WHY THE ALUU 4 MASSACRE WILL CONTINUE, UNLESS…

Had it not been for a witness who sadly chose to record the massacre of four Uniport students, this would’ve been just another story we heard of or tweeted about. The reactions would’ve ranged from, “Oh boy I heard o, it’s so sad” to that one individual we all know would unfortunately say, “They deserved it’ without realizing the extent to which they were killed or with any prior knowledge to how it all occurred. This is no way an article on how technology has helped changed our life, but rather the self-realization that this type of mob justice has been going on and until recently in this age has seen the full light of day. No one can say they heard of it, because now you can see it for yourself. So your judgment can no longer be clouded. You can dispute the allegations leveled against them, you were not there, but you can not and will not dispute the extent to which they were murdered. If you did not see the video, I’m sure you saw the pictures, especially of an individual holding a plank above a naked body on the ground covered in blood.

          

This is not a video of Mohammed Yusuf being killed by the police nor is this a video of a police blown to pieces trying to un-detonate a bomb. This is something else. Mohammed Yusuf may have been killed by the authorities, but we take some relief knowing it happened in the hands of the “right” authority, so we know exactly who to blame. But who do we blame for Aluu 4? Everyone is pointing fingers at the students who participated and even those who watched and said or did nothing (it is not easy to go against a mob, especially a less than intelligent one as is the case). Should we not also point the fingers at ourselves? Have we not for years tolerated some form of jungle justice? The police practice it themselves from time to time, point in case, what happened to Mohammed Yusuf. Do we not allow some form of it in our secondary schools, where we think it’s cool to beat someone alleged of theft, only to be embarrassed when we find out it was the wrong person and are by then too ashamed to punish the right person, instead he gets the right treatment and the innocent individual got the wrong one. How many times have individuals been accused of crimes; then beaten by police officers to get the “truth” out of them? How many stories have we heard growing up in Lagos of people being burned by tires? How many people have claimed an individual stole something by yelling, “ole” in public or that one commercial motorcycle driver who claimed his passenger insulted the Prophet as a means of revenge when they were disputing the passenger’s fee and a mob descended? So you see; we too are to blame.

           

The authorities themselves have played silent accomplices to this by letting certain people go, while accusing others of something they know nothing of. So now when you feel justice would not be handled by the right people, you take the law into your hands. The police themselves don’t help matters. I wrote about the police and why they would remain the way they were unless certain measures were taken into consideration, parts of it were meant to be funny, but it had serious undertones. A few days ago a Keke Napep driver flung his passengers out of his vehicle trying to avoid the police check point at night. By the time I came out of my house to see what was happening, one victim was lying on the floor, while the police thought it was more important to shake down the driver. It wasn’t until a bystander and I suggested they take the passengers to the hospital, which was right behind them, did one officer call another to get the car.

Meanwhile one officer was busy slapping the driver, as I explained to him you already have your perpetrator, everyone knows he was wrong, there’s no need to go on hitting him, get the victims to the hospital. I was suddenly confronted with the officer storming towards me asking from whence I came and telling me to go back there. Had this not been my neighbourhood, I would’ve picked up my pride and left. The police can be brutal and so can we. We’ve accepted it as second nature. After seeing the treatment meted out to an individual who was clearly wrong, I hate to be a suspect in police custody. Were the aluu 4 from what we know so far, not suspects? Had they been taken to the police, the outcome would’ve been different, but what’s to say they would’ve not been harassed either way. The police have enough bad press to know to behave themselves, but how they treat suspected criminals will go along way in how society treats them as well. The police can not be trusted we say, so we feel the need to trust ourselves and for our own satisfaction play judge and juror. This isn’t two friends fighting where emotions get the best of them, this is something regardless of one’s feeling at the time it took place, was well calculated. For you to drag someone naked to a place, to strategically place a tire over them and to proceed to carry out your brand of “justice”, this isn’t simply your emotions, this is who you are, a killer.

THIRTY-ONE THINGS NIGERIANS ARE GOOD AT (HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY)

Written by Abdulnasir Imam, with contributions from Hajara Isa, Tosun Otituju, Muniat Attunise and a list of commentators, I wish not to mention, because I need to shine!

The ideas was to come up with 52 things Nigerians were good at for our 52^nd independence anniversary, we got stuck at 31 because we hadn’t received this month’s budget and our editor Goodluck Jonathan (real name, no gimmick) wants to introduce next month’s own. Anyway enjoy our small progress:

1.MEDIOCRE ENTERTAINMENT

There’s no doubt the Nigerian entertainment industry has grown, but every worthy and critical success, there are a dozen more flash in the pans. Look no further than the music industry, for every D’banj, there are a hundred who copy and fail, at the very least have a hit that lasts three months and we never hear from them again. For every successful movie, there are 10 copycats to follow with the same storyline and probably the same actors typecast in the same role.

2. SPIRITUALITY

Nigerians are a very religious people, whether honestly or hypocritically. We take to calling God as serious business and sometimes we make it actual business. Sometimes we take God as one of the voters, so when there’s dispute over an election, we say, “That’s how God wanted it” and everybody shuts up.

3. SATIRE

Despite the fact that a majority of Nigerians don’t appreciate or at times understand satire, Nigeria has produced quite a number of satirist, especially in the literati. A fine example would be the Daily Times’ “How To” column by Elnathan John. From varying subjects as how to worship the Nigerian God to how to be a mechanic, John fills us with the reality of Nigeria through his cheeky humour.

4. SPORTS… NOT ALWAYS AND NOT LATELY

Gone are the glory days of U.S.A 94 and Atlanta 96 when we won the Olympic gold for football (we won our first two gold medals there, so much for 2012). Our most recent noteworthy achievement was getting D’Tigers (our basketball team) into their first Olympic ever and even though we crashed and burned, we still hail our players nonetheless.

5. NOLLYWOOD

Nobody makes a blockbuster quite like the Americans. Nobody makes a Bollywood movie quite like the Indians and in that same vein nobody makes a Nollywood movie quite like Nigerians (“The craziest magic in movies.” says Tosun Otituju). The sad part is the name Nollywood did not originate from Nigeria, as legend has it; it came from a Washington Post writer who coined the name after writing an article on the spread of African movies, specifically Nigerian movies in the United States among the Black community. I for one prefer to name it the Nigerian Movie Industry. Whatever the case, Nollywood has come to stay.

6. AFRO-BEAT

So Fela is no longer with us, but which nation do you know worships afro-beat music like us? Some of you may say that afro-beat died with Fela and that there are few afro-beat artists like Seun and Femi Kuti (heirs of the Fela kingdom), but I’d like to believe afro-beat has morphed into what we hear in the radio these days. Be it afro-pop or afro-hip-hop, the influence of afro-beat is never far away from our music… even the mediocre ones.

7. RHYTHM

Galala, saw, makossa, yahozee, ethegi, azonto. Nigerians know how to do all types of steps and if we’re not borrowing we’re inventing one every season. Oya dance for me baby, oh yeah!

8. ARTISTIC

Sure, we can be mediocre at times, but there’s no denying the amount of talent Nigeria has.

9. LITERATURE

Speaking of being artistic, there’s no doubt Nigeria has produced a great number of literature giants on the world with more being born everyday. Here’s a short, but portent list:

·        Chinua Achebe

·        Wole Soyinka

·        Cyprian Ekwensi

·        Chimamanda Adichie

·        Helon Habila

“The Nigerian people have taken to Literature, quite well. We are at period of literal renaissance and a new crop of young literal enthusiast is distinguishing themselves nationally and internationally.”- Hajara Isa

10. NON-NIGERIA AFRICA BASHING

We are very good at bashing any African country that is not Nigeria; just ask one of our particular West African neighbours. We love our neighbours generally and despite our house not being in order, the Nigerian is always superior. We are still in denial that another neighbour of ours will soon be supplying us what electricity. What are you saying? We are Nigerians, we’re better!

11.WE ARE LOUD

NIGERIANS ARE LOUD! IF YOU EVER SEE A GROUP OF BLACK PEOPLE AT THE AIRPORT SPEAKING ABOVE THE NORMAL DECIBEL, NA OUR PEOPLE! NA US THEY SEND BACK FROM SAUDI ARABIA*.

*That’s not why they really sent us back.

12. POLITICAL ACTIVISM

Nigerians are political animals by nature, whether fighting for a righteous cause or a sectional one. Nigerians get active with politics, which leads us to next contrary item on the list:

13. OFTEN TALK ABOUT PROTESTING, BUT NEVER PROTEST

Yes, Nigerians protest. As a matter of fact the last great almost-revolt was the #OccupyNigeria movement, which took place in January of this year and saw practically all walks of life flood the streets, except for those who could afford fuel. But generally Nigerians only talk more about protesting than actually doing it and when it’s done, it’s almost silly and uncovered by the media or portrayed as insignificant, except when we almost grounded the country to a halt. #Occupy

14. LIVE IN A FEDERAL COUNTRY, BUT AREN’T FEDERAL

Nigerians like to shout, “One Nigeria” whenever there is a rally, but the man from Kaduna who grew up in Cross Rivers can never run for governor without some harsh opposition about where he’s from. Ask the “settlers” in Jos, they’ll help sympathize with this dilemma.

15. TRIBAL WAR

There’s a great song by Nas and Damian Marley featuring K’Naan called, ‘Deadly Equation (Tribal War)’. K’Nann’s verse explains how tribal wars actually work. Basically at the end everybody gets wiped out until brothers are left and they kill each other. Fortunately for us, our population never goes down so we haven’t reached that stage.

16. “RELIGIOUS” WARRING

By now I think we’ve all realized that most crusades ignited by religion in Nigeria ultimately have very little to do with the religions involved and more to do with something else… idle hands.

17. POLITICAL AMNESIA

There’s an Islamic saying, “People get the leaders they deserve.” In our case, it may be because we suffer from political amnesia, we so easily forget the political mishaps of the past and vote the same people in or rather allow them to be counted on the ballot, thus political amnesia.

18. BRAIN DRAIN

Nigeria has without a doubt given away some of its best brains to foreign countries and as much as we hail them and claim them ours, we know the reality is they are no longer part of the Nigerian dream as we would like to think they are. Not many people come home after building a successful life abroad, unless they have to, in which case we claim they were not successful in the first place.

19. SELF DENIAL

Most recently, American hip-hop sensation Rick Ross shot a video for his Hold Me Back single in Nigeria. It was an alternative version to the one already being shown on various music stations. Like the one shot in his native U.S.A, the new video pretty much showed the gritty and grime life of the down-trodden and mostly poor. Trust our government to ban the video, it’s not like Rick Ross hired actors to portray poor Nigerians. Those WERE poor Nigerians that were already there. I guess the powers that be prefer champagne popping videos shot in South Africa because that really does portray the real Nigeria. Well let this be known that this list IS a real portrayal of Nigeria and these haters can’t hold me back, these haters can’t hold me back!

20. POPULATION

Technically, this isn’t something you can be said to be good at, but sometimes we have nothing to brag about so we mention that there are 160 MILLION of us. We’re the 7^th largest population in the world. Behind China, India, America, Indonesia, Brazil and Pakistan can talk to us, everybody in Africa keep quiet. If you have a problem with that, I have 159.999999999 million brothers and sisters to back me up! WHAT?! Say something! I dare you!

21. GOVERMENTAL SABOTAGE

We are not talking about coup-d’états here, we are talking about government deals especially with foreign companies. We’ve all heard the stories (Richard Branson had one lately), a company comes to Nigeria to invest and naturally they meet the government or rather someone who works for the government and are told they have to spare some cash first before business can be done! Before you know it business is either done after a lot of cash has been spared (and not the one for the business) or the company leaves and settles in Ghana.

22. DELEGATING

Nigerians are very good at delegating what they should be doing themselves. As Muniat Attunise puts it, “Nigerians are great at delegating the hard work for God while wanting to reap the rewards.”

23. SETTING UP COMMITTEES

This is self explanatory, Nigerians set up committees to review committees that were set up to review a committee that couldn’t handle an issue. I’m sure they’ll set up a committee to review who wrote this and another to decide what to do with it.

24. MURDERING THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

Abi you no know? You would think that a nation colonized by the British would at least have a better grasp of the English language than most, but not necessarily. When the Colonials came, our chiefs were willing to sell their brethrens for mirrors, alcohol and gunpowder (that did not come with the gun), but there was no way in hell we were going to speak English just like that. We invented the remix, way before Puff Daddy or P. Diddy or whatever he’s remixed his name to now. It started with us turning the English language into Pidgin English to the point that when we do speak the Queen’s English, we still murder it. Are you hearing me, because I am hearing you?!

25. WE ARE WARM PEOPLE

Despite sometimes being a proud and at times arrogant people, Nigerians are generally warm people. We are perhaps more welcoming to visitors than we are to each other.

26. WE ARE TRENDY

“Nigerians are top buyers, we patronize the best of technology; phones, cars, the latest gadget or fad.”- Hajara Isa

27. NIGERIANS ARE WELL TRAVELLED

For those who can afford and even those who just make it to Cotonou and back, Nigerians do travel a lot.

28. NIGERIANS ARE ENTREPRENURIAL &RESOURCEFUL

Look around, everybody get e handwork o! Nigerians are quite resourceful with their time, even certain illegalities have been made into business ventures, you know now. Before I let you go, let me inform you that you can reach me at Chinedu & Sons, Wuse Market Shop 999 or you can contact us at 080555555555.

29. NIGERIANS ARE A HAPPY PEOPLE

As Fela said, “Suffering and smiling!”

30. NIGERIANS ARE MALLEABLE

I admit I had to check the dictionary for the meaning of this word. In essence Nigerians are adoptable people, which is true. Everywhere you go there’s a Nigerian… unless perhaps money can not be made there.

31. ENDURING SPIRIT

We saved the best for last. Perhaps the greatest Nigerian characteristic is our undying spirit. Nigerians have been through a lot; military regimes, planes falling on our houses, you name it we’ve seen it. The only exception is God has spared us from natural disasters, you see the man-made ones are enough for us. Through it all Nigerians have decided to keep hope. Here’s to hope we see another independence day. God bless you and God bless Nigeria!

BEFORE WE CONTEMPLATE HAVING STATE POLICE

A lot of talk about state police has come up of recent, with some groups for and some obviously against it. Former IGPs (Inspector General of Police) have voiced their concern about it, while former head of state IBB has voiced his favour for it. The one issue that seems to be somehow left behind is the police themselves. What do we do with the Federal police that as it is appears to be weak, let alone when we have state police under their various state government with undoubtedly their various laws? Already it seems state governments have the power to create additional “forces”, for example Kano has the Hisbah police. Although they are more of a social group, they are given the same authoritative power as the police by the state.

There are essentially two types of police, preventive (uniformed) police and detectives. One of the supposed many problems with the Nigerian force is there are too many preventive officers. The truth is in any country, uniformed officers outnumber non-uniform ones. The problem in Nigeria is we have more than our fair share of uniformed many who never seem to move up the ladder, hence why you become their employer when they stop you on the highway and call you, “Chairman” so you can pay their salary.

While the Nigerian force does have a CID (Criminal Investigation Department) it is not as prominently known as the uniformed officers who show up at your house, take notes and then go back to the station, where they still gather information in one of those long notebooks you last saw in secondary school with the cashier at your school shop and tell you, “We’ll look into it”.

Another thing is the men of the CID don’t have a fixed dress code in Nigeria, you can not tell a CID officer when you see one, because unlike how it should be required most of the time, they don’t dress in formal attire (suits). Yes, CID officers are allowed to dress in plainclothes for the purpose of blending in, but who would you take serious (supposing they’re not scam artists) if they showed up at you door claiming to be a police officer, the man in the suit with I.D or the plain clothe officer? It should mostly be the work of the SSS to not have to confirm to some formal dress code, unless when needed.

Another issue is how long a police officer should be allowed to stay in a unit. The fear is the longer officers stay in the same place, the easier it is to create "cliques" that can contribute to corruption or other unethical behavior, but this theory can be challenged if you have a team that works well together for the general public.

The second major issue after differentiating the types of police is how to move them u in ranks. To be able to do that, there has to be an expansion of the police force itself. Already the FRSC (Federal Road Safety Corp) has taken over dealing with major road traffic/violation issues, while the EFCC/ICPC have taken over dealing with high official cases, usually involving fraud. This seems to have left the police with less today and in a way rightfully so. The above mentioned organizations have done better at handling their assigned cases than the police would have if given the task. So what do the police have left, aside from putting up insurmountable roadblocks on the city’s highway? Well, they are a few options and this is where moving up in rank helps. For starters there is the already aforementioned CID, to be an officer in that department; one must have spent two years of preventive (uniform) service. I know police officers who have been in the same position for 5 years; I see them everyday when they stop me. Obviously one cannot move up just by virtue of two years preventive work, they must be assessment tests to evaluate the capability of such officers before letting them proceed, the minimum requirement being two years of preventive work (controlling traffic, checkpoints, e.t.c.).

There’s the opportunity to create a few more departments like a Highway patrol division. People seem to have it confused. What we have technically in Nigeria are police officers on our highway and not a highway patrol. The duties of highway patrol go beyond mere roadblocks and checkups, we have soldiers doing that, which shows again that something else has been taken from the police, but any addition is great in these dire times.

There’s the opportunity to create the Coast guards or Port police to handle maritime areas like the Lagos port and our various waterways. Again to be eligible here one must have the required two years.

Each division is assigned a certain function to be carried out duly and each one requires certain qualifications aside from the two year minimum. For example men/women who graduate to Highway patrol must have first hand knowledge of first aid kits in cases of accidents and should be equipped with ambulances and tow trucks. Men/women who graduate to Port police, must be able to swim and drive boats and so and so forth.

Another available option in expanding the police is what I refer to as State Department Police. This is police that deals with issues concern our borders and neighbouring countries. Already such a division exists under the Jonathan administration, where our intelligence/security personnel deal with crime-related issues concerning Nigerians in neighbouring West African countries. Obviously for the Nigerian police officer to be part of this he/she must have put in more than just two years of work and have at least a required knowledge of a foreign language, preferably French seeing as most of our neighbours are French speakers.

Of course all of these expansions could be nil without first improving the preventive stage of the police unit, where the largest number of officers are situated. Issues such as the use of weapons or any type of force, how to address the public, treatment of suspects, e.t.c need to be discussed. One very important issue that comes every now and then, only to be forgotten after public debate is the treatment of gunshot victims. Till this day, despite multiple incidents where innocent people have been allowed to die from gunshot wounds because hospital staffs fear the police labeling them as accomplices, we still haven’t allowed the innocent to be treated and if they are criminals why can’t the hospital staff be allowed to contact the authorities while they attend to the suspects. If this is not acceptable for the authorities then why can’t they assign police officers to hospitals to watch over gunshot victims? Must every innocent gunshot victim be turned into a criminal suspect? The police have blood on their hands for this! The most recent nationwide incident was during the Occupy movement when two young men were shot and refused to be attended to by hospital staff. While the police can argue that these rioters were acting out of control, it does not allow them to play with their lives either. It is unfair and unjust! This is one area where the expansion of the preventive force can be useful; assign officers to hospitals. Also the hospitals should play their part and request for police officers to be assigned to their institutions so as to avoid any bureaucratic back and forth as is likely happen. The police can not aware of every hospital and it’s going to take time to shake this “culture” of letting innocent people die because they’ve being shot!

Another issue is the holding of suspects. Not only do we fear trigger-happy police officers, we fear being accused of a crime and having our rights denied when in custody. With all these issues at hand, how can we contemplate having state police, when we haven’t dealt with the basics!

52 THINGS NIGERIANS ARE GREAT AT

So here's the thing, GQ magazine has this article called, "50 Things America Does Better Than Anyone Else" in which they name 50 things they believe they are better at than the rest of the world. You can google it for you amusement. Some of it true, some of it could've been replaced with other things. The point being that Americans are a proud people, which brings me to my point: the only other people I know with as much pride and arrogance (I say that in the nicest way) are Nigerians. Only a Nigerian who lives as a pauper in his country, would go abroad and expected to be treated like royalty. Only a Nigerian would disobey the laws of his land  and go abroad and all of the sudden decide to behave. Only a Nigerian. So there are things I believe we do better than most people, but instead of 50 things we do better than anyone else, I just simply want to compile 50 things we're great at: election rigging, mediocre entertainment, self-delusion of grandeur, e.t.c. Whatever you can think of. The reason why it reads 52 in the title is because we are going to be 52 in October by post-colonial years, because Lord knows this country was formed in 1914, but I digress and I have a feeling we just might have a long list. So feel free to share your thoughts on what we do great here in the comment section or feel free to write a little something and send to my e-mail: lostdogg84@yahoo.com. This is not a scam (another thing we do great), I will insha-Allah compile this (another thing we do great: call God).

THE PROBLEM WITH NIGERIAN FOOTBALL… LIKE I REALLY KNOW

For the first time in twenty-something odd years, Nigeria missed out on the CAF championship, a position that most Nigerians have taken as a birthright, much like the often repeated speculation that some Northerners have taken power as a birthright. Like the Northerners, Nigerians as a whole have seen it is not so and as such this year’s CAF championship is missing a lot of Nigerian viewers and not to mention the sponsorships that would’ve come with from telecommunication companies and so on had Nigeria qualified, which brings me to my topic of discussion; curing the sports industry, specifically football. First of all let me state, I’m not that big a football fan. I mean I don’t get a heart attack when my team loses and I don’t put off meeting my girlfriend just to watch a match, providing I had a girlfriend to begin with, but what I believe I do have is what most Northerners are known for (and perhaps only good at really). I have administrative skills (read: the power to tell people what to do… or at least the desire to want to boss them around.) With that I present to you a solution, yes, the only good one I could think of. First, let’s look at some of the problems.

Nigerians have witnessed all manner of questionable activities concerning football in Nigeria from corruption at the top level of the NFA to the issue of the age of certain players in and out the country to a perceived lack of commitment from some of our players to an all round lack of consistency in the handling of our sports affairs. Lots of various “solutions” have been offered like getting a foreign coach and yadda, yadda, yadda. The only solutions that don’t seem to be really heard are the ones that come from people who really love the game and not the politics of it; people who would rather watch homegrown players and see a match between two Nigerian clubs than Liverpool vs. Man U.

So we come to where I think the answer may be: we go local. Starting with the local football league, which suffers from a lack of attention usually skewered instead towards foreign leagues. The idea isn’t to necessarily get local football on TV as that may seem like the most likely solution. That’s already been done and it hasn’t changed anything. The solution lies in the teams themselves. There are only two well-known or should I say celebrated football academies in the country; the Pepsi academy and the Kwara State football academy. Two academies alone are not going to produce the champions of tomorrow, let alone today. It is with this in mind, that I suggest that every local team have a youth team as part of their organization. The advantages cannot be understated. For one, the clubs will have a pool of players to choose from to join their A-team. Second, for the youth, whether or not they end up being superstars or not, it will keep them preoccupied at an impressionable period of their lives.

Now, some clubs might bring up the issue of money and what and how much it takes to financially handle a youth team, but when they look at the cost against the advantage of having a youth team, they will realize the advantages outweigh the cost in the long run. With a solid base like this in place, I believe everything else will become easier to solve, because you can’t have football without the players. There are also always sponsors willing to lend a hand to support such initiatives like youth clubs so I don’t think it would be hard for teams that are serious about doing so and let’s not forget nearly all the local teams in Nigeria are state-sponsored.