Issues and people made lucid: A review
In this rich compilation of articles originally published in her column in the New Nigerian newspapers, Ramatu takes the reader on a journey. It is a journey of the issues that have helped to shape discourses on various aspects of the Nigerian state and society – economy, international affairs, policy formulation, health, education, women and […]
In this rich compilation of articles originally published in her column in the New Nigerian newspapers, Ramatu takes the reader on a journey. It is a journey of the issues that have helped to shape discourses on various aspects of the Nigerian state and society – economy, international affairs, policy formulation, health, education, women and children and even personalities as well as transition of certain individuals. The articles not only show the author’s perspectives on the issues at the time they were written, they also reveal, when read today, how those issues have mutated over time. One of the significant revelations is that the issues that have dominated discourses appear to have remained intractable, such that several years down the line, virtually same issues remain topical, sometimes without any form of mutation in the trajectories of the arguments.
Take for instance the article: ‘The Dangerous Lokoja-Abuja Road’ which the author first published in her New Nigerian column on September 16, 2006. In that piece Ramatu wrote: “Today I had wanted to comment about the 100 days in office of our elected representatives but changed my mind at the last minute because I felt there is a pressing issue at hand. It has to do with the alarming rate of road mishaps presently. The frequency with which we are losing large number of lives in these accidents even before the end of the year when the situation is normally terrible is quite frightening. The recent accident that claimed the lives of seventy people last week on Abuja-Lokoja road is a sad reminder of the long standing problem. This particular route has become a death trap over the years because of the heavy traffic that struggle for space on that narrow road.” More than five years after Ramatu first wrote the piece, the Lokoja-Abuja road remains a hot spot for not only accidents but also armed robbery. So what has government been doing since then, one may ask? How come that virtually nothing has changed on a road that attracted such an attention more than five years ago?
Yet another issue still very relevant in modern international politics is the clamour for the democratisation of the United Nations’ security council especially by Third World countries. Her opinion in 2004 as expressed on page 198 about the need to expand the security council in order to make it more representative and “better placed to meet the challenges of a new world troubled by violence and other problems” captures the present day mood in our part of the world where several African countries are battling to be considered for permanent membership. Nigeria is one of them.
Journalists, especially those who maintain regular columns, are often said to write ‘history in a hurry.’ For experienced writers who take out time to do research before writing, that does not mean that what they write is factually wrong. My understanding of that phrase in its positive sense is that such journalists/columnists are able to infuse into their writings the passions and emotions that go with the issues they write about as they unfold. There are a sufficient dose of such passions and emotions in this compilation. In this sense, unlike the analyst or the historian who writes several years after the incident they write about occurred and can therefore afford to be detached, the journalist/columnist, as someone often affected by the issue he/she writes about, is more of an activist writer. Yes, they can be neutral and objective, but detachment in the mould of the historian and the analyst is often a luxury they cannot afford.
I commend this book, which is printed in reader-friendly fonts and packaged well. I would have though wished that the book is organised differently. For instance there are sections on Politics, Policy and Economy. My feeling however is that the articles grouped under each of these categories could have conveniently fitted into any of the three sections meaning that the line between the three sections is quite blurred.
The above observation however, cannot detract from the quality of the write-ups, the printing and the packaging. The articles, written in simple, first person pronoun, are a delight to read.