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The State of the Nigerian Nation: The London Symposium

July 3, 2009

Image removed.Dateline: London, May 29, 2009-On May 29, 2009, the Nigeria Liberty Forum, a United Kingdom-based pro-democracy and civil rights organization, marked Nigeria’s Democracy Day by organizing a well-publicized symposium entitled ‘The State of the Nigerian Nation’.  Invited speakers included the Nobel-winning writer, Wole Soyinka, lawyer and activist Femi Falana, former EFCC chairman Mallam Nuhu Ribadu, Saharareporters.com’s founder Omoyele Sowore, writer and academic Okey Ndibe, and Prof. Sola Adeyeye, a former member of the House of Representatives. 


Mr. Femi Falana focused on the “limitations of electoral reforms in Nigeria.’  Speaking without a script, he declared that unless Nigerians rose up to fight for their own votes, the fate of the nation would continue to be decided by those who did not have the interest of the country at heart.

He said he had lost confidence in the ballot box in Nigeria.  “If it is about contesting elections in Nigeria, the PDP has sworn to capture power for 60 years” he said, enjoining Nigerians in the Diaspora to lead the fight for the sanctity of the ballot box.

On rebranding, Mr. Falana told the audience: “Those who are “rebranding” Nigeria view it as a commodity with a price tag, as you are stealing to acquire a property in Nigeria or New York. Those that steal in Nigeria believe that the country is a commodity to be stolen for the highest bidder to buy. Rebranding was devised in secret by those who think the country is already gone.”

He mocked the government for wanting President Obama to “come and genuflect in Nigeria.” According to him, if Obama did not go to Kenya, where he is from and where the Kikuyu are still withholding results of the Presidential elections in 2007, why would he come to Nigeria?”Image removed.

He described the country as experiencing a “tragedy,” and observed that outside of the country had a better chance of rebuilding the country because of their exposure. “The task before us is not to bemoan our fate,” he cautioned, but to push our country out of the decadence that those who are trying to rebrand it have put it us through.”

Okey Ndibe reminded Nigerians in the diaspora of the need to develop a long memory about the wrongs perpetrated by their leaders, and challenged the audience to cultivate the habit of moral resistance to impunity. He noted that, as a personal example, he has refused to address Umaru Yar’adua as president, “since I’m convinced that Nigerians deserve the right to have their votes count – and Yar’adua did not emerge from a credible election.”

In his keynote speech, Professor Wole Soyinka spoke on the habit of African countries that design their own Democracy Day. He joked that Zimbabweans must celebrate the day Mugabe got married or rigged himself to power as a Democracy Day, or that Ugandans once celebrated Idi Amin. There was a time Cambodians had to celebrate the day Pol Pot massacred his own people. He mentioned Charles Taylor of Liberia who sought refuge in Nigeria for war crimes, but is now being prosecuted in the Hague for war crimes. He decried the unresolved murder cases in Nigeria, especially that of Nigeria’s former Attorney-General, Mr. Bola Ige, whose killers are still in the corridors of power. He insisted that certain people knew who killed Ige but nothing has been done about the information they possess.

Furthermore, Professor Soyinka questioned the reasons Nigerians should celebrate. He listed the following as reasons why we should not celebrate: the Nigerian government tried to stop Soyinka from speaking to Nigerians, the Yar’adua Presidency was a series of missed opportunities, an era of darkness in Nigerian politics, a period of multiple political assassinations. Given the dire state of Nigeria, Soyinka wondered why Nigerians should celebrate at all. He argued that there was more the civil society could do – including working to bring bad leaders to trial. Finally, he enjoined Nigerians abroad to mobilize and return to Nigeria en masse to vote and ensure that their votes are counted. His speech has not been released on the Internet.

Mallam Nuhu Ribadu, the former chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, spoke on the need for unity between Africans, and for working towards providing for our children and the generations to come.  He implored Nigerians to work together to establish “the kind of society we want.” He insisted that corruption was more widely-spread in Nigeria than previously thought, and that that misappropriation of funds should be seen as corruption.

Sounding emotional, he rejected claims that he was a tool in the hands of the former President Olusegun Obasanjo, and insisted he did his job to the best of his ability. It was Ribadu’s first time in public and most of what he said were socialist in nature and had little or nothing to do with his time as the anti-graft czar.

A member of the European Parliament representing London, Jean Lambert, also addressed the audience.  She called for stronger ties between the European Union, civil societies and Nigeria, in the fight against corruption.

In his opening statement, the convener of the symposium, and leader of the NLF, Mr Kayode Ogundamisi, lamented the present state of the Nigerian nation.  It was his group that successfully picketed the London School of Economics appearance of the former President of Nigeria, Olusegun Obasanjo, last February.

Ogundamisi noted that the Nigerian populace had been denied access to basic amenities, and that 10 years of bad governance and leadership has worsened the lot of the average Nigerian. He deplored the use of fraud to entrench a power-greedy PDP government. “We have had Democracy Day with all its fanfare, but what has happened to democracy? Does anyone believe that if we had democracy, anyone would vote for the current situation? Hospitals without medicine, schools without books, taps without water and bellies without food.’ He urged all Nigerians to say, “Enough is enough.Image removed.

In view of the fact that the NLF has been accused of being a militant, pessimistic organization with nothing to bring to the table concerning the way forward, Ogundamisi called on Nigerians to adopt an activist culture: “a sustainable culture of strong electoral activism.”

He said: “We must review the last five decades and remember the dreams of our forefathers Chief Obafemi Awolowo, Dr. Nnamdi Azikwe, Sir Abubakir Tafawa Balewa, Jaja Wachuku.” He insisted that Nigerians must ‘look around us and recognize their potential and re-commence working together to create practical solutions to our problems.

Omoyele Sowore, the publisher of the left wing, anti-graft internet news media, Sahara Reporters, explained that it was the corrupt practices of the Nigerian media and its journalists that led him into journalism. He insisted that his background was in geography and planning, but he was forced to report the news as it was as the Nigerian media had failed the Nigerian people in delivering the truth.

Sowore said that the Nigerian media had a role to perform for posterity purposes. He cited several examples where the Nigerian press would rather cover stories glorifying fraudulent individuals rather than on factual reports. He strongly deplored the Nigerian media for perpetuating the cash-for-story culture. Even though I consider Sahara Reporters is a left wing medium and is sometimes dramatic in its headlines, he insisted that the Nigerian public must demand the truth from the media and that one day the public would stop buying newspapers from those who steal money and use the proceeds of corruption to publish newspapers. He said most Nigerian newspapers are fast losing integrity, and warned that very soon, the people would no longer rely on newspapers for news as citizens are now writing and publishing real news and reports the same way people grow,  cook and serve their own foods.

In his view, the way forward from dodgy reporting was for everybody to show interest in the news and become a news reporter. He remarked that people should follow the I-Reporter technique of CNN, and noted that if Nigerians were blogging, recording and active with their pens and cameras, the government would be forced to re think some of its policies. Sowore was applauded severally during his speech.

The only woman on the panel was Sister Affiong L. Affiiong, who spoke on Pan Africanism. She spoke passionately and at length on the impact of neo-colonialism and on the need for all African states to come together to fight western imperialism and poverty.

The NLF event had gathered a lot of publicity in both the British and Nigerian media.  For some reason, however, it appeared that some people were determined to stop the symposium from taking place.  A reliable source disclosed that the Federal Government of Nigeria had sent seven newsmen to cover the symposium. The Nigerian High Commission was said to have pressured the London Metropolitan University (LMU) in an effort to prevent the NLF from using the university’s premises.  I called the Nigerian Embassy but was unable to reach the High Commissioner to obtain his account. The Information Minister at the Embassy, Mr. Damien Ekpenrendu Agwu, refused to comment, deferring to the absent High Commissioner on the subject. 
I found it strange, however, that while LMU had approved the application of the NLF to use its venue for the event, free of charge, it pulled out of that arrangement with only a few days to go, claiming it had been ignorant of the fact that the  NLF was a politically-controversial  group. Under pressure, with only 48 hours to the event, the NLF had to pay the two thousand pounds being demanded by the London Metropolitan University for the venue, and energetically re-publicize the event, as many people had assumed it was going to be cancelled.

But the hurdles were not over for the NLF.  The day before the event, it was gathered, the NLF faced a lot of unwarranted hostility.  Scheduled to appear on a live broadcast on the BENTV flagship ‘BEN Breakfast Show,’ the programme mysteriously developed technical problems pertaining to the broadcast audio system just as the NLF were due to speak.  That lasted the entirety of the broadcast, prompting suspicions of sabotage. When I inquired from BENTV officials about it, the station’s marketing manager   said, “It was not a sabotage, they experienced a technical glitch’.

Perhaps, but the ‘technical misfortune’ disappeared at the end of the NLF segment.  I later discovered that Alistair Soyode, the proprietor of BENTV, was summoned to the High Commission to explain why the NLF were granted audience in the first place.

Security at the event was tight, and no one was allowed into the venue without a ticket, of which 366 had been issued, and there were random searches. The organizers told I that the security was necessary in order to ensure that the event was glitch free. I counted over 400 people in the auditorium, some of whom had to stand.  Being a working day, many participants had braved a possible loss of income to be present at the event.

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