2011 and all that
Though it purports to be targeted at government and what it represents, no one is exempted from its impact. Just as it flattens well fortified concrete high rise buildings and blows vehicles made of the sturdiest steel into smithereens, so also does it create craters fit to swallow a sizeable village. An on –looker took […]
Though it purports to be targeted at government and what it represents, no one is exempted from its impact. Just as it flattens well fortified concrete high rise buildings and blows vehicles made of the sturdiest steel into smithereens, so also does it create craters fit to swallow a sizeable village. An on –looker took one long look at one of such carnage and intoned that with this Nigeria has lost whatever innocence it harboured, in its place it acquired a new but odious experience, marking a crossing of an imaginary threshold into something unfathomable.
During the year two remarkable individuals translated into the great beyond. Chief Odumegwu Emeka Ojukwu one quiet morning took his leave from the earthly realm, leaving the nation to ponder on the bitter/sweet trajectory his life had taken. The narrative of the early post independence period in Nigeria would not be complete without a mention of his espousal of a regrettable brinkmanship that shook the nation to its foundation with great cost in human and material terms. The good thing for Nigeria however, was that at the end of the unfortunate hostilities it was possible to rebuild the oneness and the indivisibility that underpin the establishment of the nation. Still for the Igbo, he remains one of their own, much revered for standing up for them in a period of uncertainty and flux in all its complexities. For that he retains a place a little below the great Nnamdi Azikiwe (a truly Nigerian person) in the pantheon of Igbo leaders. In a sense, there is something edifying for Nigeria about his life –which is a willingness to see that sad period of hostility as a necessary trying time to test the strength of the nation, and thankfully its tenuous sinews have continued to grow in leaps and bounds.
Alexander Uruemu Ibru – one of the illustrious Ibru brothers, died recently and threw the country, particularly his constituency—the media into deep mourning. An entrepreneur and astute businessman, who at a certain time decided that Nigeria needed a journal that would match the best anywhere, and he proceeded to bring it to fruition, and with it he raised the standard of Nigeria journalism to a level hitherto unknown. The Guardian dazzled many of its readers in its early years with its exquisitely detailed reportage of events and consciously cultivated urbane prose in which its columns and features were written. For once, journalism was elevated from the humdrum level it was languishing when its fare were stock phrases, clichés and general low level of linguistic expression which were generally unappealing.
Of course, he was able to do all these by attracting men and women from the academia and old hands in the profession and proceeded to pay them salaries and wages worthy of their labour. This gesture transformed the journalism profession from one which young men and women joined as a last resort for want of a better thing to do, into a respectable one which attracted the best brains in the Humanities, Social Sciences and the Arts. Alex Ibru’s contribution to journalism therefore is that he caused it to come to its own as a respectable profession worthy for pursuit. Not a practicing journalist himself, he was able to see the shortcomings in the profession and work to rectify them, thereby acting out an age -old saying that it takes the eyes of a non professional to see the ills in a profession in order to improve on it. Sleep well Alex!
It is hard going to see anything good to report this last twelve months, since everywhere you look it is more of the same: abysmally poor performance in public exams; another closure of public universities; ever dwindling fortunes in Nigeria’s sporting life, evinced in its soccer teams crashing out of all international competitions. Still, as the saying goes, hope must be kept alive, for that is condition precedent for the expectation of good tidings which will surely come.
Elsewhere in the world it has been a momentous year. In large parts of North Africa, the revolution sparked by Muhammed Bouazizi, the Tunisian vegetable vendor has continued unabated, toppling erstwhile strongmen in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya— smoothly in the first two countries but messily in Libya. In Egypt, a rearguard power struggle is still being waged between those who feel they got a raw deal for their trouble since the military in whose hands power fell has continued its reluctance in ushering in wholesale democracy and peoples’ right, at once. In Syria, the ruling elite has decided to face down the threat of losing power with an all out onslaught on protesters, causing many of its own soldiers to defect to the ranks of the opposition and making an all out civil war a likelihood.
In Europe, years of living on borrowed money has come home to roust, as one after the other, insolvent countries face economic collapse and political turmoil quite unprecedented, thereby threatening in turn the collapse of the world economy. With scores of people out of work and governments at their wits’ end trying to find solution to the situation, the resulting hard times surely would take some shine from the yuletide and the New Year celebrations. In the United States however things have started to look up as the recession brought on by the financial recklessness has started to lift, with report of increasing creation of jobs as firms that had laid off workers now call them back and also recruiting new ones. All of which have buoyed up the spirits of Americans who had expressed forlorn hope that the recession would abate this year.
If the economic resurgence in the US holds, perhaps Barack Obama, after all can hope for a second term as we enter the US’s election year in 2012. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.