posh boys with no passion to want to understand the lives of others“.
 
20 July 12 Louise Casey, warns that the state must start telling mothers with large families to take “responsibility” and stop getting pregnant
 
19 Sept 2012 Police allege that Government Chief Whip swore at police officers calling them “plebs”
 
19 Sept 2012 Nick Clegg apologies publicly for his parties failed promises
 
25 Mar 2013 David Cameron delivers landmark immigration speech, which László Andor of the EU describes as potentially capable of provoking “knee-jerk xenophobia”
 
01 April 2013 Welfare reform commences
 
04 April 2013 David Cameron says Trident nuclear deterrent is the best insurance policy.

  [After all the leaders are sited on the comfortable leather seat on the lawn of the Rose Garden, President Davido addresses the Condemn Coalition leaders]

DAVIDO:  Welcome to today’s summit. Thank God that the sun is out today …   we can comfortably brainstorm and discuss the issue of the day. The purpose of today’s gathering is to deliberate on our policies towards the poor, the vulnerable, the infirm and the marginalised (PVIM). We will discuss, the progress we have made so far in making life miserable for these people and discuss strategies for heaping more pain, tears and sorrow on them. However, before we begin, let me introduce Sir Alter Ego Gate. (turning to Alter Ego Gate) Sir Alter Ego, would you like to say something the Condemn Coalition leadership forum?

SIR ALTER EGO: Thank you Mr. President for inviting me to this historic summit. For those who do not know me, my name is Sir Alter Ego Gate. My role in this summit is to express our innermost thoughts and actions. I appreciate that you are politicians and have to be cautious in what you say and do… so no need to worry I will eloquently bring out what is in the subconscious on to the conscious surface.

BOY GEORGE: Thank you Sir Alter Ego. Let us begin the first session by discussing how far we have gone in making life miserable for the poor, the marginalised, the infirm and the vulnerable (PMIV). The Condemn Coalition Government was formed during the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. The stock market was tanking, unemployment was high, financial institutions were on shaky ground and the government debt was at an historic high. One of our key priorities as a government was to bring down the deficit, which was jeopardising our Triple ‘A’ credit rating…..

VINCENT: (sarcastically) Which has now been downgraded

BOY GEORGE: (ignoring Vincent) So we had to develop a plan to bring down the deficit. To make sure that the public did not regard the Conservative as the ‘Nasty Party’, we had to get the buy-in from our Liberal Democrat colleagues. Once this was achieved, we were ready to talk to the electorate.

NICHOLAS: (smiling) I remember when Davido and I stepped out on the Rose Garden to deliver our first press conference. It was like a partnership made in space. The public fell in love with the Condemn Coalition. We looked sincere…. two men in suits smiling at each other and at the nation.

VINCENT: I don’t see it that way; little did we know that we, the Liberal Democrats were selling our birthright for a pottage of political power. We turned back on all of our electoral promises.

NICHOLAS: But I publicly apologised for the U turn we made on the tuition fees. Boy George, can you put on the DVD showing my apology.

(Boy George puts on the DVD and all watch the video clip showing Nicholas apologising http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUDjRZ30SNo)

DAVIDO: We decided to change the narrative by attributing the over bloated government debt on the excessive welfare bill incurred by the government. The welfare bill constitutes the largest components of government expenditure, so I instructed Boy George and Ian Dungate to trim the welfare bill.

DUNGATE: (with fist clenched) In introducing my welfare reform, I used the age-old principle of hanging a dog to give it a bad name. I painted all those poor people on benefits as scroungers.

SIR ALTER EGO: We are jumping the gun here. When we decided to sort out the deficit, whom did we want to bear the hit of our austerity measures?

BOY GEORGE: Our targets were the poor, the infirm, the elderly, students, immigrants, Negroes, nursing mothers, charities, the unemployed, the bloody plebs  and the homeless.

SIR ALTER EGO: in short, anyone that does not look like us, dress like us, talk like us or anyone who does not have our kind of privileged upbringing,  will bear the pain.

BOY GEORGE: Absolutely.

DUNGATE: So we set about our Welfare reforms……

VINCENT: Which is not a bad thing, it is only the manner in which it was implemented that was very evil.

DAVIDO: Vincent, I am tired of your ranting. Why are you always defending the PMIV? Are you a Communist in disguise? You are either part of the Condemn Coalition Leadership Forum or not. If you feel the need to always defend the PMIV, then the door is open for you to leave.

BOY GEORGE: As Davido said in an earlier speech: “we need to build a more responsible society”

SIR ALTER EGO: You mean a society where responsibility rests with poor, immigrants, the elderly, the infirm, and the bloody working class while the rich , the powerful and the influential are not required to be responsible.

BOY GEORGE: Yes Sir.

DUNGATE: Britain is a broken society. Our economy is in shambles, our credit rating has been downgraded, government debt is at elevated levels, inflation is creeping in, our infrastructure is failing, Scotland wants independence, our grip on the Falkland Island is being threatened; and what is the cause of all of these woes?  The poor people living on benefits; immigrants coming into the country; the disabled people constituting a nuisance to the public; the elderly refusing to die; the students complaining about increase in tuition fees; nursing mothers refusing to go to work and the bloody plebs sitting at home. I could go on and on. Our reforms are not about hurting the poor, but it is about trying to make them richer. When the poor complain, I just laugh. What is the big deal, after all I can even afford to live on £53 a week?

SIR ALTER EGO: Well said Dungate. These people you mentioned make me sick. I hate to have them around me.

VINCENT: That is the most ridiculous statement I have ever heard. Is it the PMIV that caused the financial crisis? Is it the PMIV that caused the government debt to balloon? Is it the PMIV that caused our triple ‘A’ rating to be downgraded? Remember, that prior to the financial crisis, the total public debt was $972 billion in 2006, which was 42.7% of GDP, within five years of the crisis, it jumped to $2 trillion. So who caused the crisis? Was it not partly caused by the loose monetary policies that encouraged the excessive build up of debt? Was it not the government’s bailout of the financial sector? Was it not the insane craze for yield that encouraged financial institutions to develop aggressive securitisation practices? Was it not the light touch regulatory approach towards financial institutions? Was it not the inaccurate credit ratings on many securitised products? Was it not people who over borrowed that caused the financial crisis? Yet you lie to the electorate and heap the blame on the PMIV.

NICHOLAS: I wonder why everyone is attacking our policies. After all, we want what is the best for the country.

BOY GEORGE: As I have said many times before, we are all in this together. We all have to make sacrifices whether rich or poor.

SIR ALTER EGO: All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others.

VINCENT: We may say that we are all in this together, but the reality is that we are not all in this together. The PMIVs are bearing the brunt of the austerity while those responsible for the crisis are still roaming freely on the streets. Davido, while you are ready to go to Europe to defend the mighty, why can’t you show a little compassion towards the PMIV?

SIR ALTER EGO: Vincent, why should he show compassion to the PMIV? They are lazy people who deserve their lot. They drink a lot and they pretend to be poor or sick so that they can milk the system.  They are people with low morals. All they need to do is to work hard and be responsible rather than depending on the government for handouts. The PMIV should stop playing the victim. They should stop smoking their cigarettes and stop watching television; they should get up and work. They claim to be poor, yet they smile, have access to the Internet and watch Sky TV. They even have children. As Louis Casey rightly pointed out last year, the government should interfere to prevent mothers that have problematic children from having babies. We should also tell women that it is irresponsible to keep having children when they are already struggling to cope.

VINCENT: So the PMIV do not have the right to have children?

SIR ALTER EGO: Absolutely, they do not have the right to give birth to children. A new class system has been identified by two university dons and left to me only the top four classes on the social ladder should have the right to procreate while the lower classes comprising of the emergent service workers, traditional working class and the precariat should be prevented from having children. After all what is the point of bringing children to the world who will suffer and become a drain on the nations resources. If Britain is to become Great Rich again she would have to do away with the poor, the infirm, the immigrants, the Negroes, the elderly and the homeless and the bloody plebs.

DAVIDO: Sir Alter Ego, that is a radical statement. On this matter, I disagree with you. That is not a nice thing to say and the Condemn Coalition will not stand for such evil principles.

SIR ALTER EGO: I am just saying what is on my mind. How can we make Britain rich if we don’t do away with the poor? How can we make Britain healthy, if we do not do away with the infirm? How can we make Britain white, if we do not do away with the Negroes? How can we make Britain a first class country, if we do not do away with the bloody working class? How can we make Britain British, if we don’t do away with the immigrants especially those Bulgarians and Romanians?

NICHOLAS: Immigration Immigration Immigration!!! It is a pity that Tessie Maygate is not here to talk about our immigration strategy, but I will try to cover our immigration strategy.  We are committed to reducing net immigration over the course of the Parliament. We need to be tough on immigration as the influx of immigration is causing a strain on our educational, healthcare, transport and welfare systems. These immigrants are a pain in the backside. They think that they can come here and suck the system dry. They all come over here to live on benefits while hardworking Britons go to work. They all come to Britain and fail to integrate into the society. Many immigrants cannot even speak English.

DAVIDO: This is one area that I am very passionate about. I have given several keynote speeches on immigration since I became President. Migrants are filling gaps in the labour market left wide open by a welfare system that for years has paid British people not to work. That is where the blame lies – at the door of our woeful welfare system and the last government who comprehensively failed to reform it.

DUNGATE: With Bulgaria and Romania soon to join the EU, Britain should expect an influx of immigrants into the country.

SIR ALTER EGO: (looking sick) I can’t bear the thought of Bulgarians and Romanians coming to Britain. We have enough problems with the Negroes and to add the Bulgarians and Romanians to the equation will be disastrous for Britain.

BOY GEORGE: (turning to Davido) When you gave that speech on immigration a couple of days ago, it brought tears to my eyes. I was so proud of you. Never have I felt so proud of my leader. It was the most eloquent speech that I have ever heard on immigration. Not since Enoch Powell’s “ Rivers of Blood” speech has anyone articulated the danger of uncontrolled immigration.

DAVIDO: (smiling at Boy George) Thanks for the complement. I am blushing George. You sure know how to flatter people. I guess this is why you were able to charm Mrs. O to marry you (laughter).

VINCENT: You guys have lost the plot. You are committing what the philosophers call the fallacy of composition. You are asserting that what hold true for a member of a group holds true for the group as a whole. Just because SOME immigrants milk the system, do not work or are involved in criminal activities does not mean that ALL immigrants do the same. A report revealed that EU migrants are only half as likely to claim benefits compared to the general British population. Infact EU migrants constitute 13% of the British work force and only 7% claim out of work benefits and only 5% of non-EU migrants claim benefits. In short, with all due respect Davido, your argument that 40 per cent of migrants claim benefits is porky pies.

SIR ALTER EGO: One positive side effect of our stance on immigration is that it has increased racial tensions in the country. Racism, which has been overt for the past decade is now more expressive. Negro football players are once again racially insulted on the football field while many Negroes are racially attacked on the buses. Anti Semitism is on the rise and Britain is gradually becoming a more intolerant society. The other day I read about some English fans chanting that Rio Ferdinand and his brother should be burnt alive.

VINCENT: But it is also damaging our economy. Immigrants contribute positively to our economy and we are seeing the sharpest brains from the emerging world heading to America instead of Britain. Your claim that these EU migrants will milk the system is unfounded. When the Poles were admitted into the EU, the same fear was voiced out. Yet the when the Poles came, they worked hard and did jobs that many Brits would not do.

DAVIDO: Contrary to the belief that our immigration policy is racist, I beg to disagree. It is not racist. Britain is open to people of all colours and creed.

SIR ALTER EGO: What Davido is trying to say is that as long as they have a fat bank account, this country is open to such immigrants, however if they do not have money then the doors will be shut. That is what we mean by good immigration and bad immigration. We don’t mind having rich Africans or Indians coming into the country, but we do not want those bloody poor Bulgarians and Romanians into this country even if they are white. We would prefer to open the door of this country to a Pol Pot with money and close to door to a Mother Theresa without money….. that is our immigration policy in a nutshell.

DAVIDO: When I went to India, I expressed regret for our colonial past as I thought this apology would improve trade ties with India and win us the contract to supply the Indian Government with the Typhoon Fighter. I also advocated for a fast track visa regime for rich Indian businessmen and women. However, I remained silent on granting Indian students visa to the country, as they do not have loads of money. To show how sincere I was, I had to humble myself and play cricket with some youngsters. It was very embarrassing getting bowled out by a twelve-year-old girl. However if that is the price to bring in rich immigrants to the country, so be it.

SIR ALTER EGO: In short, we do not see black, white, brown or yellow; what we see is € , £ and $.

NICHOLAS: We have debated about our policies against the poor and the immigrants. What have you got to say about our treatment of the infirm and people living with disabilities.

SIR ALTER EGO: I think so far so good. We have been able to show how callous and cold-blooded we can be. In justifying our welfare reforms, we have highlighted to the general public a couple of instances in which people living with disabilities have tried to milk the system. Just as we have fueled an increase in intolerance towards people of other races, we have also played a key role increasing the societies intolerance towards the disabled. By painting them as lazy, fraudsters and pretending to be disabled, we are succeeding in turning the society against them.

NICHOLAS: The Paralympics almost changed the societies attitude towards the disabled, but alas once the euphoria of the Paralympics was over, the society was able to align with our narrative of the infirm.

DUNGATE: I really felt a sense of accomplishment when my department came up with a novel idea to ensure that cancer patients on chemotherapy in hospitals take part in a work capability assessment to confirm if they are still entitled to collect disability allowance. (looking sad) Unfortunately, it was voted down in the House of Lords.

SIR ALTER EGO: So in short, our strategy is to introduce austerity, but let the PMIV bear the brunt of the pain. To achieve this, we over exaggerate the misdeeds of a few PMIV people while downplaying the misdeeds of the rich, the powerful and the influential. We will continue to label the PMIV as immoral, lazy and evil….

BOY GEORGE: Like I did a few days ago when I suggested that the actions of Mick Philpott who burnt his six children was a reflection of the broken welfare system.

DUNGATE: Boy George, I was really impressed with what you said. Only you could come up with such a well thought  argument. You are a very intelligent man.

SIR ALTER EGO: (applauding) Boy George that was a masterstroke. In that statement, you have engraved in the mind of many British people the link between Philpott’s evil action and the Welfare system. This should help sell our welfare reform as people who were initially hostile to the idea will think of Philpott’s action and then support our reforms. Perhaps, we can even go further. Why stop at Mick Philpott? We can demonstrate that Robert Mugabe’s action is a reflection of our broken immigration system that allows Negroes into the country and we can demonstrate that Oscar Pistorious action is a reflection of our current system, which allows people living with disabilities to be irresponsible.

VINCENT: (shaking his head) What you are doing is very dangerous. You are setting a bad precedent. You are using the time tested divide and rule tactics by setting up rich against poor, black against white, Brits against immigrants, employed against unemployed, abled against disabled, healthy against infirm, young against old and home owners against the homeless. Our society cannot survive in this kind of divided environment.

SIR ALTER EGO: (standing up and pointing his finger towards Vincent) You just don’t get it. The poor, the marginalised, the Negroes, the immigrants, the unemployed, the homeless, the bloody plebs and the youth are not human. They should be treated as animals. We hope to stripe them of all form of dignity. If we can succeed in dehumanising them in the public arena, it makes our job easier. The general public will be happy with us and it will improve our chances of getting reelected in 2015. Infact a spokesman for the British National Party stated that we are stealing their policies. Let me quote him: “It’s cynical opportunism, isn’t it? It’s almost like a ceremonial adoption of our policy”

DAVIDO: What gets my blood boiling is when I hear the charities and especially the churches coming to the defence of the PMIV. Imagine a couple of days ago a coalition of churches comprising of the Methodist Church, the Baptist Church, Church of Scotland and the United Reformed Church published a report titled:

The Lies We Tell Ourselves: Ending Comfortable Myths About Poverty ….. How dare they come up thing such thrash?

SIR ALTER EGO: Do not worry. After all, we are the government, we are in power. We will make life difficult for Christians. We will promulgate laws that will put Christians in the uncomfortable position of having to choose between obeying God and obeying the Condemn Coalition Government and if they choose the former, I will gladly throw many Christians into prison.

DAVIDO: Okay guys, we are running out of time. Where do we go from here? What other obstacles do we need to put in the way of the PVIM or have we already done enough damage?

NICHOLAS: Well I guess we have put the structures to keep the PMIV in a perpetual state of despair. Hopefully, they will never recover.

DUNGATE: I agree with Nicholas.

BOY GEORGE: Same here.

SIR ALTER EGO: Why are you guys afraid to inflict more pain. We have not done enough. I think we should go to the next stage, which is sterilisation. We need to stop the poor, the marginalised, the infirm and the vulnerable from breeding. That will be the final solution. Once this is done, Britain will be rich great again, the government debt will reduce and we will get our triple ‘A’ rating back.

DAVIDO: Sir Alter Ego, your suggestions are too extreme. As President of Rich Great Britain, I will not allow that under my watch. I need to point out that while we keep the PVIM in despair, let us not forget that we are here not only to debase the PMIV, but also to protect the interest of the rich, the powerful and the influential. You are all aware of the strides I have made to ensure that EU regulations do not negatively impact our greatest export. I have also tried to lobby to get lucrative defence contracts for some of our defence champions so that they can export their products to autocratic regimes that could use such products to blow their opponents to pieces. A few days ago, I called for the development of a new nuclear deterrent system to replace Trident.

VINCENT: But here you are talking about cuts to the PVIM, yet you are suggesting we replace Trident?

BOY GEORGE: Are you blind Vincent? Can’t you see the evolving threat from Iran and North Korea?

DAVIDO: Well that is all for this historic summit. I will give Vincent the honour of giving the closing statement.

VINCENT: (clears his throat and puts on his glasses) We have had a lengthy discussion today and I am grateful to President Davido for letting me have the final say. I agree that the welfare bill is excessively high and that steps need to be taken to control it, I also agree that some immigration reform is necessary, I also agree that steps need to be put in place to reduce the government debt as the current rate of government expenditure is unsustainable . Where I disagree with you is with regards to the approach that you are taking to meet these challenges. As the saying goes, you cannot use a sledgehammer to crack a nut. Boy George loves to say, we are all in this together…. but is this really the case? The Condemn Coalition’s approach towards the PMIV is insane at best and monstrous at worst.

Boy George may say: “we are discussing economics and you are discussing morality”, but you need to realise that I am an economist and as a student of the history of economics, I learnt that the founding father of economics was a strong believer in morality. In short morality and economics are not mutually exclusive concepts. The PMIV are all God’s creation and should therefore be treated as human beings. As Jesus Christ once said: “Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me”

I have to make a confession, the Condemn Coalition has lost its soul. We have also lost base with the PMIV segment of the British society. Perhaps our colleague Nadine Dorries was right when she described some of us as: “arrogant posh boys with no passion to want to understand the lives of others.”  We need to climb down our so-called upper class social ladder in order to see the reality of the people on ground. When we do that we will stop making sweeping generalisations about the PMIV.

I will end by quoting Martin Luther King who said: “all life is interrelated, that somehow we’re caught in an inescapable network of mutuality tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly. For some strange reason, I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. You can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be. This is the interrelated structure of reality.”

 

[Silence]

SELAH

© Ahmed Sule 2013

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by Ahmed Olayinka Sule on April 6, 2013  •  Permalink
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Governor Fashola, Please Stop The “Kosovo-Style” Social Cleansing Of The Poor

Your Excellency,

I hope all is well with you and your family. I would like to begin by commending you for all the great things that you have done since you were first elected Governor of Lagos State almost two thousand and eighty-eight days ago. During your tenure in office, you have transformed Lagos State. You have worked hard to improve the educational sector, while your vision to turn Lagos into a mega city is attracting praises from the four corners of the world. Your Midas touch can be seen in the transportation sector, the environment, housing and the hundreds of infrastructural development projects that your administration is currently implementing or has already implemented. Through your actions, you have proved to Nigerians that it is possible for elected government officials to work towards improving the lives of the governed. So far, so good.

Lagos, like other large cities around the world, plays host to people on different rungs of the economic ladder. The State is home to the ultra-rich, the rich, the middle class, the poor, and the very poor, including beggars. In recent years, the Lagos State Government has tried to resolve the problem of people begging on the streets through a number of initiatives. One initiative that your administration has adopted is to rehabilitate beggars by relocating them to the Rehabilitation Centre at Ikorodu. This centre also offers the beggars vocational training to enable them live independent lives. This is a good initiative by your administration as it is meant to help the beggars derive a source of livelihood. So far, so good.

However, since the commencement of your second term in office in May 2011, your administration appears to be waging a war against the poor, the marginalised and the downtrodden. In short, to borrow a phrase used by the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, your administration appears to be embarking on a KOSOVO-STYLE SOCIAL CLEANSING OF THE POOR.

Due to the lack of progress with the rehabilitation initiative, your administration has turned to some drastic measures to eradicate begging in the State. Shortly after your second term inauguration in May 2011, it was reported that the Lagos State Government had deported 3,029 beggars to their state of origin in the last couple of years. In justifying the state’s action, Mr. Dolapo Badru, the Special Adviser on Youth and Social Development, suggested that beggars and the destitute constitute a social nuisance, which threatens the Lagos metropolis’ status as a mega city. Mr. Badru also warned in a press conference that “Lagos State frowns on giving alms to beggars. It is punishable under the law and you can get up to two years’ imprisonment for giving money to beggars.”

In August 2012, a number of beggars protested against harassment and forced removal from the streets of Lagos. They explained that they were being forcefully removed from the streets and taken to the rehabilitation centre in Ikorodu. According to the President of the Physically Challenged who spoke on behalf of the protesters, “No fewer than 600 beggars had been arrested by the government without providing adequate alternative for them.” Another protester stated, “Our movement within Lagos State metropolis has been restricted such that anyone caught roaming on the road will be taken to Majidun.”

In February 2013, the Government took this war against beggars to another level by charging a number of them with “constituting a nuisance in public by begging for alms” and for conducting themselves as “disorderly persons without any visible means of livelihood”. Of the 39 beggars charged, 30 of them were sent to Kirikiri and Badagry Prisons for one month pending the final judgment by the judge.

While I understand your desire to make Lagos clean; while I understand your desire to make Lagos a mega city; while I understand your desire to make Lagos safe; while I understand your desire to eradicate poverty from Lagos; while I understand your desire to rehabilitate beggars; while I understand your desire to provide beggars with vocations and shelter; while I understand your desire to make Lagos attractive to foreign investors — in some respects, your administration is going about achieving these aims in the wrong way. In the process of ensuring that Lagos is clean, safe and a mega city, the Government is adopting immoral means in order to achieve a moral end. As Martin Luther King once said, “Ends are not cut off from means, because the means represent the ideal in the making, and the end in process, and ultimately you can’t reach good ends through evil means.”

Arresting, scapegoating and deporting beggars all in the name of creating a so-called mega city is unjust, immoral and unfair. It is shocking that the beggars were arrested in the first instance and it is sickening that they were sent to Kirikiri Prison, which happens to be one of the worst prisons in the world. Furthermore, unlike  those who steal billions of Naira and are still walking freely on the streets of Nigeria, the beggars whose only crime is “asking for alms” have been sent to prison because they do not have the money, clout and resources to properly defend themselves. Some may argue that the beggars contravened the law of the land and so deserve to be put in jail for begging; but as St. Augustine said many centuries ago,  “An unjust law is no law at all.”

Admittedly, some beggars may not be genuine and may be trying to take advantage of people’s charity. Yes, some beggars might be taking advantage of people’s religious beliefs; yes, some beggars might be pretending that they have disabilities; yes, some beggars may make more money than some people who are gainfully employed; yes, some beggars may engage in petty crimes; yes, some beggars may view begging as an easy alternative to working. However, we cannot use one brush to paint all beggars as lazy, opportunistic and deceitful people, just as we can’t paint all state governors, legislators and politicians as evil, opportunistic and deceitful people even though some governors and state legislators loot the treasury.

Rather than wage war against beggars, the Lagos State Government could make more progress toward the eradication of begging if it were to instead wage war against the structures that cause a man, woman or child to go out onto the streets to beg. With unemployment at elevated levels and with able-bodied graduates and post-graduates unemployed for years, what chance does a beggar living with disabilities and with little education have of being gainfully employed? In a society that discriminates against people with disabilities, it is an evil logic to accuse beggars of being disorderly people just because they do not have any source of income. Yet your administration deems it rational to charge beggars with “conducting themselves as disorderly persons without visible means of livelihood”. Trying to eradicate begging without putting an end to the conditions that causes a man to beg is like trying to stop a gas leak without addressing the source of the leak.

Instead of throwing beggars into prison, your administration should concentrate on making its rehabilitation programme more effective. One of the reasons why some beggars keep on leaving the rehabilitation centres for the streets is because of the deplorable conditions in these centres. Perhaps your administration should try to build more rehabilitation centres with conditions that are more conducive for living. After all, I am sure that no member of your cabinet would want his or her family members to live in a congested room housing 40-60 where people urinate, excrete and sleep in the same place.

Besides adopting immoral means to achieve a moral end, your administration is also dehumanising a group of people because of their economic circumstances and their physical challenges. The saying “beggars have no choice” should not be used as a justification to deny beggars their human rights. They deserve to be treated with dignity for several reasons: first, they are creations of God Almighty; and second, the Nigerian Constitution conveys to all Nigerians — the rich and the poor, the able and disabled, the non-beggars and beggars, the employed and unemployed, the accommodated and homeless — the right to dignity as human beings. The Nigerian Constitution also grants Nigerians the right to move freely throughout Nigeria and to reside in any part of the country.  So when the State Government deports beggars to their states of origin and restricts their movement within the State because they are begging, the State is denying them their fundamental human rights. Furthermore, Article 17 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities states: “Every person with disabilities has a right to respect for his or her physical and mental integrity on an equal basis with others.”

In addition, your administration’s attempt to rid Lagos of beggars is not only immoral and dehumanising, but it is also unrealistic. As a widely-traveled governor, you must have noticed that most cities have their share of beggars. I know you are eager to transform Lagos into a mega city, but if you critically examine other cities like New York, London, Paris and Barcelona, you will notice that these cities are not exempt from the phenomenon of people begging on the streets. If these cities which offer their citizens a social safety net can still have beggars, how can a city like Lagos, which does not provide adequate social safety nets for its citizenry, expect to remove beggars from its streets?

So if one is to give an honest assessment of your administration’s attitude toward beggars, one is likely to arrive at the conclusion that the key reasons for their ill treatment is because they are Nairaless, jobless and homeless, rather than the official line that they are nuisances, disorderly and lazy.

Governor Fashola, you may not realise it, but your administration’s attitude toward the beggars suggests a Kosovo-style social cleansing of the poor. If you think that this is an exaggerated claim, I would like to draw similarities between your administration’s actions and some of the stages identified by Greg Stanton in his 1996 paper titled “The Eight Stages of Genocide”. The first stage that Mr. Stanton of Genocide Watch describes is the classification stage, in which people are divided into the categories of “them” and “us”. An example of this can be seen in the utterances of some of the State government officials such as one of your Special Advisers when he said, “We still rehabilitate some of THEM, but most of THEM don’t want to be rehabilitated and THEY don’t want to work. THEY feel more comfortable preying on people with superstitious beliefs.”

The second stage is the symbolisation stage. This occurs when the people who have been classified as “them” are given names and symbols associated with the classification.  State officials have given beggars various labels such as “lazy”, “disorderly”, nuisance”,  “people who prey on people with superstitious beliefs”, “people who do not want to work”, “people who pretend to be blind or crippled”. Mr. Stanton describes the third stage as dehumanisation, in which “one group denies the humanity of the other group. Members of it are equated with animals, vermin, insects or diseases”. The emerging pattern of the treatment of beggars in Lagos State suggests that this stage is in full force.

The fourth stage is organisation. The State Government has been the organiser-in-chief in forcefully pushing beggars off the streets. The polarisation stage, which is the fifth stage, occurs when the propaganda machine is put in force to reinforce prejudice and hate. Very often, laws are implemented to help achieve this aim. This stage is evident in Lagos not only from the utterances of some government officials, but also from the unjust laws which forbid begging and makes giving alms to beggars on the roadside an offence punishable by two years’ imprisonment without the option of a fine.

The sixth stage is the preparation stage. In this stage, victims are identified and separated. According to Mr. Stanton, the victims are “often segregated into ghettoes, deported into concentration camps or confined to a famine-struck region and starved”. While beggars in Lagos State have not been sent to concentration camps or famine-struck regions, they are being identified and segregated in addition to being harassed by government officials because of their begging activities. Many beggars have been deported to their state of origin or other countries. Some of the beggars have been forced against their will to go to rehabilitation centres, which in some instances are not fit for living. In other cases, the beggars are beaten and sent to prison.

 While I know that your administration is not intent on committing genocide on the beggars, I believe that it is important to reflect on these stages, as the ill-treatment of beggars in Lagos State appears to be increasing exponentially, starting first with relocation and progressing to deportation and incarceration. Hopefully it will not reach the extermination or incineration stage.

If the State Government is still eager to banish disorderly people who are conducting themselves as nuisances, I can tell you whom to banish. Rather than banish the beggars who can barely afford to eat two square meals a day, your administration can banish the kidnappers, armed robbers and white-collar criminals who are causing havoc in the state. If the State Government is still eager to wage war against some elements in Lagos, I can tell you whom to wage war against. Rather than wage war against beggars who do not have access to top-notch legal counsel, your administration can wage war against those who regard the State’s resources as their personal property. If the State Government is still eager to fill Kirikiri Prison with prisoners, I can tell you whom to incarcerate. Rather than incarcerate the beggars who do not have a voice, your administration can incarcerate those people using political connections to acquire prime land and property at little cost.

In conclusion, I would like to say three things. First, remember that when you were elected as Governor of Lagos State, you were given a symmetric mandate rather than an asymmetric mandate. You were elected not only by the elites of Lagos State, but also by the masses of Lagos State; you were elected not only by the rich people of Lagos State, but also by the poor people of Lagos State; you were elected not only by the employed people of Lagos State, but also by the unemployed people of Lagos State; you were elected not only by the able-bodied people of Lagos State, but also by the disabled people of Lagos State. In short, you are Governor for the whole of Lagos, not only some affluent sections of Lagos; and it is important for your passion, policies and politics to reflect the oath you swore during your inauguration.

Second, although you have a desire to make Lagos a first-class mega city, you have to remember that this can never be the case as long as she has second-class citizens who are stripped of their freedom, dignity and humanity. Finally, if you have not already done so, you may want to take time to reflect on what legacy you want to leave behind as Governor of Lagos State. How would you want to be remembered? Do you want to be remembered as a ruler who built his kingdom on the symmetric foundation of justice and equality, or would you rather be remembered as that ruler who built his kingdom on the asymmetric foundation of injustice and inequality? History is watching.

Eko o ni baje

Ahmed Olayinka Sule, CFA

suleaos@gmail.com

http://about.me/ahmedsule

February 2013

The views stated in this article are personal to the writer and does not represent the views or opinions of any company or organisation with which the author is or was associated.

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Secretary General Ban Ki-moon

National Human Rights Commission

Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights

Amnesty International

Ms. Ayo Obe

African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights

Civil Liberties Organisation

Committee for the Defence of Human Rights

Mr. Olisa Agbakoba

Ms. Linda Ikeji

Human Rights Watch

Pastor Tunde Bakare

Save Nigeria Group

United Nations Human Rights Council

World Organisation Against Torture

Yinka Odumakin

Funmi Iyanda

Gbenga Sesan

Joint National Association of Persons with Disabilities

The Centre for Citizens with Disabilities

Centre for Advocacy for Persons with Disabilities

Amputee Association of Nigeria

Independent Living For People with Disabilities

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by Ahmed Olayinka Sule on February 14, 2013  •  Permalink
Posted in 9ja, Politics, Social justice
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Posted by Ahmed Olayinka Sule on February 14, 2013

https://zangodare.wordpress.com/2013/02/14/governor-fashola-please-stop-the-kosovo-style-social-cleansing-of-the-poor/

REVIVAL???


  Revival |riˈvīvəl|: an improvement in the condition or strength of something

Extract from dictionary

You are the light of the world….let your light shine before people, so that they can see your good deeds and give honor to your Father in heaven.

Matthew 5: 14; 16

My Father is honored by this, that you bear much fruit and show that you are my disciples.

John 15:8

“To the angel of the church in Laodicea write the following:

“This is the solemn pronouncement of the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the originator of God’s creation:  ‘I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either cold or hot!  So because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I am going to vomit you out of my mouth!  Because you say, “I am rich and have acquired great wealth, and need nothing,” but do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind, and naked, take my advice and buy gold from me refined by fire so you can become rich! Buy from me white clothing so you can be clothed and your shameful nakedness will not be exposed, and buy eye salve to put on your eyes so you can see!

Revelation 3:14-18

It is six thirty am in the morning and the sun has just risen in the direction of 69° East-Northeast. At the same time, somewhere close to latitude 6° 25′ 10″ North and longitude 3° 27′ 43″ East, millions of us get up have our bath, brush our teeth and get our families ready. We put on our good clothes, as we have to look good on this special day of the week. Some of us will wear suits, some of us will wear dresses with a nice hat to match, or some of us may decide to wear more traditional outfits. We then leave our houses and use various means of transport to take us to these special places. Some of us will get into our cars, some of us will use public transport and some of us will walk to get to these special places.

As we leave our houses on this special day of the week to go to these special places, millions of other people throughout the country will go through the same weekly routine. Along the way, we see cars with stickers at the boot of the cars inscribed with uplifting messages, positive messages and encouraging messages. We hear voices from the various loud speakers located in front of some of the buildings along the road. We see signboards and billboards, which advertise the venues where we should spend this special day of the week. Very often, each of these billboards is 20 percent filled with the details of the venue and the remaining 80 percent filled with an image of a well-fed man in a suit along with his beautiful well-fed wife. Eventually, we then arrive at our point of destination.

As we come out of our means of transport, we enter into the sanctuary where we will spend the next couple of hours worshiping and praying to God and listening to a sermon by the Minister, pastor, bishop or reverend.  After we have worshipped, prayed, listened to the sermon, some of us will then leave the church while some of us will stay behind for further prayers or church meetings.

In case you are wondering what this is all about, you do not need to wonder any longer. The above-mentioned scenario describes a typical Sunday in the life of an average Christian based in Nigeria. It is important to note that Sunday is not the only day of the week that the typical Nigerian Christian is engaged with the church. Very often, church visitations could be a whole week engagement in which: Monday is devoted to prayer clinic, Tuesday is devoted to bible study, Wednesday is devoted to attending deliverance services, Thursday is devoted to house or cell fellowship and Friday is devoted to night vigil. Then once a month, a special service is conducted in which tens of millions of us go to various prayer grounds around the country to have a divine encounter with our God.

Welcome to 21st century Nigeria, where Christianity is experiencing a great revival. A number of commentators from around the world have described the Nigerian revival as one of the greatest revivals in recent history. Tens of millions of people have been touched by the life-changing message of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. Thousands of people have experienced signs and wonder in which the deaf hear, the blind see and the lame walk.

Tens of millions of people have been called out of darkness into the marvelous light of the Master. Evangelism is on the ascendency, with millions of people preaching the good news to the lost. The radio and television have been used as effective mediums to relay the good news to millions of Nigerians throughout the country. Church branches are being opened on a weekly basis both within and without Nigeria. Every Sunday, major roads throughout the country are emptied as millions of Nigerians attend church services.

Former factory warehouses have been converted from manufacturing edifices into ecclesiastical edifices. Prominent roads have been transformed from a highway of houses and shops into a highway of churches. For instance Kudirat Abiola Road, which runs between Ojota and Alausa plays host to some of the biggest churches in the country and can be described as one of the ‘most churched roads’ in Nigeria.  The Lagos-Ibadan expressway plays host to the prayer grounds of some of the largest churches in the country, which accommodates millions of people who flock to these grounds on a monthly basis.

According to the 2011 Global Christianity Report produced by Pew Research, the total population of Christians in Nigeria is currently eighty million, which makes Nigeria the country with the largest Christian population in Africa. The same report notes that there are more Christians in Nigeria than in any single nation in traditionally Christian Western Europe. The number of Christians in Nigeria is more than the total population of the United Kingdom, the country that brought Christianity to Nigeria. Nigeria has the world’s second largest protestant population (second only to the USA). It is also ranks sixth in the global list of countries with the largest number of Christians.

A number of commentators have described Nigeria as one of the most religious countries in the world. It is also one of the most densely churched countries in the world. One can hardly drive in a car for five minutes or walk for fifteen minutes in many parts of the country without seeing a church. Nigeria is home to some of the most ‘anointed men and women of God’ in the world. Many church leaders have assumed cult or celebrity status and rank among the most influential people in the country. A few of them rank as some of the most influential people in the African continent, while one or two rank as some of the most influential people in the whole world. Church leaders have the ears of prominent political leaders in the country, with some political leaders seeking the blessings, approval and prayers of some of these men and women of God before and after seeking political office. This influence is not only restricted to Nigeria. Some political leaders within the African continent have sought the blessings of these Nigerian church leaders. Furthermore, the influence of the church also extends to business. A number of senior executives in some listed companies are pastors while some churches are involved in a range of business activities including publishing, education, eateries and real estate.

Nigeria also plays host to some of the most exotic-named churches that one can find in the world. For instance it is not unusual to come across churches with names such as Elshaddai Shall Not Die Ministries, Guided Missiles Church, Satan in Trouble Ministry, Ministry Of The Naked Wire, Jehovah Sharp Sharp Ministry, Healing Tsunami Ministry, Seven Thunders of Jesus and Go and Tell Ahab That Elijah Is Here Ministries.

The Nigerian Christian revival is often used as a benchmark for other countries both within and without the African continent. The Nigerian Christian revival is often described in similar terms as another revival that took place over a hundred years ago in Wales.

The Welsh revival took place in 1904 in Wales.  During the revival nearly one hundred thousand people made a commitment to accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and personal saviour. In the course of the revival, the churches were not only fully occupied, but they were overflowing. Church meetings, in which the gospel was preached, occurred on a daily basis. The revival, which started in Wales, spread to different parts of the world including England and Ireland. People were filled with the Holy Ghost and there was significant interest in the things of God. Thousands of people were convicted of sin and there was a thirst for the cleansing power of Jesus. Hymns became the music of the day.

Is it therefore justifiable to liken the Welsh revival of a century ago with the current Nigerian revival? Is the current Nigerian revival truly similar to the Welsh revival of 1904? To what extent do the two revivals converge and to what extent do the two revivals diverge? To the extent that regular church meetings occur frequently in Nigeria, the Nigerian and Welsh revivals share common grounds; to the extent that people are convicted of sins and accept Jesus as their Lord and personal saviour in Nigeria, the Nigerian and Welsh revivals share common grounds; to the extent that evangelism is on the increase and the gospel message is preached in Nigeria, the Nigerian and Welsh revivals share common grounds; to the extent that signs and wonder occur and people are filled with the Holy Spirit in Nigeria, the Nigerian and Welsh revivals share common grounds; to the extent that places of trade are being converted to churches in Nigeria, the Nigerian and Welsh revivals share common grounds. However when it comes to changed lives, changed heart and a changed society, the Nigerian and Welsh revivals begin to diverge.

Revival is a derivative of the word revive, which means to restore to life or consciousness. When Jesus walked the surface of the earth, nobody who had an encounter with the Master remained the same. Lives were changed as a result of the encounter with the Master. When the disciples carried their ‘thus saith the Lord’ message to the utmost parts of the world, lives were transformed and societies were turned upside down as evidenced in the book of Acts of the Apostles. If the Nigerian revival is actually effective, then one has to critically examine if as Christians, we are being the light of the world and if our lights are shining before the people.

In the course of the Welsh revival, not only were individual lives transformed, but also the society as a whole was transformed. Jesus light shone on the converted Christians and their light shone so bright that those in the wider society saw the reflection of the Master on these Christians and had no choice but to change. When people changed, they stopped conforming to the old ways of doing things and were transformed to the new way of doing things.

Various reports from historians note that as a consequence of the Welsh revival, crime rate in the country reduced by almost 100 percent. The rate of criminal convictions reduced to almost zero. The police became idle and rather than being preoccupied with chasing and catching criminals, they became preoccupied with supervising the human traffic of people attending and leaving church services. It was reported that during court sessions, the magistrates showed up in court only to find out that there were no criminal cases to try. The judges were given white gloves, which signified that there were no court cases to be tried. The alcohol industry almost went extinct because people stopped drinking alcohol and many pubs had to close because people were attending church meetings instead. Drunkenness also reduced significantly. Men became responsible and rather than wasting their money on various vices, they brought their money home and provided for their families needs. According to a report at the time: “Men who had not taken one penny home in 17 years now took all home.” Furthermore, husbands became more loving, while broken friendships were restored. The use of foul words reduced as people opted for uncorrupted words.  For instance, people who used to deface bridges and walls with obscene words replaced these words with quotes from the bible and hymnbooks. In short, the Welsh revival resulted in an internal transformation for the people and the society.

The Nigerian revival in contrast has resulted more in the external transformation of church buildings, church attendance and church collections rather than an internal transformation of a changed society, a changed life and a changed heart. Despite the fact that millions of us attend church services regularly, despite the fact that we have some of the most anointed and most influential men and women of God in Nigerian church history, despite the fact that Nigeria is the most churched nation and despite the fact that Nigeria is one of the most religious nation in the world, Nigeria is an untransformed society. Since a society is a collection of individuals, the moral fibre of the society is dependent on the moral fibre of the individuals that make up the society. We cannot have a transformed Nigeria if we do not have transformed Nigerians and we cannot have transformed Nigerians, if we cannot have transformed Nigerian Christians.

The wickedness in the land is at historic proportion. A number of Christians who should be the light of the nation are involved in criminal activities. We hear, read and witness instances of Christians defrauding their employers and other people to the tune of millions of Naira only to give the whole proceeds to the church as tithe and offerings. In some of these instances, the pastors collecting the criminal proceeds write personal letters to the criminals thanking them for their generosity. A number of influential Christians who are pastors and head financial institutions have been arrested and charged for siphoning depositors and shareholders funds running into billions of Naira. Corruption in Nigeria is at an all time high, with Nigeria ranking 143rd out of 183 countries in Transparency International’s 2011 Corruption Perception Index.

Despite the prevalence of Christianity in Nigeria, money is gradually usurping Christianity as one of the major religions in Nigeria. The god of money is worshiped in the country and people will do anything to get money. One can hardly have a conversation with many Nigerians without the discussion focusing on money or the acquisition of wealth. Psalm 23 has been rephrased to emphasize riches rather than God: “The Naira is my shepherd, I shall not want. It makes me to be happy and leads me to sleep in my houses in Dubai, London and New York. It restores my bank account, dignity and connections. It guides me in the path of selfishness, vanity and ignorance. Though I walk through the valley of EFCC and the court I will not fear for thou art with me. I shall dwell in the house of Naira, Dollar and Sterling forever and ever. Amen.”

Materialism, classism and tribalism are prevalent in the country. We have become very class conscious and rather than treating the less fortunate as fellow human beings, we treat and describe them as things. In short, those who do not meet our so-called social status are ‘thingified’. A number of our churches are not immune from the plague of tribalism. Furthermore, churches have played a key role in the maltreatment of young people accused of witchcraft.  Senior ministers in some of our churches have been involved in beating and torturing young people who have been accused of witchcraft. The breakdown of marriages has been on the ascendency with couples becoming less tolerant of each other. As more people attend churches and church meetings nationwide, the level of immorality in the land is also on the ascendency.

Despite the influence and access that the anointed men and women of God have on the political class, they have refused to use their influence to demand the required dividends of democracy from the political leaders. Rather than use their clout to demand positive change for the country, the theological elite have endorsed some of the government’s unjust policies, which have impoverished millions of Nigerians. Due to the apathy of the theological elite, Nigeria has become hell on earth rather than heaven on earth for many Nigerians.

Many Christians have become cold-blooded and insensitive. Christians who should follow Jesus mission statement of proclaiming good news to the poor, healing to the broken hearted and declaring the acceptable year of the Lord are in many instances guilty of doing the reverse. The widows, the unmarried, the barren and the poor are often ridiculed and mocked by we Christians.

Over a century ago, in a country with a population of almost two million, a minority of one hundred thousand converted and committed Welsh Christians positively transformed Wales during a revival. If over a hundred years ago, five percent of Wales’s total population could positively transform Wales inside out and upside down, why can’t eighty million Nigerian Christians who account for almost fifty percent of the Nigerian population positively transform Nigeria inside out and upside down today? There are two possible reasons for the inability of the current Nigerian revival to effect positive change in the country:

a) What is preached is not practiced or

b) What should be practiced is not preached.

What is preached is not practiced: Perhaps the reason why the country is the way it is could be because we are not practicing what is being preached on the pulpit every Sunday and other days when we go to the sanctuary. Could it be that by the time the church service ends, the message we hear in our left ear has gone out through our right ear rather than being processed and stored in our brains? Admittedly, man is fallible and imperfect and we are all sinners, however based on the number of sermons we hear in a year and the hours we spend praying, working and worshipping in church, if we can apply even a small percentage of what we are instructed to do in the Word of God, Nigeria would surely be a better place. It is time for us to follow the instructions of Brother James by becoming ‘doers of the Word and not just hearers of the Word’. Afterall, Brother James was right when he said: “a person who merely listens to the message and does not live it out, is like someone who gazes at his own face in a mirror. For he gazes at himself and then goes out and immediately forgets what sort of person he was.”

Another reason why what is preached is not practiced could be because the church has allowed cultural influences to infiltrate and overshadow some key aspects of the Gospel message. As a consequence, many of us have ‘Nigerised’ the Gospel message and this has been reflected in our deeds.

The responsibility for practicing what is preached lies with the congregation. It is therefore up to us the congregation to put into practice what is preached, provided what is preached is in line with the Scriptures.

What should be practiced is not preached: The major culprits here are the many men and women who stand in front of the congregation and preach the Word of God. Ministers who are truly called by God should preach what is in accordance with the Scriptures. Unfortunately, several of our ministers have strayed away from the teachings of the Master and have introduced another gospel that has the unintended consequence of allowing the Nigerian society to negatively transform the Nigerian church rather than allow the Nigerian church to positively transform the Nigerian society.

The Nigerian church leadership has to a large extent placed significant attention and focus on the prosperity, which has resulted in an increase in materialism among Christians. As a result, many Christians have become so money focused, money conscious and money crazy. Money is now seen as an end to a means rather than a means to an end, hence, people are willing to do anything necessary to justify the end (money). It should therefore be of no surprise that very often, when the roll call of people involved in corrupt activities in the country is read out, the names of devoted Christians are often included on the first page of that list.

Almost a generation ago, there was a group of Christians that swarmed the Nigerian Christian space. They were called “SU” which is an acronym for Scripture Union. They were devoted Christians who were known for their strict adherence to holiness. Although this group of Christians often took their religiosity to the extreme by focusing on the ‘Law’ while downplaying the concept of Grace, one thing that we could not take from them was there integrity and desire to obey the Lord. They feared the Lord and this translated in their deeds. Companies that employed them were confident that due to the firmness of their faith they would not compromise. Once you had these so-called SU’s in your company, you knew that they would not steal, they would not cheat, and they would not lie. The so-called SU’s were taught by ministers who instilled integrity and the fear of God into their mental sheets. Unfortunately, many church leaders of this current revival preach little about integrity and the fear of the Lord. Yes Grace is important, but as Apostle Paul said many centuries ago: “Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? God forbid.”

Another area were preachers are not preaching what should be practiced is in relation to how Christians should deal with evil powers and principalities. Many Christians have been programmed by their church leaders to be suspicious of their family members, friends or co-workers, as their pastors tell them that these people are instigators of their misfortunes. This has resulted in instances whereby children accused of witchcraft are physically and mentally assaulted. Even church leaders have been known to assault children all in the name of establishing the supremacy of the kingdom of light over the kingdom of darkness.

Several church leaders are guilty of prostituting themselves with the corrupt political class thereby indirectly contributing in the current state Nigeria finds itself. They fail to speak truth to power. Rather than crying out like Prophet Amos and screaming: “Promote justice at the city gate!” our church leaders have become like the prophets of Israel that God spoke about to Ezekiel when he said: “My hand will be against the prophets who see delusion… because they have led my people astray saying, ‘All is well,’ when things are not well.” Rather than speak God’s truth and judgment to the political class, many of our church leaders have chosen at best to be apathetic and at worst to wine and dine with them while endorsing their unjust government.

In conclusion, for the Nigerian revival to be truly regarded as a revival, for the Nigerian revival to positively transform the Nigerian society and for the Nigerian revival to be taken seriously, the solution will lie not solely in the thesis of the church practicing what is preached or solely in the antithesis of the church preaching what should be practiced, but rather, the solution will be found in a synthesis that merges both truths.

If a revival that took place over a century ago in Wales is still used as a reference point for revival in our contemporary world, it should not be out of place for today’s Nigerian Christians to ponder over what would be the legacy of the current Nigerian revival. How would Christians want the legacy of the Nigerian revival to be remembered one hundred years from now when the history pages are read? Would we want it to be remembered as a revival that sparked a flame that swept throughout Nigeria and brought healing, restoration and the Kingdom of God to the land or would we want the revival to be dismissed as a jamboree that was hijacked by selfishness, kidnapped by materialism and blindfolded by wickedness.

Let he or she that has ears…

Selah.

Ahmed Olayinka Sule, CFA

May 2012

 

 

suleaos@gmail.com

http://about.me/ahmedsule

                       

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by Ahmed Olayinka Sule on June 1, 2012  •  Permalink
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Posted by Ahmed Olayinka Sule on June 1, 2012

https://zangodare.wordpress.com/2012/06/01/revival/

Are Miners Getting A Fair Deal?

Are Miners Getting A Fair Deal?

 

by Ahmed Olayinka Sule, CFA

suleaos@gmail.com

http://about.me/ahmedsule

“He was a beloved husband, father, son and brother, and will be missed by his entire family, including aunts, uncles, cousins and many friends”

–        Obituary of Steven Cain (who died in a mining accident)

“Dear Mommy and Jenna, if anything happens to me, I will be looking down from heaven. If you take care of my baby girl, watch over her, tell her all the good things about her daddy. She was so cute and funny. She was my little peanut.”

–        Josh Napper

(content of a sealed note written by Josh and read after his death in a mining accident)

“The families and communities of the dead miners have been changed forever by today’s catastrophic blast……. They were screaming. It was absolute despair. When the news came, everyone just cracked up. People were openly weeping everywhere”

–       Tony Kokshoorn (Mayor of Grey district)

 

“No miner should ever have to die for a paycheck”

-Hilda Solis (US Secretary of Labor)

Two Players in the Commodity Value Chain

He hugged his wife and kissed his four-month-old son James and then rushed to his car to make the thirty-minute drive to the Sekondina Mine (where he had worked for the last fifteen years). After Jim Reid parked his car, he headed for the mine with his other colleagues. Jim got onto the lift and began the 2,670-meter descent underground.  Forty-five minutes later, Jim disembarked from the truck; work had just started.  He tied his torch on to his forehead and started to crawl inside the tunnel. He began to extract coal from the pit using his drilling machine.

Unknown to Jim and his colleagues, 183,570 cubic meters of gas had leaked out. As a result of the leak, 3,600 tons of coal dust was released, thereby leaving a high concentration of gas underground. There was a big explosion and the impact of the explosion smashed Jim’s six foot five inch frame against the wall. Jim died instantly. He was thirty-five years old. At the time of his death his total remuneration was $50,000 (comprising of a salary of $30,000 and a bonus payment of $20,000).

Sixteen thousand, two hundred and sixty eight kilometers away in New York, Alfonso Raul enters the lift and takes the two-minute ride to the eighty-fourth floor. Alfonso is a commodity trader at Hale Commodity Advisors, one of the leading global commodity trading firms. Alfonso switches on his Bloomberg and Reuters terminals and then logs on to Factiva and starts to monitor events taking place in the financial markets. He focuses on developments relating to the various commodities he trades i.e. zinc, copper and gold. He receives several calls from his clients and he advises them on the best way to position themselves within the markets. On the same day, he calls the various operators, shipping and back office teams to ensure efficient completion of contracts.  When the markets open, he executes a number of profitable trades for his client and employer, using a range of trading strategies. He later takes part in a conference call with his Chief Operating Officer to evaluate the risk and profitability on a number of commodity transactions and financial commitments. He leaves the office at 11 pm. Alfonso is thirty years old. Based on the trades made to date, Alfonso should expect a salary of $350,000 and a bonus of $1,000,000 at the end of the financial year.

Commodity value chain

The above hypothetical example illustrates a day in the life of two players in the commodity market value chain. Commodity traders and miners are key players in the chain. Other participants in the chain include the mining executives, investment bankers, transporters, insurers, storage companies etc. Without these players, it would be difficult for the natural resources buried underground to reach the end user in a processed form.

Resource Scarcity

Most products consumed today are sourced from resources buried underneath the earth’s surface. The petrol used in cars is derived from crude oil found underground, while some dietary supplements are derived from zinc.  Magnetrons, found in microwave ovens contain copper while nickel is a major component in the production of coins. Jewelries such as gold, silver and diamond are sourced from beneath the earth’s surface.

Due to growing urbanization, expanding population and improving life style in emerging markets, there has been an unprecedented increase in global demand for the earth’s natural resources. However, most of these resources are limited in supply. According to Strategy Dynamics Global Limited, by the mid 2030s, demand for many resources will substantially exceed what the planet can supply.

A major consequence of the increased consumption and limited supply of commodities is an increase in commodity prices. With commodity prices elevated, it becomes more profitable to extract the commodities from beneath the earth and sell it at these elevated prices.

Prevalence of mining disasters

Extracting minerals from under the earth has always been a risky business, often resulting in injuries and loss of lives. Due to advancement in technology and better safety practices, the injuries and deaths experienced while mining are not at the elevated levels of the early part of the twentieth century. However, in recent years, there has been an increase in mining disasters.

On 27 September 2011, a miner died at the Kellingley Colliery, a mine owned by UK Coal. A couple of days earlier, four miners died at the Gleision Colliery in Wales, when the coal mine got flooded. In October 2010, thirty-three miners were trapped in a Chilean mine for sixty-eight days. Their ordeal generated worldwide attention. Twenty-nine miners were killed at the Upper Big Branch mine owned by the Virginia based firm Massey Energy in 2010. In November 2010, twenty-nine miners died at the Pike River mine in New Zealand. Five people were killed in a mining incident in South Africa in July 2010. In Colombia a total of one hundred and seventy three miners died in various mining related disasters in 2010. In November 2009, one hundred and seven miners died at the state-run Xinxing mine in China. The miners died because the company’s ventilation system did not ventilate the mine, thereby allowing explosives to build up. Two thousand and six hundred people were killed in several coal mine accidents in China in 2009.

Risk and reward

Before I proceed with this section, I would like to lay down three declarations:

  • I believe that human life is priceless and cannot be valued in monetary terms
  • I believe that human beings are created equal.
  • I believe in the dignity of ALL work

Mining executives, commodity traders, investment bankers and individual miners are key players in the commodity value chain. They all take risks and get rewarded for the risks they take.

Mining Executives: provide overall leadership for the mining company. They comprise of the Board of Directors and senior management. The principal duty of the Board is to create and deliver shareholder value by setting the company’s strategy and ensuring that management implements it. They determine the level of risk that the business should take and ensure that principal risks have been properly identified and are appropriately managed.

At an individual level, the executives face the risk of forfeiting their bonuses or inability to exercise their share option if the company’s share performance deteriorates significantly. They could also lose their jobs due to underperformance. On the reward side, mining executives receive various forms of compensations for their responsibilities including salaries, bonuses and share based payments, which are linked to the share performance of the company.

According to PwC, in 2010, the average annual base pay of Canadian mining Chief Executive Officers (CEO) was $480,000 and average bonus payouts were over $540,000 resulting in a total average compensation package of $1,020,000. In 2011, 56 per cent of Canadian mining CEO’s earned in excess of C$1 million. During the 2010-2011 financial year, BHP Billiton paid its executives a total of $19 million. Don Blankenship, the CEO in charge of Massey Energy, which in 2010 experienced a mining disaster where twenty-nine miners died, received $10.4 million salary in 2010 in addition to a $12 million retirement package.

Mining companies often engage in deal activities as large companies within the sector seek to acquire rivals. According to PwC,  during the first six months of 2011, there were 1,379 mining merger and acquisition deals announced worth US$71 billion. Bloomberg estimates that between January 2010 and January 2011, $30 billion worth of deals were announced in the coal-mining sector. Mergers and acquisitions often benefit mining executives as it can result in the rewriting of management compensation contracts.

Commodity traders/brokers:executes orders to buy or sell commodity contracts on behalf of clients or his/her employers account. As an employee of an institution, he does not bear personal liability for such losses. However, he faces the risk of losing his job or forfeiting his bonus due to poor performance. In extreme cases where he makes unauthorized trades on behalf of his employer, he could be termed a rogue trader and could face imprisonment.

If things go well for the trader, he would get recognition from his colleagues and bosses. She would be awarded huge bonuses, which sometimes run into millions of Dollars.

Glencore International plc, the world’s largest commodity trading firm, which controls 60 per cent of the global zinc trade, 50 per cent of the copper market, 45 per cent of lead, 28 per cent of coal, and 10 per cent of the global wheat market was worth $47bn as at September 2011. In 2010, the company paid sixty-five of its senior staff members an average bonus of $14 million each.

Investment banks: provide a very important service in the commodity value chain. They act as advisors to mining companies that engage in mergers and acquisition activities. They also underwrite debt and equity securities issued by mining companies. These transactions that the banks advise on are very complex and involve a lot of brainpower and man-hours. For these services, banks earn fees. Part of these fees is guaranteed despite the outcome of the deal, while some fees are contingent upon the deal being completed. Where a deal is not completed, the banks face the risk of not generating the contingent fee income.

The fees generated by the banks are also dependent on the economic cycle. Very often in times of commodity booms, investment banks generate additional mining fee income and the reverse is the case when there is a commodity slump.  Employees in the commodity division often benefit in form of additional bonuses when the overall business condition is positive. Employees get reduced or no bonuses if the bank’s fee income is reduced due to poor business conditions.

According to Thomson Reuters and Freeman Consulting, for the period 1 January 2011 to 28 September 2011, the combined global investment banking fee income generated from the global mining sector was $6.9bn. In 2010, the total fee generated from the mining sector was $8.02bn.

Miners: are involved in the extraction of minerals from under the earth. They either work directly for the mining companies or are employed by contractors. Their reward comes in form of salaries and bonuses. The salary component is fixed, while the bonus element is tied to productivity. Sometimes, due to the salary level and in order to claim the bonuses , miners are motivated to take excessive risks, which could endanger their lives.

The average net monthly salaries (based on 2005 USA Purchasing power) of miners in some countries are detailed below:

Country Amount
Australia US$3,913.00
USA US$2,694.00
Canada US$2,607.00
Brazil US$747.00
China US$620.00
Mexico US$584.00
Peru US$531.00

Source: The International Average Salary Income Database

Although the salaries earned by the miners may be enough to meet their basic needs, however, the question to ask is: are they rewarded adequately for the risk they face in carrying out their responsibilities?

Miners face a myriad of risks when performing their duties. Coal mines often produce methane gas, a toxic asphyxiating gas. This gas is highly inflammable, causing coal dust explosions, which is dangerous for miners. Miners also face danger from rock slips and inrushes of water, which could cause the walls of the underground tunnel to collapse. They also face the risk of getting trapped in the mine and getting starved of oxygen. The roof could also give in resulting in death. In some instances, miners also face the risk of dying from carbon monoxide poisoning. They also face the risk of developing elements of claustrophobia especially when trapped inside the mine. A number of miners have also been buried under crushed ore and rock.

While the above-mentioned risks usually result in immediate death for the miners, they also suffer long-term side effects due to the nature of their job. Due to working under very high temperature, they are often inflicted with heat related sicknesses such as heat stroke. They also develop respiratory related ailments such as silicosis and black lung disease due to exposure to crystalline dust, which they inhale while drilling.

Way forward

Miners just like the mining executives, commodity traders and investment bankers engage in a risky activity. It is therefore rational that miners should be adequately rewarded for the risk that they take. However, unlike other players in the commodity value chain who are handsomely rewarded for the risk they take and the services they render, the miners fall short in terms of remuneration on a risk-adjusted basis.

Contrary to other members on the commodity value chain, miners have a higher probability of dying in the cause of their work, due to the level of risk involved. Miners upside rewards are limited and small, whereas the downside risk is very severe. In a worse case scenario, the mining executive, commodity trader and investment banker could lose their jobs, face imprisonment or forfeit their bonuses; however their life is still likely to be intact. This is not the case for the miner who could lose his life in a worse case scenario. Despite the differences in the job risk profile, the mining executive, trader and bankers are adequately rewarded and often receive bonuses running into millions of Dollars.

While efforts are continuously being put in place to improve safety in the mines, miners still need to be adequately rewarded for the risks they face.

To redress this asymmetric imbalance, it is imperative for some of the upside generated by the advisors, mining executives and commodity traders to trickle down to the miners who bear the greatest risk. After all without the miners to extract the resources from underneath the earth, there would be fewer commodities to trade; fewer deal activities and lower income generated by mining companies, thereby resulting in lower remuneration for commodity traders, investment bankers in the bank’s commodity division and mining executives.

Conclusion

In conclusion, I would like to clarify what I am saying and what I am not saying regarding rewarding miners for the risk they face in carrying out their jobs.

I am not saying that capitalism is bad or that it should be scrapped. This article does not promote a leftist, socialist or communist agenda; I am not saying that the bonuses paid to commodity traders, investment bankers and mining executives should be discontinued; I am not saying that work carried out by traders, bankers and mining executives are irrelevant.

What I am saying is that miners are human beings and deserve to be treated as such, rather than as statistics and numbers. What I am saying is that those higher up the commodity value chain should allow some of the riches they extract from the commodities to flow down to the lowly paid miners . There is enough wealth from under the ground to satisfy all players in the commodity value chain. What I am saying is that miners could, should and must be adequately rewarded for the risk they take.

If any skeptic feels that the miners don’t deserve to be adequately rewarded for the risk they face when extracting minerals, I suggest that he or she should take a pay cut, work in a coal mine for a week, take the lift two thousand meters below the earth and crawl inside a tunnel to extract coal from the pit.

October 2011

© Ahmed Sule

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BERLIN CONFERENCE – 2084AD

BERLIN CONFERENCE- 2084AD

(Die Kongo Konferenz 2084)

 

The West & The Rest

 

by Ahmed Olayinka Sule, CFA

suleaos@gmail.com

&

Kojo Solomon

kojosolomon@googlemail.com

…..the losers over the long term are the West and the winners are the Rest

– Dambisa Moyo

 

But what of the darker world that watches? Most men belong to this world. With Negro and Negroid, East Indian, Chinese, and Japanese they form two-thirds of the population of the world. A belief in humanity is a belief in colored men. If the uplift of mankind must be done by men, then the destinies of this world will rest ultimately in the hands of darker nations.

– W.E. Du Bois

 

Over the next 50 years, Brazil, Russia, India and China—the BRICs economies could become a much larger force in the world economy.

– Goldman Sachs (Dreaming With BRICs: The Path to 2050)

 

 

 

Prologue

 

It is 2084AD, which also happens to be the 200th anniversary of the historic Berlin Conference that took place in 1884. To mark the occasion, which heralded the legendry scramble for Africa, the leaders from Britain, Germany, Italy, Spain, Portugal and Belgium gathered together in Berlin to deliberate on the progress and changes that have occurred in the world since the First Berlin Conference. Also in attendance were the Ambassadors of Denmark, Netherland, Sweden and Norway. President Hugo Rodriquez of the USA was unable to attend but Janet Taylor, the US Secretary of State, represented him.

Two days after the meeting while Gbenga Adebayo was cleaning the conference centre he came across a DVD, which he saw on the floor. He took the DVD home, inserted it into his computer and realised that the DVD contained the proceeding of the Berlin Conference.

The next couple of pages details what transpired during the 2084 Berlin Conference.

Ahmed Olayinka Sule, CFA Kojo Solomon

suleaos@gmail.com kojosolomon@googlemail.com

March 2011

Characters

James CARPENTER, Prime Minister of Great Britain

Jean-Jacques LE BLANC, President of France

Otto von MULLER, Chancellor of Germany

Nuno ALVES, President of Portugal

Raul RAMOS, Prime Minister of Spain

King LION II, King of Belgium

Massimo ZAMBROTTA, Prime Minister of Italy

Hugo RODRIQUEZ, President of the United States of America

Janet TAYLOR, US Secretary of State

Chronological Table

1884 First Berlin Conference held
1914-18 First World War
1939-1945 Second World War
1947 India gain independence
1956 Egypt nationalizes the Suez Canal
2007-2009 Global Financial Crisis
2020 China overtakes USA to become the world’s largest economy
2025 Mexico and South Africa replace France and Britain as permanent members of the United Nations.
2045 USA becomes predominately Spanish speaking with a Hispanic majority
2060 Nigeria sends its first astronaut to Mars
2084 Two hundredth anniversary of the Berlin Conference

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[After all the leaders are sited round the rectangular brown conference table, Chancellor MULLER addresses the leaders]

 

MULLER: Welcome to this historic gathering… How time flies.. I can’t believe that it is exactly 200 years since our predecessors first met to formalize the balkanization of the African continent. The purpose of this conference is to discuss the progress made since the historic conference and to deliberate on the tectonic shift that has occurred over the last 200 years. (turning to Taylor) Secretary Taylor, could you please explain to us the reason for President Rodriquez’s absence?

TAYLOR: Thanks. President Rodriquez sends his regards and apology. The President could not make it here because President Chibuzor of Nigeria will be visiting the USA in four days time and as Nigeria is a very important ally of the USA, he has no choice but to remain in the States in order to make adequate preparations for his August visitor.

MULLER: Thanks Secretary Taylor. Moving ahead, we shall now discuss the progress and development that took place in the Western world after the first Berlin Conference.

ZAMBROTTA: 1884 was a watershed moment for the West. It was 130 years after the industrial revolution, which heralded the greatest civilization the world had ever seen…….even though our population was small relative to the global population, we were able to control and colonize people all over the world. Africa presented a serious challenge to us as different Western governments had various interests in different parts of the continent. In order to avoid conflict, the Berlin Conference took place in which our predecessors agreed to partition the numerous tribes of Africa into countries and colonies to be controlled by the West.

CARPENTER The Cape to Cairo project was very important to Britain as it gave us access to the North through to the South of the African continent-

LE BLANC: For us, the Senegal to Djibouti project was equally important, but unfortunately, we did not succeed in linking our colonies from the western part to the eastern part of the continent.

ALVES: Apart from Africa, the West also had control over India, Latin America, and parts of Asia. Our ability to colonize these people gave us access to their resources. Resources such as gold, cooper, tin, lead, cobalt, iron ore etc were taken out of the colonies and used to develop Western economies-

CARPENTER: We were also able to make maximum and effective use of the manpower of our colonies; the cheap labour provided by our subjects in the colonies reduced production costs and enabled our trading companies to maximize its profits. Prior to the abolition of slavery, we shipped out millions of Africans to work as slaves on the coffee, cocoa and cotton plantations in our colonies in North and South America.

ZAMBROTTA: Unfortunately for the West, the quest to expand its colonies created tensions among the nations. This resulted in the two World Wars, which eventually led to the emergence of America as the sole global superpower.

TAYLOR: Power did not shift from the West to the Rest of the world

RAMOS: What do you mean by the Rest of the world (ROTW)?

TAYLOR: It is a term used to describe the non-Western world. It comprises of Africa, Asia (including China and India), Latin America, the Caribbean and the Middle East. As I was saying earlier, power only shifted from one part of the West to another. As Europe declined in influence, America took the mantle in 1945, fortunately, due to the economic might of the USA, it was able to lift up Europe.

MULLER: Before we close for today’s session, let’s put this all in perspective. From the mid 18th century, the West became the dominant force in the world. First starting with Europe from 1750 to 1945 and then USA from 1945 to 2020. Thank you for your contributions and I look forward to meeting you all tomorrow as we deliberate on how Western civilization influenced the ROTW for almost 300 years.

[meeting adjourns for the day. All the leaders attend a social function and resume discussions the following day]

[the following morning, the leaders arrive on time. King Lion II who chairs the second session begins proceedings]

LION II: Yesterday, we looked at how the West came to dominate the world. Today, we will continue the discussion, but with an emphasis on how Western ideas, values and culture were embraced by the ROTW.

The sphere of influence of Western civilization reached the four corners of the world. Thanks to our ability to colonize a greater part of the world, we were able to impose our culture on others. We created a sense of superiority of Western culture over the ROTW. The unofficial mantra was “West is best”. All over the world, everything Western was accepted-

CARPENTER: Britain played a key role in spreading Western culture. The English language became the most spoken first language in the world after Mandarin and the most spoken second language in the world. Our rule of law was spread all over the world, with a great percentage of countries in the world adopting the English Common Law-

ALVES: The Western style of dressing became the accepted norm. Indigenous communities replaced their traditional mode of dressings for jeans, shirts, skirts and blouses-

RAMOS– What I really find amusing is that business executives in very hot climates like Africa and Asia wore business suits for meetings and work. If our climate was as hot as theirs, there is no way we would have worn business suits to work.

MULLER: We were also able to define intelligence from a Western viewpoint. People from all over the world were encouraged to take Western based IQ test and those that excelled were classified as intelligent from a Western perspective.

TAYLOR: The West made great advancement in science, medicine and technology. We were able to increase life expectancy by 50%, we found cures for disease such as polio, malaria and small pox.  Our scientists were able to shorten distance between places and make the world a smaller place through novel inventions such as the aeroplane, the Internet and the telephone. We improved the social life of people around the world. Musically, we gave the world artists like Michael Jackson, the Beatles, Elvis and Abba. Cinematically we gave the world films such as The Godfather, The Kings Speech, Casablanca, Titanic, and Lord of the Rings etc. We gave the ROTW democracy, which has resulted in a better society. We championed human rights thereby allowing billions of people around the world to enjoy freedom of speech, freedom of expression and the freedom to protest.

RAMOS: We created institutions such as the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, which allowed us to enforce our policies on the ROTW. Furthermore, we ensured that these institutions were headed by Westerners and tilted voting quotas in favour of Western economies-

ALVES: Militarily, economically and politically, the ROTW had no choice but to accept us.

MULLER: Our dominance in all spheres of life often resulted in a sense of superiority on our part and a sense of inferiority by the ROTW. In regions such as Africa, a number of women and men felt insecure with the colour of their skin and opted to lighten their skin tones by using skin-lightening creams in order to look like Westerners. Beauty was defined from a Western perspective; fashion models, newscasters and beauty queens from the ROTW were pressurized to look like their Western counterparts in order to excel in their careers.

CARPENTER: Between 2005 and 2016, it was not uncommon for women in West Africa to expend large sums of money on natural Brazilian hair extension, all in the name of trying to look Western. Some of these women forked out £1,200 on these hair extensions just to look Western for a couple of months.

ALVES: Please clarify what you mean by ‘natural Brazilian hair extension’, as I am a bit confused.

CARPENTER: Africans have kinky hair, which is unique to them. However a number of these women were uncomfortable with their natural African hair as they longed to have the long straight hair of the Western woman. Their prayers were answered when a market for natural hair of Brazilian and Asian women was created in 2004. The natural hair was imported from Brazil and Asia to West Africa and a thriving hair dressing industry developed to attach the imported hairs onto these women.

 

 

LION II: I just read the other day that there was a time when a number of Asian men underwent height-extending surgery in order to increase their height to match the average height of Westerners.

ZAMBROTTA: One must not put the blame on Westerners, after all if a person is ashamed of his/her culture that is his/her fault-

LE BLANC: Unfortunately, some Western scientist used science to develop unfounded scientific theories, which suggested a hierarchy of races. The influence of scientific racism eventually led to various crimes against humanity such as the Holocaust, Trans-Atlantic slave trade, Apartheid, Jim Crow etc. It also lead to the long held false notion of the genetically superiority of the white race relative to other races.

LION II: In your discussion, you all seem to have omitted a very important tool used to propagate Western ideas and values. Guess what it was?

CARPENTER: The Commonwealth Summit or British Council.

LION II: No.

LE BLANC: Organisation internationale de la Francophonie.

LION II: No. It was the press…. The press was the most potent weapon in spreading Western influence. Through the control of the media such as newspapers, radio and television, the West was able to define morality in Western terms, project regions such as Africa as backwards and ignorant, export a Western paradigm of the world and downplay the accomplishment of the ROTW.

[meeting adjourns for the day]

 

[Third and final day of the conference. Once all leaders are seated, Prime Minister Carpenter stands up to address the leaders]

CARPENTER: The final day of this conference will be divided into two sessions. In the morning session, we will discuss the circumstances that led to the decline of the West, while in the afternoon session, we will discuss the current world realignment and the way forward.

The seeds to the decline of the West were sown during the Financial Crisis of 2007-2009. Due to the flawed economic policies of the West, which encouraged over-borrowing, discouraged savings and encouraged inadequate regulatory oversight, Western economies incurred excessive losses at the private and public level, which ran into trillions of Dollars. Consequently, the capital stock of the Western world was depleted and the West had to undergo an unprecedented austerity programme, which resulted in cuts to defence, research and development, education, health etc. As a result of these cuts, Western influences in science and technology, military, education etc were significantly reduced.

 

LION II: As the west was undergoing this downsizing, the ROTW was experiencing a significant transformation in their fortunes. Due to prudent economic policies, the ROTW was able to weather the 2007-2009 economic storm and generated sufficient reserves and savings to move their economies forward-

TAYLOR: You seem to be ignoring the role played by a number of people such as Gandhi who’s Salt March contributed immensely to the decline of the British Empire. Furthermore, the agitation for independence by a number of African and Asian countries eventually contributed to the collapse of the British Empire-

ALVES: Apologies if I sound moral, but I don’t think it had anything to do with the financial crisis or the actions of some freedom fighters. I believe that the West’s declining influence in the global scheme of things is as a consequence of the West’s unjust actions that took place over the past couple of centuries.

ZAMBROTTA: Unjust acts like what?

ALVES: ummmh like the slave trade, which was estimated to have reduced Africa’s population by half; like the extermination of the Tasmanian Aboriginal population; like the murder of 15 million Congolese during King Leopold’s II private colonization of Congo; like the extermination of the indigenous Latin American population. We may be paying the price for our past misdeeds.

[Afternoon session]

 

RAMOS: This is the most interesting part of the conference. For the next two hours, we shall discuss how the world has changed since 2020, with a special focus on how the ROTW has taken over the drivers seat while leaving the West at the passenger seat. We will then conclude by discussing the way forward for the West in a post 2084 world.

From the beginning of the 2007 financial crisis up to 2049, while the West was on a downward spiral, the ROTW was on the ascendency not only economically, but also militarily and technologically.  In 2020, China overtook the USA to become the largest economy in the world. In 2050, the combined economies of Brazil, Russia, India and China became larger than the combined economies of the existing G7 economies.

CARPENTER: For us it was shocking to witness the economies of our former colonies – India and Nigeria…… quadruple and double respectively relative to the size of Britain –

LE BLANC: In the 2025, Mexico and South Africa replaced France and Britain as permanent members of the United Nations thereby making the USA the only Western country to have a permanent seat in the UN.

TAYLOR: America has undergone a lot of transformation in the last eighty years. In 2008 when the USA elected Barack Obama as its first African American President, there was so much elation and celebration. Since then America has elected eight Hispanic American and six African American Presidents. In 2045, USA became a predominately Spanish-speaking country with a Hispanic majority.

A major consequence of the USA demographic change was a shift in US foreign policy. Since its independence up to 2044, USA had been regarded as a prominent Western country. However, with the increasing population and influence of the Hispanic and African Americans, the USA has become a pseudo Latin-African American country –

MULLER: (shrugging his shoulders) I guess that is why President Rodriquez has declined our invitation and chosen to meet with his Nigerian counterpart.

ALVES: Demographically, the West is at a disadvantage. Its population has aged significantly over the last forty years. The average age of the Western population is 50 years, which is 20 years higher than the average age of the ROTW. Consequently, the West has become less productive as a sizeable number of its population is in retirement. We can’t compete with the other economies militarily and technologically.

LION II: In order to improve our  productivity, we had to open our borders to immigrants from Africa and Asia. Prior to implementing this policy, 50% of our populations were aged more than 60 years compared to 70% of the ROTW population, which was aged less than 35 years.

TAYLOR: The West has also lost control over the media. The media from the ROTW has overtaken the Western media, which projected Western ideas, values and perspectives to the world over the last 300 years. Channels such as Al Jazeera, NDTV, NTA, and TV Brasil etc are watched by billions of people all over the world. As the Western media experience dwindling viewers, listeners and readers, the media houses from Africa, Asia, Middle East and Latin America continue to experience increasing subscribers-

CARPENTER: One advantage of this rebalancing is that a balanced view of the news is now projected to the world thereby eliminating the asymmetric Western bias of the last 300 years.

ZAMBROTTA: Talking about rebalancing, a number of things that used to occur in the 19th and 20th century no longer occur. For instance the dumping of toxic waste by Western companies into Africa no longer happens. Mandarin is gradually replacing English as the global lingua franca. Infact my son has just finished his degree in Mandarin. Beijing and Rio de Janeiro have now replaced New York and London as the global financial capitals of the world.

ALVES: A major consequence of this rebalancing is that the existing notion of hierarchy of races has been completely eradicated. Long gone is the unfounded myth that ‘Black is bad, Brown is ugly, Yellow is undesirable and White is pure’; …… it has been replaced with the phrase “there is neither Black, Brown, Yellow or White, but all are equal before God”.

LE BLANC: There has been a global realignment of races, which promotes equality of races.

ZAMBROTTA: The world is more equal.

LION II: Yes. With the improved fortunes of the ROTW, billions of people all over the world have been lifted out of poverty and the world is now a fairer and more equal place.

TAYLOR: The ROTW has also made great strides in science and technology. The greatest inventions in the last 50 years have come from Africa, the Caribbean and Asia. It should be no surprise that no Westerner has won the Nobel Prize for Physics, Medicine and Chemistry in the last 10 years-

LE BLANC: The consequence of our lack of investment in research and development in the early part of this century has now caught up with us.

ALVES: That’s right….the people from the ROTW also have the advantage of embracing different cultures. They can easily fit into the Western environment without losing their indigenous culture. Unfortunately, Westerners find it difficult to assimilate other people’s culture.

RAMOS: I guess Westerners have no choice but to adapt to this new world we live in. In the previous uni-polar world dominated by the West it was possible for Westerners to disregard other peoples culture, but in a multi-polar world tilted in favour of the ROTW, Westerners must learn to embrace other peoples culture otherwise they will be left behind.

We will now go on a coffee break and resume in 15 minutes for the final part of the conference.

[Everybody heads to the coffee room]

 

[Concluding session]

MULLER: So where do we go from here? What should the West do to restore her past glory? If any of you have anything to say …..feel free to speak.

LE BLANC: Personally, I don’t think there is any need to restore the old glory of the West. We can’t go back to the era of the complete domination of the world. There are two reasons for arriving at this conclusion:

First, we need to realize that the Western domination only lasted 300 years, which though seems a long time, is actually a very short time as other civilizations dominated the world long before the West took over. Infact, the current state of play is just a return to the existing status quo.

Second, the ROTW are much stronger than the West militarily, economically, demographically and technologically. It would be hard for us to try and dominate the world once again. What we should strive to do is to become equal partners in the global scheme of things.

CARPENTER: I agree with President Le Blanc. I would like to add that….we should work towards making the world a better and more equitable place rather than mapping out strategies to restore our old glory.

ZAMBROTTA: In addressing the question of what to do to restore our past glory, I would like use the analogy of a domineering father and his son. The case of the West’s domination of the ROTW is like the father who had control of his son and would often discipline him in order to correct the son. Once in a while, the father would cane to son to bring him in line.  However, as the son grew up and the father got older, the father soon realized that the son, who he used to discipline, had become much taller and stronger than him. I guess once this realization dawned on the father, the beating stopped.

TAYLOR: Let us accept the change that has taken place afterall was it not Esther Dyson who said “change means that what was before wasn’t perfect. People want things to be better.”

MULLER: Well that is all. Thanks for your contribution. I hope you all found this conference insightful. I wish you all a safe journey and I look forward to seeing you sometime in the future.

[All the leaders get up and leave the conference centre. James Wood, the cameraman transfers the recording from his video camera to a DVD, which he puts into his bag for onward delivery to his employer. He heads for the door and then turns off the light not realizing that the DVD has dropped on the floor]

THE END

 

Ahmed Olayinka Sule, CFA

suleaos@gmail.com

Kojo Solomon

kojosolomon@googlemail.com

 

 

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The Book of Ecclesiastes: The Authorized Nigerian Living Translation

The Book of Ecclesiastes: The Authorized Nigerian Living Translation

By Ahmed Sule, CFA

Preamble

On Wednesday 24th of November 2010, I went to visit the father of my good friend Dare. During the visit, we discussed the current state of affairs of Nigeria (as we always did during my earlier visits). We spoke about the numerous challenges facing the country. After our discussion, I told him that I would visit him later on in the week. I looked forward to seeing him again to engage in our intellectual debate on Nigeria. Unfortunately, that was not to be the case.

The following day, 25th of November 2010, he fell sick and was rushed to the hospital and died on the 4th of December 2010.

This article is dedicated to the memory of Mr. Abraham Obasola Soyoye.

Introduction

On 1st October 2010, which marked the 50th anniversary of the coronation of King Adeniji of Naija, Adeniji began reflecting on his life and his Kingdom. He therefore decided to write a book detailing his perspective on the meaning, purpose and implication of life in Nigeria.

Reflections:

Here are his reflections:

The words of King Adeniji, son of Chukwuemeka and the grandson of Danladi:

Vanity of vanities, says the King, vanity of vanities, all is vanity. Absolutely meaningless!

What do people get for all their dishonesty? What do people get for all their powerful connections? What do people get for all their ill-gotten wealth? What do people get for all their wickedness? Absolutely nothing. No matter how much they steal, they are never satisfied. No matter how many people they oppress, they are never satisfied. No matter how much wealth they acquire, they are never satisfied.

Generations come and go doing the same evil things, but nothing ever seems to change in Nigeria. History just repeats itself.  Politicians of the sixties and seventies are still recycling themselves and their children in the 21st century. In the mid-nineties we had bank CEO’s and other executives defrauding depositors to the tune of millions of Naira; now in 2010, bank CEO’s are defrauding depositors to the tune of billions of Naira. Nothing changes. Selah

Lift up your heads, O you gates; be lifted up, you ancient doors that the King of glory may come in. Who is this King of glory? The LORD strong and mighty, the LORD mighty in battle.

I am Adeniji, the King of Naija and I live in Laguja. I have spent the last couple of years seeking to understand and explore the country Nigeria. I later realized that the poor masses of Nigeria are gradually being tragically trampled to extinction. I observed the rich getting richer, the mighty getting mightier, while the poor were getting poorer and the sick getting sicker. It is all meaningless.  In your mercy Lord, hear our prayers.

I said to myself, “Look, I am more popular than any other Nigerian, living or dead.  I have more wives than any other Nigerian. I own the largest bank in Africa both in terms of assets and depositor’s funds; I own houses in London, Dubai, Johannesburg and New York. So I set to acquire more for myself, but I soon discovered later in life that chasing all these was meaningless. Selah

I undertook great projects: I bought five refineries and twenty oil blocks, I spread my bank’s network across 26 other countries in Africa and acquired two branches in New York and London. I even siphoned the depositor’s funds of my banks to my personal account. I married 50 additional wives and I had at my beck and call, 1,000 of the most beautiful girls in the various universities around the country. I bought the latest cars and acquired 4 private jets in addition to tones of silver, gold and diamonds. I collected 125 chieftaincy titles. I became richer, more powerful, more connected than any other Nigerian living or dead. I denied myself nothing my eyes desired.

Yet, when I looked at all that I had bought, acquired, stolen and misappropriated, everything was meaningless, everything was not worth the effort; everything was like chasing the wind. Vanity upon vanity, all is vanity.

So I hated life itself, because all the wealth that I had acquired was injurious to my neighbours and me.

Woe unto him that builds his house by unrighteousness, and his chambers by injustice; that uses his neighbour’s service without wages, and gives him nothing for his work. Selah

A Time for Everything

There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens:

There is a time for colonization and a time for independence;

There is a time for civil war and a time for peace;

There is a time for military rule and a time for civilian rule;

There is a time for FEDECO and a time for INEC;

There is a time for FESTAC and a time for SAP;

There is a time for oil boom and a time for financial crisis;

There is a time for indiscipline and a time for WAI;

There is a time for election rigging and a time for election tribunal;

There is a time for AFRC and a time for the National Assembly;

There is a time for June 12 and a time for May 29;

There is a time for Boko Haram and a time for MEND;

There is a time for MASSOB and a time for OPC;

There is a time to defraud depositors and a time to face EFCC;

There is a time for Sunny Ade and a time for Fela;

There is a time for the rich and a time for the poor;

There is a time for generators and a time for NEPA;

There is a time for the oil majors and a time for the Ogoni people;

There is a time for the North and a time for the South;

There is a time for petrol scarcity and a time for diesel scarcity;

There is a time to steal and a time to be caught;

There is a time for suffering and a time for smiling.

Injustice

And I saw something under the sun:

In the place of fairness- unfairness was there

In the place of justice- injustice was there

I saw the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer. Life is unfair;

I saw the legislators handsomely rewarded at the expense of hardworking taxpayer’s. Life is unfair;

I saw the masses suffer from the deteriorating healthcare system, while the rich and connected sought medical treatment from world-class hospitals outside of the country. Life is unfair;

I saw the children of the masses experience school closures, lecturers strikes and cult violence, while the children of the wealthy and connected experienced the benefits of private education and education in world class institutions outside the country. Life is unfair;

I saw millions of graduates struggle to get jobs, while the wealthy, powerful and connected got their children and family members the best jobs in the land. Life is unfair;

I saw a man who stole =N=10,000 jailed for ten years, while a banker who stole billions of Naira jailed for less than a year. Life is unfair;

I saw the CEO of big businesses being paid 170 times the average wages of the workers. Life is unfair;

I saw the masses who could not afford three square meals a day, whereas a minority segment of the population could afford to buy imported cereals from the supermarket at the cost of =N=900 per packet. Life is unfair;

I saw the drivers, housemaids and security guards of the rich and mighty treated as lesser human beings by their masters. Life is unfair;

I saw the wealth of the nation shared among a select few rather than spread around for the benefit of the masses. Life is unfair;

I saw the honest people working hard and having nothing to show for their hard work and honesty, while the corrupt, the wicked and the dishonest had plenty to boast about. Life is unfair;

I saw the pastors acquire jets, while members of the congregation struggled to enter into ‘molues’ to get to church. Life is unfair.

I then said to myself, “This is all meaningless. God will bring into judgment both the corrupt and the honest; the rich and the poor; the oppressor and the oppressed; the exploiter and the exploited; the master and the servant, for there will be a time for every activity, a time to judge every deed.” Selah.

Again I looked and saw all the oppression that was taking place under the sun:

I saw the tears of the oppressed and they had no comforter

I saw the tears of Dimeji whose sick father (in a state of coma) fell from his hospital bed due to the deplorable condition of the Nigerian health sector. Dimeji had no comforter;

I saw the tears of Chioma who could not realize her dream of becoming a medical doctor in 2010 due to an ASUU strike resulting from the diversion of school funds by state governments. Chioma had no comforter;

I saw the tears of Mr. and Mrs. Awuzie. Mr. Awuzie had recently retired and used his gratuity to invest in the shares of a large bank based in Lagos. Likewise, Mrs. Awuzie deposited her life savings into the same bank. Unfortunately for them, the CEO and other executives of the bank used the proceeds from the bank’s IPO in addition to depositor’s funds to fund their extravagant lifestyle. Eventually, the bank went into liquidation and Mr. and Mrs. Awuzie lost their pension and life savings. Mr. and Mrs. Awuzie had no comforter;

I saw the tears of the families of the 17,000 people that have died in 31,000 road accidents between 2007 and 2009. Most of these accidents have occurred due to poor road maintenance and apathy on the part of government. The families of the dead had no comforter;

I saw the tears of Ken from Bayelsa State who is undergoing treatment for lung cancer caused by the continuous flaring of gas by the international oil companies. The doctors have told him that he has only six months to live. Ken had no comforter.

And I declared that the dead, who had already died, are happier than the living, who are still alive. But better than both is the one, who has never been born, who has not seen the evil that is done in the land. Selah

Awake, awake, O Naija, clothe yourself with strength. Put on your garments of splendor, O Laguja, the great city, for unclean and evil people will enter your gates no longer.

Where does the wealth go?

What happens to the people for all their hard work under the sun? What happens to the riches amassed under the sun? What happens to the loot stolen under the sun? We all come to the end of our lives as naked and empty-handed as on the day we were born. We can’t take our riches with us.

Then I asked myself “So I can’t take my wealth and influence with me to the grave when I die?” I then heard a voice telling me that:

“All your mansions will be left behind because when you die you cannot take them with you to the grave”;

“All your wives and lovely girlfriends will be left behind because when you die you cannot take them with you to the grave”;

“All your investments in commodities, shares and bonds diversified all around the world will be left behind because when you die you cannot take them with you to the grave”;

“All your rich friends, club members and influential friends and contacts will be left behind because when you die you cannot take them with you to the grave”;

“All your Dollars, Sterling, Euro and Rand will be left behind because when you die you cannot take them with you to the grave”

Whoever loves wealth never has enough; whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with their income. This too is meaningless. Surely, the love of money is the root of all evil.

THIS IS TERRIBLE!!! Selah.

Words of Wisdom

A good name is better than ill-gotten silver, gold and diamond.

It is better to go into the house of the honest than feast in the house of the corrupt.

For what shall it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his soul?

The heart of the wise is in the house of the content, but the heart of the fool is in the house of the greedy.

Extortion turns a wise person into a fool, and a bribe corrupts the heart.

The sleep of a corrupt man is full of nightmares, twisting and turning, but the sleep of the honest is peaceful.

Every day for the greedy politician, but one day for the masses and taxpayers.

Many are the afflictions of the oppressed, but in due season the oppressor will compensate the oppressed ten fold.

The friends of the corrupt are like a house built on sand, they disappear at the first sign of misfortune, but the friends of the honest remain forever.

Just as the corrupt thinks he has gotten away with his misdeed, destruction welcomes him around the corner with open arms.

The Conclusion of the Matter

So I reflected on all this and concluded that:

The race is not to him that steals the most

or the victory to the corrupt,

nor does happiness come to the wealthy

or prosperity to the dishonest

or favor to the connected;

but in due season, we shall all reap what we sow.

For Naija’s sake I will not keep silent. For Laguja’s sake I will not remain quiet, till her righteousness shines out like the dawn, her salvation like a blazing torch.

That’s the whole story. Here now is my final conclusion: Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul and mind and love your neighbour as yourself. Also, fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the duty of all mankind. For God will bring every deed into judgment, including every hidden thing, whether it is good or evil. Selah.

Ahmed Sule, CFA

suleaos@gmail.com

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by Ahmed Olayinka Sule on December 15, 2010  •  Permalink
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Posted by Ahmed Olayinka Sule on December 15, 2010

https://zangodare.wordpress.com/2010/12/15/ecclesiastes/

It’s Time The Nigerian Society Changes Its PREJUDICES Towards The Unmarried

It’s Time The Nigerian Society Changes Its Prejudices Towards The Unmarried

By Ahmed Olayinka Sule, CFA

Main Entry: 1prej·u·dice

Pronunciation: \ˈpre-jə-dəs\

Function: noun

1: injury or damage resulting from some judgment or action of another in disregard of one’s rights; especially: detriment to one’s legal rights or claims

2a (1) : preconceived judgment or opinion (2) : an adverse opinion or leaning formed without just grounds or before sufficient knowledge

b : an instance of such judgment or opinion

c : an irrational attitude of hostility directed against an individual, a group, a race, or their supposed characteristics

Synonyms: animosity, antipathy, apartheid, aversion, bad opinion, bias, bigotry, contemptuousness, detriment, discrimination, disgust, dislike, displeasure, disrelish, enmity, foregone conclusion, injustice, mindset, misjudgment, narrow-mindedness, one-sidedness, partiality, preconceived notion, preconception, prejudgment, prepossession, repugnance, revulsion, spleen, til, umbrage, unfairness.

Fellow Citizens,

The above extract obtained from a dictionary details the meaning and synonyms of the word PREJUDICE. The term prejudice often has different meanings to different people in different parts of the world. In most parts of the world the term prejudice is associated with a preconception against a person or a group of people on the basis of race, age, disability, religion or gender. Within the Nigerian context, prejudice predominately occurs in relation to a preconception against a person or a group of people on the basis of their tribe.

In this article, rather than focus on the tribal prejudices prevalent in Nigeria, I will be discussing another form of prejudice, which though prevalent, is rarely discussed in our society. The prejudice that I will be discussing is the prejudicial attitudes towards the unmarried.

This form of prejudice affects a cross section of Nigerians including male and female; young and old; rich and poor; Muslims and Christians; Nigerians at home and in Diaspora; members of the Yoruba, Igbo, Hausa, Urhobo and the remaining 246 tribes in the country.

Before going further I would like to define the terms “Nigerian society” and “unmarried”. For the purpose of this article, the term ‘Nigerian society’ refers to (1) the Nigerian community based in Nigeria and (2) the Nigerian community in Diaspora.

The word “unmarried” refers to a male or female above the age of 24 years of age who is not married or has no spouse.

While I appreciate that, not every member of the Nigerian society discriminates against the unmarried, I still have an obligation to write this open letter to the Nigerian society to highlight these prejudices.

This letter is specifically addressed to the following segments of the Nigerian society: It is addressed to parents and relatives of the unmarried, who often place undue pressure and sometimes subject the unmarried to psychological torture and mental abuse; It is addressed to policymakers to highlight the causes and impact of the prejudicial attitudes inflicted on the unmarried and it calls on policymakers to implement policies to discourage these prejudices; It is addressed to religious leaders to highlight how some of their actions towards the unmarried, though sincere, could be construed to be discriminatory and how their actions incite others to be prejudiced towards the unmarried. It is addressed to the married segment of our society to educate them as to  why no stigma should be attached to the unmarried. It is also written to raise awareness of how the actions of a number of married people cause mental anguish on the unmarried. It is also written to encourage the unmarried.

Classification

The unmarried segment in  Nigerian society can be classified into two categories, namely gender and age categories. Within the gender category there are two sub-categories i.e. the unmarried male group and the female unmarried group. Similarly, the age category has two sub-categories comprising of the under thirties unmarried group and the over thirties unmarried group.

Age Category
<30 years >30 years
Gender Category Male Experience little or no prejudice Experience minor prejudices: if age >35 years
Female Experience little or no prejudice:If age is below 25 years and/or person is still in a tertiary institution 

Experience slightly aggressive

prejudice:

If age  >25  <30

 Experience excessiveprejudice, bullying and 

harassment

The above table details the two categories and sub-categories of unmarried people and the severity of prejudicial attacks inflicted on them. From the table it can be seen that relative to their female counterparts the bachelors are fairly treated by society. Even though bachelors older than 35 years of age sometimes experience prejudicial abuses, it is still modest in comparison to the prejudices inflicted on their unmarried females counterparts.

For the unmarried females, the reverse is the case.  Once they reach the age of thirty the prejudicial attacks become excessive, unbearable and ridiculous. Furthermore, the more successful an unmarried lady becomes, the more likely she becomes a target for insults, mockery and gossip.

Factors Contributing To Prejudices Towards the Unmarried

This section explores the factors that contribute to the prejudices inflicted upon the unmarried. There are five possible causes: cultural factors, ignorance, low self-esteem, societal pressure and religious factors.

Cultural: In Nigerian society it is often considered a taboo for a lady to be over thirty years of age and unmarried. This could be partly due to the way women were viewed in the past. They were once regarded as chattels with roles restricted to cooking, assisting with farm work and ‘producing or manufacturing’ babies. Though times have changed since then, ladies are still sometimes seen in that light. Consequently an unmarried lady above the age of thirty is often regarded by society as, wasting her potentials, as she is not in her husband’s home cooking and ‘manufacturing’ babies. As a result she could be regarded as a failure and a menace to society for debasing womanhood.

Some may say, “Why bother to speak on something that is ingrained in our culture?” In response I would say that just because something is culturally acceptable does not mean it is right. Cultural influences can be divided into good cultural influences and bad cultural influences. While I am in support of positive cultural practices, I strongly believe that negative cultural practices should be discontinued.

Ignorance: A major contributory factor  towards  societies prejudice regarding  the unmarried, is ignorance. Some people may argue that they are not being prejudiced but are more likely  being sincere in showing their concern. For such line of reasoning Martin Luther King’s statement comes in handy: “Nothing in the world is more dangerous than a sincere ignorance”.

A number of people have a preconceived notion that a person who in their own estimation should be married and is not, has a problem. For a single lady it is not uncommon to hear people attribute reasons for her spinsterhood.  Some tend to argue that she is wayward and as a result no man wants to marry her; others tend to reason that she is arrogant and thinks the world of herself; some tend to suggest that it is because she is too educated or that she has carried out numerous abortions. In contrast, for a guy, some people assume that he is either impotent, a eunuch or a member of a cult.

Low Self Esteem: Another likely contributor is the low self-esteem on the part of some members of the married segment of our society. Sometimes, people get their validation from their married status. They often feel that being married is a badge of honour that entitles them to be a member of an ‘elite club’. As a result, when they encounter an unmarried colleague, friend or relative who they feel should be married, the first action  they take  is to put the person down by suggesting that he or she has a problem and should therefore join the ’married elite’ in order to solve the problem.  Unfortunately, a number of people in our society do not feel accomplished until they have got a wedding ring on their left finger.

Societal Pressure: Unmarried ladies in Nigeria are often subjected to direct and indirect emotional and psychological abuse via societal pressure. As a result of the cultural issues discussed earlier, people who are connected to the unmarried such as parents, siblings, relatives and friends, sometimes act as hoses that sprinkle the prejudicial ‘water’ on those ‘unfortunate’ not to be married.  When parents of the unmarried go out to parties or interact with friends they are often barraged with questions such as “When is your daughter going to get married?” “What efforts are you putting in place to make sure that your daughter marries?”; “Don’t you realize that your daughter is not getting any younger”. Consequently, when the parents see their unmarried daughter they often put undue pressure on these ladies telling them that they are bringing shame to the family.

Religion: Unfortunately, religious institutions are not immune from being used as instruments of prejudicial attacks on the unmarried. The actions of a number of religious leaders have contributed to an atmosphere that exacerbates prejudiced attacks on the unmarried.

For instance, the prevalence of ‘single’ fellowship, though sincere, has sometimes created situations whereby the unmarried are treated like second-class citizens. The unmarried in the church are sometimes isolated resulting in less interaction with the married segment of the church. This separation sometimes creates room for suspicion leading to some insecure married ladies believing that the ‘second-class’ unmarried ladies are out to ‘snatch’ their husbands. If this marital apartheid is not managed well the church can become a two-tier institution with an elite married group and a second-class ‘singles’ group.

Furthermore, some pastors are known to suggest that unmarried people above the age of 30 have problems. I recollect an instance whereby a pastor was informed of a guy in his late thirties who was not married and the pastor’s response was “Well if he is not married at that age, then he has a problem”.  Pastors sometimes suggest that a ‘spirit wife’ or ‘spirit husband’ possesses these unmarried men and ladies.  Others hint witchcraft as a possible cause for their singleness. The unmarried are then pressurized to engage in deliverance programs in order to exorcise the ‘demon of singleness’.

A Hypothetical Example

The life of an unmarried lady in a typical Nigerian setting is often marked with sorrow, tears and blood, especially if she happens to be successful, well educated and over 30 years of age. This section details the tragic hypothetical story of a 38-year old lady by the name of Miss Chioma Hauwa Adedeji.

Chioma is a beautiful highflying Corporate Financier working in a leading bank in Lagos. She holds a first class degree in Economics from University of Lagos and has a PhD in Financial Engineering from an Ivy League university in addition to two Masters degrees in Econometrics and Business Administration.

When Chioma was a little girl, she usually overheard her parent’s discussions about her unmarried 34-year-old aunty called Bisi. The 7-year-old Chioma would listen to her parents talk about how Bisi had become the ridicule of the family because she was not married. Whenever Aunty Bisi came to visit the Adedeji’s a sizable amount of time was spent with Chioma’s parents scolding Bisi because of her unmarried status. As a result of the never-ending attacks Aunty Bisi stopped visiting the Adedeji’s. Upon witnessing Aunty Bisi’s dilemma little Chioma was determined to get married at an early age  to avoid the harassment experienced by Aunty Bisi.

Eight years later Chioma, an extremely intelligent and confident girl, gained admission into University of Lagos to study economics. Her parents and the rest of the extended family were so proud of Chioma’s accomplishment as she was the youngest Nigerian to gain admission into a higher institution in that academic year.

Chioma was the envy of her schoolmates, cousins and other family members. Four years later, at the age of 19, she graduated top of her class with a first class degree in economics and was the best graduating student in the whole university. During the next six years she completed two Masters degrees and held a number of senior positions in various financial institutions in Lagos and Abuja. By the age of twenty-five Chioma had become a role model for many people and everyone looked up to her. Life could not have been sweeter for Chioma. However, that all changed for Chioma on her 26th birthday.

One Saturday morning on the 25th of September Chioma was woken up by a knock on her bedroom door. Her dad and mum stepped into the bedroom and after wishing her a happy birthday they told her that they wanted to have a long chat. They then told Chioma that it was time for her to settle down and get married. “You have read enough and we think you should stop further studying and discontinue driving your flashy car as it would repel potential suitors away” the mother said. Chioma, who was in tears, was told how she had now become a reproach to the family as a result of her unmarried status.

These types of discussions became a weekly and annual event up to her 30th birthday. On Chioma’s 30th birthday her parents once again scolded her, this time however, the psychological torture became more intense. She was told that she is not getting younger and that her ‘biological clock was ticking’. Her parents warned her that if she was not married by her next birthday she should leave the house as the mere sight of her made them sick. As she was undergoing this psychological torture from her parents her phone rang. Looking at the incoming call details on her mobile phone Chioma saw it was her grandmother calling. Chioma answered the call from her grandmother who called to wish Chioma a happy birthday. After exchanging pleasantries the grandmother also scolded her for not getting married. “I need to see my great grand child before I die, so please get married, ” said the grand mum “my back is itching me, I need to carry my great grandchild on my back”.

After this discussion with her parents and grandmother Chioma realized that she was now following the path that Aunty Bisi passed through twenty-three year earlier.  At this point Chioma’s immunity against the continuous prejudicial attack was finally broken. Consequently, the following week after her 30th birthday, Chioma left the house and rented her own apartment in Victoria Island.

If Chioma thought that leaving home would be the solution she was in for a rude shock as her friends took over the baton from her parents. Her so-called friends constantly reminded her that, by living on her own, she had reduced her chances of finding a suitor as she had become ‘too independent’. Her married friends mocked her saying words that gave Chioma sleepless nights. She constantly listened to insults like  “ Better get married soon, or do you want my children to be calling you aunty”; “If care is not taken, my daughter who is 2 years old may get married before you”; “Look at where your education has taken you to, you can’t even find a decent man to marry”; “You are not getting any younger, look into the mirror and you will see that you have wrinkles all over your face“; “Which man in his right senses would want to marry an expired woman like you?”

Like Hannah in the scriptures, who was constantly mocked by Peninnah, Chioma was constantly provoked and mocked by her friends. After some time Chioma’s married friends stopped associating with her for fear that the unmarried Chioma could end up taking their husbands.

Feeling frustrated, Chioma went to the House of the Lord to seek refuge. Unfortunately for her, Pastor James (the pastor in charge of Chioma’s church) and his wife Felicia, took over from where Chioma’s friend’s had left.

Ignoring the teachings and life of Jesus, which is full of love, compassion and reconciliation, Pastors James and Felicia opted to mock Chioma and make her feel insecure. “You are possessed with the demon of a spirit husband,” they said “otherwise, how can one explain a beautiful, intelligent and confident lady like you not finding a man, when lesser qualified and intelligent ladies are in their husband’s home.”

Feeling abandoned by family, friends and colleagues, a frustrated, depressed and emotionally ruined Chioma left her apartment on 31 December and drove to the Third Mainland Bridge. Suddenly, she stopped the car in the middle of the bridge. With tears steaming down her face Chioma got out of her car and jumped into the river.

When the police arrived at the scene they found a suicide note written by Chioma which read:

Dear Dad, Mum, Relatives and Friends,

By the time you read this letter, I will be FREE.

Free from hurt; Free from pain; Free from sorrow; Free from hate; Free from bondage; Free from your constant harassment; Free from seeing you again; Free from your prejudices.

I AM FREE; I AM FREE; I AM FREE.

Though Chioma’s story is hypothetical, many unmarried ladies in our society would have experienced similar prejudices at some point in their lives.

My experience

If some of you still think that the hypothetical story of Chioma is an isolated case, or that men are not subjected to these prejudices, then I will give you an example from my own personal experience.

In March last year , my wonderful and lovely mother died. As I was in the UK I had to rush over to Nigeria for her burial. Shortly after I paid my last respects and just after my mother was buried, some so-called relatives and family friends, rather than comfort me, chose to use the occasion of my mum’s burial to question me on my marital status.

These people, who were more bothered with my marital status than my mums death, asked “Why are you not married?”;  “When are you getting married?” Others, went to my siblings asking, “When is Ahmed getting married?”; “We want to attend Ahmed’s wedding”.

Even though I found the attitude of these people shocking, their prejudice was still child’s play compared to what was to come later. A couple of days after my mums burial two other people came over to me at different times saying “Ahmed, perhaps the cause of your mothers death could have been because you are not yet married”.

From my experience and that of Chioma and millions of other unmarried Nigerians, one can see how prejudiced our community could be towards the unmarried.

Impact of the Prejudices

The continual prejudicial attacks on the unmarried segment of our society has several effects including: incompatible marriages,  restrained relationships and psychological impact.

Incompatible Marriages: Due to the societal pressure to join the ‘elite marriage club’, a number of unmarried people are pressurized into getting married in order to stop the flow of prejudices. Consequently, they enter into marriage for the wrong motives. In other instances the unmarried sometimes end up marrying people who they are not compatible with. Furthermore, the other party could take advantage of the desperation of his/her spouse.

A number of people have entered into marriages from hell and ended up with spouses that abuse them, not only mentally, but also physically. Could this societal prejudice, which often pushes people into marriage for the wrong reasons, be a contributory factor for the increasing trend of marital breakdown in our society today?

Restrained Relationship: Another consequence of our continued prejudices to the unmarried is a breakdown in relationships. From Chioma’s story one can see the tension these prejudices cause. It has often resulted in breakdowns in relationships between mothers and daughters, sons and fathers, aunties and nieces, pastors/imams and congregation members etc. Once these relationships breakdown it sometimes takes years to restore. In other instances these relationships are never restored.

Psychological Impact: One damaging impact of societal prejudice towards the unmarried is the psychological impact on the victims. While the oppressors might think they are acting out of love or genuine concern, they fail to realize the emotional pain they inflict on the oppressed party. Some unmarried people have found these prejudices psychologically dehumanising and have developed a number of disorders like depression, insomnia, fatigue etc.

Human Rights

Article 5 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that “No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment”. Likewise, section 34 of the Nigerian Constitution states that “Every individual is entitled to respect for the dignity of his/her person”. Furthermore, Article 5 of the African Charter On Human And People’s Rights (which Nigeria has signed and ratified) stipulates, “Every individual shall have the right to the respect of the dignity inherent in a human being.”

The prejudices faced by the unmarried in our society is not only an issue of injustice and unnecessary interference, it is also a breach of their human rights. When a person is treated as an outcast because he is unmarried; when a person is subjected to ridicule because she is unmarried; when people face psychological torture, emotional hurt and mental anguish because they are unmarried, it is then time for men and women of conscience to stand up and say “enough is enough”.

As Nigeria is a member state of the United Nations and African Union, it has an obligation to promote and protect human rights as stated in the above-mentioned Human Rights declarations. It is therefore imperative for the government to look into these prejudicial attacks on the unmarried and implement policies to stop this gross abuse of people’s human rights.

I also implore the United Nations Commission on Human Rights to work in conjunction with policy makers and NGO’s in Nigeria with a view to putting an end to these prejudices.

The Way forward

Having highlighted examples, impact and causes of prejudicial attacks on the unmarried segment of the Nigerian society, this section discusses steps that should be taken to address the high incidence of discrimination towards the unmarried in our society. A lasting solution would require the input of government, parents, married and unmarried people, religious leaders etc.

As explained earlier, government has a role to play in discouraging these abuses. Government and other NGO’s could implement public enlightenment campaigns to educate the populace on the ills of its prejudicial treatment towards the unmarried. Legislation could be put in place to make it illegal to discriminate against anyone on the basis of his or her martial status. NGO’s and government could also set up centres to provide support and counseling for victims of prejudicial attacks.

Religious leaders should be more open-minded towards unmarried people. Rather than embarrass them for their unmarried status they should show love. The discriminatory practices in a number of religious organizations should be discontinued. Religious leaders could present a more balanced view of singleness rather than presenting the asymmetric view that prevails in a number of religious organizations.

Parents need to show more love and tolerance towards their unmarried children. Furthermore, they should not bow to societal pressure and should not make life miserable for their children. If parents are subjected to pressure from extended family members they should rebuke them and tell them not to interfere in their domestic affair. Extended family members should learn to be less intrusive and stop assuming that there is a stigma attached to singleness.

The married segment of our society should not forget that they were once unmarried. They might need to ask themselves the question of how they would have felt if someone was prejudiced against them when they were unmarried. They should understand that being unmarried is not a disease, curse or taboo.

For the unmarried my message to you is that you should not let anybody strip you of your dignity just because of your marital status. Remember,  there is a time for everything. Being unmarried offers you the chance to discover yourself and do things, which are more difficult to achieve while married. My advice is that you should not let anyone rush you into marriage because of their prejudices; rather take your time in ensuring that you find the right person. Also, the unmarried should learn to celebrate their singleness, rather than despise it.

Clarification

For those that may suggest that I oppose the institution of marriage, I would like to lay down six declarations:

  • I strongly believe in the institution of marriage.
  • I strongly believe that the benefits of marriage far outweigh any demerits.
  • I strongly believe that God is the author of marriage.

However,

  • I also believe that it is not a sin to be unmarried.
  • I also believe that there should be no stigma attached to any unmarried person.
  • I also believe that unmarried people, especially unmarried ladies over the age of thirty, deserve to be treated by society as human beings.

Conclusion

What should men and women of conscience, who are concerned about the societies prejudicial attitude towards the unmarried, do? I appeal to these men and women to take a stand against the gross injustice prevalent in our society. If they notice any instance of prejudicial attack against the unmarried I implore them to speak up.

Some of you men and women of conscience may want to make a change but a voice could be telling you, “my voice is inconsequential and cannot make a difference.” Please remember, that throughout history, change has come from the minority segment of society whose lone voices overwhelmed the prevailing voices supporting the status quo. Mary Slessor’s voice was a lone voice speaking against the ills of the slaying of twins, when the prevailing voices believed that the birth of twins was an evil sign; Martin Luther’s voice was a lone voice speaking against the corruption and excesses of the church leadership, when the prevailing voices supported the exploitation of the congregation; Mohammed Ali’s voice was a lone voice speaking against the unjust war in Vietnam, when the prevailing voices justified the war in Vietnam; Fela’s voice was a lone voice singing and protesting about the oppression of the masses, when the prevailing voices sang praises for the rich , affluent and famous.

President Obama put it right  when he said:

“One voice can change a room, and if one voice can change a room,

then it can change a city, and if it can change a city,

it can change a state, and if it change a state,

it can change a nation, and if it can change a nation,

it can change the world. Your voice can change the world”.

In conclusion, I would like to rephrase what Martin Luther Kings said over 45 years ago:

I long for Nigeria to be a nation in which people would not be judged by whether they are married or not married, but by the content of their character.

Regards

Ahmed Olayinka Sule, CFA

suleaos@gmail.com

Appendix 1

Shown below is a list of some of the Human Rights champions that have been copied in this letter.

Ms. Ayo Obe
Pastor Tunde Bakare
Mr. Femi Falana
Civil Liberties Organization
Professor Wole Shoyinka
Mr. Olisa Agbakoba, SAN
Ms. Hafsat Abiola-Costello
Kudirat Initiative for Democracy
National Human Rights Commission
Committee for the Defence of Human Rights- Nigeria
Ms. Hauwa Ibrahim

Appendix 2

List of other people and institutions copied

Moments with Mo
Ms. Funmi Iyanda
Minister of Women Affairs
Christian Association of Nigeria
Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria
African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights
Nigeria Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs
Ms. Modupe Ozolua
United Nations Human Rights Council
United Nations Development Fund for Women
Ms. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

10 Comments
by Ahmed Olayinka Sule on October 23, 2010  •  Permalink
Posted in 9ja, Social justice
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Posted by Ahmed Olayinka Sule on October 23, 2010

https://zangodare.wordpress.com/2010/10/23/prejudice/