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OPINION: Wike And Abuja’s Corn Sellers

Published

2 years ago

August 28, 2023

By Lasisi Olagunju

The only reason the poor have not started eating the rich in Nigeria is, perhaps, because this is the season of corn. And, I believe I am right. Check your neighbourhood. Except you are in this government, you would know that things are bad, very bad for every home. Every staple food is priced beyond the pocket of the poor. With famine wrecking the urban working class and the toiling village yokel, corn –roasted and boiled – has come as a life-saver. But dealing in corn has been pronounced an act of ‘terrorism’ by Nigeria’s new Federal Capital Territory (FCT) minister, Mr Nyesom Wike. He announced in Abuja some days ago that he would sack corn sellers from the streets of the Federal Capital because they were criminals acting as informants to criminals. He said: “People selling corn will drop their waste indiscriminately and these are the things that cause insecurity. Criminals come to buy (corn) and use the opportunity to spy and give information to criminals. It is imperative we clear street hawkers.” It was a sweeping statement, very unfair, reckless, and even rash and incautious.

The same corn sellers that were the toast of politicians during street campaigns just a few months ago are Wike’s new felons in town. My people would gasp at what this minister said and say poor melon gave them delicious ẹ̀gúsí soup with which they ate their pounded yam, its peelings (eepo ẹ̀gúsí) have now become a taboo forbidden to be seen early in the morning (A fi ẹ̀gúsí jẹ iyán tán, èpo rẹ̀ wá di oun àìjí rí). When Wike said “it is imperative we clear street hawkers”, he didn’t apply his mind to the fact that what he wanted to “clear” are not just Marullus’s “blocks…stones…worse than senseless things.” They are human beings, the broken of all generations, many with dead dreams. The street trader we see daily also desire life in its better form but life happened to them. The sun rises and sets on their heads; the rains start and end on their brows. It is worse for the roasters of corn; their season is the rainy season and, yet, their embers must be protected from being quenched by the rains. Just as the scarred palm trees of Ijaiye forever tell tales of Ogunmola’s war, the charred fingers and palms of these unfortunate Nigerians sing the elegy of their unending wear and tear on the streets of life. Yet, we threaten them with eviction without giving them alternatives to where they are.

Was it not condition that made crayfish bend? If the street traders had options, Wike wouldn’t find them on the Abuja street. There is nothing cheery in being on the roadside or on the road, running up and down like the unwell. The next time you see hordes of hawkers running after your bulletproof Lexus, look into their eyes. If your eyes still see clearly, you should see sadness in its raw form in those sockets. When they sell to you, they smile and thank you. But the smile is always cold and rancid (erín kí korò). They work very hard but earn very little. Some get knocked down, maimed or killed. Yet, there is no end to their toil and struggle. The state has long left them behind in their struggle against want. We think their existence dents the beauty of our cities; we say investors won’t come if we don’t lock up the poor. A friend looked at everything happening around us and wondered why the state loved to rub salt into the injury of the people. I told him that salt complements injury in Nigeria. It is, in fact, the state’s preferred palliative for the injured.

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Instead of Wike criminalising the poverty of Abuja’s street traders, his focus should be on what to do to get them sufficiently empowered to trade in safer places. Democracy is preferred because it promises life in its better form. It is not preferred because it allows people to perfunctorily vote periodically. That is why leaders in a democracy are counseled to treat people with respect and seek their welfare at all times. The Kikuyu of Kenya say that “to lead is not to run roughshod over people.” Leaders should not be the archetypal Shakespearean “hard hearts, … cruel men of Rome” who think they have crossed the river of life and should be disdainful of the people downstream. We have them in Nigeria. They do and say what pumped their ego. They even triumphantly rebuke their old mates on the other side of life. There are consequences. When everything failed in 1793 France, including the people’s revolution, and leaders became covetous and rude and poverty was perpetuated, renowned political philosopher and one of the leaders of the French Revolution, Jean Jacques Rousseau, made a fiery speech in which he warned that “when the people shall have nothing more to eat, they will eat the rich.” A commentator said “the rich” that Rousseau was referring to was anyone in power. US’ John F. Kennedy had a similar warning for big men who appropriate democracy and its dividends to themselves and their cronies and ditch the people: “If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.”

I have read it several times that life is not always fair – but it has really never been fair. The poor cannot pull themselves out of poverty; they need the state. But the state does not think so. That is why some crazy English language users coined phrases that mock the poor. One of them would challenge the unfortunate to “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” when it is practically impossible to do so. Try doing it – hold the strap of your boot and pull yourself up. I wish you luck. The poor in Nigeria has become, in the words of Sembene Ousmane, “a leftover from a vanished time, slowly being forgotten.” No one thinks the poor deserves to live. That is why the government of small-big men could not fight the big thieves but are training their guns at street hawkers. If you’ve ever watched corn sellers at their ‘job’ literally getting their fingers burnt for peanuts, you won’t call them by names their parents did not give them. It is a ‘work’ no one would do happily. Their sunken life is in the sadness of their sad eyes. One hundred percent of persons hawking on the street are victims of life and its contradictions. It is not like they prayed to be beaten ceaselessly day and night by weather and its inclemency. But it is said that what the world has inflicted you with is what they deploy in mocking you. A vicious band of locusts has siezed Nigeria in the name of democracy. The powerful have been flip-flopping in power for years to the sorrow of all; they’ve serially changed their masqueraders with tougher whips of many fingers. They have upped the ante in implementing policies that are ruinous to homes and damning to dreams. They now mock their victims.

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Women in hijab recently protested against hunger in Rigasa, Kaduna State. I was told the powers-that-be in the locality invited them and they were warned to stop saying they were hungry. Nigeria is not a democracy. It is an odious blend of heartless oligarchy and the worst form of plutocracy. An oligarchy is a small group of people having control of a country; plutocracy is government by the wealthy. The operators of the Nigerian system are overfed men who wantonly misapply Cicero’s “hunger is the best sauce” quote in their engagements with the poor. They have desertified the nation’s loam. Yet, they insist they have done well and deserve to be thanked. These are very delicate times; the people are hungry and restless. Government officials should carefully weigh their words and actions in relating with the poor. Not every Nigerian will emulate the epicurean patience of the country farmer, Ofellus, in Horace’s Satire. The character’s farm, his only source of sustenance, is taken away from him by the rich but he is seen celebrating the retention of what he calls the source of his happiness. Street trading is a reaction to lack of opportunity for better ways to earn decent living. Clearing street traders from Abuja cannot therefore be the solution to street trading. It will not even succeed. Wike’s predecessors serially sent them away, confiscated their wares and threw them into misery. But they came back because Nigeria has no place for them outside the streets. Their coming back is not pig-headed stubbornness or resistance. It is the resilience you find in every black man where suffering is everyday experience and the options are limited.

Across Africa, the people are hungry but their governments offer them threats and insults as pain killers. It didn’t start today but how it will end is what worries me. Mark G. Wentling is the author of ‘Africa Memoir: 50 Years, 54 Countries, One American Life.’ His engagement with Africa started in 1970 helping where he could in finding solutions to the continent’s existential issues. His bio says he is still involved in interrogating why Africans suffer and smile as the years roll by. Writing for ‘American Diplomacy’ in March 2014, Wentling recalled his experience of The Great Sahelian drought of the early 1970s and described Africans as “experts at buying time.” And that precisely is who we are. The article entitled ‘Africa’s Hunger’ contains a heart-wrenching account of the author’s encounter with a group of starving women and children at “a vast barren zone 200 kilometers north of Niamey, Niger Republic.” Wentling recalled that these people’s animals had died and “they had expended all their few assets. All the men in their clan had long ago migrated south to the coast or to Nigeria in search of work. Many of their children had already died from malnutrition and exposure, and more were likely to die in the days to come. All their old people had already died. They were the survivors, living on the edge of survival in a desolate place where all their usual drought-coping mechanisms had been exhausted and death was a likely prospect.” He offered to help move them farther south where their chances of survival were much better; where they could join other drought-affected people who were being assisted by aid agencies. Wentling said they refused, defiantly saying: “We prefer to die here in the place of our ancestors. At least, if our husbands, brothers and sons return, they will know where to find our bodies.”

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When will suffering end in Africa? The American ended his ‘Africa’s Hunger’ piece asking the same question but answering it with words of frustration: “After over four decades of working in every hungry corner of Africa, I should have some answers, but I don’t. Quite the contrary, I have more questions than when I first set foot on the continent in 1970. Way back then, I expected hunger in Africa to be a thing of the past by now, but clearly that is far from the case. At this late stage in my life, I am at a loss and feel deeply the failure to feed Africans, particularly the children. My conscience suffers because so many children (40% in some countries) are permanently impaired by stunting. I believe the conscience of the world should also suffer. I am worn out and feeling like a casualty of Africa’s ‘hunger wars.’ I am not sure of what needs to be done to end hunger in Africa…”

It is not only the American that is frustrated and unsure; we who live in the crisis are far more confused. The people have no clues; their governments are clueless.

Tell Wike to hold his peace with the street traders. Even before he chases the corn sellers away from Abuja, they will soon disappear from where they are. Their survival is seasonal; the last harvest of what they sell is what they are selling. The farms are drying up. The worries are really very little for the trader. It is the government that should be scared of what is coming. What will the people eat after this corn season? The immediate preoccupation of any government person today in Nigeria should be how to tackle the ravages of poverty and starvation. It is careless bourgeois talk to boast of sweeping the poor off the streets. The people are powerless, hungry and deprived but the government offers threats instead of hope. What will the people eat going forward? Brooklyn, United States-based writer, Talia Lavin, warned in November 2019 that “revolution is usually born of an authentic powerlessness and privation.” It was her summation of this age that Rousseau’s “eat the rich” is becoming a literal consideration for the poor. We should be worried — and scared.

This article written by Dr. Lasisi Olagunju, Saturday Editor, Nigerian Tribune was first published by the same newspaper. It is published by INFO DAILY with the permission from the author.

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[OPINION] 2027: Tinubu And The Snake

Published

11 hours ago

June 13, 2025

Editor

Tunde Odesola

To the Westerner, land is one of the four factors of production, riding in the same vehicle with labour, capital and entrepreneurship. In the terminology of modern economics, land is a variable. A variable is inconsistent, like Nigerian politicians. Land is also a utility, like the Nigerian masses, used and dumped. Land is a means of profit. Prophets profit in Nigeria sinfully. Land is an asset…A broader definition adds technology and human capital to the four basic factors.

In Africa, land holds a spiritual significance beyond its role as a factor of production. Land’s ancient name is Earth. Land is the endless embroidered mat of brown and red soils, lying face-up to her celestial twin, Heaven, who gazes back with sun and moon for eyes.

Unlike Heaven’s big eyes, the sun and the moon, which watch over humans, every step taken by man on land ticks on the conscience of time. Land is ferocious karma. It never forgets. While Heaven symbolises the eyes that watch all human deeds, land is the judge that rewards benevolence and punishes malevolence. This is why the Yoruba revere land in these words, “Ilè ògéré, a fi oko yeri, alapo ika ti o n gbe ika mi, says Ifa scholar and Araba of Osogbo, Chief Ifayemi Elebuibon. Expatiating, Elebuibon states that ogere is a divine trap; a quicksand that caves in under the feet of evildoers, swallowing them up.

After creation, Man and every creature live in their respective habitats within the garden. Biblical and Quranic accounts say God made Man lord over all other creatures, urging him to multiply and subdue the earth. However, Prof. Wande Abimbola, Awise Agbaye, says that foreign religion believers are applying God’s injunction wrongly, noting that African religions, including Ifa worship, provide room for the mutual coexistence of all creatures. He explains that Western civilisation, aided by science and technology, has gravely polluted the earth.

The former vice chancellor of the Obafemi Awolowo University expounds, “Humans, animals, insects and trees should coexist. If we can’t coexist with nature, we will perish. There are 700 million vehicles worldwide, and there are 350 million of them in the US alone. If you sum up the acreage of roads in the US, it’s more than the size of New Jersey. We have intruded on nature, disrupted ecosystem balance, and killed countless organisms under the soil through construction.

“The injunctions by foreign religions, urging people to go into the world and subdue and multiply, are probably responsible for our wastefulness and population explosion. Where are the trees in Ibadan, Ikeja, Port Harcourt and Zaria? If we see an insect, we kill it. If we see a snake, we kill it.”

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But, how did the snake get its venom? Wait, I’ll tell you. Creation stories snake through cultures, shedding skins of meaning from culture to culture. In the Abrahamic religions – Judaism, Christianity and Islam – the snake got its venom on Creation Day, before sneaking up on Man Adam and Woman Eve, to trick them out of Eden. Thereafter, the snake became cursed and haunted.

In African cosmology, however, the snake is not the Devil. Neither is it Satan who morphed into a serpent in Eden. The snake is not exiled from Paradise; it is a bona fide creature in creation, possessing the most beautiful skin of all, a shapely head and bespectacled eyes.

How did the snake get its venom? Elebuibon uncoils the tale, “In time past, the snake was called ‘okun ile’ – earthly rope, because it was used for tying objects like firewood. People carrying firewood from the bush dump their firewood on the ground at home, smashing the snake, crushing its spine,” Elebuibon explains.

“Then the snake consulted a babalawo named ‘Òkàn Wéré Wéré’, who divinated an Ifa verse, Òkànràn Òsá, for him. Snake was told to make a sacrifice of needles and worship his head. When Snake did as instructed, he became envenomed,” Elebuibon concludes. Man knows better now.

The life of the snake is not only a pot of venom and fangs. Globally, the snake kills far fewer people than the mosquito and war. According to BBC Wildlife Magazine, the snake ranks among the 10 deadliest animals to humans, including the hippopotamus, elephant, saltwater crocodile, ascaris roundworm, scorpion, assassin bug, freshwater snail, Man, and mosquito.

Indeed, Man should be grateful to the snake because it preys to protect balance in the ecosystem. Though its venom kills a very few, it saves millions who suffer from cancer, hypertension, blood disorders, etc via the medicines made from it. A paper titled, “Therapeutic potential of snake venom in cancer therapy: Current Perspectives,” published by the National Library of Science, USA, says, “Some substances found in the snake venom present a great potential as anti-tumour agents. In this review, we presented the main results of recent years of research involving the active compounds of snake venom that have anticancer activity.” The snake is not all about coiling and slithering, though scientists and engineers model robotic movement after its muscular geometry.

The Idemili community of Anambra State comprises two local government councils called Idemili North and Idemili South. In Idemili, pythons are not cursed; they are consecrated. They slither around freely into homes on silent feet; never bruised, nor battered.

The Awise Agbaye says some Yoruba communities worship pythons in the olden days because they believed that the founder of a community, upon death, turned into a python in the afterlife, where he sits on a stool to welcome members of his clan who attained old age before dying.

Many African folklore songs extol the python. One of such songs is ‘Terena’, by Dele Ojo. Another is ‘Sirinkusi’, which belongs in Yoruba oral history. The theme of both songs includes love and respect, with a young man trying to prove his prowess to a love-struck lady.

In ‘Terena’, the young man tells the lady not to call him ‘Awe’, that is, ‘Mister’, but ‘Aba’, which is ‘Father’. The lady refuses and the young man takes her on a journey where he respectively turns into a python, tiger and water, but the lady doesn’t budge. It was when he turned into fire that she eventually called him father.

I will call President Bola Ahmed Tinubu father. I will call him a python, too. With the way he has traversed Nigeria’s political terrain since 1999, no other politician qualifies to be called the Father and Python of Nigerian politics. Tinubu, it was, who wrestled to the ground the Federal Government headed by General Muhammadu Buhari, to emerge President against all odds.

Tinubu is the wiliest politician in the history of Nigeria. And I fear for him, lest the trap set by the tortoise entraps the tortoise. I remember, the level-headed Tafawa Balewa faced opposition, the sage, Obafemi Awolowo, faced opposition, and the charismatic Zik of Africa faced opposition.

General Ibrahim Babangida, aka Maradona, was booted out of power. Though MKO Abiola rode on the back of popular support in 1993, he still faced opposition. And, before he died like a brief candle, General Ole, Sani Abacha, coerced Nigerians to support his self-perpetuation. Every Nigerian sang the name of Abacha. Those who didn’t sing fled the town before dawn.

Clearly, I remember, ‘Third Term’ agenda burnt the fingers of the hypocrite farmer in Ota after democracy returned to the country, even as the herdsman General fled to Katsina to enjoy his bounty in peace, two years ago.

Father Tinubu, the way everyone is falling to the anointing in Abuja is foreboding. I don’t know what will give, but something seems out of place and ready to give. Tinubu is the current father of Nigerian politics. I pray he lives longer than the ancient python. I wish he would stop deploying his massive muscles against opposition voices and his sons in Lagos, Rivers and elsewhere.

Though politicians cling to power when the nation gasps, the snake sheds its skin when it outgrows it. Though the snake strikes to protect its terrain, the politician steals to destroy his terrain. I pray Tinubu was the hissing snake that strikes corruption to death, and not the politician that kisses to steal.

Email: tundeodes2003@yahoo.com

Facebook: @Tunde Odesola

X: @Tunde_Odesola

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CSO, Stakeholders Lament Impact Of Mining In Edo Communities, Want A Halt

Published

12 hours ago

June 13, 2025

Editor

A Civil Society Organization – The Ecological Action Advocacy Foundation (TEAF) – has called for an immediate halt to mining activities in Akoko-Edo Local Government Area of Edo State particularly in Igarra, Ipesi, Dagbala, among other communities.

The organization said the call became necessary in order for the companies operating in the area and the communities to come to a round table and discuss the terms and conditions of operations.

INFO DAILY reports that the one-day dialogue event drew participants from communities where mining activities are taking place in Akoko-Edo and the civil society community.

Speaking at the one-day Community Dialogue on Halting Extractive Activities in Akoko-Edo, an environmentalist and climate justice campaigner, Comrade Cadmus Atake-Enade, lamented that “mining and extractive activities have rendered community people hopeless in their own lands, hence need to stop.”

“We must stand in unity to halt these destructive activities and actions. We must stand firm to halt all forms of extractive activities that have destroyed our lives and wellbeing,” he added.

The environmentalist, who noted that “communities where extractions have taken place experience mostly negative impacts,” stressed that “mining and the extractive industries are among the most destructive sectors on the planet, especially for indigenous and farming communities.”

He added: “These activities pose grave threats to cultures and community life because it takes generations for them to recover from the damages done to their community environment.

“Most of these negative impacts are usually in the rural areas where smallholder agricultural production is carried out in Africa and where the bulk of extraction occurs.

“Most of our farmers are women and they are disproportionately affected by mining and extractive activities.”

Giving a damning narration on how a JSS 3 student lost her life in the course of looking for her daily bread,
Angela Alonge from Ipesi community, while listing the risk involved in mining sites, said “a JSS 3 student who went to look for her daily bread in one of the mining sites lost her steps and fell into the pit and died at the spot. A pit deep enough to contain a 10-storey building. It is pathetic.”

She added: “The children in our communities are used like rags. The children are fending for themselves and the family. The community does enjoy any positive impact from mining.”

Joseph Lawson from Igarra community, lamented that rather than being a blessing to the people, the reverse is the case, adding: “Mining ought to create jobs for the community but the reverse is the case. Mining could cause earthquakes.”

Lawson, who urged the state government to re-register the over fifty mining companies in the area with a view to regulating them, urged the government to also intervene in the incessant clash between the communities and the mining companies.

Also, Precious Momoh from Igarra, lamented that “God has blessed us with natural resources yet we are suffering. We have limestone that they use for road construction yet we have no road.”

He added: “We need empowerment and development in our communities. People cannot be earning billions from our communities while we remain in abject poverty. Also, there should be rules and regulations for these mining companies.”

News

Hope Rises As Ijaw Nation Wades Into Okomu Crisis

Published

1 day ago

June 13, 2025

Editor

Photo: File copy

There seems to be solution at sight to the crisis bedeviling Okomu community in Ovia South West Local Government Area of Edo State following the setting up of Peace and Conflict Resolution Committee by prominent Ijaw monarchs drawn from Edo, Ondo, Delta and Bayelsa states.

The setting up of the Peace and Conflict Resolution Committee by the Ijaw kings followed a request by His Royal Majesty, Pius Yanbor, the Pere (king) of Okomu Kingdom to his Ijaw brothers peres (king), appealing to them to intervene in the crisis that had led to the burning of houses and loss of lives.

Worried by the crisis and the consequent appeal by HRM Pius Yanbor, the Ijaw peres (kings), namely, HRM, Oboro Gbaraun II, the Pere of Gbaramatu Kingdom, Delta State; HRM, Zacheus Egbunu, the Agadagba of Arogbo Kingdom, Ondo State; HRM, Capt. Frank Okiakpe, the Pere of Gbaraun Kingdom, Bayelsa State; HRM, Joel Ibane, the Pere of Iduwini Kingdom, Delta State; HRM, Godwin Ogunoyibo, the Pere of Olodiama Kingdom, Edo State; HRM, Eseimokumor Ogonikara I, the Pere of Tubutoru Kingdom, Ondo State; HRM, Roman Bohan, the Pere of Furupagha Kingdom, Edo State, and HRM Stephen Ebikeme, the Pere of Oporomor Kingdom, Bayelsa State, in an acceptance memo of the Okomu king’s request which was made available to INFO DAILY stated: “We, the undersigned traditional rulers of Ijaw extraction, have unanimously aligned in agreement to take a deep dive into the crisis that has been rocking and bedeviling Okomu Kingdom for the past three years, with a view to providing respite and bringing lasting peace to the aforementioned kingdom.”

They continued: “This alignment however, is a fallout of a series of robust engagement amongst well-meaning and revered monarchs of Ijaw extraction, whose primary role in their various Kingdoms is to foster peace and unity.”

The Ijaw monarchs, thereafter, appointed Chief Sunday as the Chairman of the Peace and Conflict Resolution Committee, High Chief Pascal Akpofagha as the General Secretary and 16 other notable Ijaw sons from various kingdoms as members.

The 18-member committee is saddled with the responsibility of interfacing with the warring parties in the kingdom with a view to restoring lasting peace to the kingdom.

The revered Ijaw monarchs further expressed their commitment to providing the necessary support and work with the committee within the ambit of the law in order to ensure peace and harmony return to Okomu Kingdom.