Nelson Mandela in Jail

Muammar Muhammad Abu Minyar al-Gaddafi, Hero or Villain?

Aaron Ramsey had scored against Manchester United, one nil to the Arsenal...the next day, Bin Laden was declared dead, he was killed by special forces in operation neptune spear. Aaron Ramsey's on the score sheet again against Marseille, one nil to the Arsenal...this time not so special forces lynched Gaddafi to an embarrassing death.

News houses have been busy, from Sky News to Al Jazeera, each struggling to transmit videos of better resolution without success, of how the Colonel was dragged from drainage to last breath. You would never win an argument on whether it was fair or unfair treatment, but you can make a case.

Gaddafi could have been that dictator, and perhaps, also rabied as the mad dog he was advertised to be. With his humanitarian crimes definitely unforgivable, his pro-family styled leadership was surely unacceptable in 2011, it confuted the prospect of representation. The secrets of the Lockerbie Bombing, the La Belle Night Club and countless mayhems have died with him. But are these all that Gaddafi was?

Gaddafi was also a people's man, as a Northern and Arab African, he courted Libya with Black Africa and with bizarre humour, encouraged Arab Libyan Men to marry Black wives and Arab Libyan Women to marry Black husbands. On the continental stage, he was the newest and loudest voice for the United States of Africa, a proposition with a distant hearing, the dreams of Marcus Garvey (if you remember him). For his people, commodity prices have remained one of the lowest in the world, refined oil costs less than bottled water, and we do not forget the water project he christened the eighth wonder of the world. Without the need to prove outstanding intellect, Gaddafi sponsored Libyans to study in European universities, and perhaps in other parts of the developed world. Plus, healthcare was without charge...the list of his magnanimity is in volumes, and no doubt, as voluminous as his malice.

To digress a bit, he made the African Union meetings a little bit of a fashion runway with his colourful regalia...that will be a personal miss. You'd often think he shared Michael Jackson's dressing room when he adorned his military insignia...and with that golden pistol, he reserved some James Bond swagger for the last. Without a doubt, Gaddafi had a special friendship with Madiba, and I wonder what he thinks of all these.

But, the point is, are the celebrations of his ousting in order? May be in Libya, but in sub-saharan Africa, a leader of Gaddafi's stature has long been prayed for. If replicated in sub-saharan Africa, his exuberance weighed against his success would be ignored, in the same way a lousy but successful superstar is tolerated. Every icon, rapper, sportsman or activist is afforded moments of madness. Celebrations of his death in that quarter will either be a delusion or a misinformation, or both. Cost free healthcare, uninterrupted electricity, stable and clean water supply and guaranteed education have not burdened the Libyan people. Granted, the greatest plague of man is the denial of freedom, or democracy in real terms...but man must also learn to listen, to listen to a greater freedom that exceeds institutionalism. In Walter Beverragi's words, democracy and liberalism are the twin evils of modern, decadent society (that most of democratic Africa already is).

Why wasn't Gaddafi rescued by any of the Arab Nations? Could it be because of his defection subsequent to being frustrated that the Arab super power he so pushed for was never supported? Could this be why he was left alone to "shout in the desert" when he needed a friend? But what is certain is that Gaddafi was a smaller Rogue than Idi Amin, a more rabied pup embraced for 24 years in the same zone after killing 300,000, and surprisingly, was never even teased with extradition orders. Whilst the latter called himself "His Excellency, President for Life, Field Marshal Al Hadji Doctor Idi Amin Dada, VC, DSO, MC, Lord of All the Beasts of the Earth and Fishes of the Seas and Conqueror of the British Empire in Africa in General and Uganda in Particular", the former preferred to be only Colonel Gaddafi, long after his peers elevated him to Major General. And while we called him that, he chose the title of "Guide of the Revolution". Simply put, it takes more than dictatorial powers to lead for 42 years and to survive 7 assassination attempts between 1969 and 1998.

Now the new Libya must show to be better without Gaddafi, free healthcare must get even better, as much as free education and an improved living standard. The Libyan people must reject templates for economic and social progress and make of that country what their enthusiasm on TV only suggests. Anything less and Gaddafi will find loud laughter, in heaven or hell. Hero or Villain? The new Libya will answer...and we are watching.

And as you dread Ramsey's next one nil to the Arsenal, I'd be dreading his first hattrick!

iRespect Steve Jobs.

It's been a week of grief with the passing of Steve Jobs. And yes, it's true, many have died for noble causes without a fraction of the recognition Steve has got. But I guess that's what it makes it more noble for them, to affect humanity and die without recognition for me is the highest form of nobility. So this brief article, without regret, joins millions of others to deny Mr. Jobs his already endangered nobility.

First of all, thank you Steve. You didn't just invent things, you created our needs. You earned a fortune for yourself, yes,

but your 7 billion dollars net worth as wikipedia tells me today is wretched by the standards of time. The media tell us that you were not a charitable person, that you scrapped corporate social responsibility schemes at Apple after your second coming. But we know that you lived your private and professional life in secrecy, I can bet £50 that you were a secret giver. All we see are iPods, iPad, iPhones and Macs, and the bills we pay for them. We don't see the millions of people you have enriched, the small app developers in India whose families live on applications they sell through the iPhone. You gave their intelligence a lifeline.

We thought we knew you, but now we think we didn't. Your affinity with Buddhism, the deep meditations in the centre of your life. Your private moments and private battle with cancer, your insight into the future. We didn't know all of these. But the best you could do was inspire us, be assured that you have.

Rest in peace Steve!

Nigeria at 51. Always...always optimistic!

We were born not of fine politics, our nation's birth theatre echoed loud languages, and rued the ruses of "as soon as practicable". The colonial surgeons, by will or pressure, forfeited sweet cocoa in the west of the Niger, wealth beneath the East, and now with nostalgia, pyramids of grains heaped by the commitment of the Hausas in that dusty, audacious landscape. And then to the south, the Atlantic stayed ours, we gazed at the alluring scenery and vessel traffic.

And so we became a nation not of UN resolution, but from the courage of men, the self denial of the Tafawa Balewa of our history, sailing across the oceans through tricky currents of daylight and wild tides of nighttime in the multiethnic and multifaith company of our 100, 200 and 500 Naira faces, himself being only 5 Naira.To London and back in 1957, to London and back again in 1958, the voyage never less perilous, they returned with a constitution, our swaddling documents.

A nation, fresh in breath, Nnamdi Azikiwe-President, Tafawa Balewa-Prime Minister, Nation Building-The Agenda. Forlornly, ethnic factionalism began to pull the handbrake of a toddling state set in brave motion more by character than by scheme...we jerked to 1966, and in the mid days of the first month, the lifeless body of Sir Balewa awaited picking by the roadside near Lagos.And the Sardauna, slain by the stroke of the same coup, both were in unity with older spirits, with the Dan Fodios. In stepped Aguiyi-Ironsi with the suicidal Decree No. 34, with the calendar turning only 7 times, he was shot by the order of Theo, the Jukun Soldier. Not resting on old heads but on the young shoulders of the man trained in Sandhurst, the young nation brazed itself to counter the intentions of Ikemba. For three years, 1967-1970, 3 million armed men and civilians fell to bullets, malnutrition and disease, but Nigeria won and fire ceased. Only 10 years old, the child labour of Reconciliation, Reconstruction, and Rehabilitation beckoned.

60 months later, democracy still procrastinated and Gowon caught offside in Kampala, Radio Nigeria's makeshift presenter voiced:

'Fellow countrymen and women, I, Colonel Joseph Nanven Garba, in consultation with my colleagues, do hereby declare that in view of what has been happening in our country in the past few months, the Nigerian Armed Forces decided to effect a change of the leadership of the Federal Military Government.
As from now, General Yakubu Gowon ceases to be head of the Federal Military Government and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Nigeria. The general public is advised to be calm and to go about their lawful duties'.

With Gowon ousted to Hertfordshire, in came the face of 20 Naira, with "fellow Nigerians" and "with immediate effect" on his lips, and the ammunition against corruption, inflation and gerrymandering. But not for too long, nearing 8 months of popularity, Ramat sipped the bullets of Buka Suka Dimka through Mercedes glass shields. Who stood up? The Balogun of Owu, he promised democracy straightaway and shook the hands of the Turakin Sakkwato on this day in 1979. "One Nation, One Destiny" promised the bespectacled Fulani...but when the pockets of fraud and public indiscipline fattened, the slender uniformed chieftain of the war against it toppled bloodlessly on the last day of 1983. Corruption not abating, history gave us gap teeth for gap teeth, the genius of our own Maradona in military regalia. No more Reconciliation, Reconstruction, and Rehabilitation but the Structural Adjustment Program, the little General mortgaged our future to the IMF and dribbled the nation beyond the promise for democracy in 1990, in the process nutmegging Orkar in a Dodan Barracks two-a-side game of coup, and journalists did not live to read their letters. Deep into extra time, exhausted from dribbling, he moved the goal post MKO attacked in gorgeous route one fashion for a sterile victory. In Ernest, 33 years old, middle-aged Nigeria was headless under a Transitional Council. Off the bench came the General behind tinted glasses, cheeks lined with Kanuri marks, corruption will be monumental, he decreed:

'The Interim National Government is hereby dissolved.
The National and State Assemblies are also dissolved.
The State Executive Councils are dissolved.
Decree 61 of 1993 is hereby abrogated'

Yet, with the first gap teeth in the PTF, roads were tarred and networked, hospitals and schools were supplied for five years until private fatality consumed the man with the best fitting for every hat. One year on the job, the last Gwari General stepped aside for a man just freed from prison and not backed by his kinsmen but by antecendence- the return of Aremu, the Balogun of Owu. 1999-2007, power, education, security, transportation, healthcare still wishful thinking. In the same style as 1979, he shook the hands of a slim former teacher thinned to his grave to the ascension of another man wholly representative of his name in 2011. The handbrake never reclined.

In spite of these, what makes us 51 is the character Sir Balewa sailed with, and the spirit of compatriots who by ignorance or awareness, by confidence or delusion, and without connection to things but the failure of a fatherland may fret in their ambitions but never in the belief that one day the Nigeria conceived in 1960 will come true. This is how we are 51, hope is the teeming lubricant of this engine with 160 million moving parts. We are 51 because we were never a political or ethnic calculation, but a human calculation and we exist for things extraethnic, extrareligious, and extrapolitical. Always...always optimistic!

Steps Back Home

From the Greenland we have come, all of us from one heritage, to the north the kingdom of the pharaohs with the sacred sun to the South where Madiba was born on the banks of the Mbashe River, to the West that is Chinua Achebe’s home, where special intellect scripts deft literature; and then to the East, where the divine, Haile Selassie I, descendant of King Solomon lived in our fathers’ youth. From this land we come, motioned by rocking dance to the jingle of burdensome rhythm, still connected by a spirit that is unseen, a resilient one, a black one by which we are charmed to thrive and not be chastised.

To many other lands we have gone in suspended engines, to the lands of the Gettysburg Address and King Henry’s, to the lands once conquered by the Raffles, lands that slaved the signing of the Anglo-Dutch Treaty in centuries that long ago awaited our birth. In that time, when men lived like men, with hard-knock brevity, when culture was identity and identity was a man’s forte; there was nothing different between the Niger and the Malaya, nothing different in the Singapura and the Nairobi; nothing at all. Chinua, how things fell apart.

We still go, many of us, born in wards of privilege within districts of clear lack, baked in the ovens of care; but ahead of others we choose to go, ahead of those born few metres away, where hope and health, love and respect, esteem and common sense have never been neighbours. How far can we go…till we tip over the edges of the earth? Can we still ignore?

No, we have seen enough, they build towers in pairs, tubes beneath the earth, calmly travelling under gravity. Oh we have seen enough, it is not here nor there we want to thrive but in our Greenland, spurred by our coloured heritage in the tales of forebears, and feeling again the meaning of being Zulu and Xhosa, Idoma and Igede, Igbo and Maasai, or the intensity to scream tswana syllables, that's when we discover ourselves for a second time.

So this day we vow, descendants of the horned continent, we lead ourselves back, chins held high, we have seen the best of the rest, and at home we shall bring out first our pride and then our love before blocks and knowledge to build from our hearts. And then we shall bring out the old and the sick, the young and the mentally lifeless, to breathe that special air of the green grass on which we play jabulani. Leading the troops, Matthew and Kelly, let’s go home…let’s go home…let’s take steps back home.