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Ode To The Late Freedom Fighter--- Madiba

As I write, 99 Presidents are already Cape Town preparinf for the burial of the former South African President, Nelson Mandela. This could be the greatest gathering of international head-of-states outside the UN and could be more than gatherings at the burial of Pope John Paul II. The illustrious President Obama and his wife arrived at South Africa from a 16-hour flight alongside the Clintons and the Bushes. This journey has been described by the US Press as the “Airforce One Awkward”.
Many have presumed this will give them the opportunity to discuss the impact of this man together, which might probably lead to new discourse in political and racial parlance. Remember, George is white, Obama is Black, George is Republican, and Clinton is Democrat. The principles of Madiba have influenced this possibility of confluence of the colour-mix in both political and economic fronts around the world. He gave the world a bright direction of a greater dimension of understanding justice and love. His new definition of Justice was not to give people what they deserve, but what they really want. It is a harder definition, but it worked.

I must confess that it was really hard to amass the extent of reference that the Old Man received after his death. I couldn’t imagine if there would ever be another man in history who will be so much honoured like Mandela until after a very very long time. He filled up the spaces in major newspapers all over the world. Webcast and air programs on Television keeps bootstrapping every memorable moments of the prodigious man. Like the biblical prophet, he had more honor abroad than in the African continent. I am sure Africans alone wouldn’t have celebrated Mandela nobly enough. His tributes flood all major broadcast around the world. No man has had much positive influence in the world especially in Africa in recent times than Mandela. I grew to learn about him, and the touching stories of his 27-year prison stay as the most deadly story of heroism ever feasible to me. Notably, his influence on me and many others who never knew him personally was simple – being a Prisoner doesn’t make you a slave forever. You can always rise above your limitations and come out victorious no matter how lengthy. One inordinate reason many hasn’t given up yet.

Madiba didn’t travel to Europe and America looking for money and fame like many would do these days. He didn’t see comfort where most of us think we can find them. He received military training in Algeria and Morocco and with the political platform of ANC, he fought. His mission was not to become President of his country; he was only driven by his quest for freedom. The few whites who were angered by the way they had hitherto been treated transferred the aggression on the blacks. The whites controlled everything, from money to women. Madiba and his co-freedom fighters couldn’t afford to be mere groaners and writers of the despair, took to the street to defend the first basic right of everyman, which is freedom.

I am seriously pained these days as I surround my thoughts with nitpicks when the solutions is staring at me at the face. I moan at my comfort not willing to stand out for my rights in discomfort. I am tamed so also are many. We are repressed by the inability not to thinkor to only think with a ceiling. This is not even about acting out for our rights; it is that many people’s thoughts and beliefs have been arrested.

What is freedom? Freedom is not in sitting in your room watching African Magic and whacking a lump of heated Turkey, saying life is good. If you have to dredge up what you went through to get that done and what you will do to continue to enjoy this and more, then you wouldn’t finish that meal with the requisite comfort. Your mind encapsulates like a controlled moron but outward, you look free and happy. You drive a car, and you smile as you outrun your friend on the express lane and you humbly bounce out as you park at the middle of an event. Good things at the cost of a bad weave. You live in a house you just completed after making so much procurement injustices and so many people spend the rest of their life sadly in the house of their own.

There is no freedom for an average Nigerian yet. You will need another job soon. You will need more money. You will have to attend these moribund hospitals when you are older and sick; you would need to steal plentiful money so you wouldn’t jeopardize your health in Nigeria-made health centers. Silent Generator costs about a million naira or more except you will keep settling for the pollution at the back of your room which will ruin your life stealthily. These generators run on expensive diesel, and there have to be stock of this to finish up your favourite program or feel the good fauna of the conditioned air. Your mind as a Nigerian keeps wondering like an oscillating windmill having no bearing for freedom.
It is good for you; at least you are still living and surviving even though I can bet this will only be short-lived unless your slave up to the ugly dictates of greed and immorality.

This poor story gets me wounded for the many unemployed graduates in the country. I have been trying to chat with one of the most brilliant Sociologist Nigeria’ brightest school has produced recently. She has complained that she has been shying away from public discussion after many years of no work; a typical tier of slavery. I thought a friend was doing well in the capital city, but lately, he was honest enough to confess to me he doesn’t know what tomorrow will look like and he had always assumed hope for survival. He is very near to where the monies his fathers’ fought for are siphoned, yet, he lacks the courage to claim it. He doesn’t want to die, yet he is dead.

So many and so many youth are half dead covering up with glorious clothes lifted around from friends and folks. Those ahead are not ready to mentor or listen. It takes extra-ordinary people or perhaps lucky people to get their way around this bound. I know too many graduates who run from pillar to pole aiming to survive under terrible trends called entrepreneurship. It is not as easy as I write it. Too many people hide in shame and slavery waiting for a tomorrow that doesn’t seem to come. Some take up jobs that change the direction of their life forever. These they do to survive in a land where the wealth required is as clear as the light, but fear has led many away from true freedom.

For us in this country, We need to be like Madiba. We should walk the long road to freedom. What Mandela is honoured for today was not only what he did before he went to prison but what he did while he was there and after he left. In prison, he learned true freedom. I am weary of this world that seems free, but we are bounded by the juggernaut of poverty and hopelessness. We should strive to be free of the lies of promises in a better life of modern assets and goods when people whom we are supposed to live together die to shameful pleas for aggrandizement, penurious super structures and monumental shame. Like Mandela said, the worst way to deprive people of freedom is through poverty. We shouldnt scared of poverty, we should be scared we live with it and they call it wealth.

Madiba and his co-fighters have found it hard to describe their prison experience in a bad light. As Mac Maharaj (his co-prisoner) narrated, in Prison, they enjoyed the free food, the free light, how they played together and sport together. They considered the Prison as a free university.

We mustn’t be cocooned by the media and lies of friends and family. We should be closer to life and death; power and powerlessness; love and bitterness. We should understand the inert nature of man and live a life of our own volition. We might be beaten and stabbed, fucked and disgraced, yet Like Mandela said, I was scared but the will of freedom can’t be compromised. He was once given amnesty and freed but with a condition not to fight. He refuted the so called “freedom” that the outside world gives with conditions; conditions not to fight; conditions of poverty, silent pains, destitution and fear.

Mandela describes to us that courage is not the absence of fear but the conquering of it. I am afraid of these woven lives where many move around as slaves thinking they are free. I am courageous enough to find the path of freedom, and I wouldn’t settle for less. I hope you join me in this soon. We pay too much money watching foreigners and diffusing others people’s culture. From media, city people,razzle-dazzle, schools to magazines.

RIP NELSON MANDELA

TRIBUTE TO THE GREAT MADIBA

Out of the night that covered you
Black as the pit from pole to pole
We thank whatever gods may be
For your unconquerable soul
For your forgivingspirit
For largw heartedness

In the fell clutch of circumstances
You neither winced nor cried aloud
Under the bludgeoningof chance
Your head was bloody, but unbowed

Beyond those places and days of wrath and tears
Loomed but the Horror of the shade
And yet the menace of the years
Foundyou unafraid
Throughyour struggle
A nation was liberated

Nelson Mandela Biography: A long walk to immortality - the life and times of Madiba

Nelson Mandela was the most respected, and probably the most loved of all world leaders in the late 20th century, and the most enduring of the heroes who emerged from the political convulsions of the 1980s. He personified the peaceful and rapid transition of power in South Africa that many had thought impossible, while his commitment to reconciliation was underlined by his own experience of personal sacrifice and forgiveness.
For 27 years in jail he refused to compromise his principles, while for most of that time his own party, the African National Congress (ANC), was broken. But he emerged in February 1990 to become the dominant influence in his country, without whom peace was unlikely. When he was elected President in April 1994, he was accepted by whites as well as blacks as the embodiment of his country's new democracy, with a unique moral authority.
The roots of Mandela's strength went back to his upbringing in the rural Transkei, the homeland of the Xhosas in the Eastern Cape province. He was related to the paramount chief of the Thembu people, to whom his father was chief councillor, and he was brought up with a strong sense of responsibility and tribal pride. "The elders would tell tales," as he later described it, "about the wars fought by our ancestors in defence of the fatherland."

His first influences were very local and tribal. His father died when he was nine, and he went to live at the paramount chief's Great Place, where he would watch the chief dispensing justice - which gave him an early interest in the law. But he soon absorbed a very English missionary education, at the local Methodist high school, and later at the black university college of Fort Hare, where he met many future black leaders including his closest friend, Oliver Tambo.

Mandela was dashing, ambitious, keen on ballroom dancing and boxing. But he was in a rebellious mood, both against the college - which suspended him and others for political agitation - and against the paramount chief who was planning his marriage and future chieftainship.
At 22 he sold two oxen to pay for a journey to Johannesburg, where he began a far more turbulent career. There, he became friends with a much more experienced black activist, Walter Sisulu, and his mother, with whom he stayed in the township of Orlando West. Sisulu became his indispensable political mentor, and introduced him to his cousin, Evelyn, whom he married.

When Mandela wanted to study law, Sisulu arranged for him to be articled to a white attorney, Lazar Sidelsky, who befriended him. Mandela studied law part-time at the University of the Witwatersrand; but he was soon drawn into militant politics through the ANC, the veteran black organisation that was now in the process of revival. He was inspired by a fiery young Zulu intellectual, Anton Lembede, who, together with Sisulu, Tambo and Mandela, set up a Congress Youth League in 1944 to press the ANC towards effective protest.
The Youth Leaguers were initially exclusively African nationalist and fiercely anti-Communist; but they soon widened their outlook, particularly after the Afrikaner National Party came to power in 1948 and enforced their apartheid policy.

Mandela and his friends found common cause with Indian and Coloured leaders and began to look to communists as invaluable allies. Mandela never joined the Communist Party, but he respected his communist colleagues in the ANC. As he put it in 1964: "For many decades the communists were the only political group in South Africa who were prepared to treat Africans as human beings and their equals; who were prepared to eat with us, talk with us, live with us, and work with us."

Mandela continued his legal career, setting up a partnership with Tambo near the centre of Johannesburg, which helped black clients with their political and other legal difficulties. But both partners were now wholly committed to the struggle against apartheid, and Mandela became more deeply implicated when the ANC launched its first passive resistance in the Defiance Campaign in 1952, for which he mobilised volunteers.
Mandela, Sisulu and Tambo were now seen as the "kingmakers" behind the more conservative leaders of the ANC. Mandela was the most imposing and charismatic of them, with his military bearing and chiefly confidence. He was tall, physically very strong, with a natural sense of command. But he was politically less shrewd and knowledgeable than either Sisulu or Tambo.

The Defiance Campaign was soon suppressed by fierce legislation, and subsequent protests against apartheid were met by mass arrests. In 1956, the police arrested 156 leaders of the ANC and its allies, including Mandela, and charged them with treason, in a trial that periodically immobilised them for four years.
But Mandela was growing in stature and his morale was strengthened by his second marriage in 1958 to Winnie Madikizela, a vivacious and attractive social worker who soon developed her own fiery political awareness,and would before long become a controversial politician in her own right.
Mandela faced a much greater challenge in early 1960, when the breakaway Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) set a faster pace for resistance, and peaceful protests against passbooks were met with violent reprisals, culminating in the Sharpeville Massacre. When the ANC and the PAC continued to demonstrate and burn passes, they were both banned. Mandela was forced to go underground, travelling in disguise through the country as the "black Pimpernel".

Mandela was now the effective leader of the banned ANC inside South Africa, while Tambo led it in exile. Mandela threw all his energies into an ambitious stay-at-home strike planned for May 1961, when South Africa would become a republic. But the police massed in the townships with armoured cars, and the protest - though remarkably successful - was depicted by the press as a flop. Mandela was convinced that, as he said on British television: "We are closing a chapter on this question of non-violent protest".

Mandela and his radical colleagues now persuaded the ANC leadership, with some difficulty, to form a separate military wing, called Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK), to embark on the "armed struggle" beginning with sabotage. Mandela became commander- in-chief; and MK set up a secret base on a farm at Rivonia outside of Johannesburg.
It was a much more dangerous policy than passive resistance and strikes, and conceived with inadequate planning, and bound to alienate many allies. But their sabotage was carefully limited to destroying power plants and communications that, Mandela hoped, would discourage overseas investment; and linked to appeals to world opinion to impose economic sanctions on Pretoria to compel it to abandon apartheid.

Soon after the first explosions, Mandela was smuggled out of the country to make his first journey abroad, appealing for world support. After addressing a conference in Ethiopia he travelled through North and West Africa and visited London, where he made influential friends including Hugh Gaitskell, the Labour opposition leader, and David Astor, the editor of The Observer. He returned to South Africa, back in disguise, and rashly visited political colleagues until in August 1962 his car was stopped by the police in Natal and he was arrested after 17 months in hiding. He was charged with incitement to strike and with illegally leaving the country. He conducted his own eloquent defence, insisting that this was "a trial of the aspirations of the African people". He was sentenced to five years' imprisonment with hard labour.

But while he was serving his sentence the police raided the farm in Rivonia, capturing other conspirators and uncovering documents revealing the plans for future sabotage. Mandela became one of the accused in the much bigger "Rivonia trial" with colleagues, including Sisulu, charged with organising sabotage and violent revolution, and furthering the aims of communism.

At the end of the massive trial, Mandela made his most historic speech, a four-hour exposition of his political philosophy and development, and his ideal of democracy, concluding with the words: "It is an ideal for which I am prepared to die." The accused were found guilty and narrowly avoided a death sentence, but were sentenced to life imprisonment, and were sent to Robben Island.

Most white South Africans assumed that Mandela and the ANC would never again play a role in politics, and for the next decade the black opposition inside South Africa was virtually obliterated. But on Robben Island Mandela, Sisulu and the others maintained their optimism. They were encouraged in the late 1960s by the news of ANC guerrilla fighters entering South Africa from the north. But it was not until 1976 that they saw a revival of political militancy, when a younger generation rebelled against their schooling in Soweto. The revolt was suppressed with more ruthless detention, interrogation and torture by the police. But the influx of young, new political prisoners gave Mandela new cause for hope.

Mandela developed his inner strength and political judgement through all his years in jail; and his letters to his family show how consistently he retained his self- control and self-respect, and exerted his authority over the warders themselves. He was not a religious man; but he had a strong sense of human and family values, and a conviction that his cause would eventually win. He also used his prison experience to sharpen his mind by constant argument and later by studying for a law degree, which he took from jail.

By 1984, Mandela could at last see signs of more concerted world action against apartheid, as a new mass revolt was spreading inside South Africa, accompanied by massive international protest and the beginnings of effective sanctions, which were beginning to achieve what Mandela had anticipated a quarter century before. But he was surprised to find the most effective boycott coming from American bankers, who had helped to finance Pretoria's military state in the past, and were now abruptly withdrawing their loans and investments.

The first hopes of concessions from Pretoria were soon dashed, as the government imposed its severest state of emergency, detaining 20,000 people without trial. But the government was becoming painfully aware that its acceptance by the outside world would depend on Mandela's release; and some ministers believed that Mandela was more dangerous inside jail than at large.

In 1989, the State President, Pieter Willem Botha, had a talk with Mandela to explore a new formula for his release,and soon afterwards his successor Frederik Willem de Klerk quickly recognised that he must give way to world opinion and internal resistance and moved towards a more conciliatory agenda. In February 1990, De Klerk unbanned the ANC, and shortly afterwards released Mandela himself, after 27 years in jail.

It was a sensational emergence. Many observers had expected Mandela to appear as a weakened old man who would be out of touch with the modern world and the militant younger blacks. But from the beginning he was politically shrewd, loyal to the ANC and mastering new communications, including television - which had not existed in South Africa when he began his sentences.

His style was that of a statesman combining intimacy with a formidable presence and authority. But he remained a master-politician: and at 71 he had mental flexibility and openness to new ideas at an age when most people become more rigid.
Two weeks after his release he was confirmed as Deputy President of the ANC, serving alongside his old friend Oliver Tambo, the official President, who was recovering from a stroke.

In the following months, Mandela became still more clearly the key to future peace in South Africa. He betrayed no signs of bitterness or resentment, praised the integrity of President De Klerk and reassured white South Africans. But he continued to follow the ANC's official policy.
He refused to reject the armed struggle; called for nationalising the mines and industry; and, remained committed to sanctions.

But he was privately more conciliatory and far-sighted than many of his younger colleagues. He welcomed dialogue with international businessmen, and looked forward to overseas investment after sanctions were no longer needed. He was very aware of South Africa's interdependence with the world.

His public glory was accompanied by personal loneliness: after Oliver Tambo died in April 1993 he described himself as being "like the loneliest man in the world". He had separated from his wife Winnie in April 1992, after she had been convicted of kidnapping and accessory to assault; and he was painfully aware of his limited contact with his children. "To be the father of a nation is a great honour," he wrote later, "but to be the father of a family is a greater joy. It was a joy I had far too little of."
In the four years following his release he became that indisputable father of the nation. He demonstrated all of his political skill by maintaining his party's unity and the support of young militants while also working towards a government of national unity, in coalition with his former white enemies.

He could never wholly trust De Klerk, after he realised that he had endorsed a "double agenda" that included secret police support of Zulu killing bands; and he still felt the need to re-assert the ANC's power by demonstrations and strikes. But he was still prepared to negotiate with De Klerk - and with other Afrikaner politicians who had previously approved torture and murders.
And whites were increasingly seeing him as a national leader - all the more so after the assassination of his radical lieutenant Chris Hani. Temporarily, Mandela virtually took over the role of head of state in successfully appealing for calm.

When democratic elections were eventually agreed for April 1994, Mandela became a tireless campaigner, projecting his reassuring smile across the nation; but he was careful not to raise black expectations too high. The ANC victory in the elections automatically made Mandela President and Head of State. His inauguration ceremony in Pretoria revealed his full achievement in attracting the loyalty of whites.

He was welcomed emotionally by many former right-wingers who now saw Mandela bringing South Africa back to the world's fold. Mandela, at the cost of painful compromises, could now rely on the military chiefs to support him. When the generals saluted him, he reflected: "Not so many years before they would not have saluted but arrested me."

He had achieved the main purpose for which he had sacrificed much of his life, and he had maintained his fundamental principles. But he also knew that the hardest part was still to come. As he concluded in his memoirs, finished after his election: "The true test of our devotion to freedom is only just beginning."

PRESIDENT
Becoming president at 75, Mandela was aware that his powers were circumscribed.
For the first two years, he maintained the "government of national unity" with his former enemy De Klerk as one deputy president; and in many fields he regarded himself as head of state, rather than head of government, leaving most appointments and practical decisions to his other deputy, Thabo Mbeki. When De Klerk left the coalition, Mbeki was more clearly emerging as head of government, and Mandela retreated further, sometimes leaving Mbeki to preside over the cabinet.

His relations with Mbeki were sometimes strained: he had been chosen as deputy not by Mandela, but by the ANC and its allies. Mandela worried privately that Mbeki was too suspicious of his colleagues, too dependent on a few cronies, and sometimes implied that he would have preferred Cyril Ramaphosa, who had left politics for business. But Mbeki was in many ways well-suited to running the government, under an increasingly detached President: he made many of the key appointments; he masterminded economic policy, and he remained a skilful negotiator and conciliator - particularly with Buthelezi, the troublesome Zulu minister for home affairs.

The sharing of power was often uneasy and confusing: Mandela often intervened, particularly in foreign affairs, without informing his colleagues, and his own office was sometimes muddled. He had made the inspired choice of Professor Jakes Gerwel as cabinet secretary, but Mandela did not always give a clear lead, and was criticised, particularly by business leaders, for not grappling with urgent issues including tackling corruption and crime.

Both Mandela and Mbeki were limited by the constraints of the ANC: the cabinet had to represent different strands of the party; including some ministers who had obvious shortcomings, particularly in education, health and home affairs. But the ministers who were in the most critical departments of economic policy and justice achieved remarkable stability and trust, gaining the admiration of foreign governments.

Mandela's overriding objective was to set a basis of reconciliation with the white population including his former enemies, which he achieved with the help of dramatic personal gestures, including visiting the widow of Dr Verwoerd and his former prosecutor Percy Yutar, and congratulating the leader of the Springbok rugby team.

His most obvious failure was in not confronting the growing disaster of Aids. Before he became president in 1994, he had avoided the subject in his election campaign because- as he later admitted - it was not a popular issue, at a time when many black South Africans were shy of condoms or contraception. And as president he resisted calls to lead a major campaign against Aids.

Edwin Cameron, the gay South African judge who was found to be HIV-positive, and became a prominent campaigner against Aids, later explained: "A message from this man of saintlike, in some ways almost godlike, stature, would have been effective. He didn't do it. In 199 ways he was our country's saviour. In the 200th way, he was not."

In his final two years as President, Mandela withdrew further from executive government and gave up the leadership of the ANC. But his role as the prophet of the new multiracial democracy and the spirit of reconciliation remained as important as ever. He symbolised the rebirth of a country that had been nearly torn asunder by racial conflict.

His personal life was now more serene and fulfilled. He had divorced from Winnie and eventually married Graça Machel, the widow of the former president of Mozambique, who gave him the companionship and support that he craved, and eased his relationships with his children and grandchildren.

Graça was a politician in her own right, who was able to connect up the private Mandela with his overpowering public image, with her own practical realism. "I want him as a human being," she explained. "He is a symbol, but not a saint. Whatever happens to him, it is a mark of the liberation of the African people."

RETIREMENT
When Mandela relinquished the Presidency in 1999, to be succeeded by President Mbeki, the manner of his retirement was in itself a tribute to his achievement. Five years earlier most South Africans had doubted whether elections could be held at all, in the face of violent threats and bombs. Now they took for granted that their country was a working multiracial democracy.

For the first time since Mandela had left prison nine years before, he was now a private individual without any political position. For a short time he appeared content with a quiet life with his wife Graça and his growing family of grandchildren and great-grandchildren, moving between Johannesburg, Cape Town, Qunu and Mozambique.
But he soon forgot about the quiet life, and he became more, not less, impatient: an old man in a hurry. "I have retired," he said at 84, "but if there's anything that would kill me it is to wake up in the morning not knowing what to do." "He needs to be very busy," his wife Graça confirmed.
"He is quite clear that if he slows down he will feel depressed. He'll feel he is not needed any more."

He established a Mandela Foundation that provided his base. His loyal Afrikaner secretary Zelda le Grange organised his endless meetings, travels and phone calls to the world's leaders. He kept flying across the world, particularly to Britain, America and the Middle East, often in a private plane provided by one of his rich friends. He embarked on the second volume of his memoirs, covering his presidential years, determined to write them himself, without being ghosted. He conducted his research with very personal methods, ringing up old friends and even former enemies, like ex-President De Klerk, to ask for their recollections of crucial meetings.
But he still enjoyed meeting sports heroes and film stars such as Whoopi Goldberg or Whitney Houston, whom he welcomed with outrageous flattery ("I'm only here to shine her shoes").

He sometimes seemed to be re-living his own youth in Johannesburg in the Fifties, when he was not only a politician, but a township hero, ladies' man, dancer and boxer, and loved talking about the old black musicians, writers and sportsmen.

He was lonelier in politics, at least 30 years older than most of the politicians in South Africa, and his contemporaries were dying. He often looked his age, and away from the cameras and with his staff he could be irritable. But he retained his powerful will to live. In 2001 he was diagnosed with cancer of the prostate, but after intensive treatment appeared fully recovered. "If cancer gets the upper hand I will nevertheless be the winner," he said. "In heaven, I will be looking for the nearest branch of the ANC."
He sometimes reflected about his past career with remorse, remembering neglected friends who had helped him on his way up. He worried about political colleagues who were forgotten, while he was so much honoured. When Walter Sisulu died in 2003, Mandela explained his crucial influence.
"By ancestry I was born to rule," he said. "[But Sisulu] helped me to understand that my real vocation was to be a servant of the people."

MBEKI
Mandela had warned that after he retired he would feel free to criticise the leadership "as an ordinary member of the ANC". But he knew that he was no ordinary member. He was careful not to upstage or embarrass Mbeki: he largely avoided commenting on domestic affairs and talked mainly about the need for reconciliation and peacemaking. But his relations inevitably became trickier.

At public occasions, Mandela inevitably overshadowed his successor and often won more applause. Some of his public statements went against Mbeki's policies; while in private he became more critical. "I don't want to be a praise singer," he explained after one closed ANC conference.
"I want to be objective, and I did indicate his weaknesses, which was unpalatable to many members."

Mbeki in turn became more obviously resentful of Mandela's prominence.He sometimes omitted Mandela from state occasions, and was often slow to return his phone calls. Mbeki's handling of Aids provoked the most obvious tensions, as he delayed facing and publicising the problem while Mandela was impatient for bolder action; to make up for his own past neglect.

He was determined to break through the taboo. In August 2002, he publicly embraced a militant Aids activist Zachie Achmat who was HIV positive - a powerful image that was reproduced round the world. And Mandela disclosed that three members of his own family had died of Aids. "There is no shame," he said, " to disclose a terminal disease from which you are suffering."

FOREIGN AFFAIRS
Mandela still travelled tirelessly, making up for his lost years and relishing foreign friendships and grand occasions. In London, he often called on the Queen, with whom he enjoyed a personal friendship: he broke with protocol by writing to her as "Dear Elizabeth". He was the only foreigner to be awarded the Order of Merit.

He could still play a personal role abroad in encouraging peaceful settlements and negotiations. He preferred working behind the scenes. In dealing with Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe, who he believed to be a brilliant politician who should never be underestimated. Mandela feared that overt South African intervention would be counterproductive, provoking a civil war in Zimbabwe that would bring force millions of people from their homes. But Mandela later became much more outspoken than Mbeki about Mugabe's tyranny.

Mandela had more success in Libya, where he enjoyed the unique trust of President Muammar Gaddafi. He and his representative Jakes Gerwel persuaded Gaddafi to release the suspects in the Lockerbie airline crash, to be tried in the Netherlands, in return for relaxing sanctions. And Gaddafi's trust in Mandela and Gerwel prepared the way for the later reconciliation between Libya and the American and British governments.

Mandela became more critical of American and British foreign policies, particularly after the Kosovo war, worried that they wanted to be "the policemen of the world" and Washington was undermining the fragile basis of international law. "They're introducing chaos in to international affairs," he said.

He was much more worried about American domination after 11 September 2001. When he talked with President George W Bush soon afterwards in Washington, he said Osama bin Laden should be held responsible, captured and tried. But his Muslim friends soon persuaded him to modify his support, and he explained that US policy could "be seen as undermining some of the basic tenets of the rule of law". He warned that the war against terrorism must not itself adopt the weapons of terrorism. And he was increasingly opposed to Israeli policies towards Palestinians - like many of his Jewish colleaguesin the ANC.

While he had enjoyed a close relationship with George Bush Sr, he distrusted some his closest advisers whom his son had inherited - particularly Dick Cheney, who had voted in Congress against calling for Mandela's release from prison. As the young Bush prepared for war in Iraq, Mandela stepped up his warnings of the dangers of ignoring the UN, without success. When he could not get through to Bush, he called his father and asked him to talk to his son. In October, he gave an explosive interview to Newsweek describing Bush's advisers Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld as "dinosaurs who do not want him to belong to the modern age". He attacked both America and Britain for racist attitudes. They did not criticise Israel for having weapons of mass destruction, he complained, because Israelis were seen as white, while Iraqis were seen as black. Mandela was emerging more clearly as the spokesman for the developing world, rather than the loyal friend of Washington and London.

As Bush and Blair prepared for war in Iraq, Mandela believed that neither was taking the UN seriously enough; he reminded Blair that Churchill had supported the creation of the UN as the safeguard of world peace. But he felt that Blair was closing ranks with Bush.

Mandela was still more outspoken in a speech to the International Women's Forums in January 2003. "It is a tragedy what is happening, what Bush is doing in Iraq," he told his surprised audience. "What I am condemning is that one power, with a President who has no foresight, who cannot think properly, is now wanting to plunge the world into a holocaust."

Mandela still hoped to mediate to prevent a war. But his links with Washington were weakening, and his influencein Iraq was slight: he tried and failed to ring Saddam Hussein, and even offered to fly to Iraq himself, provided he was asked by the UN.
When the US and Britain finally went to war, Mandela avoided further criticism. But he was soon again denouncing US foreign policy - just before Bush visited South Africa and other African countries in July 2003.

He could still combine his friendships with the West with outspoken criticism. In July 2003, he launched the Mandela-Rhodes Foundation in London's Westminster Hall where he heard tributes from Bill Clinton and Tony Blair - who made an impromptu speech explaining how Mandela "symbolised the triumph of hope over injustice". Mandela warmly thanked Blair but did not conceal their difference about the Middle East: "We differ on one point; very strongly."

He remained concerned about the mounting tension between Christians and Muslims. He was proud of the religious tolerance in his own government, which had included Muslim ministers, and he believed South Africa could help bridge the religious divide in the rest of the world.

THE MYTH AND THE MAN
Mandela was still a fairy-tale figure to millions of people around the world: the prisoner who became president, who caught the imagination of crowds and children. The name Mandela was attached to streets, squares, scholarships and buildings across the world - including an elegant new bridge across central Johannesburg that celebrated his 85th birthday.

The less heroic other world leaders, the more Mandela appeared as a solitary hero left over from an age of giants. And as an individual freed from the compromises of power, his icon shone still brighter.

But the myth was still connected to a statesman who could play a role in a dangerous and divided world. His long career had given him a deep personal experience of both power and powerlessness. He could speak for the huge populations in the developing world who were ignored by the richer countries, while he retained his moral authority in the West, even in America, as the champion of reconciliation and a multi-racial society.

The Deji od Akure, Oba Adebiyi Adesida is dead

The Deji of Akure of Akure, Oba Adebiyi Adesida, the monarch that presidesover Akureland, the Ondo State capital is dead.
Details of his passage was sketchy as of press time but our correspondent learnt on Sunday that the monarch died around 4am as a result of an unknown complication.

The 63-year-old first class paramount ruler ascended the throne about three years ago after his predecessor was deposed as a result of a street fight with one of the former monarch’s wives.

A highly competent source confirmed the death but said such announcement could only be made after seven days in accordance with tradition.

Details later.

Fast and Furious film Star "Walker" dies

High-octane street racing franchise “Fast & Furious,” died Saturday in a car crash in Southern California. He was 40.
Walker’s publicist Ame van Iden confirmed his death, but said she could not elaborate beyond statements posted on Walker’s official Twitter and Facebook accounts.
Walker was a passenger in a friend’s 2005 Porsche Carrera GT and both were attending a charity event for his organization, Reach Out Worldwide, in the community of Valencia in Santa Clarita, about 30 miles north of Hollywood.
The website for the charity said the Saturday event was intended to benefit victims of Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines.

Speed was a factor in the crash, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Office said.
The wreck took place about 3:30 p.m. (6:30 p.m. ET), about 300 yards from the office park where theevent was held. The speed limit there is 45 mph.

Fast and Furious film Star "Walker" dies

High-octane street racingfranchise “Fast & Furious,” died Saturday in a car crash in Southern California. He was 40.
Walker’s publicist Ame van Iden confirmed his death, but said she could not elaborate beyond statements posted on Walker’s official Twitter and Facebook accounts.
Walker was a passenger in a friend’s 2005 Porsche Carrera GT and both were attending a charity event for his organization, Reach Out Worldwide, in the community of Valencia in Santa Clarita, about 30 miles north of Hollywood.
The website for the charity said the Saturday event was intended to benefit victims of Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines.

Speed was a factor in the crash, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Office said.
The wreck took place about 3:30 p.m. (6:30 p.m. ET), about 300 yards from the office park where theevent was held. The speed limit there is 45 mph.

The Complete Idiot’s Guide To The National Conference

On Thursday, August 5, 1999, I read a published article titled,“Obasanjo’s not Enough: National Conference, Please!” In it the author screamed that Obasanjo was not enough. He asked Obasanjo to please give us a National Conference. In the article, he even called Obasanjo “fresh air.” Imagine!

Fourteen years later,President Goodluck Jonathan, on his own, is now calling for a National Conference. He is acknowledging that he is not enough and neither is his National Assembly. In January of 2000, I read another article, “Who’s Afraid of a National Conference.” In it the author tried to address the fears of those who are against a national conference.
While I do not endorse Jonathan’s conference, and do not have the confidence that he has the political will to pull it off, it doesn’t in any way negate the need.
As the debate on the National Conference returns to the national discourse, I present again the 1999 and the 2000 articles. It’s surprising that almost fifteen years after, despite opening the tallest hotel in West Africa, we have not moved an inch the thing around our neck.
I still maintain that the ideals of Nigeria have not been tried and found wanting; instead they have been found difficult and left untried. The National Conference is one encompassing way to set the stage for trying the ideals of Nigeria.
__________________________________________________________
Gloom, despair and despondency are some of the moods no one wants to see return to Nigeria. Nigerians seem to cherish the upbeat and promising atmosphere that came in with Obasanjo. It appears as if the proverbial silver lining is already in the sky. Daily, surprising news clips are coming out of Nigeria. Finally, it looks as if the giant is getting off the mud. But when you look deeper, you will see that Obasanjo's fanfare is all but over. The opening show has been performed and the honeymoon is past. Gradually, the traditional cracks that bring about pessimism, insecurity and fear are re-emerging. If nothing is done to arrest this crack up, it would get to a point when it would swallow us all.

As part of a discussion group on the internet,I punctuated an optimistic discussion on the way forward with a series of questions. I asked the discussants the following questions: Why hasn't Obasanjo made public his declaration of assets? Why is no one condemning THE NEWS magazine for not acknowledging that the ABUJA MIRROR actually broke the Speaker Buhari story? What role is thestructure of Nigeria playing in the difficulty to reduce corruption? Has anyone cared to think of what would happen when Obasanjo leaves? And these killings going on, are they just noises of democracy or a sign of bigger trouble in the making? Can true democracy ever survive if we have no true federalism? Is Africa's problem really that we don't have severe living conditions (eg. weather, natural disasters ie earthquakes etc) to confront, which would have made us think deeper?
My fellow discussants who were more interested in plump business opportunities and possible political goals if the media could wipe out the old breed for them, suddenly went on vacation from the message board. All of a sudden no one wants to think ahead. The dreamer trait in most of us seemed to have taken over our consciousness. No one wants to ask the big question. No one wants to think the big thought. Most of us seemed comfortable at that micro level of ‘thinking about the next election rather than the next generation.’
Whatever it is that we did which led to the emergence of Obasanjo as Nigeria's President is like jump-starting our junk Nigerian car. For this Nigerian car to reach a respectable speed, for it to weather the democratic storm ahead, it needs a different energy level. The National Conference is the only means through which such could be accomplished. Allowing the current democratic experiment to be carried on at this pace is to subscribe to incessant tuning up of this Nigerian car. The National Conference is the only way to change the car’s engine without having an inevitable engine knock.

In 1992, something monumental happened in Zango-Kataf. For the first time in many decades, a minority group resisted the domination of an external majority group. The imposition of Sharia Law and Emirate rule over a community that ought to be a nationality of its own sparked off a riot of unprecedented magnitude. Zango-Kataf, a miniature of Kosovo was crushed by Gen. Babangida. General Lukwat was put in jail. But the anger and the disenchantment remain. To the minority people of Zango-Kataf, patriotism to Nigeria will only be attractive when Nigeria first cares about them.

Today, there is both inter and intra ethnic skirmishes going on all over Nigeria. From Aguleri to Takum, from Bali to Karim Lamido, from Ile-Ife to Kafanchan, from Warri to Shagamu. And then Kano. For those who can see, these disturbances are pointing at the need for us to address the National Question. It should not be wished away. One of my fellow discussants suggested that if we all develop the Nigerian Stock market and invest in it, we would have less time to think of the things that divide us. But it is not just a matter of our material poverty. Even the Canadians are dealing with the same question.
By the very nature of our country's formation, these lines of conflicts are expected. The colonial masters brought together different nationalities based not upon their homogenous nature but for administrative convenience. Since independence, we have been searching for the solution to this false nationhood. In 1996, Major Kaduna Nzeogwu planned a coup with the intention of turning Nigeria into a confederate state. In 1990, Major Okar planned a coup and excised some states out of Nigeria. In between, we have gone through three Republics, heard the voice of the Ogonis and killed Ken Saro Wiwa. Yet, some Nigerians cannot see the National Question.

There is a National Question when citizens of the same country do not have the same rights in their homeland. There is a National Question when some citizens of a country are not free to live in peace anywhere they so wish. There is a National Question when some citizens of a country are not able to get permanent employment in some parts of their country. There is a National Question when Cultural Rights, Social Rights, Economic Rights, Civil Rights and Political Rights of some citizens of a country are being trampled upon.
I know the idea of a National Conference sounds radical to many Nigerians. To some, it is a recipe for disaster. That, of course, is not the truth. I will attempt to present here the reasons why I think we need a National Conference. In subsequent essays, I will try to explain the nature of the Conference I am proposing.
In an interview, during his lifetime, Chief Bola Ige stated that Obasanjo is laying the foundation for democracy. Which is an acceptance that what we have at present is short of being a democracy. But how do one lay a foundation for a new structure while living in the old structure and construction is taking place on the same spot? The foundation has remained untouched. And so are the things that have made our nation shaky from the very beginning.

I have always compared what our colonial masters did to the baptism of a child. When the kid grows up, it is his responsibility to be confirmed. Confirmation is a chance for the kid to accept, reject or modify all the vows his parents undertook on his behalf when he was a child. The confusion we are currently in has a lot to do with our refusal to pass through the process of confirmation. Another analogy is that of couples who are living together without wedlock. The conservatives would say 'living in sin'. Going by that definition, we Nigerians have been living in sin since that fateful day in 1914 when Lord Fredrick Lugard amalgamated the Northern and Southern Protectorates and let his girlfriend call it Nigeria.
That was how our nation was born -born without a purpose and without the consent of its citizens. The National Conference in effect would be a forum for us to confirm the vows the colonial masters undertook on our behalf. It would give Nigerians the chance to find a purpose for our country; to understand our differences, and to promote those things that unite us. It would be a chance for us to get married; sign on the dotted line, and say those 'I dos' to those 'You promise....' oath.

The National Conference will provide a forum for the federalists, the anarchists, the separatists, the activists, etc to come together and present their grievances, their fears and their hopes. Out of the chaos would emerge documents that would strengthen our Nation and give meaning to its structure and purpose for its existence. But most importantly, it would relieve the British of further blame for our existence and give us one less object to blame for our failures. The Americans stopped blaming the British the very first day they declared their Independence after holding their conference. Let’s go to the National Conference and declare our Unionhood and stop blaming the British, too. Let’s put our fate in our hands from that day forward.
Let’s find something to fall back to in time of crises. The Nigerian constitution is not strong enough to play the part of our safety net. It has been yanked out several times by our military boys that it lacks all symbolism and myth necessary for it to play the role of our back bone. Let’s come up with a document signed by and agreed to by all the Nationalities that make up Nigeria. Let it be our Declaration of Unionhood. Let it be our own Declaration of Independence. Now is the time to negotiate such a document. No group would be negotiating out of fear. Neither would any group have reason to fear to negotiate.

It doesn't matter if it takes us two years to agree on the final document,after all the British are not approaching. Let it mark the birth of a new Nigeria- a Nigeria where we all had a say on the kind of country we want,how power and resources should be shared. Let’s create that sense that we are all in this together. Let’s establish trust. Let’s develop and agree on our own Bill of Rights. That is theonly way to overhaul and legitimize the military constitution we currently have.

There is no investment Nigeria would make in itself that would be bigger than this. Calling for a National Conference would be Obasanjo's greatest legacy. It would help Nigeria jump into a different energy level. There is no better atmosphere for it than now. It would strengthen our fragile democracy and create a lasting solution to the weakness in our 1999 constitution.Now that there is a wind of change is the best time for the conference rather than when chaos begins. Let’s lay a strong foundation for our country and set a good example for the rest of Africa.

Many commentators have called the whole idea of a National Conference noisy and dangerous. The whole concept is nothing more than a conference of people selected from various parts of the country and representing every interest group. In some ways, it looks pretty inconceivable that such a conference will effect any change. Many have argued that it would be a mere waste of time like previous constitution drafting assemblies have been. But the mere picture of representatives of all the ethnic groups in Nigeria entering a building with the single goal to renegotiate their deal with Nigeria would make a powerful statement.

If, for instance,the conference adopts a political system that puts little premium on power at the center, it would go a long way to dilute the tension that continuously boil in Nigeria. Of course, there is no other place from which the Nigerian dream can emerge than such a conference. Many have argued that senators and members of the House of Representatives can do whatever the delegates to the National Conference can do. But that is totally out of place. Members of the national assembly are simply politicians. Very few of them think beyond the next election. Meanwhile, the issues that the National Conference would tackle are issues that would concern the unborn generation of Nigerians.
It has been said that Nigeria would have disintegrated had there been a known formula for its disintegration. It therefore follows that this search for our true form and unity must continue. It is not our fault that we inherited a weak nation. But it is ours if we remain in it. Celebrating over this little breeze of fresh air that Obasanjo brought shows how short-sighted we are. We have done that enough to know when history starts repeating itself and the price starts doubling.
Nostradamus, a French astrologer and physician who predicted accurately the First and Second World Wars also predicted that Queen Elizabeth of England would die in 1992. The year came with enough problems that could have caused the Queen at least a heart attack but she survived 1992. It has been said that her survival was not unconnected with some questions concerning Nigerian Nation which she alone could answer. According to the proponentsof that thought, the Queen would soon be required in Nigeria to present papers where autonomous communities of Nigeria handed over their sovereignty to the English Colonial government. If she could not, then we shall kick off the National Conference with an annulment of all that the English did by saying..."When in the course of human events…
__________________________________________________________
Who is afraid of a National Conference?

There are three groups of people currently associating themselves with that corporate entity called Nigeria: those who believe in the necessity of a National Conference: those who couldn’t care less about any form of a National Conference, and those who are afraid of a National Conference.
To those who believe in the necessity of a national conference, they are the choir of which I am a member. They are currently singing off the tune, without harmony or rhythm. They have a lot of work to do if they want their idea to become a mainstream idea. In trying to find an answer to Nigeria’s flaws and its antecedent poor performance, they have raised a lot of questions that only they can humbly answer. To them, I remind that no change worth its onionsever comes easy. People will fight and resist any attempt to change the way things are. The task is to persist in that demand and to refine, articulate and explain the issues involved to the unconverted.
And now, to those who couldn’t care less about National Conference probably because they want to maintain the status quo or because they have become so cynical about change and possibility of genuine reform I ask that they not close their eyes because a bad person is passing else, they will not know when a good person passes. Giving an ear to every idea for our national development should be one of the requirements of good citizenship. Sitting there, watching things happen or wondering what is happening is no way of contributing to our national discourse.
I will however dedicate this piece to those who are afraid of a national conference. This group could be divided into two: those who see the need but not the possibility of its success and those who do not see the need and are afraid of its consequences.
The National Conference as being proposed is a Conference of all the interacting forces that make up the country we currently call Nigeria. These forces include nationalities, labor groups, professional groups, non-governmental organizations, etc. The goal of the conference is to find a way to smoothen the friction that results as these forces interact. It is this friction that has been a cog in the wheel of Nigeria’s progress. It is hoped that at the end of the conference, a suitable lubricant can be found that would be applied at the appropriate joint or points of interaction such that the wheel of the nation will run smoother.
The opponents of the national Conference who see the necessity but are wary of the modality are people who quarrel over the composition of the conference or the name it is called. These people would rather debate whether it should be Sovereign or National. They would rather quarrel over what a nationality is and on whose mandate the conference would be convened. Sometimes, the debate going on looks like the rancor which often mark the beginning of negotiation between groups like Israel and PLO. There is a fight over where the venue should be, who should be there, what kind of food should be served, who should shake whose hand, and who should sit beside whom.

If we agree that there is the need for a National Conference where matters fundamental to the Nigerian nation should be resolved,then working out the modalities of such a conference cannot be too hard. On the order hand, if we argue that there are democratic institutions that are in place where such issues could be discussed, then our understanding of the issues in question varies.

Take, for instance,the idea of decentralizing power where states or regions or zones would have to acquire more autonomy. How could the national assembly as it is currently constituted or even the constitutional review committee handle such a heavy weight issue that would affect the lives of millions of Nigerians, including those yet unborn? The issue of determining the kind of association the different people who make up Nigeria desire is beyond the current mandate of these career politicians. Bear in mind that the underlying goal of this conference is to give all the different forces in Nigeria the chance to contribute to the creation of a New Nigeria. A New Nigeria that we all are responsible for. A New Nigeria that we all agree to. A New Nigeria that we all molded.
The Nigeria we have now started with the Nigeria our forefathers living in bondage of colonialism negotiated in London. It later degenerated into a Nigeria that our military conceded to the Nigerian people. So, we have never had a Nigeria, our own Nigeria. A Nigeria negotiated by the free Nigerian people who are not under any duress of any sought. That is the Nigeria we sort through the National Conference and not a Nigeria that will answer to one oppressive force or another lurking in the dark.

The career politicians who are currently in the National Assembly voted in by the Nigerian people do not represent the vision of this Nigeria we intend to create. Being a product of the imposed Nigeria, they have no moral authority to represent, neither do they have the interest of theNigerians who are agitating for a New Nigeria. Passing the issue of the National Conference to these politicians is like sending something bigger than the cricket into the cricket’s hole. Waiting for another four years to try and vote in the right people who will tackle the issues in question amounts to denying the reality of Nigeria’s flaws and the flaws in the current system that will always produce its own kind.

So, what should be done?

If we agree that there is a need for a National Conference and that the National Assembly is ill-equipped to handle issues of that sort, then we proceed to iron out the modalities of such a conference. The conference is not, should not and must not be a cover for any group to break away from Nigeria. The negotiation is solely aimed at making Nigeria work better. Those who are clamoring for a means to attain their own country would have to find other means to achieve that.
Here are the suggested modalities for such a conference:

Being that the present administration is not interested in convening this conference, individuals who are interested in Nigeria’s advancement would have to lead the way. Proponents of this Conference will go to the grass-root level within all interest groups eager to participate and initiate the discussion.

Wole Soyinka and other national proponents of this conference could meet with interested members of, say, the Igbo nationality and together they travel to the heartland of Igbo land and educate the populace on the essence of the conference. With the necessary support provided, each clan, each village, each town,each local government within every negotiating unit will, turn by turn, come together and discuss the kind of association they want with Nigeria.

The same process would be repeated with every negotiating unit, be it a NGO or a trade union. Each group will articulate their position. Upon completion, each unit will take their agreed position to the general conference where the final negotiation with other negotiating unitswill take place.
Still using this example, the. discussion begins in the clan and afterwards moves on to thevillage, then onwards to the town. By the time it gets to the local Government area level, a leader who can best articulate the positionof the town would have naturally emerged. The same with the local government area and the state and then the nationality as the case may be. At the end of the discourse within a negotiating unit, three or four representatives will carry the position of the unit to the General Conference. It would be left for the negotiating units to decide on how to select these representatives. In any case, their job is not more than taking the position of their unit to the General Conference for final negotiation.It is expected that regular consultation with there presented will continue as the negotiation proceeded.
It is expected that this process will take upwards of one year to be completed. In the mean time, the Presidency and the currently elected officials will continue to carry out their duties. When the final agreement is reached and a document of a Declaration of Nationhood is ratified by all the negotiating units, then a New Constitution for a New Nigeria would be written based on the principle embedded in the Declaration of Nationhood. With this New Constitution a new election would be held and a New Nigeria would be born. This way, nobody will have to surrender his or her mandate or power to anyone else. The current elected officials would have served their term. A referendum would be used to adopt the new constitution and dissolve the old National Assembly and all the other structures of governance as was contained in the old military drawn constitution.

This arrangement, refined more and more would be able to answer every question in the hearts of those who are afraid of a national conference. For instance, if there were 250 nationalities in Nigeria, and another 50 negotiating units drawn from professional groups and NGOs, the General Conference would have 300 negotiating units. With each unit represented by three or four delegates, the General Conference would not be as rowdy as many fear. In any case, representing a unit does not require several people speaking for the unit since the position of the negotiating unit had been articulated previously by the unit. This again makes it irrelevant as to how many delegates would represent each group and whether it should be decided on the bases of the group’s population.

It is clear that some of the fear currently entertained by Nigerians over the National Conference is mainly due to the caliber of the people who champion it. When an issue as sensitive as this is championed by people who have never belonged to anyone elsebut themselves or people who think they are more Nigerian than the rest of us, it raises a genuine concern. But we should not kill the message because of the messenger. We should not throw away the baby with the dirty water. Instead, we should enter the arena and take control of the steering.

Nigeria today is at a crossroad. As the preacher says, it is either we repent from our sinful ways and be born again or we continue along this way and end up in hell. From Biafra to Odi, we have been visiting one purgatory after another. Our story will continue to be the same until we muster the courage to overhaul our whole structure. Those who fear to negotiate, usually find themselves negotiating out of fear. Once we were taken to London to negotiate. At another time, we were taken to Aburi. None of which gave the Nigerian people exactly what they wanted. It is time for us to bring it home. And there is no better time than now-now when nobody is forcing us to do so. But if we miss this opportunity, one day, the United Nations will convene and moderate one for us. Then, those of us who are still alive will walk into the conference room limping and in shame.

5 young music video directors giving Clarence Peters a run for his money

Clarence Peters during Toni Tones ‘I know What You Like’ Video shoot. The director holds a monopoly when it comes to shooting music videos. But there are some upcomers who would love to see that change… Photo: Toni Tones

Clarence Peters has pretty much strong-armed the music video game. But times are changing and there are new kids on the block who are ready to challenge him. Here’s NET’s list of the new men behind the lenses.

Adasa Cookey is one newbie in the game stirring up things nicely.

1) Adasa Cookey-  Although he has a background in telecommunications, Adasa Cookey ditched the corporate world for entertainment. He hit pure gold in 2012 when he directed a music video for then little known Burna Boy. ‘Like To Party’ was one of the freshest music videos of last year and launched Adasa Cookey’s career. He hasn’t looked back since then having worked with DJ Xclusive, D’ Prince, Samklef, Ketchup, Splash and others

Little is known about Ani James. a.k. a Aje because he hardly grants interviews

2)    Aje- Another music video director on the heels of Clarence Peters is Aje.  His named popped up on the radar when he directed Rayce’s smash hit ‘Roll’ in 2011. He followed it up with Durella’s ‘My Life’ in the same year. His hard work paid off in 2012 when he directed Sinzu’s ‘Carolina’. The video was a huge hit but the best was yet to come. His big break came when he shot Brymo’s ‘Ara’ which many critics called the music video of the year. He has gone on to shoot big music videos such as Davido’s ‘Feel Alright’.

Matt Maxx with rapper Phyno during a video shoot

3)    Matt Maxx- Matt Maxx is the newest of the bunch. His first mainstream music video appeared on TV screens last year when he directed Coco Ice’s ‘If You Don’t Know’. His work on her music video must have impressed Olamide who recruited the new director to shoot two of his music videos ‘Voice of the Streets’ and ‘Stupid Love’. That gave him the big break he needed. This year he directed D’Banj’s ‘Don’t Tell Me Nonsense’ video.

Moe Musa has become one of the most sought after Nigerian music video directors even though he is based in the UK.

 4)    Moe Musa-  Moe Musa is a newbie when it comes to directing music videos in Nigeria. With only 5 years experience, he has shot music videos for some of the biggest stars in Nigeria. His first notable work came out last year when he directed the EME video ‘Get Down Tonight’. His career blew up from then. He has since directed videos for Wande Coal, Iyanya, Ice Prince, Fuse ODG, Seyi Shay, May D, Dr. Sid and others. Moe Musa is now one of the most sought after music video directors in Nigeria even though he is based in the UK.

Olalekan Buari a.ka. Unlimited L.A

5)    Unlimited L.A- Unlimited L.A whose real names are Olalekan Buari started handling the camera in 2008 under the tutelage of DJ Tee. L.A isn’t just your average music video director as he prefers to call himself a cinematographer. He shot his first video in 2009. He directed Blackmagic’s ‘Rainbow’ in 2011 and ‘Repete’ the following year. His big break came this year when he shot Sean Tizzle’s ‘Sho Lee’ four months ago. The video to the hit single put Unlimited L.A’s name as one of the most promising music video directors. Since then he has shot videos for other Nigerian stars including Tilla Man.

'Omosexy': The biggest film star you’ve never heard of

Omotola Jalade Ekeinde, aka 'Omosexy’, is the queen of Nollywood. She’s appeared in more than 300 films, pulls in 150 million viewers for her reality-television show and has been named one of the 100 most influential people in the world.

Actress and singer, Omotola Jalade Ekeinde Photo: KATE PETERS

She scores a zero on the Hollywood Richter scale. She has never starred in a major motion picture. Her most recent film, Last Flight to Abuja, means nothing to devotees of Netflix and LoveFilm.

When she sat next to Steven Spielberg at a Time magazine dinner earlier this year he didn’t know her name. Yet Omotola Jalade Ekeinde was attending that dinner because, like him, she had been honoured in Time’s 2013 list of the 100 Most Influential People in the World.

Alongside Kate Middleton, Michelle Obama and Beyoncé.The star of more than 300 films, Omotola – or “Omosexy”, as she is known to her legions of fans – is bigger across the African diaspora than Halle Berry.

Her reality-television show, Omotola: The Real Me, pulls in more viewers than Oprah’s and Tyra’s at their peak, combined, and she is the first African celebrity ever to amass more than one million Facebook “likes”.

When I meet her for the interview in a photographic studio in south-east London she is still recovering from getting mobbed by her Afro-Caribbean fan base in a nearby Tesco. “They practically had to shut down the store when people recognised me,” she says. “I actually got scared.”

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Omotola is one of the biggest stars in Nollywood, the low-budget, high-output Nigerian film industry that churns out more English-language films than Hollywood or Bollywood (1,000-2,000 a year). Some have cinematic releases, but most are for the straight-to-video market.
When I watch her Stella photo-shoot from the sidelines it is immediately apparent that everything about her is BIG. Big body, big hair, big personality, big laugh: she comes across like Oprah’s sister.
She is here with her own film crew, who are recording for a future episode of her television show. Which means there is also a big, superstar delay – three hours – before our interview can start.
Many of her fans think her real name is “Omosexy”, she tells me, laughing, when we finally get to speak, but it was a nickname given to her by her husband, an airline pilot.
“He bought me a car back in 2009, and that was the plate number,” she recalls, speaking with kinetic, girlish excitement, rattling off sentences in fast, extended flurries.



^{Omotola in Last Flight to Abuja}

 
“All my cars have special plate numbers, like Omotola 1.” When I ask how many cars she has, she laughs again, with embarrassment. “A few.” When she first saw her personalised licence plate she was horrified. “I thought, 'Oh no!’ It sounded cocky.
As if I was telling everybody, 'I’m sexy!’ Y’know-wha-I-mean?” She punctuates her sentences with this phrase, which she reels off as a single word.
The 35-year-old star has been acting since she was 16. Most recently she starred as Suzie, a passenger freshly spurned by her adulterous lover, in an aeroplane disaster movie, Last Flight to Abuja, which was the highest grossing film at the African box office last year.
Her breakthrough role came in 1995, in the Nollywood classic Mortal Inheritance, in which she played a sickle-cell patient fighting for her life. Since then she has established a staggering average of 16 films a year.
I put it to her that she must be the most prolific actress in the world. She laughs and shakes her head. “I am sure there are people who have beaten that record in Nigeria. Trust me.
It is easy to turn around with straight-to-video movies. It is the fashion to shoot until you drop, night and day. You have to remember that we are on very low budgets, so there is no time to wait.”
Nollywood began fewer than 20 years ago on the bustling streets of Lagos. Its pioneers were traders and bootleggers who started out selling copies of Hollywood films before graduating into producing their own titles as an inexpensive way to procure more content for a burgeoning market.
The traders finance the films (the average budget is £15,000-£30,000), then sell copies in bulk to local operators, who distribute them in markets, shops and street-corners for as little as £2 each.



^{Posters for just three of her 300-plus films, including Ties That Bind and Amina} 

 
The financial equation is problematic, with endemic piracy, issues over copyright and a lack of legally binding contracts.
Even so, what started as a ramshackle business is today worth an estimated £320 million a year, and rising. All this in a country that still lacks a reliable electricity supply.
What is the secret of Omotola’s appeal? “I don’t know,” she says, shrugging. “I wish someone would tell me! People can relate to me, I suppose. They feel as if they know me. A lot of my audience has grown up with me.”
At the same time, in a country that is heavily defined by religion and tradition, it helps that she is seen as a stable role model – a God-fearing woman who has been married to the same man for 17 years, and balances her work-life with bringing up four children.
Omotola Jalade Ekeinde was born into a middle-class family of strict Methodists in Lagos. Her father was the manager of the Lagos Country Club, while her mother worked for a local supermarket chain.
She has two younger brothers and was a tomboy, fiercely independent. “I used to scare boys from a very young age. They found me too much, because I knew what I wanted and I’d boss them around. In those days my mother would joke that I would never find a husband.”
As a child she was closest to her father. “He was a different kind of African man,” she recalls.
“He was very enlightened. He always asked me what I wanted, and encouraged me to speak up. He treated me like a boy.” He died in a car accident when Omotola was 12, while she was away at boarding-school.
“I didn’t grieve,” she says. “When I got home people were telling me that my mother had been crying for days, and that, as the eldest, I had to be strong for her and my brothers. I didn’t know what to do, so I just bottled everything up.
It affected me for many years afterwards. I was always very angry.”
Omotola would later play out her repressed grief on camera, using it as an emotional trigger to make herself cry whenever scripts called for it. But this soon created other problems.



^{Omotola and family} 

 
“The director would shout, 'Cut!’ and I’d still be crying,” she recalls. “I could bring the tears, but I could not control them. In the end I had to stop using that technique.”
At the age of 16 Omotola met her future husband, Matthew Ekeinde, then 26, in church. He was so keen on her that the day after their first meeting he showed up at her house unannounced.
“He soon became a friend of the family. He was almost like a father figure,” she says. “He’d drop my brothers at school and stuff.”
Ekeinde proposed when Omotola was 18. Initially, Omotola’s mother thought her daughter too young to marry, and asked Matthew to wait, but he refused. “She was really shocked,” says Omotola.
“She said, 'If you want something badly enough you wait for it,’ but he said, 'If I want something I take it.’ He was very, very bold. It was one of the things I found fascinating about him.”
They had two wedding ceremonies, the second of which took place on a flight from Lagos to Benin. “He’s amazing. If I weren't married to him I couldn’t see myself with anybody else. I’m a handful.”
Ekeinde has become a reluctant poster boy for a new kind of African man.
“A lot of men come up to him and say, 'You’re a real man – I can’t believe how you deal with it all.’ He also gets a lot of invitations from various bodies to speak about how he copes as a modern Nigerian man in a relationship with a powerful working woman.”
Omotola’s ascent to the Nollywood elite began the same year she met Ekeinde. She was modelling at the time. One afternoon she tagged along with a model friend who was attending a film audition.
“She didn’t get the part, and she came out and was very sad,” says Omotola. “Then she said, 'Why don’t you go in and have a go?’
I said 'OK,’ and went in and got the part. My friend wasn’t happy. That was the end of our friendship.”
Omotola has somehow also found the time to release three albums. And then there is her charitable work. “First and foremost I actually consider myself a humanitarian,” she says proudly.


^{At the Time 100 Gala with Steven Spielberg and Daniel Day-Lewis} 

 
She started in 2005, working with the United Nations as a World Food Programme ambassador. She now has her own foundation, the Omotola Youth Empowerment Programme.
“I have a lot of young people writing to me, feeling disillusioned. There’s so much injustice in Africa, and people’s lives being trampled on. The foundation was designed to give voice to these people.”
Her own voice has been greatly enhanced by the success of her reality-television show. It is the first show of its kind in Africa, watched by 150 million people across the continent. “
A lot of women say to me that I am their role model and example. They say, 'If Omotola can do it, I can do it.’ I also get a lot of fan letters from men that say, 'You are the reason I allow my wife to work, or pursue a career,’ because they see that I am married and that I am doing both.”
Omotola is now one of the most powerful people in what’s being called the “new Nollywood”, a fresh chapter for the industry, characterised by better scripts, improved production values and cinema rather than DVD-only releases.
But there are obstacles for the new Nollywood, not least the fact that Nigeria only has seven major cinemas, and that ticket prices are way beyond the reach of most citizens.
Nollywood’s biggest problem by far, however, is that its films – including Omotola’s – are still not very good. Theirs is a fuzzy, low-budget aesthetic in which histrionic acting combines with often ludicrous plot lines.
The films drown in melodrama, and many scenes are unintentionally comic. Production values and the rigours of plot and character development are dispensed with in the mad rush to complete and distribute.
It’s akin to half-cooking food to feed impatient mouths, and the results feel like first drafts. Nevertheless, African audiences don’t seem to care, as long as the films are cheap enough for a downtrodden public desperate for escapism, and they feature their own home-grown stars on screen.
So, what does the future hold for Omotola?
She recently made her American debut, in a television drama, Hit the Floor, opposite the R&B star Akon. Does she see her future as Nollywood or Hollywood?
“I’ll just go with the flow. We [in Nollywood] want to collaborate, we don’t want to leave. We are hoping to be the first film industry that will pull Hollywood in, instead of them pulling us out.”
This may not be such a crazy idea, as Hollywood sees the amounts invested in Nollywood, plus a potential audience of over one billion Africans (155 million in Nigeria alone).
Would she like to work with Spielberg? “Oh, please, let it be!” she says, clasping her hands together hopefully.
“Please! Everything happens for a reason.” I ask her if she took Spielberg’s number at that Time dinner. “Hello? I wouldn’t be African if I didn’t, now would I?”