#Caineprize – The Thirteenth Caine Prize Shortlist: La Salle de Départ by Ikhide R. Ikheloa

IKHIDE

• EMAIL FROM AMERICA

Father, Fighter, Lover

Every now and then one comes across a story that belongs in you, that should have come from you, that tells it exactly how you have been meaning to tell it, but you can’t because well, you are the story. La Salle de Départ shortlisted for this year’s Caine Prize was stolen from inside my soul. I should sue the author, Zimbabwean Melissa Tandiwe Myambo for doing this to me. This is one of the finest stories I have ever read. It features vivid soaring searing imagery with profound insights, yet tender, sensitive, touching. Still, Virginia Woolf’s gentle but insistent spirit comes bleeding through, holding the hands of her brown sisters. I salute you, Myambo.

What is this pretty story about? A young man (Ibou) ends up in America thanks to the generosity of the extended family. On a visit back home (Senegal), he balks at taking responsibility for the future of his nephew Babacar who the mother (Fatima) wants to go to America, the land of milk and honey. The dream is America; the nightmare is the nephew, Babacar. The extended family spreads poverty and the protagonist kicks against this new imposition.

Where do I start? Pretty does not even begin to describe the prose. The dignity of this story spoke quietly to me and comforted my soul. Bravo. La Salle de Départ is a familiar story revamped in colorful black and white. In untrained hands, this would have been another tired tale of home and exile. Instead, Myambo pulled it off as a thoughtful treatise on that movement we call immigration. Quietly, everything is laid bare: The politics of blood and (un)belonging in the era of globalization.

A good story should be like good sex, you want some. I got some in this story. The reader’s mind floats on a lazy river of laconic prose, built on the sturdy backs of painstaking research and searing attention to detail.  It is interesting, Myambo barely moralizes or editorializes, for once, this is a story, what a concept. You enjoy it quietly, sigh, and then the story’s issues start to tug at your conscience’s shirt, insistently thus: “Can we talk about this?” And for once the italicized words did not draw my ire; they seemed to dignify the words, drawing you in, inquisitive at these French words that are now the other against Senegalese words. It is brilliant how she explains the words – with dignity and pride. Nice.

Rather than a tired tale told perhaps for profit and a desired audience, this story comes across as a lovely time marker of an era when all the civilizations came together under a gnarled baobab tree and amused each other with the strangeness of (not knowing) the other. These civilizations and their technologies, tools and toys brush against each other like strangers overflowing in an overloaded elevator. And the reader is reminded: Halcyon times are dying, love letters giving way to the intensity of digital texts and (e)motional affairs. Myambo’s eye for detail is complimented nicely with exquisite prose poetry. Hear her describe those Baroque buildings that are the hallmark of American university campuses:

“Father nodded at her to begin reading the letter and it was only then that she noticed the photograph that had slipped out from between the pages. Picking it up, she gently shook the dust off of it and wiped it on her pagne. It was Ibou with two other young men and two girls standing on the steps of what looked like a library or some other majestic university building propped up by ornately-decorated columns. To Fatima, it looked like a concrete wedding cake.”

“It looked like a concrete wedding cake.” Anyone who has ever been in an American university campus will enjoy the brilliance of that quote.

It is very clever how Myambo buries the clues to the meanings in subsequent sentences, like a lovely and enchanting egg hunt.  To get a sense of how beautiful this story is, think about Jhumpa Lahiri’s short stories (Interpreter of Maladies, andUnaccustomed Earth),  Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (The Purple Hibiscus and Half of a Yellow Sun), Chinua Achebe (No Longer at Ease) and Camara Laye (The African Child).  Behind all that beauty and powerful prose she fearlessly examines and updates notions of physical, emotional and spiritual boundaries. This she does with careful research, exquisite pacing and lovely prose poetry wrapped in a familiar but enchanting ambience. And yes, there’s technology jostling for space under the Baobab tree. People actually text in Africa! What a concept:

““It’s a text message from Ghada. I can’t believe my roaming is finally working again and of course, just in time for me to go to the airport.””

Where there is a certain viewpoint, it is not a cloying, in your face unctuousness; you simply catch a whiff of it. And they are real issues, e.g. patriarchy, the extended family system, immigration, etc.

“Perhaps she would have more choices if she had more brothers to rely on. Brothers were like the wind, they could go places she could not. She was like the sand. She could only be blown by the wind. But now she had a son and Ibou had to help her build wings for him. Her dream for Babacar was for him to go and live with his Uncle Ibou all the way, theeerrre in America, to go to school there, sow success for the family there and harvest green US dollars to bring back here.”

Everywhere the reader’s eyes roam, there is sad beautiful prose:

 “Again. He was always leaving. Her memories of him were distilled down to a series of departures, snapshots of ever leaving. And now he was leaving without having agreed to take Babacar with him. It was her turn to fix her gaze on him, willing him to respond in the affirmative…”

And again:

“I am the one who waits always and watches others come and go. I am the one who always remains behind so that you can go.”

The story reminds us that daily familiar themes are renewed in our consciousness even as we fight our individual wars and get comfortable in the new municipality of the individual, the ME. In Senegal, we witness culture clashes, with hygiene as proxy, resulting in alienation at home and in exile.

“Delicious! An excellent cook, but why was the squat toilet never flushed properly? Why were there always lumps of other people’s shit floating next to the foot pads? He pushed the carrot around with his tongue, trying not to think about that and he wished he felt guiltier for constantly thinking about it. But he couldn’t stop himself. Ghada was luckier in that sense, she was closer to her family. But then again, her family was different.”

The advocacy here is more sophisticated than I remember. All through Myambo expertly takes us on ride through sleepy streets pregnant with the fragrance of fried beignets and cold bissap juice.  Lovely.

The new nuclear family is about cutting clean through the umbilical cord of poverty and family ties. Or is it? Are we breaking free past the shame of self-loathing?  Is this self-loathing, liberation, acculturation or mindless assimilation?

“He looked at her for a long time but he couldn’t hold her gaze. It wasn’t so much that he was afraid of what he would see but rather of what she would see, the feelings he did not care to admit even to himself. Somewhere deep down, Ibou experienced familial obligation as an intolerable irony. When his mother passed away in October of his first term at university, a strange aloofness was born in him. He never mourned her. It all happened so far away, in another time and place. Instead, all his childhood memories were slowly suffused with a sepia tint typical of old-fashioned photos, the type of photos one looks at but feels no connection to. Somewhere along the way, Senegal had died for him. It was all too abstract, too removed from his daily reality; family responsibility weighed on him but not as heavily as he felt it should. How many years had he been away? Half his life had been spent in another country, in another culture, where the ties of family do not strangle one’s bank account and stifle one’s emotional resources. He wished he felt more guilty. If he were a better person he would.”

We see the tension between home and exile and the expectations of the extended family that ironically funded the protagonist’s new independence:

“When we sent you to America, it was for the good of the family. We sent you to study for us.”

This story cut me all over like a playful knife and it ends too soon for me, gifting me with the best sad ending I have encountered in a long time:

““Goodbye,” he said. “Thank you for everything.” Awkwardly, he embraced her rigid shoulders and then quickly turned and pushed into the crowd putting their luggage through the X-ray machine. He took his carry-on and put it on the moving belt. Then he took off his watch, his iPod and his cell phone and put them in a tray along with his laptop. He stood in front of the metal detector. When the official waved him to come forward, he stepped through the metal frame, trapped for a second on the border between his world and hers, silhouetted against the bright light of the other side. Time teetered; she held her breath. But then he was through, into a world where she would never venture. He looked back at her and lifted a hand. Then he was gone. She would wait for his plane to take off.”

I have thought hard about what I did not like about this story; I am not coming up with much. The themes are familiar but they are still here with us and Myambo addresses them expertly in real, rather than in nominal terms. Of all the writers on the Caine Prize short list that I have read to date, her writing comes across as the most polished and sophisticated, it is almost as if she is overqualified for the competition. She is not; there are many more where she came from. As an aside, Myambo must lead a very interesting life, a Zimbabwean writing so convincingly and evocatively about Senegal.

Finally, as I was trying to figure out how and why Myambo’s La Salle de Départ spoke to me so beautifully, I chanced upon Jasmin Daeznik’s poignant and at times sad New York Times piece,  Home is Where They Let You Live. And then it came together for me personally; both pieces made me refocus and reflect in a profoundly personal way on the notion of home and exile and the responsibilities and burdens I have had to bear and in some instances jettison on the way to crafting a sustainable self-identity. Home is not always home.

The bush refineries

The recent public presentation of the book, ‘The Ogbunigwe Fame' by Felix Oragwu brought up memories of the technological innovations that kept the Biafran dream alive from 1967 to 1970.

During the vicious civil war, Biafra was blockaded and starved of access to resources ranging from domestic goods to industrial products. Necessity thrust upon Biafra the need to innovate and to create. It was in this mode that the nascent nation built and ran crude oil refineries and also produced missiles or bombs, then known as ‘ogbunigwe' or ‘Ojukwu buckets'. These efforts were driven by the inescapable urge for survival.

In the past few years, there has been an emergence of what many term ‘bush refineries' in the oil fields of the Niger Delta. These are spots in the swamps and creeks where local people, mostly youth, produce petroleum products using crude oil obtained from either already leaking pipelines or from spots broken into by crude oil thieves. 

These refineries pose serious health hazards to their operators as they have no clue about the toxic nature of the products and do not have any sort of protective clothes, boots, or gloves. These young folks bear the extreme heat from the flames of the belching dragons in order to produce litres of semi-refined products that pose additional threats to the end users.

Many deaths related to kerosene explosions have been recorded and these may have resulted from the use of the uncontrolled products from these contraptions. The dire poverty in the oil region is often cited as justification for the existence of these bush refineries.

Regrettably, the response from the government, as well as from the political parties seeking control of the federal government after next month's elections, is nothing beyond the provision of physical infrastructures in the region. While these are essential, the most urgent need of the region, and indeed the entire nation, is the detoxification of our environment.

As we have often argued, the average Nigerian will take care of her basic needs if the physical environment supports her livelihood-generation efforts. This means that the urgent first step is an audit of the environmental situation of the region, as could possibly be exemplified by the current study of Ogoni by the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP).

A factor that could be perpetuating the bush refineries is the dislocation of the social infrastructure of the region. This includes the loss of communality, the rise of individualism, and the deep corruption that has been entrenched by key players in the oil industry sector. These systemic ruptures must be structurally addressed.

We cannot ignore the efforts of security agencies in combating the menace of the illegal refineries. But merely combat posturing only gives the trigger-happy security men cover for extortion and further human rights abuses of an already traumatised people.

However, it must be acknowledged that the continued operation of these bush refineries is a disservice to the local people and a huge shame to the government.

‘Ghost' bush refineries

Going by figures from the Joint Military Taskforce operating in the Niger Delta, hundreds of these bush refineries have been destroyed. By mid-December 2009, the JTF reported that there were over 1000 "illegal refineries" in the Niger Delta and that within two months to that time they had destroyed 600 of the refineries in different parts of the region.

Sarkin Bello, the General who commanded the JTF at that time, made an important point that just as other ills had started in one part of the nation and spread to other parts, there was a chance that such refineries may pop up in other areas of the country - especially those through which oil pipelines passed.

Months later, Mr. Bello bemoaned the resurgence of the bush refineries, as was widely reported in the mass media. It was not exactly surprising when a fortnight ago, the JTF announced that they had detected 500 bush refineries in the Mbiama area on the border between Rivers and Bayelsa States.

It was not surprising because the refineries have been operating more or less brazenly, with law enforcement agents sometimes accused of exacting tolls or illegal taxes from the operators. So they probably destroyed 600 in 2009 and the ghosts of the levelled plants resurrected soon as the security agents left the scene. These bush refineries are huge tourist attractions for foreign journalists and you do not need a space rocket to gain access to their locations.

We have heard some politicians claim that the bush refineries cannot be eliminated because the youth cannot find alternative avenues of employment. Quite specious, that form of reasoning. It is illustrative of the ineptitude of persons in power who ought to provide employment and keep people away from practices that are harmful to them, the environment, and the economy.

There are untold dangers related to operating these bush refineries. The poor youth who work these refineries, covered in crude, standing in the searing heat and continually inhaling toxic elements can hardly be in a position to enjoy the fruits of their labour. These refineries may put some kobo in their pockets, but they are essentially condemned to poor health and truncated lives.

It is a shame that a government that trumpets amnesty for people who took up arms against state structures would not consider extending the same largesse to these poor lads who are killing themselves. Could they not benefit from some technical education and other benefits extended to the militants?

A point that we must underscore is the fact that despite the large number of these bush refineries and the fact that they refine products that are illegally obtained, their operations do not lead to a reduction of the crude oil output of Nigeria. Why is this? It is simple to see.

Large-scale illegal bunkering with international dimensions has gone on unchecked for decades and many top guns obviously benefit from it. The large-scale crude oil theft in Nigeria has gone on alongside the continual meeting of the production quota of the nation.

The bush refiners may have been inspired by the fact that between the oil wells and the export terminals is a bottomless pit in which thievery is highly rewarded. Efforts at halting the petty stealing for bush refining will not be successful if the cancer of mass oil theft by the high and mighty is not tackled.

Technological path for Nigeria from the ashes of Biafra Friday, March 11, 2011 By Japhet Alakam

It was another intellectual feast for Nigerians and the rest of the world as memories of the scientific and technological innovations made by the Biafrans during the tragic Nigerian civil war that happened over 44 years ago was relived as one of the major actors in the war, Dr Felix Oragwu, a Nuclear Physicist and the brain behind the Scientific and Technological innovations that sustained Biafra during the war years recounts the story of one of the fascinating aspects of the war in his new book, Scientific and Technological Innovations in Biafra, The Ogbunigwe Fame 1967-1970 which was presented to the public last week at the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs, (NIIA)Victoria Island.

From right, Admiral Allison Madueke (rtd); Dr. Felix Oragwu, (author of the book), Admiral Ndubuisi Kanu (rtd), Chairman of the occasion and Prof. Anya O. Anya during the book presentation.  advertisement

The occasion which was graced by notable dignitaries ;especially some of the major players during the ill fated war afforded the people the opportunity to reminisce on the war and its aftermaths.

Speaking in his capacity as the Chairman of the occasion, Admiral Ndubuisi Kanu, former military Governor of old Imo State and Lagos State and member of the Supreme Military Council called on the Federal government to as a matter of urgency imbibe and absorb the surviving Biafran scientist and technologist that produced the series of technological and scientific innovations that sustained them during the thirty months civil war despite the adverse conditions in which they operated.

Failure of the leaders

Admiral Ndubuisi Kanu who pointed out that the issue is not an Igbo nor Nigeria affair, but a matter that goes beyond that, disclosed that the loss of Biafra robbed Africa of what could have been a World Power- technologically, economically, politically, and so on. And lamented that "it is most unfortunate that Nigeria could not imbibe and absorb any lesson from the scientific and technological innovations in Biafra. That is why, 50 years after, along with the underpinning problems of faulty foundational structure, the country can hardly generate electricity or refine crude oil."

Continuing, the Retired Navy Officer bemoaned Nigeria leaders for their failure to learn from the lessons of the war. " It is also unfortunate that Nigeria in real terms, did not learn anything from the war itself." Pointing out that virtually all the societal problems that led to the war are still present and have not been addressed.

The reviewer of the book, Dr Walter Ofonagoro who took time to reminisce over that war of attrition stated that war brings out the worst and best in history. He said that the book talks about how technological innovations can come out of people that were under pressure and therefore called on Nigerians to learn a lesson from that and apply it in order to achieve the Vision 2020.

Continuing, he added that the book should be a wake up call to Nigerians adding that , " some of the scientist that manufactured those weapons are still alive, they should be consulted and used before they pass on. Biafrans survived for 30 months because of the ingenuity of the likes of Felix Oragwu.." He said.

He also described the 130 pages book published by Fourth Dimensions Publishers, Enugu as a very useful addition to list of literature on the Nigeria/Biafran war and finally called on Nigerians to address the issues that led to the civil war instead of debating on which zone should produce the president.

On his part , the author of the book , Felix Oragwu stated that the book, Scientific and Technological Innovations in Biafra: The Ogbunigwe Fame, 1967-1970 is a documentation and appraisal of the technological feats and phenomenal achievements of scientists and engineers in Biafra without foreign support and or assistance in the production of modern technologies including unique military technologies such as Ogbunigwe, food and basic needs of the population and in the construction of economic development infrastructures such as energy, airports, crude petroleum refining plants, medicines among others which were unthinkable in Nigeria before the Civil War.

Continuing, he said that the book addresses two fundamental and very serious issues of concern to the development of Nigeria as a stable and competitive industrial nation. The first is what to do to establish National political cohesion, political stability, patriotism and pride in Nigeria so that all its citizens will be proud and happy to belong and be prepared to "die a little" to defend it in order to avoid a repeat of the type of the Civil War that almost tore the country apart between 1967-1970.

Path for development

The second issue, he noted, is what the post Civil War Nigeria should do in order to develop and use science and technology activities, in particular, S & T education, R&D, technology production and technology innovation, as was experienced in Biafra, to enable Nigeria reduce technology import dependence for the commanding tasks of her economy and to leapfrog into a competing World technology and industrial nation.

The book presentation was graced by notable dignitaries including; Ohanaeze chieftains, Ndi Igbo Lagos, scholars, political leaders, corporate executive and other notable faces at the events, including: Ambassador Ralph Uwechue, special guest of honour who was represented by Dr Sylvanus Ebigwe, President of Aka Ikenga, Chief G.C. Oranika, the book presenter represented by Chief Laz IIoka, Prof. Anya O. Anya, Deputy President of Ndi Igbo Lagos, Chief Oliver Akubueze, Rear Adimiral Alison Madueke, Gen. Philip Onyekwere, Captain August Okpe, Chief Ayo Opadakun, Igwe Laz Ekweme, Elder Umar Eleazu, Prof. J.O C. Ezeilo, Prof. Isaac Osisiogu, Prof Green Nwankwo and others.

The Declaration of Independence Tuesday, May 30, 1967

Fellow countrymen and women, YOU, the people of Eastern Nigeria:

CONSCIOUS of the supreme authority of Almighty God over all mankind, of your duty to yourselves and prosperity;

AWARE that you can no longer be protected in your lives and in your property by any Government based outside eastern Nigeria;

BELIEVING that you are born free and have certain inalienable rights which can best be preserved by yourselves;

UNWILLING to be unfree partners in any association of a political or economic nature;

REJECTING the authority of any person or persons other than the Military Government of eastern Nigeria to make any imposition of whatever kind or nature upon you;

DETERMINED to dissolve all political and other ties between you and the former Federal Republic of Nigeria;

PREPARED to enter into such association, treaty or alliance with any sovereign state within the former Federal Republic of Nigeria and elsewhere on such terms and conditions as best to subserve your common good;

AFFIRMING your trust and confidence in ME;

HAVING mandated ME to proclaim on your behalf, and in your name the Eastern Nigeria be a sovereign independent Republic,

NOW THEREFORE I, Lieutenant-Colonel Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu, Military Governor of Eastern Nigeria, by virtue of the authority, and pursuant to the principles recited above, do hereby solemnly proclaim that the territory and region known as and called Eastern Nigeria together with her continental shelf and territorial waters shall henceforth be an independent sovereign state of the name and title of THE REPUBLIC OF BIAFRA.

AND I DO DECLARE THAT:

(i) All political ties between us and the Federal Republic of Nigeria are hereby totally dissolved.

(ii) All subsisting contractual obligations entered into by the Government of the federal republic of Nigeria or by any person, authority, organization or government acting on its behalf, with any person, authority or organization operating, or relating to any matter or thing, within the Republic of Biafra, shall henceforth be deemed to be entered into with the Military Governor of the Republic of Biafra for and on behalf of the Government and people of of the Republic of Biafra, and the covenants thereof shall, subject to this Declaration, be performed by the parties according to their tenor;

(iii) All subsisting international treaties and obligations made on behalf of Eastern Nigeria by the Government of the Federal Republic of Nigeria shall be honored and respected;

(iv) Eastern Nigeria's due share of all subsisting international debts and obligations entered into by the Government of the Federal Republic of Nigeria shall be honored and respected;

(v) Steps will be taken to to open discussions on the question of Eastern Nigeria's due share of the assets of the Federation of Nigeria and personal properties of the citizens of Biafra throughout the Federation of Nigeria.

(vi) The rights, privileges, pensions, etc., of all personnel of the Public Services, the Armed Forces and the Police now serving in any capacity within the Republic of Biafra are hereby guaranteed;

(vii) We shall keep the door open for association with, and would welcome, any sovereign unit or units in the former Federation of Nigeria or any other parts of Africa desirous of association with us for the purposes of running a common services organization and for the establishment of economic ties;

(viii) We shall protect the lives and property of all foreigners residing in Biafra, we shall extend the hand of friendship to those nations who respect our sovereignty, and shall repel any interference in our internal affairs;

(ix) We shall faithfully adhere to the charter of the Organization of African Unity and of the United Nations Organization;

(x) It is our intention to remain a member of the British Commonwealth of Nations in our right as a sovereign, independent nation.

Long live the Republic of Biafra!

And may God protect all those who live in her.

SUBSIDY: FINANCE MINISTRY WILL PAY ONLY VERIFIED MARKETERS *Speculation that prudence in subsidy payments will cause fuel scarcity wrong

The Federal Ministry of Finance has a responsibility to ensure that subsidy payments are made in a prudent and transparent manner. In line with this focus, the Ministry will continue to pay all marketers whose claims of fuel importation have been verified as genuine.

The next meeting of the Federal Accounts Allocation Committee in June will provide the occasion for resumption of payments.

While it is ready to work with relevant agencies for the common good of Nigerians, the Ministry will not be stampeded into making hasty payments on deliveries that have not been substantiated or verified.

Against this background, the Ministry categorically rejects the idea that a prudent approach to verifying and making payments will lead to fuel scarcity.

Indeed, to say that the Ministry’s efforts to learn lessons from the past and reform the way payments are made will lead to fuel scarcity is simply not the case.

The Ministry’s approach to the subsidy regime can best be appreciated against the backdrop of the following facts:

1. Based on PPPRA and NNPC’s claims, 451 billion of the N888 billion subsidy budget for 2012 has already been spent on arrears for 2011.

2. Since the NNPC/PPPRA’s estimate for the 2011 arrears was N232 billion, this means that more than double the projected amount has already been spent and those agencies are is still bringing in more claims.

This is clearly not sustainable and the Ministry has a responsibility to ensure that the lapses that may have led to this unhealthy situation are not repeated. That is the least that the Ministry owes the Nigerian people.

In line with the directive of the President, the Ministry will continue to work towards the improvement of the fuel subsidy regime based on the lessons learnt from our recent experiences.

The Ministry is determined to put in place a strong framework for the fuel subsidy regime that is both transparent and sustainable.

The ministry’s approach to improving the subsidy regime is predicated on the following core objectives:

1. Ensuring that the country’s finances are managed in a manner that clearly protects the interests of the Nigerian people

2. Putting in place a system that ensures that only the genuine claims of genuine marketers are honoured

3. Performing its functions in an efficient and proactive manner to ensure that Nigerians get fuel at the right time and at the right price.

Paul C Nwabuikwu
Senior Special Assistant to the Coordinating Minister for the Economy and Minister of Finance

Christianity and tradition: The search for identity

The Bible Sekai Nzenza Throughout Zimbabwe, there is a growing spiritual identity crisis between Christian religion and African culture. We are caught in a massive pendulum in which we swing from one end to the other, in search of a place that can define us in relation to God, the ancestors and the rest of the world around us. This search for a spiritual sense of identity is not new. When the first missionaries arrived at Munhumutapa’s Kingdom in 1650, our ancestors feared the loss of culture so they stayed away from the Portuguese missionaries and their Christian religion. Naked children, bare breasted women with short leather skirts and men with loin cloths stood there, looking at the strange exotic white people with amusement. Gospel seeds of salvation fell on dry foot paths, rocks and thorny trees. Munhumutapa was hesitant to accept a foreign white God intend on imposing an alien Western culture while changing the spiritual identity of his people. He told the missionaries that we worshiped God through the Mwari religion. Outside God and the ancestors, there was no other God and no other religion or culture to define us. The Portuguese missionaries hardly converted anyone.  Clutching their Bibles in despair, they left Munhumutapa’s kingdom, totally convinced that Africans will never see the light of salvation. How wrong the first missionaries were! Many years later, the London Missionary Society came to Matabeleland in 1859. After 20 years of fasting and praying, they made no converts, other than a handful of their domestic workers. They struggled to understand why the natives would not convert to Jesus. Worried about this resistance, the missionaries appealed to Cecil John Rhodes and his British South Africa Police for support. An “alliance of community interests” between the missionaries and Cecil John Rhodes paved the way for the establishment of mission stations across the country. In 1887, Empandeni mission was started by Fr Peter Prestage while Fr Andrew Hartman, a Jesuit missionary, joined the settler Pioneer Column arriving in Mashonaland in 1890. In 1891, the Administrator, Dr L S Jameson authorised Bishop G W H Knight Bruce, first Anglican Bishop of Mashonaland to take 3000 acres of land and to build St Augustine Mission in Penhalonga. By 1918 Methodist missionaries had already arrived at my great grandfather’s court, Chief Kwenda and asking for permission to build a Methodist mission. Not only did he agree to the mission being build and named after him, Chief Kwenda allowed his daughter, (my grandmother Mbuya VaMandirowesa’s aunt), to marry Samuel Tutani, the South African evangelist and translator for the missionaries. One day, a young English pastor arrived from England to preach the Gospel of salvation. Full of the new missionary zeal and smartly dressed in white collar, the young missionary stood at the altar of the grass thatched church while Evangelist Samuel Tutani translated for him. The women sat quietly breast feeding their babies, listening to the sermon. Halfway through the sermon, the missionary stopped preaching and pointed to the young mothers suckling their babies: “There will be no naked breasts in the house of the Lord! The women must stop breastfeeding immediately,” he declared. Evangelist Tutani went around and translated the orders to the mothers. The women said nothing and turned their eyes to Mbuya VaMandirowesa because her role as Chief Kwenda’s oldest daughter gave her the right to speak first among the women. With one breast almost smothering one year old Tete Emma’s mouth, Mbuya VaMandirowesa stood up, frowned at the missionary, hissed and walked out of the church. Then all the women, breastfeeding or not breastfeeding, followed her. The following Sunday the church had a handful of men, some boys and a few girls. The missionary impatiently paced up and down looking at his wrist watch. Evangelist Tutani rang the bell once again to remind the women to respect time and hurry to church. After a while, a message came from the village to say that the women’s absence had nothing to do with keeping time: they were busy breast feeding and will come to church one day when they are done with child bearing. Mbuya VaMandirowesa never went to church again. In all the years I lived with her, Mbuya did not see any conflict between traditional culture and Christianity. The two were separate. She helped us to understand God, Mwari and the spiritual value of our ancestors. My mother, unlike Mbuya VaMandirowesa, accepted the Bible, the uniforms, songs and everything that defined new African Christian womanhood. The Anglican Church at St Columbus School was like a women’s club. My mother and the other women attended church on Sundays and followed catechism and communion rituals. But once they were outside the church grounds, they brewed beer and followed traditional ancestor worship. This is where they were positioned and nothing was going to take away that sense of cultural place. My mother sent us all to boarding school at various denominational missions. We were converted to Christianity and we obeyed the missionaries. But once we got home, Mbuya VaMandirowesa, my mother and the elders applied the village rules and codes of behaviour to guide us. They said the Christian religion stayed at the mission. We managed to keep the two worlds separate and yet we maintained both Christian and African cultural identities without too much conflict. We did not fight with anyone in the family or outside over religion. However, in the past few years, there has been so much family conflict based on the types of conversion and Christian beliefs. The biggest fight is between my cousin Laiza and the rest of the extended family. When Laiza found Jesus five years ago, she stopped coming back to the village. Her church, with a head office in America, told her that when a person becomes a Christian, she is a new creature, the past is all gone and so is everything linked or connected in any way to traditional African practices. The Laiza we used to bath and play “crocodile eat your sadza,” (garwe heri sadza) in the Chinyika river is not the same person any more. She does not want to be reminded of that time when we were all free, dancing around on rocks waiting for our womanhood to ripen into womanhood so we can be mothers and good wives. No. Laiza is now a new creature and that past to her is dead and gone. She has changed her name to Beulah. Every month she gives a certain portion of her salary to the church. Laiza’s mother, a strong Anglican asked, “Whoever heard of a church that asks you to donate a lot of money from your salary while your own family is starving and standing in line for donor food handouts? Did I send you to school to feed the pastors and help build churches?” But the more Mai Laiza got angry, the more Laiza stopped communication with her, saying it was the devil speaking through her mother. The other day Laiza came to the village because her mother had suddenly collapsed and fell unconscious for a few minutes in the field. Laiza hired a kombi and arrived in the village the following morning. By the time she came, Mai Laiza was feeling much better, lying comfortably next to the fire in her kitchen hut, surrounded by all of us. We were talking and laughing together catching up on village gossip. Prayers had already been done by women from various churches. We all pray together around here when the occasion calls for a prayer. Then we all go for ceremonies that require the spiritual guidance of ancestors. It has been like this for as long as I remember. Wearing tight pants and a T-shirt, Laiza walked into the kitchen hut, shook hands with all the women who had spent the night looking after her mother. She took a moment to examine her mother and still standing, she said, “And why are you dressed up like this, as if you are going to a party?” Her mother said when the chest pain started yesterday, she was convinced her day of death had arrived. She knew that after her death, all her clothes would be distributed among her nieces and other relatives. So she got dressed up like that so that when she gets to heaven they will think she has money and they will let her jump the queue into heaven’s gates, she joked. We all laughed. Laiza said we should not laugh at matters of death and after life like that. “You and your nice outfit will not get to heaven. Mhai, if you do  not know the Lord, you are going straight to hell. You are not saved. ” Then Laiza went on to preach to us like we had never heard of God before. She sang in English and laid her hands on her mother’s head. Then she spoke in a language we never heard before, for a good twenty minutes. She shook her mother’s head and demanded the devil to depart from her mother immediately. “Get out of here Satan. Buda mumba muno Satani. Out, out with you Dhiabhurosi!” After a short sermon about salvation, she asked us all to come to the Lord and accept salvation. She urged us to throw away witchcraft gnomes and everything associated with traditional beliefs and ancestor worship. But nobody stood up to accept the Lord. We all looked at each other and said nothing. Then Tete Mai Roger, Laiza’s aunt, stood up and said, “Laiza, since when do you talk to us like we are your children? Does your God have no respect for elders? You have not set foot in this village for five years. You only talk about American this, Americans that, pastor this, pastor that, what about us? “What kind of praying is this that makes you forget that you are one of us and you will always be one of us even if you leave Zimbabwe and go and preach in America? We were not without God before the white man came. We will not be taught about God by a child like you, born yesterday. ” Laiza looked at us with hostility. She grabbed her Bible, jumped back in the kombi and left. “With this type of religion, I might as well say I have no child (Nesvondo yakadai iyi, ini handichisina mwana),” said Laiza’s mother sadly. If the Portuguese missionaries were to land in Zimbabwe now, they would praise the Lord for the number of churches mushrooming everywhere. Everyday, you see Christians clothed in white robes like angels in the open spaces, in fashionable clothes in stadiums where there is no space to stand. There are free television stations whose aim is to spread the Word. The pendulum of Christianity has swung completely the other way, sometimes destroying family structures. Where now, is the place for traditional African religion and culture? We have entered a religious schizophrenic stage where the truth of who we are and what languages we speak to God is unclear even to ourselves. Modes of prayers are continually being reproduced and new religious movements and new prophets created each day. The origins of some Christian Pentecostal movements are not known and there is no room to question their origins. Meanwhile, the foundations of our traditional religion that once defined us is being eroded as we move to the city and embrace various forms of worship, a new way of being and ultimately, a confused identity. And yet, there is a middle ground to balance this swinging pendulum and keep it still. The first step is to know the spiritual values that defined us in the past, how these were eroded and how they can be recreated and reinvented to help us find a spiritual position that incorporates Christianity and still respects the Mwari religion of our ancestors from the time before  Munhumutapa to the present. Dr Sekai Nzenza is a writer and cultural critic. She holds a PhD in International Relations and is a consultant and director of The Simukai Development Project.

Beyond Boko Haram: Working For A More Tolerant North By Elnathan John Posted by: Newsdiaryonline

Posted date: May 05, 2012 

The heat of the Sunday sun is sweltering. I have wound down all four of my glasses but I feel trapped in this boiling box that is my car. I am driving slowly between Makera and Kakuri in Kaduna looking for a cybercafé to send an email to a friend. As I move from the point where Makera becomes Kakuri, I can literally see the street change from shirts trousers and skirts to caftans and hijabs. I know that this is the case in much of Kaduna, but to see the difference in so short a distance is disconcerting.

I was born in the capital of the North. The state that once represented everything positive: developed, cosmopolitan, progressive. Today, having returned to live in Kaduna after a few years away, I have become a witness to the shameful dying spectacle that the North has become.

In some sort of self-inflicted religious apartheid, our cities, notably Jos and Kaduna- once quiet and integrated- are now religiously-exclusive, passive-aggressive (sometimes openly aggressive), mutually-suspicious contiguous communities. True some might argue that this quiet separation that has created Muslim and Christian communities has its positive effects, but it is not without obvious dangers. Sadly because of the increasingly widespread attacks of Boko Haram, no one is talking about the issues germane to the North, pre-Boko Haram. In fact some have cynically implied that the Boko Haram attacks (that affect everyone) have reduced the perennial Muslim-Christian crises. We must however look at the problems we have, beyond Boko Haram.

What separation has caused is a heightened otherness- convenient for trading blame and the spread of dangerous rumours and propaganda. One of the things I am grateful for is that I grew up not in a homogenous community but with Christian, Muslim, Hausa, Yoruba, Nupe, Igbo, Ibibio, Edo, Ebira, Urhobo, Tiv, Idoma, Igala and Fulani neighbours (in addition to the large numbers of people from the indigenous tribes of Kaduna). I did not grow up wondering if Muslims were good or bad people, if Southerners were good or bad people, because they were all around me and I did not suffer from the suspicion that is the product of ignorance. As a result it is hard  for me to contribute or even listen to talk about how Muslims or Southerners are ‘our’ problem. The violence that has forced people to live separately is capable of creating even more deeply rooted violence. Children in Kaduna and Jos now grow up in exclusively Christian or Muslim communities where it is easy to speak disparagingly

of people of another religion or culture; where it  is easy to blame them for the problems that is common to everyone; where the only debate is ‘Us vs Them’.

The violence which living separately is quietly breeding is further worsened by the irresponsibility of leaders from the North. Leaders who have benefitted from the perpetration of poverty and dependence and the divisions that have prevented Northern Nigerians from demanding good and responsible governance from their leaders.

The problem with poverty, which in my opinion is more acute in the North than in the South, is that it looks for enemies to blame and lash out at. That is why poorer communities generally have higher crime rates, more domestic abuse, more rape, more senseless rumours that lead to violence. There can be no quick fixes to decades-old problems and because change can be painful and demanding, the few but immensely powerful persons whose power derives from this current unacceptable situation, will fight any move to fix the North and liberate its people mentally and economically.

We must expect this while we chart a course for the reduction of poverty and the empowerment of women and young people in our communities.

What we must begin to do is to invest in the North and insist that those who seek our support for votes equally invest in the North. When we have industries, and businesses- real investment as opposed to the embarrassing poverty eradication schemes which governors in the North now bandy about like Keke Napep and motorcycles- then there is a possibility that people will be able to empower themselves and have a stake in developed, stable North, so much that they will be  able to fight from within the forces militating against peace and stability.

While the current situation of separate religious communities is unfortunate, there is no quick fix for that either. The mistrust and mutual suspicion is deep and can only change over time and years of education and re education. We can achieve this if we start now teaching the next generation that the other is not the enemy. That  the enemy is poverty and bad, wicked leadership.  That we cannot all be Muslim or Christian. That no one is evil simply because of his/her religion. That every human being deserves to be treated justly and with dignity. That violence and oppression only begets more violence and oppression. That respect begets respect. That the construct of superiority of tribe and/or religion is only useful to those who seek to perpetuate themselves in power to the detriment of ordinary people.

I believe that real economic empowerment and re-education will make our cities have more tolerant, more cosmopolitan and more secure communities. The fact is that we are weaker, easier to exploit and attack, when we are hungry and dependent. In the end we have more in common than divide us, more common enemies to fight than differences.

We must as individual Northerners must look inward. Agriculture must be supported, not on small subsistence scale but on a scale that is capable to empowering poor farmers, their families and employees. Northern politicians and self-styled philanthropists should be judged based on how much concrete, sustainable development they have brought to the North. We must begin the critique from within.

I want to be able to drive through the Muslim Tudun Wada and Rigasa in Kaduna and not feel afraid. I want to be able to invite my Muslim friend who lives in Badiko to the non-Muslim Sabo where I live and not be scared that if a crisis breaks out, I alone may not be able to save him. Today I cannot. Tomorrow can be better.

I surfed the Arewa Transformation and Empowerment Initiative (ATEI) website after it was recommended to me by a friend. As I always do, I went to the ‘About’ section of the site. The words ‘non religious’, ‘non partisan’ and ‘professionals’ used in one sentence made me more curious. I think it is time that social movements are led by serious professionals who are able to think critically and apply pragmatic, tangible solutions to solve our real problems. I was also hopeful when I saw that one of their goals was ‘justice for all’. For without justice and equality, for all groups in the North, the bitter, dangerous feeling of intra-regional marginalization will fester and lead to more and more crises. Much will depend on the sincerity, courage and intellect of these professionals who are treading a path that has been full of empty words and impotent schemes. I hope that the ATEI will recognize the seriousness of the task that they have taken on and prove to those ordinarily cynical about the Northern problem that it is possible to get things right

Hassan Tukur: I never sabotaged Boko Haram talks

Hassan Tukur: I never sabotaged Boko Haram talks

Uniabuja: Group backs peace moves

Uniabuja: Group backs peace moves

Uniabuja: Group backs peace moves

Uniabuja: Group backs peace moves

Letter To A War President

BLOG | MAY 1, 2012 - 5:38AM | BY VICTOR EHIKHAMENOR

Dear Sir,

There is no other way to put it; you are now a war president. Very few presidents have such opportunities to prove their mettle. The enemy has sustained a senseless bombing campaign where nothing is sacrosanct anymore in your country. It's a tough situation to be in, but men who have led their countries during wars have one heart and two balls like you. It is not the easiest situation; but as a mouth finds its teeth, so shall it accommodate them.

Let me start with one of the greatest war leaders in history, Sir Winston Churchill's resolve on May 13, 1940 - "What is our policy? ... to wage war against a monstrous tyranny, never surpassed in the dark, lamentable catalogue of human crime." That, Mr President, is the policy you and your cabinet must adopt immediately.

Now a few more tips:

- If you don't have one already, you must set up a war room which is different from your FEC meeting room. Not all men or women should be welcomed in the room; only the trusted and tested. This is where tactical plans are discussed and maps are used as table cloth and pinned to the walls. Politics and tribal sentiments must not be allowed in this room. This is not where you discuss contracts and profiteering; and any of your Generals that deviates from plans of winning this war should be booted out of the room immediately.

- Keep your enemies close; and that does not mean you have to make them cabinet members. Keep them close enough to destabilise their plans, but not close enough to destabilise yours.

- You must have an army with a Commanding General. The war you are fighting has gone beyond the corridors of politics, and long speeches will no longer cut it. One inefficient General equals hundreds of lives lost to the war.

- Whenever the enemy strikes and succeeds in killing and maiming your citizens, use words to comfort and encourage your people. Refrain from clichés like: "I condemn this latest act of violence"; people get tired of hearing those words. You are at war, and while you are condemning with words, your enemies are condemning with bombs.

- If you cannot back your words with actions, do not utter them. It is better to remain a muted lizard than to speak as a snake that cannot bite. When you visit a war zone, never look bemused or pose as you have been caught with your pants down again. Put on a stern face to show you are in charge of the situation. Never put your hands on your head or waist like a man who just recovered from a dirty slap. If possible, get yourself a walking stick to increase your swagger, get one of those that doubles as a sword. Colonel Benjamin 'Black Scorpion' Adekunle and General Murtala Muhammed carried one.

- The reason we have a term like 'Allied Forces' is because some wars can't be won by one government. Call for help from those who have fought similar wars. One man does not dig a well and also fill it with water. There is no shame in calling for help when the battle thickens; a single broom never sweep clean.

- Do not fight this war with bows and arrows when your enemy is armed with bombs and assault rifles. Do not also allow your soldiers to think killing senselessly will win this war. Their actions could even lead to war crimes, and the last thing you want is to share a double-bunk bed with Charles Taylor in the Hague when all is said and done.

- Have a tactical plan and a clear understanding of how you intend to fight the war that confronts you. Have a firm control of those you have given mandates to win the war for you. Don't be afraid to make hard decisions that make men flinch. If any of your Generals sings a discordant tune in public, do not hesitate to fire him publicly. Remember President Barrack Obama of America had to remind a lose-mouthed and disrespectful General Stanley McChrystal who the C-in-C was - "As difficult as it is to lose General McChrystal, I believe it’s the right one. The conduct represented in the recently-published article … undermines the civilian control of the military that is at the core of our democratic system. And it erodes the trust that’s necessary for our team to work together to achieve our objectives." Those were Obama's words, you are free to borrow them.

- Every time the enemy carries out a successful campaign, even if it is an ordinary match stick struck on the head of a citizen, you must cancel all foreign trips. There is time for everything. Nothing, I repeat, nothing is more important than the life of one of your citizens - whether rich or poor. Remember that what makes you a president are people not goats.

- Finally, only prayers do not win wars. You must act after you have prayed; even King David, who was God's right hand man, went to the battle field instead of praying from morning till night in an enclosed bunker.

Goodluck sir!

Gwarinpa police swoop on supermarket robbery suspects

Gwarinpa police swoop on supermarket robbery suspects

Welcome to Linda Ikeji's Blog: Days that shook Nigeria

Welcome to Linda Ikeji's Blog: Days that shook Nigeria: I did this post sometime in February this year...long before most of you discovered my blog...so thought to repeat it 'cos I'm sure most of ...

34 killed in Potiskum market attack

An attack on a cattle market in northeastern  city of Potiskum by gunmen armed with explosives has left at least 34 dead and the toll is likely to climb, an emergency source said on Thursday.
“Thirty-four bodies were deposited at the hospital,” the official said on condition of anonymity of the attack late Wednesday in Potiskum because he was not authorised to speak publicly.
He said the toll was likely to be more than 50 dead because families were also burying relatives’ bodies without bringing them to the hospital.
A gang of gunmen with explosives have attacked a cattle market in the city of Potiskum, burning it down and leaving a number of people dead, residents and police said Thursday.
The attack late Wednesday was said to be in reprisal for an incident earlier in the day, when the gang sought to rob the market but were fought off by traders who caught one of the attackers, a police source said.
The man who was caught was doused in petrol and a tyre was placed around his neck before he was burnt to death, according to the source and residents.
“There was an attack on Potiskum cattle market yesterday by suspected armed robbers who threw explosives and burnt down the market with all the livestock,” the police official said on condition of anonymity.
“It is too early to say how many people were affected in the attack, which happened at night.”
Residents reported seeing bodies being taken away, but the number of casualties was unclear. (AFP)

Journalists and a legislator and the Plateau State House of Assembly came k under gun-attack from suspected Fulani mercenaries operating in Riyom

News:  Journalists and a legislator and the Plateau State House of Assembly came k under gun-attack
from suspected Fulani mercenaries operating in Riyom local council of the state on Wednesday.
The legislator, Daniel Dem had taken the reporters to Riyom local council which he represents at the
House to see first hand what is happening in the locality.

At about 10 30am yesterday morning when the journalists were interviewing victims as well as cross
checking facts with a team of Nigeria Red Cross in....

The Wizard in Ngugi’s Craw by Ikhide R. Ikheloa

Ikhide

• Email from America

Father, Fighter, Lover

I did not enjoy reading Ngugi Wa Thiong’o’s hefty almost 800-page tome The Wizard of the Crow. This is a shame, for I love Ngugi. I remember his book Weep Not Child with much fondness. I will always remember the chemistry between the two main characters young Njoroge and Mwihaki. As a boy, I fell in love with the way those two fell in love. Ngugi is a gifted writer and a noble son of Africa. But Ngugi has always been given to quixotic journeys; I say quixotic because I am not quite sure his experiments in this book were productive, especially to the extent that he has not been able to foster a substantive dialogue on what and how we should communicate our literature as Africans. The question remains hanging in the air: What should be our language of discourse? The Wizard of the Crow is short on analysis but long on theatrics. Any experiment as ambitious as Ngugi’s has to acknowledge that the novel as a medium is not a constant. Africa’s oral tradition breathes free and vibrant on YouTube, Facebook, and on blogs. In The Wizard of the Crow, Ngugi brings together an unlikely riot – of the voice, the written word, and the narrative – on print. It simply doesn’t work.

The Wizard of the Crow is a familiar, dated, perhaps tired tale. Think of the stereotypical African novel and its recurring characters. There is the supreme dictator (The Ruler) in an imaginary country (Abruria) teeming with long-suffering people, there are the fawning hangers-on, and there is the idealistic great black hope (Kamiti), scheming freedom for the masses. Throw in some magic realism and a tedious literary ride is born. Despite Africa’s best efforts, Idi Amin’s buffoonery is as dated as my platform shoes. We have new buffoons. This book is what happens to the writer stuck in exile for too long, living decades mummified in despair, fretting about the Africa that has moved on.

The reader wonders how Ngugi could spread tedium through almost 800 pages. The clue is in its unrelenting wordiness, displaying armies of words where a word (or blessed silence) would richly suffice. Ngugi is understandably very unhappy with Africa; he must process his anxieties and stress through writing because the Guinness book of Records may have just logged in the longest angriest riff on paper ever. I mean ever. It is sheer tedium, the book as a medium flies like a lead balloon under the weight of so many issues, several of them unresolved. The attempted use of humor, satire and hyperbole is grotesque and does little to mask Ngugi’s overly documented rage.

Ngugi’s unresolved anxieties and strong political views mar the quality of the book. The book provided absolutely no new insights into the African condition, whatever that may be and the observations appear dated – like a slide rule competing with the awesome wonders of an iPod. Africa has moved on, for good or for bad, a realization that stubbornly eludes Ngugi. Ngugi may still be stuck in the sands of his time. The reviews, mostly by Western reviewers do not get this, they are fairly swooning. They see Africa painted as one woeful place full of exotic Ben Okri type imagery. Even at that, Ngugi’s experiment with magic realism is simply farcical. Be warned: You are not going to get much in terms of hard hitting critical reviews of this book; the Western reviewers are largely patronizing. The late great John Updike provides a largely avuncular panning of the book but I agree with him when he says: “The author of this bulky book offers more indignation than analysis in his portrait of post-colonial Africa.”

Readers may have difficulty relating to the notion of a lone savior with a monopoly of good solutions walking around weighed down with his supreme sense of self-importance. Well meaning visionary statements are mistaken for community mandates and the anxiety is to replace the buffoon’s tyranny with that of the pen. It is truly farcical when you really think about it. The African Big Man lives in the tyranny of our politics and in the tyranny of our writers’ pens. Their alter egos as reflected in the idealistic do no wrong; the main characters of their books indict them as being clueless or indifferent to their role in Africa’s mess. What it boils down to is that these are autobiographic fantasies that involve the ME in the author, systems be damned.

 However, given Ngugi’s brave fight for justice in postcolonial Kenya, his work in ensuring Africa’s rightful place in the World history of literature, and the trauma of his forced exile, any assessment of his work ought to be nuanced. Ngugi put a lot of effort into this tome – six books in one, first written painstakingly in Kikuyu – and then translated into English. Ngugi remains a visionary; our writer-warriors should carry his ideas on their giant shoulders and continue the fight he started – on Facebook, YouTube and on blogs. I salute Bwana Ngugi Wa Thiong’o.

  Benue State Governor, Gabriel Suswam has described as devilish the activities of the
terrorist group, Boko Haram.

The governor who spoke in Makurdi said that by their actions, Boko Haram has destroyed the fabric of
the north’s economy. He said that the damage done by Boko Haram to the economies of Kano, Kaduna ,
Jos and Maiduguri would take years to remedy.

The Benue State governor lambasted northern elders for refusing to tackle Boko Haram, choosing
instead to pay lip service.