A Short Biography of Yesterday

If the Labour Party loses the next UK general elections, they can blame leadership fatigue, for the incumbents would have failed against opponents who have no killer punch.

They would also have made a case for annual sabbaticals for long-term occupants of high office. There may be no pressing need to sack a long-lived exec, but an extended vacation (especially one in a low-pressured job on Everyday Street which can make them human again) may well reawaken the passion that makes high office a vehicle for a vision, rather than just another high-calibre job. Read more »

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A few yesterdays ago, the UK’s chemical firm, Innospec, exposed itself to a fine of over £8 million by admitting to a UK court in Southwark that it had been bribing officials of the Indonesian government. The offence? Using banned lead-based fuel additives.

Interesting the way this breaks down: via fatter dividends, UK shareholders get the fiscal benefits of a decade of the illicit business, and, following the bust, the UK government gets over £8 million in fines from the prosecution.

This is of course part of a growing trend of deficit-busting prosecutions that enlarge the coffers of the West. Not too long ago, the US treasury earned over $600 miliion in fines on the back of corrupt practices in Nigeria in the Halliburton cases. It is almost a new windfall tax on business that corrupt companies are lining up to pay.

Corruption-based causes of action seem to be a new, valuable, ‘natural’ resource that is sadly, prevalent in the South. Indonesia – and other cess-pools of corruption – really must get their act together. If they are to get anything from this double-edged, intangible asset – beyond bugetary holes and the environmental degradation from tons of poisonous lead, they must learn to launch their own pre-emptive prosecutions…

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The British National Party, chaired by Nick Griffin has a small problem on its hands: it has been required by court order to change its constitution in order to open its membership to Blacks and Asians. One can imagine the consternation of the 14,000 members of the far-right political party which is currently open only to Caucasians, which is against mixed marriage, and which campaigns for Blacks and Asians to be repatriated back to their countries of origin.

As a fringe party, the BNP is not totally irrelevant in British politics. From some 500 votes in the 1987 elections, it has gone up to attracting about 190,000 nationwide in 2005. It won some 5% of the votes in the London-wide vote in 2008 and won a seat in the hallowed London Assembly – with about 56 councillors nationwide.

The white-only membership of the BNP is at the heart of its identity. Its current constitution defines its potential membership with the particularity of an apartheid byelaw:

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Yesterday, Nigeria’s House of Assembly appointed Vice President Goodluck Jonathan the  ‘Acting President’ of the federation under the provisions of S. 145 of the Constitution. They acted to fill the vacuum created when President Yar Adua was rushed to Saudi Arabia on a medical emergency some 78 days ago. They are to be congratulated for finally doing something. Sadly, however, their action has created another constitutional crisis. This is section 145 of the 1999 constitution on which they relied:

145. Whenever the President transmits to the President of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives a written declaration that he is proceeding on vacation or that he is otherwise unable to discharge the functions of his office, until he transmits to them a written declaration to the contrary such functions shall be discharged by the Vice-President as Acting President. Read more »

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(Or How to Hook the Naija Mugu)

A black notebook is discovered in a loo, 20,000 feet above Abuja. It contains political secrets so ‘explosive’ that its owner has to deny it. Here’s the first of ten recently discovered commandments designed for the aspiring politician.

The full PDF is available here and you would be mad not to read it all…

then again, reading it might just drive you mad, or worse… decisions, decisions… anyhow, here’s the first of ten commandment. Read more »

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Maurice and The Right to Recall

Okay, so there I was on the other side of the street from the Nigerian Embassy in London. It was 5.30pm on Friday, 15th January, 2010 and our demonstration was just winding down when a few rather more nattily-dressed Nigerians began to arrive on the scene. ‘You are late for the demonstration,’ we told them.

‘We’re all together in the struggle,’ they replied, ‘but we have another demonstration inside the embassy.’ Read more »

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We do live in interesting times.

Yesterday I journeyed to London. The occasion was a protest rally at Parliament Square and a march to the Nigerian Embassy at Northumberland Avenue. The immediate provocations for the protest were a missing president, a constitutional crisis and a slow-burning rage (50 years old this year) at a desperate poverty of leadership in Nigeria. There was also the embarrassing mismatch between our national ambitions and our realities. Read more »

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Here’s the reason why… and  a notice from the organisers of a London Protest March… See you there.
Chuma.

Why Nigerians in London must defy all odds to attend the mass protest on Friday January 15, 2010

Nigeria is in perhaps the worst shape in its approximately fifty-year history. The country lurches from one dispiriting news to another, leaving its citizens close to despair. Recent policy decisions by the Barack Obama administration indicate that Nigeria is now perceived as a pariah state and haven of terror, its citizens regarded as potential terrorists. In the midst of such troubling developments, the members of Nigeria’s political and economic ruling class continue their pursuit of odious privileges and obscene accumulation of the nation’s resources. These unconscionable men and women conspire against the nation’s corporate interests and further impoverish the majority of citizens. Read more »

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Here is the text of an open letter released by Nigerian Writers in reaction to the current political situation in Nigeria. Over forty writers have currently signed up to the letter which has this morning been released to the media. You can add your own signature, and support, in a comment box beneath.   You can also listen to and download an audio version by clicking on this link:  Audio

We are no Longer at Ease.

An Open Letter from Nigerian Writers

Nigeria’s failure to make the progress commensurate with 50 years of nation-building is not just a failure of leadership. It is first and most catastrophically, a failure of followership.

As ordinary Nigerians, we have failed to create an environment where good leadership can thrive. By glamorising fraud and ineptitude, we have created a country hostile to probity. Our expectation from Government House is mediocrity, so that good government surprises us pleasantly and excellence continues to amaze us. Instead of an environment of accountability, we have fostered sycophancy. We have been content to follow every stripe of leader, from the thief to the buffoon. The consequence is that for months we have been happy to be ruled even in absentia.

Today, we say, no more.

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Prayer before Flight

(after Louis MacNeice)

I’m about to fly, so help me.

May the heaven-bound youth with a
lust for virgins miss my flight.
when the prodding wand comes my way
let it beep briefly, and be
gone

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