On television, she was familiar: the skin tone that suggested cheap bleaching creams, the ambitious hair weave, the melodrama. An American friend of mine thought her interview too theatrical and therefore unbelievable. Instead, I saw a woman speaking a non-native language, and so compensating with gestures…Diallo comes from a place where melodrama is not unusual, and often suggests truth as much as lies. — Chimamanda Adichie

i think that adichie’s observations are spot on, felt the same way watching diallo’s interview with robin roberts. i found myself wanting to explain to all my friends, colleagues, even strangers on the street what is difficult to put in words: the times i myself have felt powerless, submissive, unable to stand up for or even defend myself. and i’m an ivy league-educated woman.

i cannot count the amount of times i have been in a relationship with a man whose needs and desires seemed to always trump my own. my inability still, in fact, to clearly state what my needs and desires are, whether they be to be left alone, in peace, free from cat calls on the street or “accidental” gropings from strangers on a crowded subway car.

i might also mention the time when, while I waited for a train on a subway platform near NYU, a man started masturbating–vigorously, freely–while leering at me. he was indian (or bangladeshi or pakistani), perhaps with some undiagnosed mental health problem. i looked at his face for a long time, his tongue licking his lips feverishly, before i even noticed what was going on down below. though i had done nothing wrong, or to invite him, the act sullied us both.

it was only the two of us standing at that end of the platform, so i ran to the mta official at the booth on the other side, tho i’m certain he was gone by the time a cop came.  i thought about that a long time after that day, wondering if there was something else i could do to limit these unwanted encroachments on my psyche, person. and i realize that i also harbored a quiet outrage given my supposed social status.

i was born in the united states, though my immigrant parents did a good job of taking us “back home” so we would understand where we came from, speak a bit of the language, cook, dance, and hopefully marry well. as a result of this upbringing, i cannot in certain ways comprehend what nafissatou faced at home and getting here, how she fought for asylum and the financial stability to raise her daughter singlehandedly.

it comes with some irony, then, that our private lives–lived away from the public eye–could bear so many similarities.

like nafissatou, i too dated a con artist. i was 25 and he was 38 (tho he lied and told me 35), an ivorian restaurateur and former boxer. he charged thousands of dollars in supplies for his restaurant that i later took him to small claims court to collect, tho he never paid. i couldn’t make the payments and my credit rating plummeted while he eventually mismanaged the restaurant into oblivion, leaving me to lick my wounds, pick myself up out of debt, and live to tell the tale.

no, i do not really know how much he charged on my card. i gave it to him because he said that he loved and wanted to marry me. it sounds rather naive now, but at the time it was what i thought i should do, what i had seen my mother do.  and in the end, i don’t doubt that diallo’s and my private lives are so similar because our mothers, and their mothers were similar too. this type of submissiveness must be a learned thing passed down through generations. why so many strong, outspoken african women feign submission and so often stay in relationships with men who treat them so badly.

it would be appropo to mention here that i am in pre-production on a short film, called the people v. aissatou ba, about an african immigrant woman moving on with her life while the man who assaulted her walks free. it is inspired by the dsk case and asks the question:  what price does aissatou pay for telling the truth?

i’m not sure who the jury would have believed. i’d like to say that there is a part of each of us that recognizes the truth, our shared humanity, but i’ve learned over time that this idea is often a self-satisfying delusion. i look forward to all the ways we african women–who can read and write, unlike nafissatou–will translate and re-language this experience for the world. for more info on the film, visit my indiegogo page. –AL.

Public residential buildings are seen in Po Lam, one of the "satellite towns" in Hong Kong, on September 14, 2011. This southern Chinese city is described as a concrete forest, famous for the number of high-rise commercial and residential towers. About 25 percent of the world's tallest 100 residential buildings stand in the territory. (Reuters/Bobby Yip)

“Our world is one of terrible contradictions… Plenty of food but one billion people go hungry. Lavish lifestyles for a few, but poverty for too many others.”

-          UN Secretary General, Ban Ki Moon 31^st Oct 2011

Just two minutes before midnight on the 31^st of October 2011, in the crowded Jose Fabella Memorial Hospital in Manila Philippines, the tiny Danica May Camacho was born. A few thousand kilometres away in Mall village Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state, Baby Nargis was born at 07:25 local time (01:55GMT). Both babies along with several others around the world have been identified as seven billionth babies, marking the 7 billion milestone of the world’s population identified by the United Nations. This staggering and somewhat fascinating massive surge in global population has brought to the fore many issues primarily bordering on the consequences of the growing population on global resources and its impact on the environment. The question is that is this really a problem and does this really signal a population crisis? If so will the proposed measures actually address this problem?

Global population has been on a dramatic and rapid increase in the last two centuries. Right from the late 18^th century when the renowned British economist and clergyman, Reverend Thomas Malthus famously remarked that “the power of population is indefinitely greater than the power in the earth to produce subsistence for man”, or in other words, that the geometric increase in global population would far outstrip the arithmetic increase in food production, the world’s population  reached 1 billion in 1804,  hit 2 billion in 1927 after 123 years, then the pace accelerated to 3 billion in 1959, 4 billion in 1974, 5 billion in 1987, 6 billion in 1998  and now 7 billion in 2011 and counting. According to UN forecasts, the world would have more than 10 billion people by 2083. While the bulk of this population increase is in developing countries, half of this population it is projected will come from Sub-Saharan Africa which already has the highest birth-rates and the deepest poverty in countries such as Niger, Burundi, Mali, Nigeria. As the driver of this population increase is fertility, Professor Jeffrey Sachs, Director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University and renowned development economist states that in such countries, families have 6-8 children on average while simultaneously in the developed world, fertility rates have reduced.

As global population increases, the world is not only becoming overcrowded according to some demographers, environmentalists and development economists, but also that finite and exhaustible global resources such as fossil fuels, soil fertility, forests, fisheries and ground water are being rapidly depleted. Thus there has been a corresponding increase in food scarcity, droughts, water shortages, competition for viable energy sources and environmental damage due to increased use of fossil fuels, pollution and deforestation.  Such experts state that food and most especially water shortages if not checked, could fuel political destabilization in developing countries. Nowhere is this more evident than in the recent and still on going drought and famine in the horn of Africa which has affected over 11 million people in Somalia, parts of Kenya, Ethiopia, Djibouti and Uganda, regarded by the UNHCR as the worst humanitarian crisis of the region in 60 years. The growing phenomenon of “land grabbing” where companies in countries like Saudi Arabia, China and the UK acquire large hectares of land in places such as Ethiopia, Angola, Ghana, Madagascar, Ukraine and Sierra Leone  fuelled by a desire to capture water resources to irrigate farmlands for large-scale agriculture and growing bio-fuel crops also lends credence to this argument, as it leaves subsistence farmers displaced, vulnerable and at the expense of these large corporations.

Most importantly, the persistence of poverty and underdevelopment in these developing countries as evidenced by lack of employment opportunities, increase in violent conflict over access to food, water and other economic opportunities and the prevalence of diseases like HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis are aggravated by a growing unmanaged population. The population density of large cities such as Lagos, Jakarta and Mumbai ensures that such diseases are easily spread.

Most of the solutions to arrest this population crisis proposed by the development experts revolve around family planning policies to be put in place by the government since the people in these countries are regarded as too poor and incapable of making such choices themselves. As Jeffrey Sachs argues, family planning would be available and the families would be expected to VOLUNTARILY choose to have fewer children which would be better for them and for their children as they would have better nutrition, better healthcare and greater opportunities of living better lives for “when they are very very poor, they need help to be able to have those choices”.

However, one cannot help wondering whether this issue is really being examined from the most pragmatic perspective. While indeed growing population is putting a strain on global resources, evidence shows that the rising population in developing countries has little bearing on the consumption of global resources. The UN Human Development Report (HDR) shows that 54% of global income goes to the richest 10% of the world’s population, while 2.5 billion people living on less than $2 a day or 40% of the world’s population receive only 5% of global income. The Economist reported in January 2011 that “the richest 1% of adults control 43% of the world’s assets; the wealthiest 10% have 83% of global assets while the bottom 50% have only 2%”. In fact according to The Guardian UK of the 23rd October 2011, one Briton has the carbon footprint of about 22 Africans. Even in terms of carbon emissions and pollution, it is mostly perpetrated by industries, firms and corporations of developed countries. As George Monbiot, an author and activist notes, in the face of western over-consumption criticising expanding population in developing countries means “blaming the victims”

Furthermore, overcrowding and population density typically abound in major cities in both the developed and the developing world. John Bongaarts of the New York-based Population Council notes that ”most of that growth will be in Africa’s cities, and in those cities it will almost all be in slums where living conditions are horrible”. Thus, many small towns and rural areas in developing countries have large swathes of land which are sparsely populated and could accommodate millions of people easily. It is noteworthy that other factors such as rampant rural-urban migration account for the swelling population of many developing-country cities.  Conversely many developed economies in Europe, North America and even parts of East Asia are faced with shrinking birth rates and rapidly ageing populations notably Japan, Italy and Russia where birth rates are lower than replacement rates of less than 2.1 children per woman. In order to reverse this ageing population, countries like Russia have initiated a policy known as “mother capital” where women are paid about $10,000 to have more than one child albeit with little success. Thus, there seems to be plenty of space to fit everyone and more as it has even been argued that the entire 7 billion people of the earth could fit shoulder-to-shoulder in the city of Los Angeles, California.

It is also worth considering that if global population is putting a strain on global resources and threatening the delicate eco balance, should the most viable solution then, be embarking on projects of halting this growing population in developing countries through family planning? This is far from pragmatic, it is unsustainable, not to mention highly unfair for if as evidence shows, developing countries are not responsible for excessive over consumption of resources and the world still has space to accommodate so many more people, then why should people’s reproductive rights be interfered with? What assurances are there that some governments would not embark on over-zealous coercive depopulation measures such as India’s mass sterilisation campaign in the 1970s where thousands of men and women were forced to undergo vasectomy and tubal ligation respectively. Whole villages were reported to have been rounded up for sterilisation with a ruthless efficiency and it persists to this day, though to a much lesser extent.

The following pictures by professional freelance photographer and author Nick Rain, shot in December 2003, reveals the sordid story of the mass sterilization camps in India:

 In a remote part of India on the border with Nepal a local clinic managed to convince the local women to come enmasse to undergo sterilization to combat poverty. The women however were not aware how the crude operation would be carried out. The operation took place inside the dirty clinic with hundreds of women waiting like cattle to be operated on.Copyright: Nick Rain.

One by one the women were put on the operating table, the instrument used looked like a twelve inch metal tube with a sharp edge at one end. It was then forced into the womans stomach and the physician looked through the instrument and made what looked like a twist and a snip, a quick stich and a plaster and the women were dragged outside to recover on the grass. This operation is called Tubal Ligation. Copyright: Nick Rain.

In the face of deeply entrenched socio-cultural beliefs and values over reproductive rights in many developing countries, where children are regarded as a “blessing” from God and the inability to bear children easily leads to stigmatization, or in rural areas where children are still seen as a sign of wealth so that they can work on farms, it is quite unlikely that people can be reasonably convinced to drastically limit the number of children they bring into this world. Suspicion and allegations of covert Western support and prodding for coercive population control in developing countries does not help matters either given that wealthy countries like US from 1966 under President Lyndon Johnson, Japan, Sweden and UK have devoted large funds to reducing Third World birth rates. For example, in Peru, the government of former President Alberto Fujimori’s forced sterilization of hundreds of thousands of poor, rural Peruvians between 1995 and 2000 under a “public health” plan is reported to have been principally financed using funds from USAID, the Japanese Nippon Foundation, and later, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). In Nigeria there have been various controversies over alleged “covert” plans by global powers to sterilize women and control population.

With such facts, one could argue that the international community seems to be unrealistically putting undue emphasis on population and birth control in developing countries at the expense of more important issues such as providing greater opportunities for education and empowerment so that the poor and disadvantaged can have better opportunities in life, can be lifted out of poverty and contribute meaningfully to their communities’ development. Improving access to basic agriculture technologies for many people in the poorest countries whose livelihoods depend on subsistence farming is one way to reduce the threat of food scarcity. As research shows that women who finish at least secondary school are in a better position to make informed choices about their reproductive options and are more likely to plan for and have fewer kids that they can actually take care of, educating and empowering women should be the top priority. The growing youth population of many Sub Saharan countries such as Nigeria or Kenya where up to half the population is under 25 years old, regarded by experts as a “youth dividend” could fuel a productive surge if they are meaningfully engaged, trained, educated  and their potential utilized. It is very easy to envision how the potential of the teeming youth of Nigeria’s over 166 million people could be harnessed to revive the agriculture sector and to power desperately needed manufacturing and industrialization especially in the North.

Therefore, while world population especially in developing countries is growing at a rapid pace, a more realistic, pragmatic and sustainable approach needs to be taken by the development community in managing the situation by advocating for a balance in utilization and consumption of resources. Developing country governments in Sub Saharan Africa on their own part need to focus more on empowering their vibrant and dynamic people and orienting them towards more sustainable development.

P.S.

The video below is an episode of a show on Russia Today called Cross Talk, where current affairs are discussed. The debate in this episode centers around the population crisis debate.

Colonel Mu’amar Gadhafi was so many things to different people. A generally eccentric person with a penchant for making controversial and often rambling statements, some regard him as a hero and revolutionary. He supported the  People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola MPLA in the 1970s, the anti-apartheid movement and Africa National Congress (ANC) in South Africa even when Western powers were opposed, he played a prominent role in the transformation of the Organization of African Unity (OAU) to the African Union (AU) in 2001 and remains one of its largest financial contributors, he gave massive financial aid to many African countries including Niger, Chad, Angola and he was a champion of pan-Africanism and African unity.

At home, he used Libya’s immense oil revenues to provide Libyans with social benefits. According to award winning author and journalist Kira Salak, Gadhafi tried to the best of his ability to deliver on his promise to provide “a home for all Libyans” as great modern cities and new residential areas rose from the dust of the Sahara. Entire populations living in ancient mud-brick caravan towns in the desert moved to modern dwellings with running water, electricity, and satellite TV. Such social development policies placed Libya in 2010 at high human development on the UN Human Development Index (HDI) in terms of income, life expectancy and education above countries like Saudi Arabia, Mexico, Russia and Brazil. In fact according to World Bank figures 97% of urban dwellers have access to “improved sanitation facilities” in Libya, 21% points above the world average. In 2010, the GDP of Libya was growing at 10.6%, the highest of any African country.

At the same time, Gadhafi is regarded as an erratic, brutal dictator who denied his people basic freedoms, the freedom of expression and even access to the Internet. He brutally crushed all dissent in Libya and is alleged to have habitually conducted public hangings and mutilations of political opponents. The Gadhafi regime was regarded as one of the biggest state sponsors of terror. His World Revolutionary Center (WRC), an institution near Benghazi is credited with training some African revolutionaries some of whom became notorious tyrants such as Blaise Compaoré of Burkina Faso and Idriss Déby of Chad.  He is also accused of supporting rebel, separatist and even extremist groups such as the IRA in the UK, Liberia’s Charles Taylor and Foday Sankoh’s Revolutionary United Front (RUF) responsible for amputating the limbs of innocent men, women and children in Sierra Leone; he had a hand in wars in Chad and Sudan and is even alleged to have more knowledge of the Lockerbie bombing incident than he lets out. His acquisition of weapons of mass destruction led to attempts to acquire nuclear weapons severally from China, Pakistan and India and an active chemical weapons arsenal which he abandoned after the Iraq invasion in 2003. In March 2010, Gadhafi drew the ire of most Nigerians when he infamously called for the balkanization of Nigeria along a Muslim-Christian divide in order to bring an end to the frequent ethno-religious crises.

His status as a brutal dictator came to a head with the violent crushing of protests in Benghazi in February 2011 as homemade videos were purported to have shown. However, unlike the mass protests in Tunisia and Egypt where citizens from all walks of life congregated on the streets of Tunis and Cairo respectively devoid of NATO intervention, rebels from the eastern city of Benghazi now called the “birth-place” of the uprising started the movement against Gaddafi’s regime, they weren’t even in the Capital city. It is a widely accepted fact that without the UN no-fly zone, the training, logistics and even ground forces provided by the French, British and to an extent Qatari governments to the Libyan rebels in Benghazi and also the NATO bombing campaign which significantly weakened Gadhafi’s forces and enabled the rebels to march on to Tripoli, the outcome of the Libyan uprising would have been significantly different.

I keep thinking that what if at the peak of the Niger-Delta insurgency in Nigeria between 2007-2009, rather than an amnesty programme initiated by the government of Late President Umar Musa Yar’adua and current President Goodluck Jonathan for the militants to lay down their arms and undergo rehabilitation, a NATO bombing campaign had been carried on in Abuja and training provided by foreign governments to enable the militants march on and overthrow the government in Abuja? Okay maybe that’s not the best analogy given that there weren’t many home-made videos circulating the Internet documenting JTF’s alleged brutal containment of the Niger-Delta insurgency, which only worsened the situation before the amnesty programme or that Colonel Gadhafi had been in power for over 40years and maybe Libyans just wanted fresh blood at the helms of affairs.

Of course in the face of the full-might of NATO forces, Gadhafi did not stand a chance. Plus Gadhafi’s biggest problem, like most dictators, is that he did not know when to quit. The dashing, young, populist revolutionary who liberated his people from the oppressive clutches of the King Idris monarchy in 1969 transitioned to a leader despised by people who probably just got tired of being led by the same person. With the eventual capture of Tripoli on 23^rd August 2011, Gadhafi and his family fled, but the battle raged on in other cities, notably Sirte, his stronghold. Finally on October 20^th, the NTC announced that Gadhafi was captured and wounded, and moments later he was reported to have died. Then the conflicting reports of how the Colonel died began. Gadhafi’s convoy was said to have been struck by a fighter jet, another account says he was wounded in a gun fight and died in an ambulance on the way to the hospital, then videos emerged of a seemingly injured and bloodied Gadhafi captured and taunted by NTC forces. The general consensus is that he died of a gun-shot to the head. The UN, British government and Amnesty international amongst others have demanded a probe into this summary execution which violates the Geneva conventions.

Now what is most worrying about all this is the behaviour of the NTC which appears to be increasingly adopting some of Ghadhafi’s brutal tactics they initially started fighting against. He was obviously murdered: whether as a premeditated action or perpetrated by a random, over-enthusiastic and angry NTC fighter, while the extent of NATO’s complicity is also questioned as its actions and intense bombing campaign against the Gadhafi regime are widely regarded to have overstepped its original mandate to enforce the UN no-fly zone, despite its repeated insistence that its mission is not regime change or the assassination of Gadhafi. Furthermore, the humiliation and virtual desecration of the former leader’s corpse which is now being stored in a halal meat cooler in Misrata, on a cheap mattress is most unbefitting a former leader, utterly disrespectful and sickening. It is also contrary to Islamic tradition which prescribes the immediate burial of the dead. What is more, is the reaction of some foreign leaders to this extra-judicial execution which negates every sense of humanity or decency. The same leaders that hugged and kissed Ghadhafi, literally speaking are now celebrating this summary execution as a “victory” for freedom and democracy. Excuse me, is the irony lost on anyone else?

The fact is that no one in their right mind would support Gadhafi or any leader staying too long in power, monopolizing it and treating it as hereditary for the gist was that he wanted to hand over power to his son, Saif-al-Islam. People should be free to choose who they want to govern them. My problem here is with the way Gadhafi was ousted, with NATO exceeding is original UN mandate and taking sides in what was obviously a civil war, assisting insurgents to unseat a legitimate (though not democratic) sitting leader and the celebration of his summary execution by not only foreign leaders who were once his friends and allies but also the sickening and disturbing display of his bruised corpse by newspapers preaching freedom, democracy and human rights. He was in power for 42years yet the world didn’t know he was brutal, dictatorial or was oppressing his own people.  It is such inconsistency in the foreign policies of some Western governments which fuels the conspiracy theories.

In addition, reports of mistreatment, torture and even murder of perceived Ghadhafi supporters and loyalists, especially black Sub-saharan migrants who are mostly erroneously accused of being Ghadhafi’s mercenaries are equally worrying. Even during Ghaddafi’s days, black immigrants were subjected to racism, exploitation and xenophobic attacks. With the uprising, Amnesty International reports the arbitrary imprisonment, beatings and killings of mostly innocent dark skinned Libyans and Sub Saharan migrants by NTC forces, on the assumption that they are hired mercenaries.

While I wish the Libyan people well, and hope they kind of system they so deserve. They, especially, NTC should realize that they are embarking on a long journey of rebuilding a country scarred by bombs, bloodshed and picking-up the pieces after the fall of Ghadhafi. State-building in such a situation where institutions of the state have been personalized and modelled after Gaddafi is going to be a long and possibly ardous process. In all this, adopting the same brutal tactics they complained Ghadhafi used against ordinary Libyans surely will not bode well for the new democratic and free Libya they are hoping for.

A crush once told me that her mother warned her to beware of Nigerian men, before politely qualifying it with more information about how the warning wasn’t different from the warning the woman also gave regarding other men from her own country. Don’t worry, she’s not American, but that hardly changes a fact: there is a perception out there that makes for good comedy, or malice, that whenever there is an international scam involving emails, there is a Nigerian somewhere close to it. This, to be fair, is rooted in some fact. Between 1985 and 1999, Nigeria was ruled by some of the most corrupt, most morally bankrupt, must brutal military dictators who rendered extinct a thriving middle class. Along with their looting of the country’s coffers, they also rendered to waste the hitherto reputable social conscience, and ethics. A nation that thrived on hard work and equal opportunity turned to one of vanity and hopelessness, and a futile chase of wealth by all means at the expense of dignity replaced the ethics that once made the country the hope of the continent.

By the late 90s, majority of young (and at the beginning, mostly educated) citizens embraced the new opportunities that the internet brought, and to put it to the use best suited for the loneliness and hopelessness that the situation provided on the ground in the country: for crime. Thinking about it now, I doubt that crime was the real intention of the first people to take advantage of the powers of internet communication. I imagine someone mistakenly discovering that from his apartment building in Lagos, he can have a real romantic relationship with someone as far away in the world as Chicago, or Adelaide, or Brisbane. And then, another one discovered an idea that e-relationship could become a profitable venture. I do not claim to know how this began. I can only guess. I was nineteen years old in 2000 when I entered the University of Ibadan as an undergraduate and I had used email for the first time only one year earlier.

So naive was I of this scamming phenomenon that had, by then, become quite lucrative (that every internet cafe had at least one person using the computers there to send scam mails to unsuspecting people around the world) that when I first came into contact with a sender, I thought that my life was at risk. I worked for a few months between January and September of that year in an internet cafe where emails were still first written on paper, then typed onto the computer, and then sent massively. It was like fax, or telegrams. Only a few people had personal email addresses, and those who did still had to have their emails typed out on the computer in the cafe before they logged on to the internet to send them. My job was to get those typing done, and help customers trying to reach their loved ones. One of the customers we had however was a hairy man of around 33, well built, tall and spoke Hausa, English, and pidgin English. All the emails he had me type always began with “I am the nephew of the late General Sani Abacha, the recently demised Nigerian Head of State”. It went on to say how many millions the late General had stashed somewhere and pleaded to the reader of the email to contact him so that they could transfer the money together to some other account, and share it.

For those familiar with Advance Fee Fraud, this is usually the catch. There is a bogus amount of money somewhere, usually very large and tantalizing. All the reader had to do is to show interest in being an accomplice so that the sender can share some of the loot with them. It usually never works out like that in the end, of course. The unsuspecting responder would be asked to send his/her account number, and then some advance fee to “process” the withdrawal of the loot, and then the criminals go for the kill. By the time the responder discovers that there was no loot in the first place, he/she has already committed a large amount of his/her personal funds and will not be getting it back. There are other variants, of course. A man pretends to be in love with a woman he meets in a chat room. He makes her fall in love with him and then he feigns poverty and the woman starts sending money and gifts to him until he decides that he’s had enough. Sometimes he gets her to loan him a large sum of money, and then disappears. The woman then shows up in Nigeria and makes the front page of a newspaper. She’s looking for so-and-so person who she fell in love with. In many cases, the man had used a fake name as well…

Back to the story. At the moment of typing the said emails, the only thing in my mind was that I had finally met my nemesis. Relatives and family members of Sani Abacha were known to be brutal. People had disappeared and many had been shot for opposing his reign as a military dictator. So here I was talking with his nephew and helping him send emails that detail a series of large financial transactions with foreign correspondents. I was knowing too much and my life was about to change for the worse. I would not know until very much later that my fears were unjustified, and that there was no need for me to have immediately started avoiding the man for fear that he would soon want me dead for knowing his secrets. He was most likely not related to anyone relating to Abacha. All he was doing was trying to swindle whoever was stupid (and greedy) enough to respond to the email.

Of course, in the intervening years, I have also realized the very fine line between romantic scams and real love that transcends distance. I met and dated for a few years someone that I met online who has remained my friend and colleague ever since. I have also discovered the very many scams that dot the internet landscape, including ones that trick you into signing up for “free trial” products only to charge you a month later, or ones that tell you that you’re their “50,000th visitor” and try to get you to sign up for offers that you don’t need and that might either cost you, or clog your email bandwidth. There are thousands. Telemarketers call you with polite requests that you provide your address and then sign you up for magazines you didn’t want who send you the check in the mail a few weeks later. Credit card companies put hidden fees in fine prints and surprise customers across the country every day (with a sustained backing by the conservative political right who insist that banking regulations that look out for consumers are “job killing”.). In short, access to the internet and its many possibilities brought about as many negatives as positives.

Today, as it has been even before the internet came, fraud, by very many political names, have taken over the world – from a criminally-minded Nigerian (and non-Nigerian) youths aiming to swindle greedy western businessmen, or thieving marketing gimmicks aimed at the unsuspecting internet user. The “Nigerian Prince” variety however takes the cake, of course, because everyone at one point or the other has received such a mail claiming to be the relative of a recently dead corrupt politician, be it Saddam Hussein or a recently removed one, like Hosni Mubarak. Not all of those emails are Nigerian nowadays, of course. I know for a fact that regulatory efforts by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has made it hard to commit internet fraud in the country and go free. The “product” has been exported to other parts of Africa and the world. That doesn’t mean that the jokes will go away, but that Nigerians will – and should – begin to laugh with it as it goes on. According to Jon Stewart, they now also have Sarah Palin on their side.

First published on KTravula.com

‘Occupy Wall Street’ has been described as a series of ongoing protest demonstrations originating in New York City. These protests kicked off on Sept 17, 2011 and by Oct 9, had spread to about 70 cities all over the world. The protesters, self-named as ‘the 99 percent’ have taken to the streets to publicly declare a fight against all forms of economic inequality, corporate greed and the absence of evident justice post the global financial crisis. Initially triggered in July 2011 by Adbusters, a Canadian based group, the concept was to actualise a peaceful occupation of Wall Street in protest. It is seen here there was a trigger, the sense of a tipping point – “….there was a feeling that, ‘wow things are going to change’….we are going to take these financial fraudsters and bring them to justice…among the young people, there was a very positive feeling…Now, we’re despondent again”, said Kalle Lasn Founder and Editor of Adbusters.

Anyone familiar with the current Nigerian political and economic landscape certainly will perceive obvious similarity in that last statement. For many, at some point, there was the infinitesimal hope for justice to be meted out and corruption tackled squarely, a silent prayer for fiscal prudence and cuts in government overheads, a hope for transparency and accountability, a longing desire to see the implementation of campaign promises. For Nigerians, it becomes almost apt to conclude this with the same phrase “among the young people, there was a very positive feeling…now, we’re despondent again”. Does the similarity of triggers then justify or guarantee a prediction of similar responses?

The Nigerian psyche so far reflects certain features including brevity of memory, especially in the face of transient gratification. Does it not appear as though the average Nigerian, triggered by similar inequalities and injustice, complains and protests for ALL till he gets reprieve for self? Once reprieve is obtained, via that juicy contract or influential office position in Abuja, Port Harcourt or Lagos, it becomes as though the neo-activist within activates an auto system shut down, forgetting ongoing societal and economic issues. In other matters in this regard, what trend do we observe with the cases of the ongoing trial of Hon. Bankole, the alleged injustice to Justice Salami, the ABSU gang rape video? The Nigerian psyche agitates momentarily, then moves on swiftly, relegating past issues to oblivion.

Further examining the Nigerian psyche in the light of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs gives the vivid impression that many or perhaps most Nigerians are at the lower layers of the pyramid, with their foci transfixed on meeting the basic needs of life, what Maslow described as deficiency needs - food, water, power supply, security in all forms, health, friendship and family. Maslow’s pyramid suggests appropriately that unless these basic needs are met, people rarely focus on ‘Being’ needs - self actualisation, self esteem, achievements and problem solving. Drawing inferences, people whose daily attention is totally drawn into meeting basic/deficiency needs will have little or no motivation to ascend to levels of societal or economic problem solving. So, it is very likely that the average Nigerian will devote his energies to provide a roof for his family, ensure a steady supply of water, alternative or backup power supply system, and some form of home and communal security. A nation filled with many of such does not appear to present a compelling cause for ‘Occupy Wall Street’ type protests. Why? People are overwhelmed with struggles to meet basic needs, why should they endanger themselves? They hustle, longing for future prospects, and that breakthrough moment, which will make life much better for them, positioning them above the struggle line. Such individuals are more likely to be engrossed in an ‘occupation’ than the thought of ‘Occupy Abuja’.

These factors that characterize the Nigerian psyche (brevity of memory and the encumbrance of basic needs) portend to be potential terminators to the possibility of an ‘Occupy’ protest happening here.

The antithesis to this reasoning will be to prove and demonstrate clearly that a Nigerian tipping point has been reached. Each time a national event or change seems to suggest such, the pre-occupation with basic needs and the brevity of memory surmount the challenge, fuelling the resilient nature of Nigerians. Is there currently a cause, strong enough, as the transference of presidential powers to Goodluck Jonathan in March 2010, to guarantee another ‘Enough is Enough’ march?

There is enough to debate about the presence of Nigerian citizens residing legally or illegally in a war-torn country (and the Nigerian government has a duty to protect them as well, to the best of its ability), but a so-called revolution aimed at liberating a country from tyranny should not turn itself into one – at least not so soon – at the expense of foreigners. The fact that they are targeted for their skin colours – as the report states – makes it even more alarming, and worrisome.

In post-Apatheid South Africa a few years ago, a similar thing happened where foreigners (also mostly Nigerians) became a target of xenophobic behaviour by citizens looking for scapegoats in a poor economy. It didn’t matter that just years before then, most of those other African countries had provided asylum for the freedom fighters running away from the oppressive Apatheid government. A similarly disgusting thing happened right after the Egyptian revolution succeeded, when Gael Ghonim – the acclaimed IT mastermind of the whole movement tweeted this. (At least he didn’t have a gun to someone’s head.)

A pattern has emerged here that should be roundly condemned.

Rape Outcry

Since the beginning of time, rape (and other forms of sexual violence such as sexual torture, sexual slavery, forced prostitution) has been used as weapons of and in war. From conflicts in Bosnia Herzegovina, Rwanda, Liberia, Congo and Darfur, rape has been repeatedly used to shame and psychologically traumatize victims.

The world is aware of girls and women as the usual victims of rape in conflict zones. Statistics are easily available for female victims of sexual violence in war zones or in military occupation. Report by the Special Rappoteur on Rwanda estimates that 50,000 and 500,000 Rwandese women and girls were raped during the Rwanda genocide. Recent report on Congo found that more than 400,000 women were raped in a 12-month period in 2006-07, which roughly equates to 1,152 women were raped every day between during that time frame – a shocking rate of 48 per hour. As a result, there are myriad of international organizations funded, equipped and trained to deal with rape of women. However, not many people are aware of male rape or how prevalent it is. Very few organizations are equipped to offer help to men who have been raped or experienced other forms of sexual violence.

Hundreds of thousands of men have been raped by other men. Some of them have been gang-raped repeatedly and over a period of many years. Rape of men is not a new occurrence but, so far, it has been under-discussed and under-researched. A recent Guardian article narrates the harrowing experience of Congolese refugees who were repeatedly raped when they were captured by rebel group – some were brutalized for many years. In Eastern Congo, 30% of women and 22% of men reported being victims of sexual violence. One victim who confided in a doctor was only given Panadol. The article notes incidences of male rape during conflicts in countries like Chile, Greece, Croatia, Iran, Kuwait, the former Soviet Union and the former Yugoslavia. During the Sri Lankan civil war, 21% of rape victims were male. 80% of Bosnian males imprisoned in concentration camps and 76% of El Salvadoran male political prisoners reported sexual abuse.

Why male rape?

Raping of men, in a certain symbolic way, constitute more of a power play. For most men the idea of being a victim is hard to handle. Beliefs about ‘manliness’ and ‘masculinity’ are deeply ingrained for most men and can lead to intense feelings of shame, inadequacy or guilt. Most telling but not surprising, these men are referred to as “women”- a shaming tactic of the man for playing, albeit forcibly, a woman’s role in being penetrated. It is this forced revocation of the masculine identity, coupled with the taboo of this particular act of sexual violation that makes male rape carry an extra dose of shame and the reason why men do not report incident of rape or seek for help post-trauma. This culture of silence by both the victim and assailant makes cases of male rape particularly disturbing and difficult to stem.

Most countries do not criminalize sexual abuse of men, therefore, systematically refusing to protect victims. This indirectly facilitates and fosters a culture of impunity for perpetrators and ignoring male rape victims. This public manifestation of impunity does not end with states; sadly, many international and aid organizations are falling short.  Due to lack of data and discussion on this issue, many international organizations do not talk about it. There are dozens of references to “violence against women” in United Nations human rights resolutions, treaties and agreements, but most don’t mention sexual violence against men. Most of the funds and public discourse are directed to only female victims while ignoring and neglecting men.

In the inaction(s) of States and international organizations a thread of commonality emerges: the belief that no one will be held accountable for these vicious acts and violent crimes. It reinforces that belief that equates ‘female’ with ‘victim’, thus hampering our ability to see women as strong and empowered beings. It also underscores the unhealthy expectations of men by the society and their assumed invulnerability.

What should be done?

Talking about sexual violence is never easy. Whether you are a man or a woman, sexual violation is traumatic. However, the world cannot sit back and watch victims suffer in silence. There needs to be law in place that makes abuse of men illegal. INGOs, lawyers, health experts and human rights activists must insist on a broader definition of rape and sexual violence that includes both genders whilst penalizing the perpetrators.

The world needs to provide medical resources and psychological support to men while ensuring that perpetrators are held to account. Dealing with the consequences of sexual violence can be hard work but people do recover. The world should not, due to strict definition of gender roles and myopic interpretation of violence, deny support to men who demonstrate the courage to come forward in reporting such crimes.

“…Cruelty is necessary…you should kill too many, not too few…” are some of Anders Behring Breivik’s murderous recommendations for a European cultural renaissance of sorts that would prevent the “Islamic colonization” of Europe, listed in his manifesto: “The European Declaration of Independence”. In said manifesto, Breivik – the ultra right-wing, white supremacist cum terrorist – detailed the meticulous preparation for his murderous carnage on July 22^nd in Norway which left over 70 people- mostly teenagers – dead. Such far-right terrorism, along with the global economic crisis the world is still “recovering” from, is another blow to globalization and its core neo-liberal values and a crude wake-up call for developing countries especially in Africa.

Globalization generally refers to increased interconnectedness of economies, societies, people, culture and ideas across borders and boundaries through communication, transportation, trade and migration. The term came into popular usage in 1970s and 1980s with the breakthrough or revolution in Information, Communications and Transport Technologies (ICT) making the world a “global village”. This was spurred by the general economic boom in the post World War II era, especially in the 1960s, known as the development decade not only in the developed world – North America, Western Europe and Japan – but also in many parts of the developing world, including the newly decolonized African countries, the East Asian Tigers and other places.

At the heart of globalization is the free market approach to economic management, the core of neo-liberal values. This approach forms the basis of the economic model of the industrialized world characterized by limited government intervention in the economy; the liberalization and deregulation of trade, finance and capital and privatization of public enterprises. These, according to the argument, would enable market competition and innovation, would spur economic growth, lead to greater integration of economies around the world and usher in unprecedented prosperity for countries interconnected in the global economy. For instance competition and innovation ushered in the information age with advances in transport and communications technology mobile telephony and the Internet; faster and more efficient means of transportation and breakthroughs in medical and bio-science technology. Most importantly, such economic prosperity is believed to have aided has aided in the universalization of liberal democratic ideas and values as the most prevalent and pervasive system of government. Democracy and representative government are favoured against autocratic governments, dictatorships and military rule.

In the socio-cultural realm, a more diverse world is bound together by common values and respect for fundamental human rights for all and equality, tolerance and respect for all peoples of the world. To an extent we have seen this happening not only in the unprecedented economic growth and development of some developing countries like the East Asian Tigers such as Taiwan and South Korean; the assortment of new communications technology like mobile phones and the Internet; but also the near-global spread and persistence of the values of democracy and representative government. The interface between new means of communication and democratic values is embodied in the ongoing ‘Arab Spring’ where citizens of Middle-Eastern countries, after being subjected to decades of authoritarian rule, are now demanding representative government through mass protests facilitated by Facebook, Twitter and other social media tools, and have succeeded in Tunisia and Egypt.

In my opinion, this is about where the benefits of globalization end as the global financial crisis of 2008 and the global recession it has spawned has plunged many countries of the world into near-bankruptcy. This crisis in many respects can be attributed to the interconnectedness and integration not just between different parts of the world, but between the volatile financial sector and other parts of the economy.  As mentioned earlier, from the near collapse of the Irish, Portuguese, Spanish and Greek economies and the large financial bailouts negotiated with more European countries possibly in tow; the future of the EU, the monetary zone and even the existence of the Euro is hotly debated. Bigger countries like the UK which are not on the verge of collapse are growing at a snail pace of just 0.25% in the second quarter of 2011. Elsewhere, the US is racked by its growing debt, financed mainly by Chinese investments in US Treasury securities and bonds. The global financial crisis and its aftermath have exposed the fundamental weakness of the core neoliberal values of globalization which have played a large part in bringing about the crisis in the first place.

More importantly, with economies continuing to shrink, politicians have responded accordingly with austerity policies. With the global recession, governments in Europe and other parts of the developed world have been made to cut-back on public spending in such areas as education and healthcare, they have increased taxes and are now increasingly reducing net immigration and inflow of foreigners. In the UK, the Coalition government recently said it would reduce migration to the UK from 200,000 per annum to “tens of thousands” because of increased pressure to the “society, economy and public services”. At the individual, group and societal level are some nationales of European countries who are of the view that it is those “bloody foreigners” who, with their hordes of dependents are not only: out-breeding their hosts, taking up all the jobs and claiming benefits but are also disturbing the delicate demographic balance in Europe. For instance, in Norway, a recent poll conducted showed that half of all Norwegians favour restricting immigration, or that immigration “had gone too far”.

It is from this perspective that there has been a resurgence and growing popularity of not only (moderate) right-wing politics but even extremist, ultra-right and far-right ideas which blame all economic woes on foreigners and immigrants. Thus, far-right movements in places like Italy; Switzerland, and Sweden;  parties like the National Front Party in France and the Dutch Freedom Party headed by the fiercely anti-Muslim Geert Wilders are gaining momentum and sympathy from ordinary people. These parties and movements “blame multiculturalism for the destruction of Western culture”and very much like Breivik, they blame previous left-wing governments such as the UK Labour Party and the Norwegian Labour Party for allowing such multiculturalism by enabling the influx of foreigners.

These parties have capitalized on a growing uncertainty brought about by recession and the economic difficulties people are going through, and have used a convoluted mixture of populism, thinly veiled racism and neo-fascist tendencies to resuscitate a feeling of nationalism or as The Guardian aptly captures the situation, a “nostalgia for a conservative, traditionalist, whites-only Europe of a bygone age combined with blind fury at its dissolution in a globalised world”. Logically and understandably, some of the citizens are transferring and directing their pent-up anger at the “foreigners” or the “immigrants” with whom they are competing for scarce economic opportunities which could explain the growing sympathy for right-wing policies and ideas in the industrialized world. Furthermore, foreigners and immigrants are increasingly equated with non-Europeans particularly with Muslims from the Middle-East and Pakistan and as well as African immigrants.

Most Africans would readily understand this situation, for the struggle for economic resources and opportunities is the bane of most inter-ethnic conflict and crisis in many sub Saharan African countries. From the indigene-settler issue which periodically erupts in Plateau state Nigeria between the Hausa-Fulani “settlers” and the Berom indigenes to inter-ethnic conflict in regions in Kenya like Western, Rift Valley, Nyanza, Coast and Nairobi. Unlike Breivik, it is hoped that few far-right zealots would go so far as to kill innocent teenagers in a bid to protect and maintain the racial purity of Europe from “Islamic colonization” or “Muslim takeover”, but as Nobel Peace Prize chairman, Thorbjørn Jagland rightly noted, extremists like Breivik are exploiting rhetoric used by European politicians to propagate their neo-fascist views. His comment was in response to British Prime Minister David Cameron’s statement in February 2011 on the failure of integration and multiculturalism in Britain which he said is “fostering extremist ideology and directly contributing to home-grown Islamic terrorism”.

As Europe tightens its borders to non-Europeans, the implication for poor countries particularly African countries is that even brain-drain –a major developmental challenge where skilled Africans emigrate en-masse to developed countries in search of greener pastures – will be greatly reduced for the pasture is not-so-green these days. For instance, some European countries like the UK have revised their   immigration policies such that from 2012, the UK will close its  borders to long-term settlement by foreigners, except for those of “exceptional talent” , the well-to-do who can go afford to go for holidays or give assurances that their stay will not be permanent.  The difficulties faced by poor people from developing countries to migrate, live-in, work or settle-in developed countries questions the unrestricted movement of people and goods across boundaries which globalization proponents had assured. On the one hand, it could be a blessing in disguise, for those who earned their qualifications in developed countries could go back home and utilize those skills in developing their respective economies. Of course this depends on political and economic stability, job opportunities in African countries and most importantly when African leaders decide they are ready to provide desperately needed transformative leadership.

As the industrialized world struggles towards a painful recovery from the global financial crisis further exposing the flaws and weaknesses of the core neoliberalism and free-market system, it shouldn’t be surprising if more aspects of globalization unravel. Therefore, as more jobs are cut, taxes increased and the cost of living becomes higher, people are naturally bound to retreat to a comfort zone and heap blame on the foreigner. As competition for scarce opportunities intensify, extremists like Breivik are lurking, waiting to exploit fear and uncertainty. It is hoped that African leaders will take this cue and provide more opportunities for citizens at home in the wake of a shrinking global space.

Last week was arguably a sad one for most if not all Nigerians as the government’s credibility was assaulted on two fronts simultaneously – security wise and diplomatically. The first was a series of controversial statements credited to the former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo on the state of the nation and the second which eclipsed the latter, was the despicable terrorist bomb attack on the Nigerian Police Force Headquarters allegedly by the radical Boko Haram sect. Any Nigerian should be reasonably saddened and even infuriated by former President Obasanjo’s antics at various international fora and would be questioning why, he keeps being involved (or involving himself) at such gatherings knowing his antecedents, and thereby further rubbishing the already soiled image of Nigeria.

Obasanjo is notorious for his controversial, sometimes comically, crude remarks that perplex his audience to the point of irritation and on rare occasions provokes a sense of bewildered amusement. This peculiar “talent” of his appears to be particularly amplified whenever he is addressing a large gathering of important personalities within the country or mainly abroad. It is in this mould that his recent comments, last week at the 100^th Session of the International Labour Conference in Geneva Switzerland that he would be one of the prime targets of rampaging, unemployed youth in the event of a revolution, and that the current administration lacks the “…will… and consistency” to fight corruption because corrupt people are “strongly entrenched” in the system, expectedly elicited varying responses from Nigerians. The latter statement in particular would have been the subject of a much wider debate if it hadn’t been overshadowed by the bomb attack on Police Headquarters.

Sure Obasanjo true to his boisterous and cunning self is no stranger to such contentious remarks whether at home or abroad. In fact in May 2010 at the Leon H. Sullivan Dialogue at the National Press Center, Washington DC, Obasanjo reportedly stated that even Jesus Christ cannot conduct acceptable elections in Nigeria. Some people found it amusing, others dismissed it as “Baba” acting in his characteristic attention-seeking manner, others yet found it embarrassing while many were disgusted at such blasphemous remark coming from a self-acclaimed “born-again” Christian. This is just part of his personality which at times seems crudely witty and humorous but increasingly these days becoming irksome, shocking, embarrassing and extremely infuriating due to the obvious dubiousness, duplicity, mistruths and outright manipulation of history underlining those statements.

The statement that he would be one of the prime targets in the event of a revolution is true to the letter given his increasing unpopularity from the twilight of his regime onwards due to his failed attempt at tenure elongation; his witch-hunting of political opponents using the anti-corruption agency EFCC; the lack of transparency and accountability in the management of oil revenues from unprecedented oil windfalls as he personally oversaw the Petroleum Ministry; institution of garrison and “do-or-die” politics and by implication his gross disdain for the rule of law evidenced by his complicity in the Anambra Ngige saga and most importantly, further impoverishment of millions of Nigerians despite huge amounts of money spent on poverty eradication programs like National Poverty Eradication Program (NAPEP), it is no surprise then that many are of the opinion that Obasanjo is allegedly the most unpopular and infamous politician in the country. The remark is nevertheless worrying as it is an implicit acknowledgement of the failure of his administration given the tremendous resources and opportunities at its disposal to take Nigeria to greater heights. In other climes, the media would have torn him to shreds for that remark.

As regards to the more controversial, scathing but dubious remark on the inability of the present administration to tackle corruption because corrupt people are “entrenched” in the system, one cannot but feel a sense of irritation, embarrassment and anger. The irritation and embarrassment stem from the realization that no former-leader of a nation aiming to be among the world’s top 20 economies, and to join the realm of emerging powers would go off to foreign lands, bad-mouthing his successors which he was very much instrumental in their emergence. I doubt if former US President George Bush would at any international event, say despicable things about the Obama administration, despite their being in different political parties or even coming closer home, former Ghanaian President John Kuffour bad-mouthing his successor President John Atta Mills.

The anger comes from the obvious duplicity, deception and brazen faux self-righteousness underlining such an explosive statement which is highly indicative of an increasingly erratic person, trying vainly to absolve himself of his role in the sorry state of affairs in Nigeria. Passing such a damning verdict on the administration of President Goodluck Jonathan and that of his predecessor late President Umaru Yar’Adua insults the collective sensibilities of Nigerians because no one can forget in a hurry how Yar’Adua was single-handedly imposed on Nigerians by Obasanjo via the 2007 elections adjudged by both local and international observers as the worst in the nation’s history. Or even the very prominent role played by Obasanjo in the emergence of Jonathan as the ruling PDP’s presidential candidate and his subsequent victory at the April 2011 presidential polls. It is an open secret that Obasanjo is the President’s unofficial chief adviser or in Nigerian parlance, his “godfather” for wherever you see the unassuming and pleasant face of Goodluck Jonathan, you are certain to see Obasanjo’s dark, ominous and amorphous silhouette lurking in the shadows. If Jonathan and late Yar’Adua’s administrations were and are incapable of fighting corruption as Obasanjo claims, can it be deduced then that it is Obasanjo’s fault because he was instrumental in their emergence? If as Obasanjo claims, the reason for this is because corrupt people are entrenched in the system, then is he tacitly admitting that he is one of those “entrenched” in the system given his prominent role in government and in the emergence of his successors? In saner climes, such statement would have warranted a rebuttal by the government, distancing itself from Obasanjo to signify its displeasure over such comments that obviously undermine it in no small measure.

The most infuriating aspect of all this by far is the fact that Obasanjo these days chooses to express his erratic and unstable behaviour in influential international fora. If this were done at home in Nigeria, it wouldn’t be so painful but this happening abroad is very embarrassing, further denting the already battered image of Nigeria, subjecting Nigerians to ridicule which is completely unacceptable. Infact my Facebook status update on this issue last week was so strongly worded that I had to delete it entirely because I felt it was un-African and inappropriate to refer to an “elder” and former President in that way (despite such an elder disrespecting himself) as words like “delusional” and “schizophrenic” featured prominently. It is particularly exasperating that of all the intellectual heavy weights with impressive records of achievements in office which Nigeria has to offer, who can ably represent a new face and new generation of enlightened Nigerians in international fora such as Donald Duke, Babatunde Fashola, Nuhu Ribadu or Nasir El-Rufai – their various shortcomings notwithstanding – it is Obasanjo rather that chooses to show-up at these events humiliating Nigerians. I understand that most international donors and bodies are increasingly adopting a new approach of involving African (former) leaders, policy makers or influential individuals in high-level development policy talks because of their clout, the respect they command and ability to influence the decisions of policy makers in their respective countries.

While this is commendable and all part of a relatively new international focus of development as a political process that requires engagement with the political elite, supported by recent UK Department For International Development (DFID) research amongst others, it is simply unfair and unacceptable that former leaders with dismal records who rather than command respect are greeted with opprobrium in their home countries are the ones involved. This was a sore issue that was brought up in an Africa Gathering and Guardian Global Development joint Conference on Monday 20^th June where one of the attendees, a young African passionately argued against engaging political leaders who are unpopular, infamous, lack any credibility among the youth and are therefore incapable of contributing anything meaningful to the progress of their respective countries. His argument was in response to the composition of an Africa Progress Panel which includes Obasanjo chaired by former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan with the objective  “to track and encourage progress in Africa, and to underscore shared responsibility between African leaders and their international partners for sustaining it”.

I believe most Nigerian youth and indeed African youth would prefer if people like Obasanjo who had all the opportunity, time and resources to make a fundamental difference in the lives of their citizens and the destinies of their countries, but didn’t, kept their highly duplicitous, half-hearted and unsolicited opinions to themselves and stop subjecting us the younger generation who will live with their mistakes and mal-decisions to international ridicule and embarrassment. For if Obasanjo truly cared about Nigeria, he would be giving constructive advice to the government of which he is an influential actor, rather than turning around and backstabbing it abroad. As for the international community, the youth fervently hope it would make greater efforts in engaging influential, respectable and enlightened Africans who can actually make a difference in our lives.

Aside from these sickening, inhumane crimes that turn one’s stomach, one has to wonder if after all this time, this man’s arrest would make much of a difference either way. Don’t get me wrong, he should tried at the International Criminal Court (ICC) at The Hague and convicted when (not if) found guilty. But then one has to wonder if the justice that would eventually be served on such a person really would be justice deserved.

First of all, consider that after he and his fellow butchers-in-crime committed those horrendous crimes under the watchful gaze of the international community (the very brave Christiane Amanpourbroadcasted live some of these atrocities during the war to the world, particularly US viewers) yet Mladic and Karadzic were able to live freely for more than a decade after the UN indictment against them in 1995.

Mladic was apprehended in Lazarevo, a small town with a population of less than 3,000 people living comfortably where many Serbs still consider him a hero and a defender of Serb rights during the 1992-1995 war. In fact footageof him surfaced some years ago at a ski resort having a good time, dancing at weddings, going to restaurants, living the good life generally. As one of the numerous victims and survivors whose entire family had been wiped off the face of the earth the ethnic cleansing noted, Mladic had lived life as a free man for 15 years she does not feel a sense of closure.

In addition, consider also that a trial at ICC would take years in terms of compiling evidence, getting the prosecution and defence teams ready, getting witnesses who can testify plus and minus the other technicalities a trial involves. Slobodan Milosevic’s trial took four years during which he pulled all sorts of tricks and shenanigans to stall the trial, while Radovan Karadzic who interestingly is serving as his own defense counsel has also resorted to similar delay tactics , in many cases even refusing to attend the trial, which the judges surprisingly are acquiescing to. Mladic, now a grey-haired 67 year-old, having spent 15 good years on the run, is already feigning all sorts of health problems, at least his family and defence team are claiming he has trouble communicating, and is not fit to be extradited to the Hague and to stand trial even though a judge has ruled that he is fit to stand trial. Nevertheless, it is possible that such trial would take years to conclude and within that time health problems (real or imagined) of the accused may stall or unnecessarily further delay the trial  that is if leniency, plea bargain or any of those legal deals are not sought by the defence team.

If all these challenges are somehow surmounted the next question is whether Mladic remains alive or dies of a heart attack, stroke or other heart-failure-type-condition before or during trial. Milosevic died in 2006 of a heart attack in his cell just a few months before the verdict was to be delivered on his four-year trial, after doing everything possible to stall his trial for as long as possible. Similarly, the recently ousted Hosni Mubarak of Egypt (though not a war criminal per se) claims to also have heart problems, which in my opinion is a ploy to get a lenient trial and conviction. You wonder how these contemptuous men’s hardened hearts seem to fail, stop or develop complications during trial when all the horrendous crimes they committed with sadistic glee did not move those stone-encased hearts.

And if Mladic still remains alive and relatively healthy until the trial is concluded and he is found guilty, how would he be sentenced? Would it be life imprisonment or would the defence seek capital punishment? It would most likely be the former that is, one or several life sentences after-all with, the advocacy against capital punishment these days, I doubt if the prosecutor, the UN War Crimes Tribunal would seek the maximum penalty and sentence anyone to death in the 21^st century. Some Serb leaders were only given sentences ranging from 13 years in the case of  Milan Babic to 35 years in the case of Radislav Krstic and all had been found guilty of genocide. Is this deserving justice? Is that what such sadistic and cruel people who directed the killing of thousands of innocent people including children for no just reason save their identity deserve? How would the victims feel, those whose entire families have been gunned-down and exterminated that the master-minds spend a few decades in a fairly comfortable jail, because I doubt if people like Mladic and Karadzic would be kept in solitary confinement. Would this delayed justice ever be fair or deserved? Either way I think it would be difficult for the victims to have any sense of permanent closure or redress, they would just have to brace-up and live-on with their pain.

If the terms of whatever sentence that gets passed does not suffice then, what appropriate punishment would make these men pay for the atrocities they have committed? How can they be made to suffer the same horror they have visited on their victims? Should Mladic and Karadzic  and other butchers be killed and mutilated over and over multiplied by the number of people they have killed innocently (not like that would ever happen)? It would still not make much difference; it would not provide real solace to the grieving, hurting surviviors. Going by the adage prevention is better than cure; I believe in the first place such situations should not have been allowed to degenerate to that stage. In particularly this Bosnian war where live footage of the carnage and the massacres going on were fed to people around the world on their TV screens yet the international community was more or less helpless until thousands had been massacred before an intervention was made. In fact, lightly armed Dutch (UN) peacekeepers watched helplessly the summary executionof Bosniaks by heavily armed Serb troops in Srebenica.

It is a comparable situation with the late and very reluctant response by the international community in the Rwandan genocide within the same period in 1994, a continent away in which over 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were massacred as General Romeo Dallaire and his 270 UN peacekeeping troops watched helplessly. Justice should have started while those atrocities were being committed, while something could still be done to save a lot of innocent victims from premature death. Bloody ‘90s (pun intended)!

This is why I get very worried at the increasing level of intolerance, mutual suspicion and dearth of trust between Nigeria’s ethno-regional and religious groups. You have to wonder what level of hatred would push people to conclude a certain group or groups are inferior and need to be exterminated. Hopefully, such will never happen in Nigeria as we hope our leaders and politicians would find ways of mending differences and building bridges to re-establish trust across ethno-regional and religious fault lines. But Nigeria’s situation any keen observer would note is daily assuming an increasingly worrying dimension with the pockets of communal strife and ethno-religious violence around the country that claim thousands of lives every year,  and as noted previously, mutual hatred and animosity is on the increase. It is this kind of  tension that builds-up over years and like a cracked mirror that keeps being hit and punched with the eruption of any communal violence, it gives in and shatters eventually, enveloping a country in crisis, hopefully this will not happen to Nigeria.

I hope we Nigerians will get our act together for we are the only ones who can help ourselves, if any civil war or nation-wide violence erupts, from previous antecedents of the international community’s pattern of intervention and response extensive damage, carnage and loss of lives numbering thousands or possibly millions might unfortunately occur before anyone comes to our aid. And even at that, not much might be done, for the international community is severely crippled by politics, by the sovereignty of individual countries and other factors. Let us learn from examples all around us and find ways of mending our differences for as in the Bosnian case, justice delayed is more or less…well you know the rest.