abdulraheem
Last Friday, I was in Lagos to attend a media luncheon organised by the National Democratic Institute, the American Institute for International Affairs that has become especially visible in Nigeria since the beginning of the current democratising process. The main thrust of the evening’s briefing, which was led by the irrepressible Mrs. Ayo Obe, was what all of us can do to help the Nigerian people achieve a free and fair election in 2007. It was a very useful forum because most of the representatives of the media and civil society organisations at the dinner spoke against the backdrop of the problems associated with the massively-rigged elections of 2003. In the spirit of the massive mobilisation that defeated the third term agenda, contributors at the forum were resolved that Nigerians must ensure that their votes counted and were counted, that there was the need to make the INEC work in a more people-responsive and transparent manner. I think that people in civil society, including the media, have become mobilised at levels that could assist the Nigerian people get to heights of voting that might be more reflective of the true aspirations of the Nigerian than what we saw in 2003 when the Obasanjo clique pulled all stops to deliver the most brazen illegality in the history of elections in Nigeria. So massive was Obasanjo’s rigging that the whole concept of legitimacy was lost in the years since 2003 by the regime. It is so obvious now that when a regime lacks legitimacy, as Obasanjo’s, the tendency is for such a regime to operate with a deep-seated insecurity; in the The Writings of a Media Life. Context of Nigeria, the implementation of anti-people and unpopular policies have only deepened the crisis of legitimacy of the regime. Unfortunately for the Nigerian people, we are saddled with an Obasanjo administration that lacks popular legitimacy, implements anti-people policies and has a criminal proclivity in its brazen disregard for constitutional norms. This background has taught the Nigerian people very bitter lessons. This in my view is one of the many reasons why there has developed the massive movement of awareness about the need to ensure that the electioneering process does not witness the type of rape it suffered with the Obasanjo clique in 2003 during the 2007 general elections. So much hope has been set by the hope that INEC would for once live up to the vows of its chief, Professor Maurice Iwu, that he would deliver very credible elections in But even while we are grappling with the problems associated with the voting process, we must be even more worried about the shape of the politicking as we move closer to the 2007 general elections. It seems that a lot is wrong with the shape of the contestation in the land, partly because in the aftermath of the defeat of the third term agenda, Obasanjo has continued a most subtle and covert game of manipulating the political process. At the heart of this manipulative process is the continued strengthening of the authoritarian institutions of the state. One of the most dangerous manifestations of the increasing authoritarianism is the decision to give even more intrusive powers to the EFCC. As envisaged, this GESTAPO-like body would have very intrusive powers and would even become a major organisation in the screening processes leading to elections in 2007. The Obasanjo clique has clearly decided that a naked use of the strong arm tactic must be the main way to deal with perceived enemies at a point when the proper thing is to begin winding down the activities of the regime. Related to the strengthening of the authoritarian institutions of state and their deployment into the arena of politics is the subtle campaign which emerged in the last two weeks for an interim national government. I think one of the earliest proponents of this bizarre The Writings of a Media Life.contraption is the retired General Adeyinka Adebayo. What they hope to achieve with such a hare-brained but very dangerous scheming has not even been intelligently argued. However, it falls with the scope of the manipulations that Obasanjo is driving in the nation’s political arena. It is equally disturbing that while power shift and threats to the sovereign existence of the country, especially by political actors from the Southern part of the country, have been the main ingredients of the campaign so far, not much has come to the fore in terms of concrete programmatic platforms in respect of the fundamental issues of direction of state policy, the content of the nation’s political economy. Underdevelopment, jobs creation projects, critical evaluation of the unpatriotic neo-liberal policies of the anti-people Obasanjo administration, etc. The nation’s political elite is still so consumed in the nocturnal conclaves to reach the heights of power by stealth, manipulation and even outright fraud. It is alarming that nobody has come out to seriously engage with the fundamental problems of an economic process that obviously has not worked for the Nigerian people; not a single presidential pretender has offered a viewpoint in respect of the fraudulent privatisation project of the Obasanjo regime and not a single one of our lily-livered gladiators has offered a critique of the manner that the rampaging bull of neo-liberal capitalism is destroying the country’s productive forces. It is quite significant that Obasanjo is still allowed the field day to continue to boast that whoever takes over must continue implementing his programmes. In other words, Obasanjo is throwing down the gauntlet that there is no alternative to his project of public sector assets-stripping through sales of our patrimony to his cronies; that whoever takes over from him has to continue to destroy Nigerian jobs and continue to oversee the systematic de-industrialisation of Nigeria. So presumptuous is the despot at Aso Villa that he openly can presume to talk about the programme which a successor MUST implement after 2007. What Nigeria deserves is a genuine national reconstruction project that is driven by a developmental state, which will consciously promote an industrial strategy which provides an ambience within which the The Writings of a Media Life. share of industry in general and of manufacturing in particular is increased in economic activity. This process would endeavour to achieve an increase in the supply of industrial inputs for consumer goods. Of course, this would still be within a project of capitalist development, but it is much more progressive and patriotic than the complete surrender to the neo-liberal capitalist project which Obasanjo’s so-called economic team has been driving, the assets-stripping frenzy of the process which Obasanjo’s team has been implementing. The programme weakens the developmental capacity of a democratising, if a neo- colonial state. It is a sad commentary on the poverty of our nation’s political elite that these are not the types of issues that they are even contemplating, not to talk of finding the intellectual, ideological and political capacities to address them. But it is obvious that Nigeria’s development is being hamstrung by the wholesale adoption of the IMF/World Bank, Washington consensus policies of neo-liberal surrender to imperialism. The politicians are huffing and puffing, they are scheming for power, but it seems as clear as daylight that the basic issues deriving from the genuine interests of the Nigerian people are not at the heart of the concerns of our politicians. It is a class issue really, that is why not a single one of the leading political gladiators has come out to oppose the massive retrenchments of the working people by the anti-people Obasanjo administration. We might set great store by the 2007 electoral process, but the content of politics in the country is very much like constructing a political highway to nowhere, unless, of course, the more progressive elements of the political elite can drive the process in a more patriotic direction. Unfortunately, this does not seem to be on the horizon, but I want to remain optimistic. Israel’s barbarism and Western media frames It must be very clear to majority of humanity today that the greatest danger to a civilised conduct of international relations must be sought, not in the acts of so-called terrorist organisations, but in the moral depravity of the leading political leaders of the imperialist world. The past one week of the unleashing of terror and barbarism on Lebanon by the Zionist The Writings of a Media Life. State of Israel has brought into focus the tragedy of contemporary international relations. Israel vowed to take Lebanon back twenty years in an open vow and has been carrying that out in the full glare of international satellite television. George Bush, the American president, came out publicly to endorse the Israeli destruction of the national infrastructure of Lebanon and the collective punishment of the Lebanese people, because of the capture of two of its soldiers by forces of Hezbollah in Southern Lebanon. It is also because one of its soldiers has been captured by Palestinian militants that has led to the systematic destruction of the infrastructure of Palestine in Gaza, the bombing of several buildings, arrest of Palestinian ministers and legislators and the collective humiliation and punishment of the Palestinian people. For George Bush, Tony Blair and other leading politicians of the imperialist countries, Israel is merely exercising the right to self-defense through its brutal methods of collective punishment of the entire people of Palestine and Lebanon, while also issuing threats against Iran and Syria. It is also part of the mind conditioning process that the leading Western media outfits, such as the BBC, CNN or Sky News, lose their objectivity wherever Israel is the subject of coverage. For instance, in their frames of reportage, Israeli soldiers are ‘kidnaped’ but are NEVER captured. Similarly, the death or injury of a few Jewish citizens of Israel must be painstakingly analysed and presented in a way that enhances our sympathy, while Palestinians, Arabs or Muslims are presented like mobs, fanatics or unreasonable people. This is done to reinforce the stereotypes, often very racist, anti- Islamic and anti-Arab, about people whose lands have been illegally occupied by Israel, but whose fight for liberation is consistently demonised as ‘terrorist’ by Israel and its Western backers and the Western media. It is also in the frame of presenting and reinforcing Israeli might that a constant stream of Israeli politicians and spokespersons are always available for satellite television hook-ups; Israeli army’s bombardments of people and infrastructure are described almost as if they are the “normal” things to do, and its consistent violations of international laws of war are never even raised. Of course, when The Writings of a Media Life.it suits Israel, the Western political leaders remember United Nations resolutions that favour Israel, while keeping silent about those resolutions that call for the respect of the rights of the Palestinian people. Reporters of the various Western media organisations have continued a most sympathetic description of Israeli “hammering” of Hezbollah to ensure that it “loses the capacity to harm the Jewish state anymore”, as Sky News’ Emma Hurd has consistently reported from Jerusalem in the past one week. Israel is clearly the darling of the Western world; it has been armed at a level that gave it a strategic superiority over the entire Muslim world; the Western powers don’t even mention that it has nuclear weapons, yet have vowed they will never allow Iran or any other country in the Middle East to possess such weapon or possess the capacity to threaten Israel’s strategic superiority in the region. Yet, it is an irony of Israeli life that for as long as it is a state built on the injustice of the deprivation of the rights of the Palestinian people, or while it continues to occupy other Arab lands, attempts to take over the water supply of the region or continue to internationally unleash destruction, assassinations and barbarism, either on the Palestinians or other Arabs, for that long shall Israel remain vulnerable and insecure. Most of the world has been forced by the United States to establish relations with the Zionist state of Israel, yet it remains an unpopular country around the world. So unpopular in fact that it is a nation obsessed with security and unable to even enjoy itself and the lands and resources it has unjustly colonised. Israel’s policies against the Palestinian people remain the core issue of the Middle East problem. Unfortunately, every programme of peace has largely been constructed to favour Israel and take as much as possible from the Palestinian people and the Arab and Islamic world. The processes of peace, driven by the imperialist powers, especially the United States, are so obviously partial and biased in favour of Israel that they have never led to peace. Yet Israel continues to grab Palestinian land, The Writings of a Media Life. And continues policies that trigger desperate acts of resistance by the occupied peoples of Palestine. Unfortunately for our world, the imperialist powers leave the substantial issues of injustice and inveigh against “terror”. It is clear that injustice will always breed resistance.
