Harrowing pictures of Nigerian Police Academy cadets' living conditons

[Ikhide]

My people,

 

Please view these pictures. How do we explain this travesty? Have we no shame? I think every living Inspector General of Police since Independence should be hauled before the people to explain this savagery.

 

- Ikhide

 

ps.

 

I have news for you all; many  public '"educational insitutions are just as bad."

[Mobolaji Aluko]

Ikhide:

Horrible facilities, not fit even for animals...one is then not surprised at their episodic behavior when they "graduate"...

But what is this guy below doing again?

Inquiring minds want to know...

Bolaji Aluko

Shaking his head

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[ojod...@gmail.com]

Yes, go check round all our institutions of learning/training from secondary to tertiary to NYSC orientation camps and you will find even worse scenarios. Our leaders all know, they only pretend not to. Which way Nigeria?

Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless handheld from Glo Mobile.

---

From: Ikhide <xok...@yahoo.com>

Sender: usaafric...@googlegroups.com

Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2013 09:24:20 -0800 (PST)

To: Toyin Falola<USAAfric...@googlegroups.com>

ReplyTo: usaafric...@googlegroups.com

Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Harrowing pictures of Nigerian Police Academy cadets' living conditons

--

[Seun Odeyemi]

When are we going to accept that what we are seeing in places like Nigeria (and of course many other nation-states in Africa) point to a growing body of evidence that, as Arjun Appadurai once argued, the very idea of the 'state'--as an all-encompassing political reality--may indeed be on its "last legs"? 

[basil ugochukwu]

Jonathan’s surprise visit rattles Ikeja Police College Commandant

"The second question followed: When was the recording done. Again there was no answer. The Commandant turned to his deputy and other senior officers to assist him in answering the President’s questions, but none was able to help him out. The President then quipped: “This is a calculated attempt to damage the image of the government, as the college is not the only training institution in the country.” [For those already celebrating Jonathan's visit to the Police College, this report should demoralize them. Apparently, the President was less concerned about its state than that Channels TV was permitted access to place the information before Nigerians and the world. I'm troubled by this. We all should be.]

Posted by: Ebele Boniface Posted date: January 19, 2013 In: Featured, News | comment : 25

The police authorities were in shock last night after an angry President Goodluck Jonathan stormed out of the Police College, Ikeja, Lagos during an unexpected visit to personally assess the rot at the college. The President’s visit was provoked by a weeklong expose by the Lagos –based Channels Television on the dehumanising conditions trainee policemen go through in the college. President Jonathan, who was on his way to Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire for a meeting of ECOWAS leaders on the insurgency in Mali, was as embarrassed by what he saw as the inability of the Commandant of the institution, Police Commissioner I.F.Yerima, to answer any of the four questions he asked the police officer. The President and his entourage, including the Assistant Inspector General of Police (AIG) Zone Two, Mamman Tsafe, and the Lagos State Commissioner of Police, Umar Manko, drove into the college at about 3pm and parked in front of the Sports Store. From there,he walked to the hostels. He also inspected the women’s hostels,the kitchen, the dining halls facing the parade field and the officers’ mess. Security was tight with armed soldiers and policemen deployed in strategic places in the college. As he left the mess to enter his car, he suddenly paused and faced CP Yerima to ask him a few questions. By now, a crowd had gathered struggling to see the President and were at the same time hailing him. He waved to them to acknowledge their greetings. Then came the first question for the College Commandant: How was Channels TV able to penetrate and record the mess without detection? The CP had no answer. The second question followed: When was the recording done. Again there was no answer. The Commandant turned to his deputy and other senior officers to assist him in answering the President’s questions, but none was able to help him out. The President then quipped: “This is a calculated attempt to damage the image of the government, as the college is not the only training institution in the country.” He soon entered his car and left. After the President’s departure, the college Commandant met briefly with his officers before he too took his leave. Senior officers later gathered in groups to review the visit. Some of policemen in the college who pleaded for anonymity were happy at the President’s visit which they said would help in reversing the fortunes of the college. They called for the probe of the trainees’ welfare in the last five years.

 

Basil Ugochukwu
PhD Candidate and Graduate Teaching Assistant
Osgoode Hall Law School
York University
4700 Keele Street
Toronto, ON
Canada M3J 1P3
View my research on my SSRN Author page: 
http://ssrn.com/author=902433 

---

From: "ojod...@gmail.com" <ojod...@gmail.com>
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Friday, January 18, 2013 2:55:40 PM
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Harrowing pictures of Nigerian Police Academy cadets' living conditons

[Mobolaji Aluko]

My People:

There is ABSOLUTELY no reason why the police barracks should look the way they are from the pictures that we see, and you must not blame the leadership ALONE.  Those who live in those hostels have a MINIMUM responsibility to keep their IMMEDIATE environments clean - the beds (or iron sheets) that they sleep on,  their rooms, the outside grounds of their hostels -  even if the amenities themselves are NOT first- or even second-class. 

At the university at Otuoke, I am INSISTING as VC that ALL students (male and female)  ENSURE that their own rooms are clean (we have provided brooms, mops and wastebaskets throughout the hostels; we plan to have at least one each per room on the long run), and that the university will only be responsible to provide cleaners and groundsmen to ensure carting away various collected REFUSE away from the hostel.   In a police college/barrack or army barrack, the discipline should be even higher than in a secondary school or university, and the Commandants should be able to insist of that of the residents..

There is no doubt that lack of electricity and water present problems in institutional residences - particularly water, which is essential, but so dependent on electricity to pump to tanks for mass storage and usage - but merely keeping the PHYSICAL environment clean does not depend on either of these.

I stand to be corrected....and there you have it.

Bolaji Aluko

On Fri, Jan 18, 2013 at 8:55 PM, <ojod...@gmail.com> wrote:

Yes, go check round all our institutions of learning/training from secondary to tertiary to NYSC orientation camps and you will find even worse scenarios. Our leaders all know, they only pretend not to. Which way Nigeria?

Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless handheld from Glo Mobile.

---

From: Ikhide <xok...@yahoo.com>

Sender: usaafric...@googlegroups.com

Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2013 09:24:20 -0800 (PST)

To: Toyin Falola<USAAfric...@googlegroups.com>

ReplyTo: usaafric...@googlegroups.com

Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Harrowing pictures of Nigerian Police Academy cadets' living conditons

My people,

 

Please view these pictures. How do we explain this travesty? Have we no shame? I think every living Inspector General of Police since Independence should be hauled before the people to explain this savagery.

 

- Ikhide

 

ps.

 

I have news for you all; many  public '"educational insitutions are just as bad."

[shina7...@yahoo.com]

Soyinka's A Dance of the Forests was meant to give a dramatic demonstration of Africa's 'recurrent cycle of stupidities'. I'm sure he had no inkling then that Jonathan would be inflicted on Nigeria.


Jonathan's retort at the Police College is another example of governmental stupidity almost as an art.


Adeshina Afolayan

Sent from my BlackBerry wireless device from MTN

---

From: basil ugochukwu <ugoch...@yahoo.com>

Sender: usaafric...@googlegroups.com

Date: Sat, 19 Jan 2013 05:19:28 -0800 (PST)

To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com<usaafric...@googlegroups.com>

ReplyTo: usaafric...@googlegroups.com

[Seun Odeyemi]

This is not meant as a direct answer to Prof. Aluko's question, but I will like to raise another question centered around the theme of hopefulness. Have we ever thought that in Nigeria people are losing hope in the fundamental sacredness and dignity of both self and others? And that this may be as a result of the fact that every single institution of being (from which the aims, aspirations, vision, roles, responsibilities, and expectations of humanity is expressed) has failed them? So, why should people care about personal and communal hygiene when their reality, in reference to Mbembe, is one filled with "magico-poetic violence"? 

[Ayo Obe]

And in the case of the police training institutions, the President has several reports about the collapse of the infrastructure and the need for serious upgrading.  When I was on the Police Service Commission the only tour we undertook was of training institutions.  In Maiduguri we found training still going on in what had been 'temporary' accommodation for thirty years, where there was just one room, where students hung mattresses from the ceiling, lowered them at night to sleep, hoisted them in the morning for breakfast, then cleared breakfast to have their lessons.  That was eight years ago.

We produced a report which was received and shelved, as were other reports highlighting this same problem.  The President cannot claim ignorance when he has a Minister of Police Affairs.  When he launched a code of conduct for police officers recently, was it on the basis of reports that he had read or just because of wanting to give the appearance of having done 'something'?

Recall one former Minister of Foreign Affairs who recounted the way he left his office on the top floor, went downstairs and on his way out declared a desire to use the bathroom on the ground floor. He said that you needed to see the panic on the faces of the junior officers as they begged him to return to his executive floor and use his executive facilities.  Millions will be devoted each year to buildings and overheads, yet we are expected to accept that lavatories and 'water' closets need not use actual water because the pump to supply it is not working and the person whose job it is to maintain a huge keg of water is 'off today.'

We don't have the 'untouchable' caste that they have in India whose job it is to maintain public toilets, so they are used down to a level where only desperation will force anyone in, and then left in that condition.   It is only at the airports that some effort is made to maintain facilities.  But Ministers are ushered in past all this unpleasantness, to the executive lift which takes them to the executive floor where they enjoy executive facilities.

Ayo

I invite you to follow me on Twitter @naijama

[shina7...@yahoo.com]

Soyinka's A Dance of the Forests was meant to give a dramatic demonstration of Africa's 'recurrent cycle of stupidities'. I'm sure he had no inkling then that Jonathan would be inflicted on Nigeria.


Jonathan's retort at the Police College is another example of governmental stupidity almost as an art.


Adeshina Afolayan

Sent from my BlackBerry wireless device from MTN

---

From: basil ugochukwu <ugoch...@yahoo.com>

Sender: usaafric...@googlegroups.com

Date: Sat, 19 Jan 2013 05:19:28 -0800 (PST)

To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com<usaafric...@googlegroups.com>

ReplyTo: usaafric...@googlegroups.com

[Olumide Olaniyan]

nothing will really work in this part of the world until we start holding public officers accountable. this kind of decrepitude has permeated every facets of our national underdevelopment. we see it in our streets, in our hospitals, in our schools, in our sporting arenas. sometimes, if you search our souls very well, you may see same decay!

 

unless we do something about our low political culture as a people, and ensure that we get answers to our questions, we may continue to blow this hot air for a long time to come. public toilets are grossly inadequate or not in existence in motor garages for instance, yet, you will see boldly pasted inscriptions on trees, walls, gates: 'Do Not Urinate Here';  is it that we assumed that commuters will never make use of toilets. No one has really protested this demeaned treatment and several of its type across the nation. this impoliteness to police cadets is the same.

 

imagine the situation described by Ayo Obe below - gbogbonise hall for sleeping, eating, lecturing, yet no one responded, even after seven year!

 

will discussion also end on this after a few more emails and chat at pubs?

 

olumide

------------------------------------------------------------

Let us go ahead. The struggle for a better world never ends - Victor Valle

From: Ayo Obe <ayo.m...@gmail.com>
To: "usaafric...@googlegroups.com" <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Cc: "usaafric...@googlegroups.com" <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Saturday, 19 January 2013, 17:44
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Harrowing pictures of Nigerian Police Academy cadets' living conditons

And in the case of the police training institutions, the President has several reports about the collapse of the infrastructure and the need for serious upgrading.  When I was on the Police Service Commission the only tour we undertook was of training institutions.  In Maiduguri we found training still going on in what had been 'temporary' accommodation for thirty years, where there was just one room, where students hung mattresses from the ceiling, lowered them at night to sleep, hoisted them in the morning for breakfast, then cleared breakfast to have their lessons.  That was eight years ago.

We produced a report which was received and shelved, as were other reports highlighting this same problem.  The President cannot claim ignorance when he has a Minister of Police Affairs.  When he launched a code of conduct for police officers recently, was it on the basis of reports that he had read or just because of wanting to give the appearance of having done 'something'?

Recall one former Minister of Foreign Affairs who recounted the way he left his office on the top floor, went downstairs and on his way out declared a desire to use the bathroom on the ground floor. He said that you needed to see the panic on the faces of the junior officers as they begged him to return to his executive floor and use his executive facilities.  Millions will be devoted each year to buildings and overheads, yet we are expected to accept that lavatories and 'water' closets need not use actual water because the pump to supply it is not working and the person whose job it is to maintain a huge keg of water is 'off today.'

We don't have the 'untouchable' caste that they have in India whose job it is to maintain public toilets, so they are used down to a level where only desperation will force anyone in, and then left in that condition.   It is only at the airports that some effort is made to maintain facilities.  But Ministers are ushered in past all this unpleasantness, to the executive lift which takes them to the executive floor where they enjoy executive facilities.

Ayo

I invite you to follow me on Twitter @naijama

On 18 Jan 2013, at 20:55, ojod...@gmail.com wrote:

Yes, go check round all our institutions of learning/training from secondary to tertiary to NYSC orientation camps and you will find even worse scenarios. Our leaders all know, they only pretend not to. Which way Nigeria?

Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless handheld from Glo Mobile.

[Mobolaji Aluko]

Ayo:

Government, institutional leaders ("priesthood") and the common people ("laity") have a role to play in improving  general ("ecumenical")  life.

Those who write reports such as yours SHOULD NOT REST until something is done about them, because many of the OTHER reports that you write originate from the kind of rot that your group saw.  I once spoke to a former VC who was constantly in the news being victimized by his students.  When I asked him why, he lamented but confessed that "Those students are ANIMALS, but we made them so by where they live, how little they eat and where they take their classes, so they could care less, and a little match lights their violence."  University life must be a step up

But when it comes to personal hygiene, those DOWN there can do better than just wait for ever for government or their supervisors to give them brooms and mops and waste baskets, or cutlasses to mow their surroundings.  I insist that to live like a pig because those "instruments" were not bought for you is to be a pig.

Leadership counts.  If the Ambassador that you referred to INSISTED that from then on, he would use his bathroom in that public place, you would see it improve permanently - or at least while he is Ambassador.  It is not original to me, but I understand that the quality of maintenance of an entire facility is as good as its toilets, and I have taken that to heart in my own institution. Despite the bad water situation in Nigeria, if in each toilet a mop, a bucket of water, a WC bowl cleaner and a cloth towel is put in each - and  each person is encouraged to PURCHASE his own toilet roll -   then those who clean it will not feel like India's "untouchables."

Finally, one hopes that with the recent unfortunate 'copter crash that claimed some lives, roads to remote locations in Nigeria where important people and their deceased-to-be-buried parents come from will be more quickly developed.

And there you have it.

Bolaji Aluko

[Nkolika Ebele]

Reactions to the state of the Police College reported by Channel TV points to one fact, that many of you have never been to the Police barracks. If you have, you will know that the College is heaven in comparison to the barracks. I am aware that the Police barrack at Onitsha is far worse than what is shown in the pictures of the Police College. I was also reliably informed by  some of  our students who are police men that the apartments (2 or 3 bed  rooms)  in the barracks , are most of the times shared by two families.  They said that they  cannot complain because the Law does not permit them to protest.But I agree with Prof Bolaji that  a large part of the blame should go to the occupants of the buildings, not just the authorities. Their offices do not fare better either.     

Nkolika

From: Mobolaji Aluko <alu...@gmail.com>
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Saturday, January 19, 2013 7:28 PM
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Harrowing pictures of Nigerian Police Academy cadets' living conditons

Ayo:

Government, institutional leaders ("priesthood") and the common people ("laity") have a role to play in improving  general ("ecumenical")  life.

Those who write reports such as yours SHOULD NOT REST until something is done about them, because many of the OTHER reports that you write originate from the kind of rot that your group saw.  I once spoke to a former VC who was constantly in the news being victimized by his students.  When I asked him why, he lamented but confessed that "Those students are ANIMALS, but we made them so by where they live, how little they eat and where they take their classes, so they could care less, and a little match lights their violence."  University life must be a step up

But when it comes to personal hygiene, those DOWN there can do better than just wait for ever for government or their supervisors to give them brooms and mops and waste baskets, or cutlasses to mow their surroundings.  I insist that to live like a pig because those "instruments" were not bought for you is to be a pig.

Leadership counts.  If the Ambassador that you referred to INSISTED that from then on, he would use his bathroom in that public place, you would see it improve permanently - or at least while he is Ambassador.  It is not original to me, but I understand that the quality of maintenance of an entire facility is as good as its toilets, and I have taken that to heart in my own institution. Despite the bad water situation in Nigeria, if in each toilet a mop, a bucket of water, a WC bowl cleaner and a cloth towel is put in each - and  each person is encouraged to PURCHASE his own toilet roll -   then those who clean it will not feel like India's "untouchables."

Finally, one hopes that with the recent unfortunate 'copter crash that claimed some lives, roads to remote locations in Nigeria where important people and their deceased-to-be-buried parents come from will be more quickly developed.

And there you have it.

Bolaji Aluko

On Sat, Jan 19, 2013 at 5:44 PM, Ayo Obe <ayo.m...@gmail.com> wrote:

And in the case of the police training institutions, the President has several reports about the collapse of the infrastructure and the need for serious upgrading.  When I was on the Police Service Commission the only tour we undertook was of training institutions.  In Maiduguri we found training still going on in what had been 'temporary' accommodation for thirty years, where there was just one room, where students hung mattresses from the ceiling, lowered them at night to sleep, hoisted them in the morning for breakfast, then cleared breakfast to have their lessons.  That was eight years ago.

We produced a report which was received and shelved, as were other reports highlighting this same problem.  The President cannot claim ignorance when he has a Minister of Police Affairs.  When he launched a code of conduct for police officers recently, was it on the basis of reports that he had read or just because of wanting to give the appearance of having done 'something'?

Recall one former Minister of Foreign Affairs who recounted the way he left his office on the top floor, went downstairs and on his way out declared a desire to use the bathroom on the ground floor. He said that you needed to see the panic on the faces of the junior officers as they begged him to return to his executive floor and use his executive facilities.  Millions will be devoted each year to buildings and overheads, yet we are expected to accept that lavatories and 'water' closets need not use actual water because the pump to supply it is not working and the person whose job it is to maintain a huge keg of water is 'off today.'

We don't have the 'untouchable' caste that they have in India whose job it is to maintain public toilets, so they are used down to a level where only desperation will force anyone in, and then left in that condition.   It is only at the airports that some effort is made to maintain facilities.  But Ministers are ushered in past all this unpleasantness, to the executive lift which takes them to the executive floor where they enjoy executive facilities.

Ayo

I invite you to follow me on Twitter @naijama

On 18 Jan 2013, at 20:55, ojod...@gmail.com wrote:

Yes, go check round all our institutions of learning/training from secondary to tertiary to NYSC orientation camps and you will find even worse scenarios. Our leaders all know, they only pretend not to. Which way Nigeria?

Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless handheld from Glo Mobile.

[Nkolika Ebele]

Reactions to the state of the Police College reported by Channel TV points to one fact, that many of you have never been to the Police barracks. If you have, you will know that the College is heaven in comparison to the barracks. I am aware that the Police barrack at Onitsha is far worse than what is shown in the pictures of the Police College. I was also reliably informed by  some of  our students who are police men that the apartments (2 or 3 bed  rooms)  in the barracks , are most of the times shared by two families.  They said that they  cannot complain because the Law does not permit them to protest.But I agree with Prof Bolaji that  a large part of the blame should go to the occupants of the buildings, not just the authorities. Their offices do not fare better either.     

Nkolika

From: Mobolaji Aluko <alu...@gmail.com>
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Saturday, January 19, 2013 7:28 PM

Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Harrowing pictures of Nigerian Police Academy cadets' living conditons

Ayo:

Government, institutional leaders ("priesthood") and the common people ("laity") have a role to play in improving  general ("ecumenical")  life.

Those who write reports such as yours SHOULD NOT REST until something is done about them, because many of the OTHER reports that you write originate from the kind of rot that your group saw.  I once spoke to a former VC who was constantly in the news being victimized by his students.  When I asked him why, he lamented but confessed that "Those students are ANIMALS, but we made them so by where they live, how little they eat and where they take their classes, so they could care less, and a little match lights their violence."  University life must be a step up

But when it comes to personal hygiene, those DOWN there can do better than just wait for ever for government or their supervisors to give them brooms and mops and waste baskets, or cutlasses to mow their surroundings.  I insist that to live like a pig because those "instruments" were not bought for you is to be a pig.

Leadership counts.  If the Ambassador that you referred to INSISTED that from then on, he would use his bathroom in that public place, you would see it improve permanently - or at least while he is Ambassador.  It is not original to me, but I understand that the quality of maintenance of an entire facility is as good as its toilets, and I have taken that to heart in my own institution. Despite the bad water situation in Nigeria, if in each toilet a mop, a bucket of water, a WC bowl cleaner and a cloth towel is put in each - and  each person is encouraged to PURCHASE his own toilet roll -   then those who clean it will not feel like India's "untouchables."

Finally, one hopes that with the recent unfortunate 'copter crash that claimed some lives, roads to remote locations in Nigeria where important people and their deceased-to-be-buried parents come from will be more quickly developed.

And there you have it.

Bolaji Aluko

On Sat, Jan 19, 2013 at 5:44 PM, Ayo Obe <ayo.m...@gmail.com> wrote:

And in the case of the police training institutions, the President has several reports about the collapse of the infrastructure and the need for serious upgrading.  When I was on the Police Service Commission the only tour we undertook was of training institutions.  In Maiduguri we found training still going on in what had been 'temporary' accommodation for thirty years, where there was just one room, where students hung mattresses from the ceiling, lowered them at night to sleep, hoisted them in the morning for breakfast, then cleared breakfast to have their lessons.  That was eight years ago.

We produced a report which was received and shelved, as were other reports highlighting this same problem.  The President cannot claim ignorance when he has a Minister of Police Affairs.  When he launched a code of conduct for police officers recently, was it on the basis of reports that he had read or just because of wanting to give the appearance of having done 'something'?

Recall one former Minister of Foreign Affairs who recounted the way he left his office on the top floor, went downstairs and on his way out declared a desire to use the bathroom on the ground floor. He said that you needed to see the panic on the faces of the junior officers as they begged him to return to his executive floor and use his executive facilities.  Millions will be devoted each year to buildings and overheads, yet we are expected to accept that lavatories and 'water' closets need not use actual water because the pump to supply it is not working and the person whose job it is to maintain a huge keg of water is 'off today.'

We don't have the 'untouchable' caste that they have in India whose job it is to maintain public toilets, so they are used down to a level where only desperation will force anyone in, and then left in that condition.   It is only at the airports that some effort is made to maintain facilities.  But Ministers are ushered in past all this unpleasantness, to the executive lift which takes them to the executive floor where they enjoy executive facilities.

Ayo

I invite you to follow me on Twitter @naijama

On 18 Jan 2013, at 20:55, ojod...@gmail.com wrote:

Yes, go check round all our institutions of learning/training from secondary to tertiary to NYSC orientation camps and you will find even worse scenarios. Our leaders all know, they only pretend not to. Which way Nigeria?

Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless handheld from Glo Mobile.

[ibk...@gmail.com]

Prof. Bolaji Aluko,

Your see no evil hear no evil on this matter is bad. What can cadets do when the money voted for capital projects are stolen and if any thing is built at all it is shoddy and substandard.

Drive along Mobolaji Bank Anthony Ikeja and look left and see buildings I will not allow my dog to enter. Falling apart before they are finished. I am sure cadets should paint and maintain them.

When Prof. Oluwasanmi was VC at Ife and you were a student there how many times did you sweep or clean the toilets.
The level of looting in government is just too High and un sustainable. That is an obvious palpable TRUTH.

Cheers.


IBK

Sent from my BlackBerry wireless device from MTN

---

From: Mobolaji Aluko <alu...@gmail.com>

Sender: usaafric...@googlegroups.com

Date: Sat, 19 Jan 2013 13:28:51 +0100

To: <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>

ReplyTo: usaafric...@googlegroups.com

Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Harrowing pictures of Nigerian Police Academy cadets' living conditons

[orunmi...@yahoo.co.uk]

There is no doubt that our leaders must be held accountable for the shameful collapse of public infrastructures. A peep into their homes and offices, both public and private, will reveal the wide gulf between them and the people whose sweat and blood keep them alive.
As for Professor Aluko's position, it is obvious that on this particular issue, he has really missed it.
I graduated from Ife just about twenty years ago and I remember protesting over the poor state of our environment, our toilets and lawns especially. No VC ever thought of giving us brooms and other such things to clean our toilets. Doing that would have reduced the university to a face-me-I-slap you apartment in the slum af Ajegunle.
We also know that in this country at a time, people like Prof Aluko protested against the reduction of a full chicken per student to half. They even had their clothes washed for them. Water and electricity where never lacking.
Prof Aluko must not see his action of providing cleaning tools for undergraduate as a solution to the decay in the system. As VC with knowledge of how universities run in other climes, he MUST insist on maintaining university best practices. Actions such as the one he's taken remain the reason our leaders loot our treasury with impunity believing that we would "manage" under any condition. Soon, provision of cutlasses, hoes and buckets to fetch water from the polluted streams or creeks would become a condition to study at Otuoke by the time he completes his tenure. So, Prof, while you're there as pioneer VC, you must set standards that your successors will build upon.
"And there you have it".
'Tunji Azeez, PhD
Ag. Head
Dept. of Theatre Arts &Music
Lagos State University
Ojo, Lagos

Sent from my BlackBerry® smartphone provided by Airtel Nigeria.

---

From: ibk...@gmail.com

Sender: usaafric...@googlegroups.com

Date: Sat, 19 Jan 2013 22:01:07 +0000

[Dasylvang]

I congratulate Ctv management for a job well done. The rot that is the lot of the the Police College Ikeja, is indeed the state of the nation! It is not the Police College alone, it is the same with other law enforcement training units,  the prisons, the military, etc. Between 1978 and now, huge sums of money went into the different units, including national security but the leadership in these institutions converted such votes to personal largesse from government. It was the reason why the past IGs the likes of Balogun could steal the millions they ought to have spent on the Police. Again, past Ministers of Defence and those who supervised the national security beat what they did with the huge sums of money voted to their units. All that went into private pockets or stached away in private foreign accounts. The same "cargo culture" mentality is responsible for the poor performance of most past and current governors, ministers, senators, etc.because they never believed in the Nigeria project. Many of them got away with the crime against Nigeria because of the peculiarities of some of the units:  for the law enforcement units and the Ministry of Defence you cannot ask your boss questions; the stealing going on in the units in charge of national security although noticed, it could not be challenged because those in charge had become too powerful and were, and still are the king makers who dictate to government any direction of their fancy. It is the reason why some bigwig politicians who were jailed for stealing the nation silly could become celebrities and granted, as it were, the licence to pontificate on state matters. Besides, there were most of the times no challenges like the  "Book Haram", etc to expose the tragic failure on the part of the government despite the huge investment on these sensitive units. 

To agree in the absolute with Prof Aluko, is to scratch the problem on the head. The scenario we have on our hands is far more precarious and much more fundamental  than buying brooms, etc., to clean one's immediate environment. He is even cery lucky that he enough fund to buy brooms for the students. The pioneer Head of the Police College was probably as bouyant as Prof Bolaji is now as VC. But really, that is not the issue to contend with here.

 Many Nigerians live abroad where there are well kept public toilets and trash cans. Will you have a well kept public toilet and still choose to urinate or deficate in the gutters or on a well maintained lawn? So the state of an environment matters, it has a way of registering its presence to impact the psyche. If these basic things are not in place there is no use blaming the Police officer for urinating inside the gutter; or those who throw gabbage on the roads? 

What I observed in the Ctv pictures is an institution that is crying for attention; an institution that is being run on nothing. Again, it means that there was a government with the right vision, that put the infrastructure in place many years ago. And many years later due to lack of attention and maintenance culture it suffered the decay we now witness. Did you notice the executive chair sat an officer sat on? Have you visited any Nigeria Police station or  Barrack? Please, do and see the kind of offices, furniture, etc.

If there is any good thing about the Nigerian government, it is the fact that it is consistent and quite predictable. You probably would rexall that when BBC ran a documentary titled "Welcome to Lagos", the reaction of the government was not any different from what the President said at the Police College. Rather than be genuinely sorry for the grave omission or commision on the part of his government and to resolve to intervene immediarely, he was more worried about the exposure and the impact it might have on his chances in 2015! That is it. Of course only a full will not know that the management of the institution must have given the Ctv crew access to report the rot for effect. Who could tell the number of failed efforts of the management of the institution in trying to draw the attention of the powers that be to do something about the deplorable condition? Now the Ctv option finally did the trick. Unfortunately, as usual, there will be witch hunting and victimization while the real culprits sit in judgment.

My other worry about this whole thing is the fact that a police officer "trained" under this condition of total neglect and environment that stinks to the high heavens cannot but be a scorpion psychosocially. I suspect that he is deliberately starved and pauperized so that he can be unleached on the dedenceless citizenry, at will, by the politicians in power. Little wonder therefore that the policeman is trigger happy, ironically asna law enforcement agent, he engages in extortion and bribery, and kills at will to vent his bottled frustration and anger.

It is about time we did something on the entire rot that corrupt politicians and some retired military Generals had plunged the nation into. 


Ademola Omobewaji Dasylva

               

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy provided by MTN

-------- Original message --------
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Harrowing pictures of Nigerian Police Academy cadets' living conditons

From: shina7...@yahoo.com
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com
CC:


Soyinka's A Dance of the Forests was meant to give a dramatic demonstration of Africa's 'recurrent cycle of stupidities'. I'm sure he had no inkling then that Jonathan would be inflicted on Nigeria.


Jonathan's retort at the Police College is another example of governmental stupidity almost as an art.


Adeshina Afolayan

Sent from my BlackBerry wireless device from MTN

---

From: basil ugochukwu <ugoch...@yahoo.com>

Sender: usaafric...@googlegroups.com

Date: Sat, 19 Jan 2013 05:19:28 -0800 (PST)

To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com<usaafric...@googlegroups.com>

ReplyTo: usaafric...@googlegroups.com

Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Harrowing pictures of Nigerian Police Academy cadets' living conditons

Jonathan’s surprise visit rattles Ikeja Police College Commandant

"The second question followed: When was the recording done. Again there was no answer. The Commandant turned to his deputy and other senior officers to assist him in answering the President’s questions, but none was able to help him out. The President then quipped: “This is a calculated attempt to damage the image of the government, as the college is not the only training institution in the country.” [For those already celebrating Jonathan's visit to the Police College, this report should demoralize them. Apparently, the President was less concerned about its state than that Channels TV was permitted access to place the information before Nigerians and the world. I'm troubled by this. We all should be.]

Posted by: Ebele Boniface Posted date: January 19, 2013 In: Featured, News | comment : 25

The police authorities were in shock last night after an angry President Goodluck Jonathan stormed out of the Police College, Ikeja, Lagos during an unexpected visit to personally assess the rot at the college. The President’s visit was provoked by a weeklong expose by the Lagos –based Channels Television on the dehumanising conditions trainee policemen go through in the college. President Jonathan, who was on his way to Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire for a meeting of ECOWAS leaders on the insurgency in Mali, was as embarrassed by what he saw as the inability of the Commandant of the institution, Police Commissioner I.F.Yerima, to answer any of the four questions he asked the police officer. The President and his entourage, including the Assistant Inspector General of Police (AIG) Zone Two, Mamman Tsafe, and the Lagos State Commissioner of Police, Umar Manko, drove into the college at about 3pm and parked in front of the Sports Store. From there,he walked to the hostels. He also inspected the women’s hostels,the kitchen, the dining halls facing the parade field and the officers’ mess. Security was tight with armed soldiers and policemen deployed in strategic places in the college. As he left the mess to enter his car, he suddenly paused and faced CP Yerima to ask him a few questions. By now, a crowd had gathered struggling to see the President and were at the same time hailing him. He waved to them to acknowledge their greetings. Then came the first question for the College Commandant: How was Channels TV able to penetrate and record the mess without detection? The CP had no answer. The second question followed: When was the recording done. Again there was no answer. The Commandant turned to his deputy and other senior officers to assist him in answering the President’s questions, but none was able to help him out. The President then quipped: “This is a calculated attempt to damage the image of the government, as the college is not the only training institution in the country.” He soon entered his car and left. After the President’s departure, the college Commandant met briefly with his officers before he too took his leave. Senior officers later gathered in groups to review the visit. Some of policemen in the college who pleaded for anonymity were happy at the President’s visit which they said would help in reversing the fortunes of the college. They called for the probe of the trainees’ welfare in the last five years.

 

Basil Ugochukwu
PhD Candidate and Graduate Teaching Assistant
Osgoode Hall Law School
York University
4700 Keele Street
Toronto, ON
Canada M3J 1P3
View my research on my SSRN Author page: 
http://ssrn.com/author=902433 

---

From: "ojod...@gmail.com" <ojod...@gmail.com>
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Friday, January 18, 2013 2:55:40 PM

Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Harrowing pictures of Nigerian Police Academy cadets' living conditons

Yes, go check round all our institutions of learning/training from secondary to tertiary to NYSC orientation camps and you will find even worse scenarios. Our leaders all know, they only pretend not to. Which way Nigeria?

Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless handheld from Glo Mobile.

---

From: Ikhide <xok...@yahoo.com>

Sender: usaafric...@googlegroups.com

Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2013 09:24:20 -0800 (PST)

To: Toyin Falola<USAAfric...@googlegroups.com>

ReplyTo: usaafric...@googlegroups.com

Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Harrowing pictures of Nigerian Police Academy cadets' living conditons

My people,

 

Please view these pictures. How do we explain this travesty? Have we no shame? I think every living Inspector General of Police since Independence should be hauled before the people to explain this savagery.

 

- Ikhide

 

ps.

 

I have news for you all; many  public '"educational insitutions are just as bad."

[emeka...@yahoo.com]

Nkoli,
You are talking about the dilapidation at the Police college and the army barracks and you share in blaming the occupants. Keep your peace until you see the report of the COMMITTEE ON NEEDS ASSESSMENT OF NIGERIAN PUBLIC UNIVERSITIES. We held "A Civil Society Strategic Session" on January 17 to review the report. I will let you peruse through my copy. We MUST move from agonizing to organizing. What must we do as citizens? Arm chair criticism is good but not enough. Let's all stand up to these mess! Happy Sunday.

Emeka Ezeonu

Sent from my BlackBerry wireless device from MTN

---

From: Nkolika Ebele <nkol...@yahoo.com>

Sender: usaafric...@googlegroups.com

Date: Sat, 19 Jan 2013 14:29:00 -0800 (PST)

To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com<usaafric...@googlegroups.com>

ReplyTo: usaafric...@googlegroups.com

[OLUWATOYIN ADEPOJU]

I dont know if I am able to communicate this adequately to members of this group.

The following below is a list of eminent Nigerians at a recent reception for former President Olusegun Obasanjo.

They sound most distinguished and enviable in their achievements.

Going by comments of this thread, are we stating these people have failed as custodians of Nigeria in spite of all their  achievements?:

 

'At the civic reception graced by the political class, captains of industry, members of the diplomatic corps, the royalty, where the Olubara of Ibara, Oba Jacob Omolade obliged the gathering that “poverty bond him together with Obasanjo in their Secondary School days at Baptist Boys High School in Oke-Egunya, Abeokuta, Kuffo recalled how the Owu-born General secured debts cancellation for Nigeria and got its external reserves to hit $53bn.

 .....at the reception put together by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) chaired by former Head of State, Ernest Shonekan and graced by Bola Ajibola, a former Judge at the World Court in the Hague.

Others who graced the ocassion included Senate President David Mark, Adamawa governor, Murtala Nyaku, PDP national vice chairman South West, Engineer Segun Oni, Former Governor of Ondo state, Segun Agagu, Osile of Oke Ona Egba, Oba Adedapo Tejuosho, former Agricuture Minister, Alhaji Adamu Bello, former education Minister, Dr Oby Ekwesili, Olubara of Ibara, Oba Jacob Omolade, Osimawe of Ondo, Iyalode Alaba Lawson, Deji of Akure, Oba Adebiyi Adesida, Former Speaker of Ogun state, Titi Oseni, Olu of Ilaro, Oba Kehinde Olugbenle, Former Presidential adviser of Legislative matters, Florence Ita-Giwa, former Military administrator of Western Nigeria, Vice Admiral Akin Aduwo, former Ogun PDP governorship candidat, Adetunji Olurin and the representatives of the governors of Kaduna, Niger, Plateau and Jigawa'

toyin 

On Sun, Jan 20, 2013 at 2:37 AM, OLUWATOYIN ADEPOJU <tva...@gmail.com> wrote:

Aluko has agreed that the authorities are at fault.

I also think, too, that the notion that the living conditions of those in those situations is due significantly to their own carelessness, as Aluko states, is not fair.

thanks

toyin

--
Compcros

Comparative Cognitive Processes and Systems

"Exploring Every Corner of the Cosmos in Search of Knowledge"

--
Compcros

Comparative Cognitive Processes and Systems

"Exploring Every Corner of the Cosmos in Search of Knowledge"

[OLUWATOYIN ADEPOJU]

EDITED

Aluko has agreed that the authorities are at fault.

I also think, too, that is is unfair for  Aluko to present  the  living conditions of those in those situations as due significantly to their own carelessness.

There is a lower limit below which people necessarily fall to undignified  levels on account of structural constraints in their environments.

My experience was that most of Nigeria, and public  institutions in particular, did not  have a proper toilet culture. 

In England, for example, I  was told there is a law stipulating the number of toilets per public building. 

Having to fetch water to flush a toilet is a waste of precious time and energy. Having to buy your own tissue for public toilets  is a waste of time and  money.

But....

such waste is useful when social systems have failed. On that ground, in the name of self help in the face of social failure, Aluko's suggestion of flushing public toilets with buckets and buying one's own tissue, looks meaningful to me. 

I pray, though, that I am never compelled again to be in such a situation.

The entire situation looks to me like a problem adjusting to the demands of a modernity forced upon the people by colonialism, so that even the so called elite do not think adequately in terms of that modernity in situations that will take the society into the modern world. 

thanks

toyin

On Sun, Jan 20, 2013 at 2:37 AM, OLUWATOYIN ADEPOJU <tva...@gmail.com> wrote:

Aluko has agreed that the authorities are at fault.

I also think, too, that the notion that the living conditions of those in those situations is due significantly to their own carelessness, as Aluko states, is not fair.

thanks

toyin

[OLUWATOYIN ADEPOJU]

Apologies if I dont share the sense of shock.

Its always been public knowledge that the lower ranks in the armed forces are badly off. 

If things are to change soon, Nigerians are likely to need to move from verbal outrage to action like the wonderful expose by the media. if this can be expanded to a nation wide visual expose it would be wonderful.

A  petition lobby by concerned nigerians putting pressure on the govt to improve the conditions of the lower ranks in the armed forces. 

 'It is not original to me, but I understand that the quality of maintenance of an entire facility is as good as its toilets'

I am not able to summon my thoughts to describe the meaning of these lines for me 

but I  wrote about it on this group in 2009 and there was a very careful response to it by Nicholas Mudi:

The Culture of the Toilet

I also started a Facebook group inspired by this vision

Inspirations in the Loo

which I need to update 

thanks

toyin

[OLUWATOYIN ADEPOJU]

Aluko has agreed that the authorities are at fault.

I also think, too, that the notion that the living conditions of those in those situations is due significantly to their own carelessness, as Aluko states, is not fair.

thanks

toyin

On Sat, Jan 19, 2013 at 10:01 PM, <ibk...@gmail.com> wrote:

[OLUWATOYIN ADEPOJU]

" Many Nigerians live abroad where there are well kept public toilets and trash cans. Will you have a well kept public toilet and still choose to urinate or deficate in the gutters or on a well maintained lawn? So the state of an environment matters, it has a way of registering its presence to impact the psyche. If these basic things are not in place there is no use blaming the Police officer for urinating inside the gutter; or those who throw gabbage on the roads? "

I left a country where even as an academic, there were no properly serviced toilets with constant water flowing in them for me to use in the university where I worked, to a country where my office has a bank of toilets, one on each floor, with each bank having 6 hand basins, broad mirrors, two heat dryers, tissue hand dyers, 6 cubicles, four urinals constantly cleaned automatically be regularly gushing water, with water permanently flowing in the complex, each of these locations cleaned daily by a cleaner, some of these cleaners being people who drive their own cars.

I moved from a country where electricity was never certain and you needed to pray to God to have electricity to a country where there is 24 hour power, making it possible for me to work round the clock, any time of the day or night.

What has this sharp change done to my psyche?

What kind of person have I become?

toyin

[Oluwatoyin Ade-Odutola]

Dear Dr 'Tunji Azeez,  Please when times change let us change with it. When you were at Ife 20 years ago, you had to go to the library to manually search for materials for any research you had to do. That took up your time and to help make up for it, your rooms and lawns were made clean/tidy....now fast forward to the generation of now now dot com when some of what you had to do manually have been taken over by technology. Remember too that there were few thieves 20 years ago. Now we have a kingdom of armed/unarmed robbers punching holes into the common purse. Add to that the large army of active men breeding children as if every household must have a football team!! There is something called Fordism, it has its advantages but when it fails it Nigeria-fails I hope you are aware of that new verb..to Nigeria-fail is to fail when you already crossed the winning line!! Kole PS: I am going to write to GEJ for the first time and I will let him know that this problem has a deep history that precedes him. The Military and the Police were in a cold war and to show that they are below them they starved them of necessary funds. I wish someone can help him understand that his visit to the place, the first in many years is not an accident. It has GREAT implications." --- On Sun, 1/20/13, orunmi...@yahoo.co.uk <> wrote:

[Mobolaji Aluko]

Dr. Tunji Azeez:

First, I invite you to the Federal University Otuoke;  we have our inaugural Matriculation of the 292 undergraduate students on February 16, 2012.  I also thank Kole Ade-Odutola who reminded us that there are always new realities in every society as it progresses.

What I am asking for is SHARED RESPONSBILITY:  what the government can and should do, let it do;  what the citizens can and should do - especially those hygienic things that impact DIRECTLY on their health -  let us do.  Ditto for universities.  I just do not know how ANYBODY can argue with that.

When I was a student at the University of Ife from 1971 and 1976, and in those early years, we slept three to a room (ie two other room-mates) at Awo Hall on single beds; our rooms were cleaned daily by hired university workers, and our white bed sheets were washed and returned ever so often; water flowed in our showers; our lawns were well tended by varsity gardeners; and we ate "free" in the Central or Hall Cafetarias with a meal ticket. We left our meal plates on their tables after eating, and cafetaria workers took them off the table for us.   It was unsustainable - by the time that I was leaving in 1976, we had pirates galore; we were having to clean our own rooms; water was flowing in the breach in our showers; and bukateria had become a buzzword.

And I NEVER protested the removal of elite privileges; my parents, especially my father of blessed memory, would NEVER hear of that, as he would always remind us that he came from the village of Ode-Ekiti! :-)  Once at Ife, students rioted when instead of leaving the plates on the tables after eating as we had been doing for two years, we were asked to please pick them up on our trays and place them in a movable multi-tray trolley!  What indignity, some students said!  I was one of those who spoke up that at home, after every meal, ALL of us, including my parents, picked up our plates and put them in the kitchen sink - and that was the truth. [I only stopped doing that when I became VC in 2011; but when I am back in my Burtonsville home, I resume it happily.]

I still think that universities in Nigeria - as in elsewhere - should have students sleep in a room with the number of students commensurate with the size of the room, with a bed per student; water should flow in our showers; gardners should tend our lawns; but all other elite vestiges should be gone - and have gone with the wind, only that the baby has also been thrown away with the bath water.

As VC, I am facing the new realities in a new university without trying to reproduce my Great Ife privileges - that is impossible - and yet treating the students with respect, with the view that university life should be a step up in life for MOST (if not ALL) of the students. 

The first reality is that they sleep on double-bunk beds in good-size rooms that are four to six to a room that must be cleaned by them, with either a bathroom (shower + toilet) to each room (the boys) or a separate stall with enough SEPARATE toilet rooms and showers (the females).  They all clean out their rooms and take the trash to a common area where university workers take them away.  We have their hostels connected to municipal PHCN electricity, but have provided 30KVA stand-by generators that in the alternative to PHCN (and only then) run 6 am - 8 am and 6 pm - 10 pm.  However each room has been provided with "Chinese" LED lights which are being charged while there is AC electricity by any source, which extends their light hours by four to six hours when there is no AC light. They are very grateful for that reality, but I have told them that the university will only give them ONE Chinese Bulb  per session - if it blows, then the room-mates must CONTRIBUTE to replace it.  

With respect to water - there is no municipal water almost anywhere in Nigeria, but just a borehole in each campus asset with water treatment and large-size tanks that CANNOT serve ALL of them taking their showers or running water freely AT THE SAME TIME; there just is no way to have that size tank and treatment.  So each must have a BUCKET to get water the night before to take their baths in the morning, and conserve the use of water; they appreciate that.  

With respect to food, we have a food contractor that brings them breakfast, lunch and dinner - we met the candidate contractors to FIX the standard size and meal costs and menu to no more than N250 per meal, but any student that wants a bigger meal or meat can pay more.  They can eat in their rooms - we have fewer tables than there are occupants per room, but "manageable" among them - or they can eat in the "restaurant" provided for such.  

We have provided a computer room and printer - managed by the students themselves - but they must supply their paper and replace their cartridges themselves. [They can call the IT unit for technical problems and repairs.]

Sports-wise, we have provided snookers tables, ping-pong tables, chess and scrabble boards to the two hostels.

During Christmas the university gave the Females and Male Hostels N50,000 each, and said "Arrange a Christmas party for yourselves." without managing how they used it - whether they added their own money or subtracted from it.  We simply said "Don't share it evenly" - as some of those - especially those who could not wait for the party - tried to insist!  So those who stayed had a ball - extra food!

And so on.....what we need to put back is SHARED RESPONSIBILITY.  In the university, the authorities should do their part, and the students should be called upon to do their part.

And there you have it.

Bolaji Aluko

[Okwy Okeke]

And if this helps,...make sure to give the clubs and groups enough incentive to make joining criminal gangs less fashionable; subsidize events and parties of the registered clubs, make it easy for them to rent school assets for their use (halls, fields, buses, etc), recognize their officials and give them some pride of place, sponsor healthy sports tournaments amongst them, etc

A recruiting tool for the violent groups that are wrongly called cults stems from the street-respect they gain with notoriety, under-cut that by promoting the good guys and girls.

Cheers,...Okwy

 

------------------------------------------
We face forward,...we face neither East or West: we face forward.......Kwame Nkrumah

---

From: Mobolaji Aluko <alu...@gmail.com>

To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com
Cc: orunmi...@yahoo.co.uk
Sent: Monday, 21 January 2013, 6:00

[OLUWATOYIN ADEPOJU]

These arrangements are creative.

However, since Otueke is a university built from the ground up as a recent development, what needs to be done to have running water available always in the campus at multiple access points?

The idea of short range planning as described is good, but what can be done to change the long term picture,  what kind of engineering is required, what funds, expertise and time are necessary  to achieve this?

toyin

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[Emeagwali, Gloria (History)]

Thank you, sir. This is refreshing. We have to organize and not agonize.
We all know that self loathing, self deprecation, pathetic lamentations and so
solve nothing and get us nowhere. In fact they are counter-inspirational.

(I wonder what would have happened if the enslaved in the Americas just sat on
their hands and cried about their predicament. But anyway that is another topic
for another day.)

You should let us know how we can assist.

Professor Gloria Emeagwali
www.africahistory.net<http://www.africahistory.net/>
www.vimeo.com/user5946750/videos<http://www.vimeo.com/user5946750/videos>
Documentaries on Africa and the African Diaspora

________________________________
From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com [usaafric...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Mobolaji Aluko [alu...@gmail.com]
Sent: Monday, January 21, 2013 12:00 AM
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com
Cc: orunmi...@yahoo.co.uk

Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Harrowing pictures of Nigerian Police Academy cadets' living conditons

Dr. Tunji Azeez:

First, I invite you to the Federal University Otuoke; we have our inaugural Matriculation of the 292 undergraduate students on February 16, 2012. I also thank Kole Ade-Odutola who reminded us that there are always new realities in every society as it progresses.

What I am asking for is SHARED RESPONSBILITY: what the government can and should do, let it do; what the citizens can and should do - especially those hygienic things that impact DIRECTLY on their health - let us do. Ditto for universities. I just do not know how ANYBODY can argue with that.

When I was a student at the University of Ife from 1971 and 1976, and in those early years, we slept three to a room (ie two other room-mates) at Awo Hall on single beds; our rooms were cleaned daily by hired university workers, and our white bed sheets were washed and returned ever so often; water flowed in our showers; our lawns were well tended by varsity gardeners; and we ate "free" in the Central or Hall Cafetarias with a meal ticket. We left our meal plates on their tables after eating, and cafetaria workers took them off the table for us. It was unsustainable - by the time that I was leaving in 1976, we had pirates galore; we were having to clean our own rooms; water was flowing in the breach in our showers; and bukateria had become a buzzword.

And I NEVER protested the removal of elite privileges; my parents, especially my father of blessed memory, would NEVER hear of that, as he would always remind us that he came from the village of Ode-Ekiti! :-) Once at Ife, students rioted when instead of leaving the plates on the tables after eating as we had been doing for two years, we were asked to please pick them up on our trays and place them in a movable multi-tray trolley! What indignity, some students said! I was one of those who spoke up that at home, after every meal, ALL of us, including my parents, picked up our plates and put them in the kitchen sink - and that was the truth. [I only stopped doing that when I became VC in 2011; but when I am back in my Burtonsville home, I resume it happily.]

I still think that universities in Nigeria - as in elsewhere - should have students sleep in a room with the number of students commensurate with the size of the room, with a bed per student; water should flow in our showers; gardners should tend our lawns; but all other elite vestiges should be gone - and have gone with the wind, only that the baby has also been thrown away with the bath water.

As VC, I am facing the new realities in a new university without trying to reproduce my Great Ife privileges - that is impossible - and yet treating the students with respect, with the view that university life should be a step up in life for MOST (if not ALL) of the students.

The first reality is that they sleep on double-bunk beds in good-size rooms that are four to six to a room that must be cleaned by them, with either a bathroom (shower + toilet) to each room (the boys) or a separate stall with enough SEPARATE toilet rooms and showers (the females). They all clean out their rooms and take the trash to a common area where university workers take them away. We have their hostels connected to municipal PHCN electricity, but have provided 30KVA stand-by generators that in the alternative to PHCN (and only then) run 6 am - 8 am and 6 pm - 10 pm. However each room has been provided with "Chinese" LED lights which are being charged while there is AC electricity by any source, which extends their light hours by four to six hours when there is no AC light. They are very grateful for that reality, but I have told them that the university will only give them ONE Chinese Bulb per session - if it blows, then the room-mates must CONTRIBUTE to replace it.

With respect to water - there is no municipal water almost anywhere in Nigeria, but just a borehole in each campus asset with water treatment and large-size tanks that CANNOT serve ALL of them taking their showers or running water freely AT THE SAME TIME; there just is no way to have that size tank and treatment. So each must have a BUCKET to get water the night before to take their baths in the morning, and conserve the use of water; they appreciate that.

With respect to food, we have a food contractor that brings them breakfast, lunch and dinner - we met the candidate contractors to FIX the standard size and meal costs and menu to no more than N250 per meal, but any student that wants a bigger meal or meat can pay more. They can eat in their rooms - we have fewer tables than there are occupants per room, but "manageable" among them - or they can eat in the "restaurant" provided for such.

We have provided a computer room and printer - managed by the students themselves - but they must supply their paper and replace their cartridges themselves. [They can call the IT unit for technical problems and repairs.]

Sports-wise, we have provided snookers tables, ping-pong tables, chess and scrabble boards to the two hostels.

During Christmas the university gave the Females and Male Hostels N50,000 each, and said "Arrange a Christmas party for yourselves." without managing how they used it - whether they added their own money or subtracted from it. We simply said "Don't share it evenly" - as some of those - especially those who could not wait for the party - tried to insist! So those who stayed had a ball - extra food!

And so on.....what we need to put back is SHARED RESPONSIBILITY. In the university, the authorities should do their part, and the students should be called upon to do their part.

And there you have it.


Bolaji Aluko

On Sun, Jan 20, 2013 at 8:37 PM, Oluwatoyin Ade-Odutola <ko...@yahoo.com<mailto:ko...@yahoo.com>> wrote:
Dear Dr 'Tunji Azeez,
Please when times change let us change with it. When you were at Ife 20 years ago, you had to go to the library to manually search for materials for any research you had to do. That took up your time and to help make up for it, your rooms and lawns were made clean/tidy....now fast forward to the generation of now now dot com when some of what you had to do manually have been taken over by technology.
Remember too that there were few thieves 20 years ago. Now we have a kingdom of armed/unarmed robbers punching holes into the common purse. Add to that the large army of active men breeding children as if every household must have a football team!!
There is something called Fordism, it has its advantages but when it fails it Nigeria-fails
I hope you are aware of that new verb..to Nigeria-fail is to fail when you already crossed the winning line!!
Kole

PS:
I am going to write to GEJ for the first time and I will let him know that this problem has a deep history that precedes him. The Military and the Police were in a cold war and to show that they are below them they starved them of necessary funds. I wish someone can help him understand that his visit to the place, the first in many years is not an accident. It has GREAT implications."

--- On Sun, 1/20/13, orunmi...@yahoo.co.uk<mailto:orunmi...@yahoo.co.uk> <> wrote:

From: orunmi...@yahoo.co.uk<mailto:orunmi...@yahoo.co.uk> <orunmi...@yahoo.co.uk<mailto:orunmi...@yahoo.co.uk>>

Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Harrowing pictures of Nigerian Police Academy cadets' living conditons

To: "USAAfric...@googlegroups.com<mailto:USAAfric...@googlegroups.com>" <USAAfric...@googlegroups.com<mailto:USAAfric...@googlegroups.com>>

Date: Sunday, January 20, 2013, 7:42 AM


There is no doubt that our leaders must be held accountable for the shameful collapse of public infrastructures. A peep into their homes and offices, both public and private, will reveal the wide gulf between them and the people whose sweat and blood keep them alive.
As for Professor Aluko's position, it is obvious that on this particular issue, he has really missed it.
I graduated from Ife just about twenty years ago and I remember protesting over the poor state of our environment, our toilets and lawns especially. No VC ever thought of giving us brooms and other such things to clean our toilets. Doing that would have reduced the university to a face-me-I-slap you apartment in the slum af Ajegunle.
We also know that in this country at a time, people like Prof Aluko protested against the reduction of a full chicken per student to half. They even had their clothes washed for them. Water and electricity where never lacking.
Prof Aluko must not see his action of providing cleaning tools for undergraduate as a solution to the decay in the system. As VC with knowledge of how universities run in other climes, he MUST insist on maintaining university best practices. Actions such as the one he's taken remain the reason our leaders loot our treasury with impunity believing that we would "manage" under any condition. Soon, provision of cutlasses, hoes and buckets to fetch water from the polluted streams or creeks would become a condition to study at Otuoke by the time he completes his tenure. So, Prof, while you're there as pioneer VC, you must set standards that your successors will build upon.
"And there you have it".
'Tunji Azeez, PhD
Ag. Head
Dept. of Theatre Arts &Music
Lagos State University
Ojo, Lagos
Sent from my BlackBerry® smartphone provided by Airtel Nigeria.
________________________________

[Ikhide]

"What I am asking for is SHARED RESPONSBILITY: what the government can and should do, let it do; what the citizens can and should do - especially those hygienic things that impact DIRECTLY on their health - let us do. Ditto for universities. I just do not know how ANYBODY can argue with that."

 

- Professor Mobolaji Aluko

Hmmm... It bears repeating: These pictures of Nigerian police "trainees" in quarters unfit for hogs should break each of our hearts. What you have seen of the Police College is just the tip of the iceberg of the life that I survived. I have previously shared with you the despicable condition of Nigeria's public schools. I ask you again: Would you want your pig to attend these schools? I should know. I grew up in the barracks, born in Ikeja General Hospital (now defunct, I am sure) and went home to Ikeja Police Barracks and then Falomo Police Barracks.  My dad is an alumnus of Ikeja Police College in the 50s and also attended a number of training programs there.

 I am what you would call a “barracks boy”; I was nicknamed “Babatunde” in the barracks because I was born three weeks after the death of my paternal grandfather. When I was not in Boarding school, I lived in various police barracks. I remember Moor plantation Ibadan; we used to get a supply of fresh milk delivered to our home daily. We were at Eileyele barracks in Ibadan, where my father was part of the first set of the elite “Kill and Go” Mobile Policemen (Mopol 4). Around 1965/66, we moved to Sapele Road Benin City, where my father helped to start the Mobile Police unit there (Mopol 5). My childhood memories are of a blur of barracks – Lagos, Ibadan, Benin City, Igarra, Sabongida Ora, Agenebode, Igarra, etc, etc. My dad is a real Nigerian hero if there ever was one. He never tires of telling me that when the Queen of England visited Nigeria in the late 50's, he was one of 100 hand-selected handsome police officers that performed parades for her wherever she went. She claims that the Queen stopped by him at one of the parades and asked a question about his uniform but by protocol his commanding officer had to respond to the question. My dad was always a fantastic but unreliable historian.

Some have opined that the police officers and their families should also bear responsibility for the squalid mess that we see in the barracks.  Well, in the cities, the living quarters in the barracks we lived in were cramped and squalid. It is a structural problem, they were not meant for our way of life.  The extended family was an integral part of our existence and if you lived in the cities as we did, there was a constant flow of relatives wanting to try their luck in the cities, get an education, get a job, start a business, or in a few cases, hit my dad up for money. I do not remember any time that someone took a paint brush to the walls of any barracks that we lived in. I do not remember any maintenance. Not that there was much to maintain. There were walls and space, nothing else.

In the police barracks of my childhood, “rank and file” policemen lived in two rooms, a room and a parlor. There was typically a shared latrine and bathing quarters. They were filthy because they were not enough for the hordes of people cramped into the rooms. I hated taking baths and I doubly hated using the latrines. In Benin City, the latrine was a hole that led to a bucket. Each night, the night soil remover or agbepo (as he was called) would come and take away the bucket and replace it with a fresh bucket. Filthy work. For some strange reason these men were cranky and if they caught you doing your business when they were visiting, you were in big trouble. Some kids would fool around with them, put “kaun” or potash in the buckets and watch them foam and pour all over them. Sometimes the agbepo would chase the boys to their homes and pour the entire excrement on their parents’ doorsteps. Life was fun in the barracks.

I have said the living quarters were cramped. They were. I remember rats, lots of them in the kitchen, in the rooms, everywhere. I remember them, because my father, a trained killer and warrior was deathly afraid of them. I derived pleasure watching him jumping on the “center table” and giggling nervously as the rats taunted him.  At any time, “t”, there were always at least a dozen people in our “room and parlor.” The kids would sleep in mats on the floor and we would pee over each other. One cousin was particularly bad, he peed on our mat each night. Many rituals were performed to exorcise his peeing demons.  One, I remember: He was required to pee on a burning log each night before bedtime. The babalawo said  at night each time he needed to relieve himself, he would have a burning sensation and he would wake up and go outside to pee. Yes, at night, we went outside and pee’d. The sensation did not burn him enough, he kept peeing on us. There are many things I witnessed as a child that I should not talk about. My aunt ate shit right before my eyes because her daughter who lived with us had eaten shit and it was taboo. To save the child, she had to eat the shit also. In the barracks. Yes. Savagery.

In the barracks, my job was to sweep the verandah with a long broom made of twigs. I hated the job. I would hold the broom and stare at tomorrow. Literally. My mother would yell at me and say if I stared long enough I would see the spirit world.  At the Mobile Police barracks in Benin City, there were “inspections.” The police officer in charge of the barracks would conduct an inspection of the living quarters. That meant we had to clean our apartment, make the beds, take our baths and look wholesome behind our dad as he stood ramrod straight while the inspections went on. It was usually invasive and in some instances humiliating. If the inspector found filth, he would berate your dad who would in turn berate your mom who would in turn berate all the kids.

The Mobile Police barracks in Sapele Road is no longer in use. My point is that the design and implementation of these quarters are colonial. Built in the fifties, these are colonial structures that have not been improved upon since Independence.  The colonial masters did not imagine that they would be permanent structures lasting well into the 21^st century. You should see the “kitchen” my mother slaved in day in and day out. We used firewood. It is a wonder she did not die of smoke inhalation. My mother is a saint.

The police barracks in the rural areas were way better than those in the cities. There was more space. And they seemed to have been better built for our way of life. Things were more hygenic. To be fair, by the time my dad was making the rounds in the rural areas, (Sabongida Ora, Igarra, Agenebode) he was now an officer, qualified for more spacious quarters, AWAY from the more Spartan “rank and file” barracks. Still, water was hard to come by. We fought over water in Sabongida Ora. As kids we traipsed a couple miles down the hill to the streams under the hills of Igarra to get buckets of water. We would be woken up at the crack of dawn by our dad and we would go to get the water from the springs. We all developed bilharziasis as a result, a disease that I remembered because each time I peed I would pee blood.

There is no reason today for the police barracks to be in existence. I would demolish all of them, adjust police salaries to allow for accommodation and require them to show up for work when they should. These barracks are an embarrassment. By the way, life in the barracks wasn't all bad. We danced hell away. There was music, I learnt a lot and I inherited a joy for the arts in the beautiful men and women that endured the hell I have described. In their songs, I met Rex Lawson, Celestine Ukwu Ebenezer Obey, Sunny Adey, and Victor Uwaifo's spirits. I met lovely men like Cpl. Ohanugo who went to Biafra and never returned to us.

Today, policemen and women are reviled and ridiculed as the face of official corruption. It is more complicated than that. My dad was one of the 1st set of Mobile Police, trained to die for Nigeria. In the winter of his life Nigeria will not pay him his pension. The mobile police force that my father was part of was designed as a rapid deployment force. They were kept in barracks because they were often needed for emergencies. Whenever there was a riot, like the Tiv riots, or if they had to protect "liberated areas" during the civil war, the buglar would blow the horn and they would be assembled within hours, racing in long convoys to the scene. My dad was missing a lot. In Asaba, his team was ambushed by Biafran forces and they got the beating of their lives. My father's bones still hurts to this day. As a little boy, I always worried that he would not come back alive. Many mornings, I would wake up to see he had disappeared in the night. Many mornings, he would be there, stern warrior, Okonkwo, fussing about why I did not go to school. I took to sleeping clutching his singlet. His smell, embedded in the singlet, was comforting. He always came back. My friends were not that lucky, many of their dads did not come back.

By the way, as a child of the police barracks, I can say I do not know of any living police officer that is not corrupt. They cannot afford to be honest. I have said elsewhere that every living Police IG since Independence should be hauled to the EFCC and asked to explain the decay at the Police College Ikeja. But then, the truth is that since inception, resources belonging to the Nigeria Police Force have been allocated & systematically looted - by policemen & women, from the lowliest recruit to the Inspector General of Police. It is a perverse form of revenue allocation.  As a "barrack boy" nothing shocks me. If you've never used a barrack "latrine", never been chased down the street by an agbepo, you are lucky. We have been looting from each other since the white man taught us how to be civil servants. Go read Achebe's No longer at Ease. Na today?

One last word. I was a student at the University of Benin in the 70’s and witnessed and enjoyed much of what Professor Aluko described in his response. I also witnessed the deterioration and decay as the administration battled to manage a burgeoning student enrollment that they were clearly unprepared for. However, the university administration did not plan for the phenomenal demand for tertiary education. The university that I entered in 1976 was a shadow of its self in 1979. Within three years I saw how a campus could decay from lack of maintenance. Today, largely thanks to looting and incompetence, just like the Nigerian Police Force, it is laughable to compare even the best of Nigeria’s public tertiary institutions with the worst in the West. We deceive ourselves if we think all is well with our country. And yes, I have no solution to this mess. I have come to believe that we are undergoing Darwinism, the survival of the fittest. The rich are eating the poor. God help you in Nigeria if you are not rich. Good night.

- Ikhide

 

Stalk my blog at http://www.xokigbo.com/

Follow me on Twitter: @ikhide

Join me on Facebook: www.facebook.com/ikhide

From: Mobolaji Aluko <alu...@gmail.com>
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com
Cc: orunmi...@yahoo.co.uk

Sent: Monday, January 21, 2013 12:00 AM

[Ayo Obe]

De Profundis Ikhide, de profundis.  Astonishingly evocative and moving.

But Ikeja General Hospital, I believe, is now part of the Lagos State University's teaching hospitals and possibly attempting to develop itself into a Centre of Excellence (as my new car number plate labels the whole of Lagos), so while it is not true to say 'nothing spoil', one can say that not everything spoil.

The police situation on the other hand ... during our CSO Panel's public hearings on police reform, we had several participants and contributors who identified themselves as the children of policemen, as "barracks boys".  You have captured all they had to say ... and then some!

Ayo

I invite you to follow me on Twitter @naijama

[OLUWATOYIN ADEPOJU]

Is this written by Ikhide?

[Ikhide]

Ayo,

 

Thanks. I am sure you are right about Ikeja General Hospital. There was also Adekunle Police Barracks, Apapa Police Barracks, Otta Police Barracks (close to Railway Police Barracks in Lagos) There was King's Barracks in Ibadan... I have my notes from interviewing my dad. I also was sharing the rough notes of an essay I am working on for my blog as part of my contribution to the debate. I intend to make the point that what you see in the bolice barracks is consistent with the neglect and decay of most public institutions in Nigeria. And nor be today. I was privileged to attend public institutions - schools (starting with Ahmadiya Primary School, Eileyele Ibadan where I learnt Yoruba songs and was taught to pray as a muslim facing the East. Primary One) and hospitals and live in the barracks, I believe along with my nine other siblings we are survivors of a war we did not ask for. By the way, you would love my dad Papalolo, an autodidact, he basically left our village in his teens to Lagos to go work for the colonial master variously as a cook, gardener, etc. A charmer with an inesxhuatible source of stories and one with an eye for beautiful women he taught me many things, how to survive adversity and how to survive, period.

 

As a near aside, my dad and my mom were raised in Yorubaland and speak fluent yoruba. It is the case that to this day, if in our village we were misbehaving they would manage us with Yoruba rather than English or our native language. We could understand yoruba but we did not speak it. My mother was part of Immigrations and stopped working soon after I was born because it is said that under the watchful eyes of my cousin James I crawled into the Lagoon while my mother was at work. So my dad decreed that she should stop work and take care of me. He is of Achebe and Soyinka's generation. I have no doubt that had he gone to university, he would have made a fine writer of literature.  My dad blames me for his inability to go overseas and get the golden fleece. He was set to go and I came along - and dashed his hopes.

 

In my final essay, I will add that life in the barracks of the cities was dysfunctional and sometimes terrifying for women and children. Marital and child abuse of the physical and emotional sort was common. Alcohol abuse was rampant and women and children bore the brunt of these men's rage. If you have never been beaten black and blue by a drunken policeman... My mother is a special category of human being and it is hard for me to write about that beautiful woman who like virtually all the women of her generation slaved to care for children and men. And got virtually nothing for it, By the way, I know of a few families that were polygamous in the two-room quarters of the police barracks.

 

Boarding school was not much different. As little boys, we were at the mercy of the seniors and prefects and the priests. They did whatever they wanted and they got away with it. In boarding school I often fell ill with malaria. And I would end up at the hospital. I remember I would pray fervently for my dad to show up, it was weird, I always wanted to see him in the throes of my illness. And occasionally he would show up, resplendent in his Mobile Police uniform, beautiful man with the nurses swooning and fainting over him.  Mopol 5. They were beautiful men. They traveled in convoys of about twenty trucks or lorries. Usually high on marijuana and ogogoro they sang lustily and jumped on and off the lorries happy to be going home after quelling the riot du jour. My dad was one of them. I loved my dad and I still do (dude is still alive). He was everything I wanted to be. He was brilliant, charming and the women loved him. Hint: I have nine siblings, two from two different women.

 

Anyway, I ramble, I will try to find time to finish the essay and put it out there. I should have a tee-shirt: I SURVIVED NIGERIA.  Yes! Catch you later on Twitter ;-)

 

- Ikhide

 

Stalk my blog at http://www.xokigbo.com/

Follow me on Twitter: @ikhide

Join me on Facebook: www.facebook.com/ikhide

From: Ayo Obe <ayo.m...@gmail.com>
To: "usaafric...@googlegroups.com" <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>

[shina7...@yahoo.com]

Kudos, Oga Ikhide! I was moved to tears. Barrack life! I wasn't part of it, but I had friends also and I was with them most of the times and saw what Ikhide described.

Thank you for sharing this.


Adeshina Afolayan

Sent from my BlackBerry wireless device from MTN

---

From: Ikhide <xok...@yahoo.com>

Sender: usaafric...@googlegroups.com

Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2013 15:38:42 -0800 (PST)

To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com<usaafric...@googlegroups.com>

ReplyTo: usaafric...@googlegroups.com

Cc: Mobolaji ALUKO<alu...@gmail.com>

[Michael Afolayan]

Ikhide -

Wow, you are one heck of a good writer, and I mean it. Thanks for giving us a quick peek into your childhood history. It's a veil that can only be opened in such a voluntary fashion. Thanks a bunch! Any piece of writing that makes an adult man sweat a little, shed tears a little and still smile at the same time is, in my book, a good one indeed. You made a difficult, heart-wrenching situation so readable, and a deplorable condition so comprehensible. But more importantly, you were not just writing about these conditions, you lived them and you have lived to tell the story. I salute you! Your story made me understand why a friend of mine whom I met here in the United States many years back vowed to never return home in spite of my urging. He told me he lived in dozens of police barracks across Nigeria with his parents for more than twenty years and the mere thought of it still gave him nightmares. I wish he had the language to express his experience as you just did, maybe I would have at least understood, even appreciate, a bit of his dilemma more than I did. Your narrative made me have a deeper insight into the unspoken words of a police office to whom I gave a ride from Osogbo to Ile-Ife earlier in 2012. I asked him why he looked so tired, stressed and distressed. He said, softly, "Oga, oro pesi je!" Loosely translated, all he said was, "Speechless!" From the speechlessness, I heard hopelessness and from his eyes, I saw despondency. I understood and left him alone.  I still carry his phone number in my wallet almost one year after meeting him.

What bothers me the most in your piece of writing here is that what you described so vividly about the reprehensible conditions of the barracks in your youth have not changed one bit. Indeed, they are several times worse today than they were when you experienced them. I have seen the same buildings that were erected in the 60s and 70s in Lagos, Ibadan, Osogbo, Ilorin, to mention a few, being occupied by many more people today and with little, less, or no amenities. How then can a nation that does not care for those charged with the responsibility of restoring sanity in the society expect a sane society? Until something drastic is done to the condition of the police in Nigeria, there will be more cases of corruption; there will be more cases of broad day robberies; there will be more cases of lawlessness, neighborhood invasion, and every evil act expected of a society in a state of anarchy. May we as the people wake up and take the bull by its horn, holding our government responsible to the building of a strong and standard police force capable of maintaining law and order in our system that is breaking, if not altogether broken.

And lest I forget, please be sure to tell your dad all those years of his sacrifice to a country that hardly cared for his plight and those of his fellow servicemen and women are greatly appreciated by some of us and nothing could take away the dignity of those badges of honor engraved in his heart.

Michael O. Afolayan

From the Land of Lincoln

---

From: Ayo Obe <ayo.m...@gmail.com>
To: "usaafric...@googlegroups.com" <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Cc: "usaafric...@googlegroups.com" <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>; Mobolaji ALUKO <alu...@gmail.com>

Sent: Monday, January 21, 2013 6:07 PM

[joan.Osa Oviawe]

Oga,

I hope you have a book in the works.  An essay simply won't do.

Your narrative provoked both tears and laughter.

Thanks for being so honest! Your portraiture is a valuable road map for understanding life inside the barracks.

Eagerly awaiting the next installment!  :-)

Saludos,
jOo

[OLUWATOYIN ADEPOJU]

I thought the same.

Such depth requires the movement from blog to book, perhaps explaining how Ikhide reinvented himself from those days in the barracks to the current sojourn  as a literary critic  in the US.

Toyin

[Ayo Obe]

I am so loving these classic vignettes from Ikhide, though you should know that we all fell in love with your Dad through the glimpses you gave us of him and the innocent roguishness with which he charmed is way around the Ikhide household (US branch).  Please complete and put this into a form which we can share with others

Is it a reinvention, or the unveiling of different facets?  There is so often much more behind six than just seven, that I don't necessarily see that a former barracks boy should not be a literary critic balancing in the US as well.  The challenge we face now, is to keep the doors open so that today's barracks children also have the chance to be whatever they can be.  Yes, this is the point at which I refer you to the work that we are doing at Z.O. Dibiaezue Memorial Libraries (www.zodml.org) and that others are doing across the country, and of which we need lashings more.

I could return full circle by describing the extra work we had and have to do putting in toilets at the Oasis Central Library at Hope Primary School, and providing water so that they work as they are supposed to, but as all the comments on this thread, a Sunday Punch exposé on the toilets in our public schools in Lagos a couple of years ago showed, the problem is huge, and requires an absolute sea change.

Ayo

I invite you to follow me on Twitter @naijama

[Chika Onyeani]

A comment from Ambassador Mbulelo Rakwena, the Director at the South African Department of International Relations and Cooperation, who was in charge of organizing the Global African Diaspora Summit in South Africa on the list of "25 Most Influential Africans in America":

"My heart leapt with joy and excitement when I saw the caption of this article. I raced to read it, because I solidly knew and understood that this publication would resonate and accord with one of the key objectives of providing impetus to the construct of a global african diaspora dialogue. In its often understated intent, the dialogue seeks to celebrate the wholesomeness of the african identity, in other words placate the outstanding achievements of Africans the world over, affirming what we as Africans know and namely that ” we are a people imbued with the tenacity to thrive against adversity and stake our claim in a world whose intent is to deride us as evil, less than equal, and hewers of wood”.

We succeed not because we seek to prove anything to our detractors, nor those who inspire Afro pessimism, but because we are, and our children have to know that being African is good, and the challenges faced can only make us the best in the world, however doubtful we may be made to feel in a world informed by racist bigotry.

I laud your commitment to the infinite celebration of the African identity. Like you, I think it regrettable that the Global African Diaspora Summit did not feature any of the celebrated 25. I however take courage and solace in the fact that, it is the intent and commitment of the Summit to rally all Africans to a higher course of positive identity. The Summit undoubtedly had its flaws, no less this omission. I can however affirm that the intention was never short of identifying and exalting those who have kept the image of Africa to its state of glory, and thus invite and honour them at the said Summit, and I should know.

The task is still not complete, the road will be long and difficult, but each step must inspire the next and sharpen the challenge. What is critical however is the challenge we face in making sure that we build on the strong foundations laid by this Summit. In this regard, to create an enduring and sustainable dialogue intended to produce a new African, and secondly to grow the list of 25 and embarrass those of us within and outside the continent, whose deeds blemish the face of Africa with their greed and shameful acts."

25 MOST INFLUENTIAL AFRICANS IN AMERICA

January 22, 2013 By conyeani Leave a Comment

25 Most Influential Africans in America

NEW YORK, New York, Jan. 21, 2013 – An exciting and formidable list of the 25 MOST INFLUENTIAL AFRICANS IN AMERICA was unveiled today, during a press conference at the Millennium Hotel on 44^th Street, New York, opposite the United Nations.  This is a list of high-powered and very successful African achievers in America.  The list includes seven women and eighteen men. (READ MORE)

 

 

 

Chika A. Onyeani
Publisher/Editor-in-Chief
African Sun Times: www.africansuntimes.com
Host: All Africa Radio: www.allafricaradio.com
Tel.: 973-675-9919
Fax: 973-675-5704
Cell: 917-279-4038

"It is not what you call me, but what I answer to, that matters most" - Capitalist Nigger: The Road to Success, Onyeani's internationally acclaimed No. 1 bestselling book.

Have you bought Onyeani's new blockbuster novel, The Broederbond Conspiracy, www.thebroederbondconspiracy.com? or www.theblackjamesbond.com, adapted by the San Francisco State University "to teach students how to write a spy novel."

[OLUWATOYIN ADEPOJU]

Wow.

A free online library!

Well done-

'I could return full circle by describing the extra work we had and have to do putting in toilets at the Oasis Central Library at Hope Primary School, and providing water so that they work as they are supposed to..'

How do you achieve this provision of water?

toyin

On Tue, Jan 22, 2013 at 8:06 PM, Ayo Obe <ayo.m...@gmail.com> wrote:

www.zodml.org

[Segun]

My heart bled with irresistible force as I read Professor Aluko's report on the way he has shown how a University in Nigeria is being run by him. It is a shame. 

A university is not a primary school neither is it a secondary school where students are taught on how to clean and manage their affairs. 

If the Federal Government does not have money to run its Universities the time has come to stop establishing new ones. I am of the view that someone like Professor Aluko needs a realistic approach in the management of a University. He is laying a terrible precedence and he should be advised to stop and if he has no better way of running a University, he should leave the scene. How can he be using his domestic upbringing as a good standard to run a Federal University in the 21st Century? It is shameful and disgusting to say the least. 

I want him to tell the whole world how many Colleges and Universities are being run in the US and Europe the way he is managing the affairs of a Federal University where is the Vice- Chancellor in Nigeria?

I now see why Nigeria will continue to have a problem of good leadership if someone like Professor Aluko does not know how to make life more comfortable for his students. 

Prof. Segun Ogungbemi

Head of the Department of Philosophy

Adekunle Ajasin University, Akungba

Akungba-Akoko, Ondo State 

Nigeria. 

Sent from my iPhone

[Segun]

Ikhide:

Thanks for narrating your harrowing experiences in the Nigeria Police Barracks. I nearly shed tears as I was reading the despicable life style you had lived. 

Now if you were made  the IG in Nigeria what would you do apart from demolishing those barracks of evil? You know the environment has a lot to do with human behavior. If someone grew up in such an environment unless he or she is exposed to a better life later there is no way he or she can be a good leader. 

We must change all that. The best way is to make sure that anyone who wants to be a leader should showcase his profile as Ikhide has done and then see where he or she is today. The complete assessment of such a person will tell us whether he will be a good leader or not. If he is known to have looted the state treasury the probability that he cannot do otherwise is high, hence his inability to rule or govern. 

The problem with Nigerian society generally speaking is that poverty is pervasive and the poor can easily be bought. Secondly, the extended family system does not allow proper exposure of the looters.  However corrupt a person is, hardly will his relations expose him more so if he has been generous to them.  

Time will tell when Nigeria will be liberated from from all these cancerous evils. 

Segun Ogungbemi. 

Sent from my iPhone

On Jan 22, 2013, at 12:38 AM, Ikhide <xok...@yahoo.com> wrote:

their health - let us do. Ditto for universities. I just do not know how ANYBODY can argue with that."   - Professor Mobolaji Aluko Hmmm... It bears repeating: These pictures of Nigerian police "trainees" in quarters unfit for hogs should break each of our hearts. What you have seen of the Police College is just the tip of the iceberg of the life that I survived. I have previously shared with you the despicable condition of Nigeria's public schools. I ask you again: Would you want your pig to attend these schools? I should know. I grew up in the barracks, born in Ikeja General Hospital (now defunct, I am sure) and went home to Ikeja Police Barracks and then Falomo Police Barracks.  My dad is an alumnus of Ikeja Police College in the 50s and also attended a number of training programs there.  I am what you would call a “barracks boy”; I was nicknamed “Babatunde” in the barracks because I was born three weeks after the death of my paternal grandfather. When I was not in Boarding school, I lived in various police barracks. I remember Moor plantation Ibadan; we used to get a supply of fresh milk delivered to our home daily. We were at Eileyele barracks in Ibadan, where my father was part of the first set of the elite “Kill and Go” Mobile Policemen (Mopol 4). Around 1965/66, we moved to Sapele Road Benin City, where my father helped to start the Mobile Police unit there (Mopol 5). My childhood memories are of a blur of barracks – Lagos, Ibadan, Benin City, Igarra, Sabongida Ora, Agenebode, Igarra, etc, etc. My dad is a real Nigerian hero if there ever was one. He never tires of telling me that when the Queen of England visited Nigeria in the late 50's, he was one of 100 hand-selected handsome police officers that performed parades for her wherever she went. She claims that the Queen stopped by him at one of the parades and asked a question about his uniform but by protocol his commanding officer had to respond to the question. My dad was always a fantastic but unreliable historian. Some have opined that the police officers and their families should also bear responsibility for the squalid mess that we see in the barracks.  Well, in the cities, the living quarters in the barracks we lived in were cramped and squalid. It is a structural problem, they were not meant for our way of life.  The extended family was an integral part of our existence and if you lived in the cities as we did, there was a constant flow of relatives wanting to try their luck in the cities, get an education, get a job, start a business, or in a few cases, hit my dad up for money. I do not remember any time that someone took a paint brush to the walls of any barracks that we lived in. I do not remember any maintenance. Not that there was much to maintain. There were walls and space, nothing else. In the police barracks of my childhood, “rank and file” policemen lived in two rooms, a room and a parlor. There was typically a shared latrine and bathing quarters. They were filthy because they were not enough for the hordes of people cramped into the rooms. I hated taking baths and I doubly hated using the latrines. In Benin City, the latrine was a hole that led to a bucket. Each night, the night soil remover or agbepo (as he was called) would come and take away the bucket and replace it with a fresh bucket. Filthy work. For some strange reason these men were cranky and if they caught you doing your business when they were visiting, you were in big trouble. Some kids would fool around with them, put “kaun” or potash in the buckets and watch them foam and pour all over them. Sometimes the agbepo would chase the boys to their homes and pour the entire excrement on their parents’ doorsteps. Life was fun in the barracks. I have said the living quarters were cramped. They were. I remember rats, lots of them in the kitchen, in the rooms, everywhere. I remember them, because my father, a trained killer and warrior was deathly afraid of them. I derived pleasure watching him jumping on the “center table” and giggling nervously as the rats taunted him.  At any time, “t”, there were always at least a dozen people in our “room and parlor.” The kids would sleep in mats on the floor and we would pee over each other. One cousin was particularly bad, he peed on our mat each night. Many rituals were performed to exorcise his peeing demons.  One, I remember: He was required to pee on a burning log each night before bedtime. The babalawo said  at night each time he needed to relieve himself, he would have a burning sensation and he would wake up and go outside to pee. Yes, at night, we went outside and pee’d. The sensation did not burn him enough, he kept peeing on us. There are many things I witnessed as a child that I should not talk about. My aunt ate shit right before my eyes because her daughter who lived with us had eaten shit and it was taboo. To save the child, she had to eat the shit also. In the barracks. Yes. Savagery. In the barracks, my job was to sweep the verandah with a long broom made of twigs. I hated the job. I would hold the broom and stare at tomorrow. Literally. My mother would yell at me and say if I stared long enough I would see the spirit world.  At the Mobile Police barracks in Benin City, there were “inspections.” The police officer in charge of the barracks would conduct an inspection of the living quarters. That meant we had to clean our apartment, make the beds, take our baths and look wholesome behind our dad as he stood ramrod straight while the inspections went on. It was usually invasive and in some instances humiliating. If the inspector found filth, he would berate your dad who would in turn berate your mom who would in turn berate all the kids. The Mobile Police barracks in Sapele Road is no longer in use. My point is that the design and implementation of these quarters are colonial. Built in the fifties, these are colonial structures that have not been improved upon since Independence.  The colonial masters did not imagine that they would be permanent structures lasting well into the 21st century. You should see the “kitchen” my mother slaved in day in and day out. We used firewood. It is a wonder she did not die of smoke inhalation. My mother is a saint. The police barracks in the rural areas were way better than those in the cities. There was more space. And they seemed to have been better built for our way of life. Things were more hygenic. To be fair, by the time my dad was making the rounds in the rural areas, (Sabongida Ora, Igarra, Agenebode) he was now an officer, qualified for more spacious quarters, AWAY from the more Spartan “rank and file” barracks. Still, water was hard to come by. We fought over water in Sabongida Ora. As kids we traipsed a couple miles down the hill to the streams under the hills of Igarra to get buckets of water. We would be woken up at the crack of dawn by our dad and we would go to get the water from the springs. We all developed bilharziasis as a result, a disease that I remembered because each time I peed I would pee blood. There is no reason today for the police barracks to be in existence. I would demolish all of them, adjust police salaries to allow for accommodation and require them to show up for work when they should. These barracks are an embarrassment. By the way, life in the barracks wasn't all bad. We danced hell away. There was music, I learnt a lot and I inherited a joy for the arts in the beautiful men and women that endured the hell I have described. In their songs, I met Rex Lawson, Celestine Ukwu Ebenezer Obey, Sunny Adey, and Victor Uwaifo's spirits. I met lovely men like Cpl. Ohanugo who went to Biafra and never returned to us. Today, policemen and women are reviled and ridiculed as the face of official corruption. It is more complicated than that. My dad was one of the 1st set of Mobile Police, trained to die for Nigeria. In the winter of his life Nigeria will not pay him his pension. The mobile police force that my father was part of was designed as a rapid deployment force. They were kept in barracks because they were often needed for emergencies. Whenever there was a riot, like the Tiv riots, or if they had to protect "liberated areas" during the civil war, the buglar would blow the horn and they would be assembled within hours, racing in long convoys to the scene. My dad was missing a lot. In Asaba, his team was ambushed by Biafran forces and they got the beating of their lives. My father's bones still hurts to this day. As a little boy, I always worried that he would not come back alive. Many mornings, I would wake up to see he had disappeared in the night. Many mornings, he would be there, stern warrior, Okonkwo, fussing about why I did not go to school. I took to sleeping clutching his singlet. His smell, embedded in the singlet, was comforting. He always came back. My friends were not that lucky, many of their dads did not come back. By the way, as a child of the police barracks, I can say I do not know of any living police officer that is not corrupt. They cannot afford to be honest. I have said elsewhere that every living Police IG since Independence should be hauled to the EFCC and asked to explain the decay at the Police College Ikeja. But then, the truth is that since inception, resources belonging to the Nigeria Police Force have been allocated & systematically looted - by policemen & women, from the lowliest recruit to the Inspector General of Police. It is a perverse form of revenue allocation.  As a "barrack boy" nothing shocks me. If you've never used a barrack "latrine", never been chased down the street by an agbepo, you are lucky. We have been looting from each other since the white man taught us how to be civil servants. Go read Achebe's No longer at Ease. Na today? One last word. I was a student at the University of Benin in the 70’s and witnessed and enjoyed much of what Professor Aluko described in his response. I also witnessed the deterioration and decay as the administration battled to manage a burgeoning student enrollment that they were clearly unprepared for. However, the university administration did not plan for the phenomenal demand for tertiary education. The university that I entered in 1976 was a shadow of its self in 1979. Within three years I saw how a campus could decay from lack of maintenance. Today, largely thanks to looting and incompetence, just like the Nigerian Police Force, it is laughable to compare even the best of Nigeria’s public tertiary institutions with the worst in the West. We deceive ourselves if we think all is well with our country. And yes, I have no solution to this mess. I have come to believe that we are undergoing Darwinism, the survival of the fittest. The rich are eating the poor. God help you in Nigeria if you are not rich. Good night. - Ikhide Stalk my blog at http://www.xokigbo.com/ Follow me on Twitter: @ikhide Join me on Facebook: www.facebook.com/ikhide ________________________________ From: Mobolaji Aluko To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com Cc: orunmi...@yahoo.co.uk Sent: Monday, January 21, 2013 12:00 AM Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Harrowing pictures of Nigerian Police Academy cadets' living conditons Dr. Tunji Azeez: First, I invite you to the Federal University Otuoke;  we have our inaugural Matriculation of the 292 undergraduate students on February 16, 2012.  I also thank Kole Ade-Odutola who reminded us that there are always new realities in every society as it progresses. What I am asking for is SHARED RESPONSBILITY:  what the government can and should do, let it do;  what the citizens can and should do - especially those hygienic things that impact DIRECTLY on their health -  let us do.  Ditto for universities.  I just do not know how ANYBODY can argue with that. When I was a student at the University of Ife from 1971 and 1976, and in those early years, we slept three to a room (ie two other room-mates) at Awo Hall on single beds; our rooms were cleaned daily by hired university workers, and our white bed sheets were washed and returned ever so often; water flowed in our showers; our lawns were well tended by varsity gardeners; and we ate "free" in the Central or Hall Cafetarias with a meal ticket. We left our meal plates on their tables after eating, and cafetaria workers took them off the table for us.   It was unsustainable - by the time that I was leaving in 1976, we had pirates galore; we were having to clean our own rooms; water was flowing in the breach in our showers; and bukateria had become a buzzword. And I NEVER protested the removal of elite privileges; my parents, especially my father of blessed memory, would NEVER hear of that, as he would always remind us that he came from the village of Ode-Ekiti! :-)  Once at Ife, students rioted when instead of leaving the plates on the tables after eating as we had been doing for two years, we were asked to please pick them up on our trays and place them in a movable multi-tray trolley!  What indignity, some students said!  I was one of those who spoke up that at home, after every meal, ALL of us, including my parents, picked up our plates and put them in the kitchen sink - and that was the truth. [I only stopped doing that when I became VC in 2011; but when I am back in my Burtonsville home, I resume it happily.] I still think that universities in Nigeria - as in elsewhere - should have students sleep in a room with the number of students commensurate with the size of the room, with a bed per student; water should flow in our showers; gardners should tend our lawns; but all other elite vestiges should be gone - and have gone with the wind, only that the baby has also been thrown away with the bath water. As VC, I am facing the new realities in a new university without trying to reproduce my Great Ife privileges - that is impossible - and yet treating the students with respect, with the view that university life should be a step up in life for MOST (if not ALL) of the students.  The first reality is that they sleep on double-bunk beds in good-size rooms that are four to six to a room that must be cleaned by them, with either a bathroom (shower + toilet) to each room (the boys) or a separate stall with enough SEPARATE toilet rooms and showers (the females).  They all clean out their rooms and take the trash to a common area where university workers take them away.  We have their hostels connected to municipal PHCN electricity, but have provided 30KVA stand-by generators that in the alternative to PHCN (and only then) run 6 am - 8 am and 6 pm - 10 pm.  However each room has been provided with "Chinese" LED lights which are being charged while there is AC electricity by any source, which extends their light hours by four to six hours when there is no AC light. They are very grateful for that reality, but I have told them that the university will only give them ONE Chinese Bulb  per session - if it blows, then the room-mates must CONTRIBUTE to replace it.   With respect to water - there is no municipal water almost anywhere in Nigeria, but just a borehole in each campus asset with water treatment and large-size tanks that CANNOT serve ALL of them taking their showers or running water freely AT THE SAME TIME; there just is no way to have that size tank and treatment.  So each must have a BUCKET to get water the night before to take their baths in the morning, and conserve the use of water; they appreciate that.   With respect to food, we have a food contractor that brings them breakfast, lunch and dinner - we met the candidate contractors to FIX the standard size and meal costs and menu to no more than N250 per meal, but any student that wants a bigger meal or meat can pay more.  They can eat in their rooms - we have fewer tables than there are occupants per room, but "manageable" among them - or they can eat in the "restaurant" provided for such.   We have provided a computer room and printer - managed by the students themselves - but they must supply their paper and replace their cartridges themselves. [They can call the IT unit for technical problems and repairs.] Sports-wise, we have provided snookers tables, ping-pong tables, chess and scrabble boards to the two hostels. During Christmas the university gave the Females and Male Hostels N50,000 each, and said "Arrange a Christmas party for yourselves." without managing how they used it - whether they added their own money or subtracted from it.  We simply said "Don't share it evenly" - as some of those - especially those who could not wait for the party - tried to insist!  So those who stayed had a ball - extra food! And so on.....what we need to put back is SHARED RESPONSIBILITY.  In the university, the authorities should do their part, and the students should be called upon to do their part. And there you have it. Bolaji Aluko On Sun, Jan 20, 2013 at 8:37 PM, Oluwatoyin Ade-Odutola wrote: Dear Dr 'Tunji Azeez, > Please when times change let us change with it. When you were at Ife 20 years ago, you had to go to the library to manually search for materials for any research you had to do. That took up your time and to help make up for it, your rooms and lawns were made clean/tidy....now fast forward to the generation of now now dot com when some of what you had to do manually have been taken over by technology. >Remember too that there were few thieves 20 years ago. Now we have a kingdom of armed/unarmed robbers punching holes into the common purse. Add to that the large army of active men breeding children as if every household must have a football team!! >There is something called Fordism, it has its advantages but when it fails it Nigeria-fails >I hope you are aware of that new verb..to Nigeria-fail is to fail when you already crossed the winning line!! >Kole > >PS: > >I am going to write to GEJ for the first time and I will let him know that this problem has a deep history that precedes him. The Military and the Police were in a cold war and to show that they are below them they starved them of necessary funds. I wish someone can help him understand that his visit to the place, the first in many years is not an accident. It has GREAT implications."--- On Sun, 1/20/13, orunmi...@yahoo.co.uk <> wrote: > > >>From: orunmi...@yahoo.co.uk >>Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Harrowing pictures of Nigerian Police Academy cadets' living conditons To: "USAAfric...@googlegroups.com" >>Date: Sunday, January 20, 2013, 7:42 AM >>There is no doubt that our leaders must be held accountable for the shameful collapse of public infrastructures. A peep into their homes and offices, both public and private, will reveal the wide gulf between them and the people whose sweat and blood keep them alive. As for Professor Aluko's position, it is obvious that on this particular issue, he has really missed it.I graduated from Ife just about twenty years ago and I remember protesting over the poor state of our environment, our toilets and lawns especially. No VC ever thought of giving us brooms and other such things to clean our toilets. Doing that would have reduced the university to a face-me-I-slap you apartment in the slum af Ajegunle. We also know that in this country at a time, people like Prof Aluko protested against the reduction of a full chicken per student to half. They even had their clothes washed for them. Water and electricity where never lacking. Prof Aluko must not see his action of providing cleaning tools for undergraduate as a solution to the decay in the system. As VC with knowledge of how universities run in other climes, he MUST insist on maintaining university best practices. Actions such as the one he's taken remain the reason our leaders loot our treasury with impunity believing that we would "manage" under any condition. Soon, provision of cutlasses, hoes and buckets to fetch water from the polluted streams or creeks would become a condition to study at Otuoke by the time he completes his tenure. So, Prof, while you're there as pioneer VC, you must set standards that your successors will build upon. "And there you have it".'Tunji Azeez, PhDAg. HeadDept. of Theatre Arts &MusicLagos State UniversityOjo, Lagos >>Sent from my BlackBerry® smartphone provided by Airtel Nigeria. >> >>________________________________ >> -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the "USA-Africa Dialogue Series" moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin. For current archives, visit http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue For previous archives, visit http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html To post to this group, send an email to USAAfric...@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue- unsub...@googlegroups.com     -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the "USA-Africa Dialogue Series" moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin. For current archives, visit http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue For previous archives, visit http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html To post to this group, send an email to USAAfric...@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue- unsub...@googlegroups.com ---1270109793-1207326147-1358811522=:47391 Content-Type: text/html; charset=windows-1252 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

[OLUWATOYIN ADEPOJU]

Segun's comments give much food for thought.

Personally, I am confused.

I used to think that the approach Aluko is adopting is the realistic one in a situation like this and even wrote an essay encouraging such an approach sometime ago, but I dont know what to think now.

toyin

[joan.Osa Oviawe]

Prof. Ogungbemi,

But the resources of a university are not limitless- not even in the U.S!
In the face of severe budget cuts, many institutions in the U.S. have had to enact Do-It-Yourself policies in a bid to save money and cut out frills.  At my institution, each person is responsible for their own office garbage even senior administrators are not exempted from this. Our University President pays for his own parking. The Dean of student vacuums his office by himself.  The custodial staff (cleaners) are now only responsible for cleaning the common areas.  All in a bid to save money.
What Prof. Aluko outlined seemed pragmatic enough in an environment of scarce resources. The only thing I could possibly have issues with is that students are limited to one bucket of water to bathe.  This could be problematic. Especially for the female students.
There has to be a way to get borehole water through pipes to the students.

Nigeria is no longer in the ear when Gowon uttered this now (in)famous words "Money is not our problem, but how to spend it."

Saludos,
jOo

[Mobolaji Aluko]

Prof.  Segun Ogungbemi:

First, I also invite you to the FederalUniversity Otuoke, preferably un-announced, before "your heart bleeds completely out," (:-)) but possibly on February 16, 2013,  to see the best "realistic approach in the management of a University" that I can muster, based on the fact that I have lived and worked in a university environment ALL of my life, I have lived as a child, been a student, worked, taught or done research in twenty-two universities all around the world (Africa (Nigeria, South Africa), USA and Europe (England, Germany)).  If you can run it better, I will resign and beg the Federal Government that you replace me. :-)  You may also wish to consider a sabbatical appointment with us; I can arrange it! :-)  [Akungba is a maximum of four hours to Otuoke.]

Secondly, you must remember that MANY, if not the OVERWHELMING MAJORITY of these entering university students NEVER lived in dormitories any time in their lives before now,  because dormitories have been scrapped in virtually all government secondary schools for a long time now.   They went from home (maybe sleeping on mats, etc.) to the secondary school and back on a daily basis, returning to no tap water or electricity in their homes.   When many of us attended university, we invariably came from dormitory schooling to university dormitories.  That is a REALITY that YOU must remember.  [To hammer that point in, going through all the dormitories recently, the OVERWHELMING majority of the male students (not the female students) have not been using bedsheets on their mattresses, rather sleeping on the bare mattresses that the university provided to all students.  I did not consider it important to even make that a requirement - that was inconceivable in Christ's School or the University of Ife -  but now I have made the stipulation, stating that effective next Monday, ANY student that does not use a bedsheet will have the mattresses taken away, and eventually, the student may be put out of hall residence.  The university WILL NOT purchase bedsheets for students, only the bed and mattress.]

Thirdly, the life that I lived in secondary school at Christ's School from 1966-1970 is better than most universities in Nigeria today, and certainly better than the police barracks that were depicted in President Jonathan's visit or so poignantly painted by the inimitable Ikhide (whose story I have heard viva voce and whose colorful "original" MOPOL father I have met for anyayan in the US.)  But we had no water in the rooms, but we went to fetch water in some central tap within spitting distance from our dormitories. We used pit "latrines".  In my second or third year, regular municipal electricity was connected to the school campus (we were using lanterns before then, and a school generator to power the classes during evening classes)  which was maintained for the rest of my time there. (I returned to Christ's School several years later much deteriorated in facilities, and many alumni - including significantly many abroad - built halls, donated boreholes, built VIP toilets, etc. and the government has helped to refurbish several buildings.  Improvements are ongoing there, including returning many of the students to dormitory life, which I believe is crucial as many students develop from pre-teenage-hood (10, 11, 12 years old)  to near adulthood (19, 20, 21, etc.)  in secondary school.)

But, yes, I wish to reproduce clean and exciting learning and living conditions which are a cross between Christ's School and Great Ife, as well as a mix of the dormitory and married student life that I lived in graduate school at Imperial College, London and the University of California, Santa Barbara (where I was required to paint my room myself!). Unlike Christ's School, I will NOT support 10, 15, 30-student dormitories for university students, but I am fully realistic that 2, 3-student rooms in our bourgeoning student-population universities is almost impossible, especially WITH THE KINDS OF school of fees being paid.  I will not ask that students wake up to common prayer session, or ask that prefects be appointed among third year students to fag first year students,  or to punish them by asking them to kneel down.  But yes, the institution will require that students tend to their rooms and respect their room-mates in terms of hygiene and privacy, and respect university/government property in general, in exchange for the N50,000 per annum school fees (for now) that each one of them is paying.  I will ask that they better MANAGE the energy and water resources available to them.  I will ask that they always remember that they are PRIVILEGED to be admitted from among ALL who are seeking admission - although I feel that all who seek tertiary (not necessarily university) education should be able to get one -  just as I tell my co-workers in the university that we are privileged among ALL looking for jobs in the country (even though I believe that it is a cardinal principle of governance that ALL who seek jobs should be able to get one, not always necessarily the job that they want).

This past Friday, the Federal Minister of Education and the Executive Secretary of the NUC paid a snap visit to FU Otuoke after giving us a 48-hour warning.  They liked what facilities they saw,  remarked on the youthfulness and diversity of our entire staff, but most importantly observed the level of enthusiasm and concern that we have shown for the students.  A senior friend who saw the report on AIT (I never did see any TV footage) texted me thus:

              "Congratulations!  Just watched snippets of minister's vist and noted, in particular, the happiness radiating on your students' faces, 

              an absolute rarity in Nigeria's tertiary institutions today. Well done."

That made my day, the reference to the students, because we are yet to build any academic reputation.

My four guiding principles which I emphasise in the university are:

  (1) staff are in loco parentis to the students - in place of their parents, and therefore staff should seek the well-being and success of students (we should not put unnecessary impediments before them, be harsh and seek their failure, or harrass them, etc.)  and therefore students must respect the staff;

  (2)  there is no reason why a public institution cannot simulate the atmosphere of a well-run private institution (public and private institutions in the USA, for example, there is hardly any difference in standards or comfort).

  (3) the core values of our university - LIKERS for Learning-Integrity-Knowledge-Excellence-Research-Service - (I have slipped in an extraneous R there!) must always be in our minds.

  (4) our academic staff must not only teach, do research and render community service, but must seek to bring money, real money,  to the university, rather than ALWAYS seek ways to SPEND university money by buying "stuff" and seeking to travel to useless conferences where they are mere spectators, etc.

If we STRICTLY wish to compare how universities are run in Europe and America, particularly government institutions, then we must compare the ratio of the parent contribution relative to the cost of educating a student in Europe and America to that of Nigeria, modulated by the minimum wage AND rate of unemployment.  Of course, we must also compare the ratio of  REAL government expenditure (not just budget) in education relative to non-education expenditures in those countries to that of Nigeria.

I will stop here for now.

Bolaji Aluko

PS:  Electricity and water remain the greatest challenges of running good institutions in Nigeria. Yes, money, but nobody ever has enough of it.  Cracking those challenges on a long-term basis is beyond the resources of ANY given institution, but will require imagination to MINIMIZE their effect.

[Ikhide]

"Now if you were made  the IG in Nigeria what would you do apart from demolishing those barracks of evil? You know the environment has a lot to do with human behavior. If someone grew up in such an environment unless he or she is exposed to a better life later there is no way he or she can be a good leader."

 

Segun,

 

You have asked a good question. Let me say that time and evolution and gentrification will address many of these evils. The rich will feed off the poor, the poor will die off and rich folks will start holding rich folks accountable. Darwinism. I don't see any other way out. But that is not what you want to hear.  I don't know what I would do. I have been away too long and perhaps my idealism is unrealistic, inappropriate because it is based on alien standards. But what is alien about asking people to do the work they swore to do? Chinua Achebe's No Longer at Ease was written about young idealists returning from England and becoming consumed by the pressures of the extended family system, and succumbing to corruption. Obi Okonkwo ended up in jail. Today I am struck by the lack of compassion and understanding of the white judge in sentencing Obi.

 

Obi was not a bad person, he was not a thief, at least, he did not see himself as a thief. He was taking from the state to help those who had scraped together pennies to send him abroad. It is said today that the extended family system which nurtured our communities in a state of symbiosis has now morphed into spreading poverty.  Many people we know may be looters of the state, but they would never touch your personal property. They are also devout christians or moslems and do not see what they are doing as stealing. It is stealing in the new dispensation and as we can all see, it is hurting us.

 

We have been talking about the same thing for over half a century now, it is time to begin to look for structural ways to force change. I think that the new advocacy I see on social media, people using pictures to shame a nation is slowly forcing issues. We should continue to hold people accountable. I would be pleased if folks were made to pay for looting people's lives.

 

Structurally though, there are questions we need to ponder: Why have ghettoes in the cities in the name of police barracks? Why not pay people enough money to afford their own accommodation? Every policeman and woman has a cell phone these days so you don't need them all to be sleeping together in one place in order to summon them to work. In my father's time, TV was a novelty, there were no faxes, no Internet and there was something called telex ;-) My point is that there does not seem to have been any visioning around this issue.

 

Why have a central police force? What is the problem that we are trying to solve? Why not decentralize the force?  Is the typical police officer underpaid? What would it take to keep them from stealing so much?

 

I do agree that environment has a  lot to do with human behavior, here in the US, if I have been a decent leader in my professional life, it is probably due to the fact that the structures are there to support me. But then, Segun, in the absence of men and women of character, I remain skeptical about Nigeria's chances in the long run. It is not enough to have great structures and processes when there is an ingrained culture of laughing at them. And ignoring them. Our leaders lack credibility, are bullshit artists and they need to be called on their perfidy and thievery. It is not their money, it is our money they are looting. And the lives and fates of generations of Nigerian youths. I have zero respect for what is going on.

 

 

- Ikhide

[Ikhide]

Ah,

 

Folks, the best books are the lived life. I have all these interesting stories to tell, because on balance I remember Nigeria with great fondness. I got the best education the world had tro offer even under those rugged conditions. My love of books, of stories, of music, of self-expression completed me (when it was not getting me in trouble). From "lesson" ot "eba school" (the ajepako imitation of what you ajebutters would call "pre-school" or "kindergarten") to university, my life was filled with wonder as I travelled the world in books. This rascal has no regrets, I gave back as much as I got, and my demons chanted my praises all the way, no shaking :-D

 

Some days, I am reminded of the fable of the tortoise and the leopard as the priest Chinua Achebe recounts it in his book, Anthills of the Savannah

 

"Once upon a time the leopard who had been trying for a long time to catch the tortoise finally chanced upon him on a solitary road. ‘Aha,’ he said; at long last! Prepare to die.’ And the tortoise said: ’Can I ask one favour before you kill me?’ The leopard saw no harm in that and agreed. ‘Give me a few moments to prepare my mind,’ the tortoise said. Again the leopard saw no harm in that and granted it. But instead of standing still as the leopard had expected the tortoise went into strange action on the road, scratching with hands and feet and throwing sand furiously in all directions. ’ Why are you doing that?’ asked the puzzled leopard. The tortoise replied: ‘Because even after I am dead I would want anyone passing by this spot to say, yes, a fellow and his match struggled here.’ “My people, that is all we are doing now. Struggling. Perhaps to no purpose except that those who come after us will be able to say: True, our fathers were defeated but they tried.”

 

Achebe, Chinua (2012-02-22). Anthills of the Savannah (pp. 117-118). Random House, Inc.. Kindle Edition.

 

Yes, my people, I did not ask to be born, but I am here, and I'll be damned if I don't enjoy my stay ;-)

 

- Ikhide

 

Stalk my blog at http://www.xokigbo.com/

Follow me on Twitter: @ikhide

Join me on Facebook: www.facebook.com/ikhide

From: Ayo Obe <ayo.m...@gmail.com>
To: "usaafric...@googlegroups.com" <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Cc: "usaafric...@googlegroups.com" <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Tuesday, January 22, 2013 3:06 PM
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Harrowing pictures of Nigerian Police Academy cadets' living conditons

I am so loving these classic vignettes from Ikhide, though you should know that we all fell in love with your Dad through the glimpses you gave us of him and the innocent roguishness with which he charmed is way around the Ikhide household (US branch).  Please complete and put this into a form which we can share with others

Is it a reinvention, or the unveiling of different facets?  There is so often much more behind six than just seven, that I don't necessarily see that a former barracks boy should not be a literary critic balancing in the US as well.  The challenge we face now, is to keep the doors open so that today's barracks children also have the chance to be whatever they can be.  Yes, this is the point at which I refer you to the work that we are doing at Z.O. Dibiaezue Memorial Libraries (http://www.zodml.org/) and that others are doing across the country, and of which we need lashings more.

I could return full circle by describing the extra work we had and have to do putting in toilets at the Oasis Central Library at Hope Primary School, and providing water so that they work as they are supposed to, but as all the comments on this thread, a Sunday Punch exposé on the toilets in our public schools in Lagos a couple of years ago showed, the problem is huge, and requires an absolute sea change.Ayo

I invite you to follow me on Twitter @naijama

On 22 Jan 2013, at 18:04, OLUWATOYIN ADEPOJU <tva...@gmail.com> wrote:

I thought the same.

Such depth requires the movement from blog to book, perhaps explaining how Ikhide reinvented himself from those days in the barracks to the current sojourn  as a literary critic  in the US.

Toyin

On Tue, Jan 22, 2013 at 11:03 AM, joan.Osa Oviawe <joano...@gmail.com> wrote:

Oga,

I hope you have a book in the works.  An essay simply won't do.Your narrative provoked both tears and laughter. Thanks for being so honest! Your portraiture is a valuable road map for understanding life inside the barracks.Eagerly awaiting the next installment!  :-)Saludos,jOo

-- You received this message because you are subscribed to the "USA-Africa Dialogue Series" moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin.For current archives, visit http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogueFor previous archives, visit http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.htmlTo post to this group, send an email to USAAfric...@googlegroups.comTo unsubscribe from this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue- unsub...@googlegroups.com  

-- Compcros

Comparative Cognitive Processes and Systems

"Exploring Every Corner of the Cosmos in Search of Knowledge"

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[Emeagwali, Gloria (History)]

"I remain skeptical about Nigeria's chances in the long run."

Would you have more faith in Biafra.
Are you a neo-Biafra supporter?

What would it take to emerge from your abyss of fatalism and
despair?

Professor Gloria Emeagwali
www.africahistory.net<http://www.africahistory.net/>
www.vimeo.com/user5946750/videos<http://www.vimeo.com/user5946750/videos>
Documentaries on Africa and the African Diaspora

________________________________

From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com [usaafric...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Ikhide [xok...@yahoo.com]
Sent: Wednesday, January 23, 2013 10:47 AM
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com; Segun...@yahoo.com

Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Harrowing pictures of Nigerian Police Academy cadets' living conditons

"Now if you were made the IG in Nigeria what would you do apart from demolishing those barracks of evil? You know the environment has a lot to do with human behavior. If someone grew up in such an environment unless he or she is exposed to a better life later there is no way he or she can be a good leader."

Segun,

You have asked a good question. Let me say that time and evolution and gentrification will address many of these evils. The rich will feed off the poor, the poor will die off and rich folks will start holding rich folks accountable. Darwinism. I don't see any other way out. But that is not what you want to hear. I don't know what I would do. I have been away too long and perhaps my idealism is unrealistic, inappropriate because it is based on alien standards. But what is alien about asking people to do the work they swore to do? Chinua Achebe's No Longer at Ease was written about young idealists returning from England and becoming consumed by the pressures of the extended family system, and succumbing to corruption. Obi Okonkwo ended up in jail. Today I am struck by the lack of compassion and understanding of the white judge in sentencing Obi.

Obi was not a bad person, he was not a thief, at least, he did not see himself as a thief. He was taking from the state to help those who had scraped together pennies to send him abroad. It is said today that the extended family system which nurtured our communities in a state of symbiosis has now morphed into spreading poverty. Many people we know may be looters of the state, but they would never touch your personal property. They are also devout christians or moslems and do not see what they are doing as stealing. It is stealing in the new dispensation and as we can all see, it is hurting us.

We have been talking about the same thing for over half a century now, it is time to begin to look for structural ways to force change. I think that the new advocacy I see on social media, people using pictures to shame a nation is slowly forcing issues. We should continue to hold people accountable. I would be pleased if folks were made to pay for looting people's lives.

Structurally though, there are questions we need to ponder: Why have ghettoes in the cities in the name of police barracks? Why not pay people enough money to afford their own accommodation? Every policeman and woman has a cell phone these days so you don't need them all to be sleeping together in one place in order to summon them to work. In my father's time, TV was a novelty, there were no faxes, no Internet and there was something called telex ;-) My point is that there does not seem to have been any visioning around this issue.

Why have a central police force? What is the problem that we are trying to solve? Why not decentralize the force? Is the typical police officer underpaid? What would it take to keep them from stealing so much?

I do agree that environment has a lot to do with human behavior, here in the US, if I have been a decent leader in my professional life, it is probably due to the fact that the structures are there to support me. But then, Segun, in the absence of men and women of character, I remain skeptical about Nigeria's chances in the long run. It is not enough to have great structures and processes when there is an ingrained culture of laughing at them. And ignoring them. Our leaders lack credibility, are bullshit artists and they need to be called on their perfidy and thievery. It is not their money, it is our money they are looting. And the lives and fates of generations of Nigerian youths. I have zero respect for what is going on.


- Ikhide


From: Segun <Segun...@yahoo.com>
To: "usaafric...@googlegroups.com" <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Wednesday, January 23, 2013 5:48 AM
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Harrowing pictures of Nigerian Police Academy cadets' living conditons

Ikhide:
Thanks for narrating your harrowing experiences in the Nigeria Police Barracks. I nearly shed tears as I was reading the despicable life style you had lived.
Now if you were made the IG in Nigeria what would you do apart from demolishing those barracks of evil? You know the environment has a lot to do with human behavior. If someone grew up in such an environment unless he or she is exposed to a better life later there is no way he or she can be a good leader.
We must change all that. The best way is to make sure that anyone who wants to be a leader should showcase his profile as Ikhide has done and then see where he or she is today. The complete assessment of such a person will tell us whether he will be a good leader or not. If he is known to have looted the state treasury the probability that he cannot do otherwise is high, hence his inability to rule or govern.
The problem with Nigerian society generally speaking is that poverty is pervasive and the poor can easily be bought. Secondly, the extended family system does not allow proper exposure of the looters. However corrupt a person is, hardly will his relations expose him more so if he has been generous to them.
Time will tell when Nigeria will be liberated from from all these cancerous evils.
Segun Ogungbemi.


Sent from my iPhone

On Jan 22, 2013, at 12:38 AM, Ikhide <xok...@yahoo.com<mailto:xok...@yahoo.com>> wrote:

their health - let us do. Ditto for universities. I just do not know how ANYBODY can argue with that." - Professor Mobolaji Aluko Hmmm... It bears repeating: These pictures of Nigerian police "trainees" in quarters unfit for hogs should break each of our hearts. What you have seen of the Police College is just the tip of the iceberg of the life that I survived. I have previously shared with you the despicable condition of Nigeria's public schools. I ask you again: Would you want your pig to attend these schools? I should know. I grew up in the barracks, born in Ikeja General Hospital (now defunct, I am sure) and went home to Ikeja Police Barracks and then Falomo Police Barracks. My dad is an alumnus of Ikeja Police College in the 50s and also attended a number of training programs there. I am what you would call a “barracks boy”; I was nicknamed “Babatunde” in the barracks because I was born three weeks after the death of my paternal grandfather. When I was not in Boarding school, I lived in various police barracks. I remember Moor plantation Ibadan; we used to get a supply of fresh milk delivered to our home daily. We were at Eileyele barracks in Ibadan, where my father was part of the first set of the elite “Kill and Go” Mobile Policemen (Mopol 4). Around 1965/66, we moved to Sapele Road Benin City, where my father helped to start the Mobile Police unit there (Mopol 5). My childhood memories are of a blur of barracks – Lagos, Ibadan, Benin City, Igarra, Sabongida Ora, Agenebode, Igarra, etc, etc. My dad is a real Nigerian hero if there ever was one. He never tires of telling me that when the Queen of England visited Nigeria in the late 50's, he was one of 100 hand-selected handsome police officers that performed parades for her wherever she went. She claims that the Queen stopped by him at one of the parades and asked a question about his uniform but by protocol his commanding officer had to respond to the question. My dad was always a fantastic but unreliable historian. Some have opined that the police officers and their families should also bear responsibility for the squalid mess that we see in the barracks. Well, in the cities, the living quarters in the barracks we lived in were cramped and squalid. It is a structural problem, they were not meant for our way of life. The extended family was an integral part of our existence and if you lived in the cities as we did, there was a constant flow of relatives wanting to try their luck in the cities, get an education, get a job, start a business, or in a few cases, hit my dad up for money. I do not remember any time that someone took a paint brush to the walls of any barracks that we lived in. I do not remember any maintenance. Not that there was much to maintain. There were walls and space, nothing else. In the police barracks of my childhood, “rank and file” policemen lived in two rooms, a room and a parlor. There was typically a shared latrine and bathing quarters. They were filthy because they were not enough for the hordes of people cramped into the rooms. I hated taking baths and I doubly hated using the latrines. In Benin City, the latrine was a hole that led to a bucket. Each night, the night soil remover or agbepo (as he was called) would come and take away the bucket and replace it with a fresh bucket. Filthy work. For some strange reason these men were cranky and if they caught you doing your business when they were visiting, you were in big trouble. Some kids would fool around with them, put “kaun” or potash in the buckets and watch them foam and pour all over them. Sometimes the agbepo would chase the boys to their homes and pour the entire excrement on their parents’ doorsteps. Life was fun in the barracks. I have said the living quarters were cramped. They were. I remember rats, lots of them in the kitchen, in the rooms, everywhere. I remember them, because my father, a trained killer and warrior was deathly afraid of them. I derived pleasure watching him jumping on the “center table” and giggling nervously as the rats taunted him. At any time, “t”, there were always at least a dozen people in our “room and parlor.” The kids would sleep in mats on the floor and we would pee over each other. One cousin was particularly bad, he peed on our mat each night. Many rituals were performed to exorcise his peeing demons. One, I remember: He was required to pee on a burning log each night before bedtime. The babalawo said at night each time he needed to relieve himself, he would have a burning sensation and he would wake up and go outside to pee. Yes, at night, we went outside and pee’d. The sensation did not burn him enough, he kept peeing on us. There are many things I witnessed as a child that I should not talk about. My aunt ate shit right before my eyes because her daughter who lived with us had eaten shit and it was taboo. To save the child, she had to eat the shit also. In the barracks. Yes. Savagery. In the barracks, my job was to sweep the verandah with a long broom made of twigs. I hated the job. I would hold the broom and stare at tomorrow. Literally. My mother would yell at me and say if I stared long enough I would see the spirit world. At the Mobile Police barracks in Benin City, there were “inspections.” The police officer in charge of the barracks would conduct an inspection of the living quarters. That meant we had to clean our apartment, make the beds, take our baths and look wholesome behind our dad as he stood ramrod straight while the inspections went on. It was usually invasive and in some instances humiliating. If the inspector found filth, he would berate your dad who would in turn berate your mom who would in turn berate all the kids. The Mobile Police barracks in Sapele Road is no longer in use. My point is that the design and implementation of these quarters are colonial. Built in the fifties, these are colonial structures that have not been improved upon since Independence. The colonial masters did not imagine that they would be permanent structures lasting well into the 21st century. You should see the “kitchen” my mother slaved in day in and day out. We used firewood. It is a wonder she did not die of smoke inhalation. My mother is a saint. The police barracks in the rural areas were way better than those in the cities. There was more space. And they seemed to have been better built for our way of life. Things were more hygenic. To be fair, by the time my dad was making the rounds in the rural areas, (Sabongida Ora, Igarra, Agenebode) he was now an officer, qualified for more spacious quarters, AWAY from the more Spartan “rank and file” barracks. Still, water was hard to come by. We fought over water in Sabongida Ora. As kids we traipsed a couple miles down the hill to the streams under the hills of Igarra to get buckets of water. We would be woken up at the crack of dawn by our dad and we would go to get the water from the springs. We all developed bilharziasis as a result, a disease that I remembered because each time I peed I would pee blood. There is no reason today for the police barracks to be in existence. I would demolish all of them, adjust police salaries to allow for accommodation and require them to show up for work when they should. These barracks are an embarrassment. By the way, life in the barracks wasn't all bad. We danced hell away. There was music, I learnt a lot and I inherited a joy for the arts in the beautiful men and women that endured the hell I have described. In their songs, I met Rex Lawson, Celestine Ukwu Ebenezer Obey, Sunny Adey, and Victor Uwaifo's spirits. I met lovely men like Cpl. Ohanugo who went to Biafra and never returned to us. Today, policemen and women are reviled and ridiculed as the face of official corruption. It is more complicated than that. My dad was one of the 1st set of Mobile Police, trained to die for Nigeria. In the winter of his life Nigeria will not pay him his pension. The mobile police force that my father was part of was designed as a rapid deployment force. They were kept in barracks because they were often needed for emergencies. Whenever there was a riot, like the Tiv riots, or if they had to protect "liberated areas" during the civil war, the buglar would blow the horn and they would be assembled within hours, racing in long convoys to the scene. My dad was missing a lot. In Asaba, his team was ambushed by Biafran forces and they got the beating of their lives. My father's bones still hurts to this day. As a little boy, I always worried that he would not come back alive. Many mornings, I would wake up to see he had disappeared in the night. Many mornings, he would be there, stern warrior, Okonkwo, fussing about why I did not go to school. I took to sleeping clutching his singlet. His smell, embedded in the singlet, was comforting. He always came back. My friends were not that lucky, many of their dads did not come back. By the way, as a child of the police barracks, I can say I do not know of any living police officer that is not corrupt. They cannot afford to be honest. I have said elsewhere that every living Police IG since Independence should be hauled to the EFCC and asked to explain the decay at the Police College Ikeja. But then, the truth is that since inception, resources belonging to the Nigeria Police Force have been allocated & systematically looted - by policemen & women, from the lowliest recruit to the Inspector General of Police. It is a perverse form of revenue allocation. As a "barrack boy" nothing shocks me. If you've never used a barrack "latrine", never been chased down the street by an agbepo, you are lucky. We have been looting from each other since the white man taught us how to be civil servants. Go read Achebe's No longer at Ease. Na today? One last word. I was a student at the University of Benin in the 70’s and witnessed and enjoyed much of what Professor Aluko described in his response. I also witnessed the deterioration and decay as the administration battled to manage a burgeoning student enrollment that they were clearly unprepared for. However, the university administration did not plan for the phenomenal demand for tertiary education. The university that I entered in 1976 was a shadow of its self in 1979. Within three years I saw how a campus could decay from lack of maintenance. Today, largely thanks to looting and incompetence, just like the Nigerian Police Force, it is laughable to compare even the best of Nigeria’s public tertiary institutions with the worst in the West. We deceive ourselves if we think all is well with our country. And yes, I have no solution to this mess. I have come to believe that we are undergoing Darwinism, the survival of the fittest. The rich are eating the poor. God help you in Nigeria if you are not rich. Good night. - Ikhide Stalk my blog at http://www.xokigbo.com/ Follow me on Twitter: @ikhide Join me on Facebook: www.facebook.com/ikhide<http://www.facebook.com/ikhide> ________________________________ From: Mobolaji Aluko To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com<mailto:usaafric...@googlegroups.com> Cc: orunmi...@yahoo.co.uk<mailto:orunmi...@yahoo.co.uk> Sent: Monday, January 21, 2013 12:00 AM Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Harrowing pictures of Nigerian Police Academy cadets' living conditons Dr. Tunji Azeez: First, I invite you to the Federal University Otuoke; we have our inaugural Matriculation of the 292 undergraduate students on February 16, 2012. I also thank Kole Ade-Odutola who reminded us that there are always new realities in every society as it progresses. What I am asking for is SHARED RESPONSBILITY: what the government can and should do, let it do; what the citizens can and should do - especially those hygienic things that impact DIRECTLY on their health - let us do. Ditto for universities. I just do not know how ANYBODY can argue with that. When I was a student at the University of Ife from 1971 and 1976, and in those early years, we slept three to a room (ie two other room-mates) at Awo Hall on single beds; our rooms were cleaned daily by hired university workers, and our white bed sheets were washed and returned ever so often; water flowed in our showers; our lawns were well tended by varsity gardeners; and we ate "free" in the Central or Hall Cafetarias with a meal ticket. We left our meal plates on their tables after eating, and cafetaria workers took them off the table for us. It was unsustainable - by the time that I was leaving in 1976, we had pirates galore; we were having to clean our own rooms; water was flowing in the breach in our showers; and bukateria had become a buzzword. And I NEVER protested the removal of elite privileges; my parents, especially my father of blessed memory, would NEVER hear of that, as he would always remind us that he came from the village of Ode-Ekiti! :-) Once at Ife, students rioted when instead of leaving the plates on the tables after eating as we had been doing for two years, we were asked to please pick them up on our trays and place them in a movable multi-tray trolley! What indignity, some students said! I was one of those who spoke up that at home, after every meal, ALL of us, including my parents, picked up our plates and put them in the kitchen sink - and that was the truth. [I only stopped doing that when I became VC in 2011; but when I am back in my Burtonsville home, I resume it happily.] I still think that universities in Nigeria - as in elsewhere - should have students sleep in a room with the number of students commensurate with the size of the room, with a bed per student; water should flow in our showers; gardners should tend our lawns; but all other elite vestiges should be gone - and have gone with the wind, only that the baby has also been thrown away with the bath water. As VC, I am facing the new realities in a new university without trying to reproduce my Great Ife privileges - that is impossible - and yet treating the students with respect, with the view that university life should be a step up in life for MOST (if not ALL) of the students. The first reality is that they sleep on double-bunk beds in good-size rooms that are four to six to a room that must be cleaned by them, with either a bathroom (shower + toilet) to each room (the boys) or a separate stall with enough SEPARATE toilet rooms and showers (the females). They all clean out their rooms and take the trash to a common area where university workers take them away. We have their hostels connected to municipal PHCN electricity, but have provided 30KVA stand-by generators that in the alternative to PHCN (and only then) run 6 am - 8 am and 6 pm - 10 pm. However each room has been provided with "Chinese" LED lights which are being charged while there is AC electricity by any source, which extends their light hours by four to six hours when there is no AC light. They are very grateful for that reality, but I have told them that the university will only give them ONE Chinese Bulb per session - if it blows, then the room-mates must CONTRIBUTE to replace it. With respect to water - there is no municipal water almost anywhere in Nigeria, but just a borehole in each campus asset with water treatment and large-size tanks that CANNOT serve ALL of them taking their showers or running water freely AT THE SAME TIME; there just is no way to have that size tank and treatment. So each must have a BUCKET to get water the night before to take their baths in the morning, and conserve the use of water; they appreciate that. With respect to food, we have a food contractor that brings them breakfast, lunch and dinner - we met the candidate contractors to FIX the standard size and meal costs and menu to no more than N250 per meal, but any student that wants a bigger meal or meat can pay more. They can eat in their rooms - we have fewer tables than there are occupants per room, but "manageable" among them - or they can eat in the "restaurant" provided for such. We have provided a computer room and printer - managed by the students themselves - but they must supply their paper and replace their cartridges themselves. [They can call the IT unit for technical problems and repairs.] Sports-wise, we have provided snookers tables, ping-pong tables, chess and scrabble boards to the two hostels. During Christmas the university gave the Females and Male Hostels N50,000 each, and said "Arrange a Christmas party for yourselves." without managing how they used it - whether they added their own money or subtracted from it. We simply said "Don't share it evenly" - as some of those - especially those who could not wait for the party - tried to insist! So those who stayed had a ball - extra food! And so on.....what we need to put back is SHARED RESPONSIBILITY. In the university, the authorities should do their part, and the students should be called upon to do their part. And there you have it. Bolaji Aluko On Sun, Jan 20, 2013 at 8:37 PM, Oluwatoyin Ade-Odutola wrote: Dear Dr 'Tunji Azeez, > Please when times change let us change with it. When you were at Ife 20 years ago, you had to go to the library to manually search for materials for any research you had to do. That took up your time and to help make up for it, your rooms and lawns were made clean/tidy....now fast forward to the generation of now now dot com when some of what you had to do manually have been taken over by technology. >Remember too that there were few thieves 20 years ago. Now we have a kingdom of armed/unarmed robbers punching holes into the common purse. Add to that the large army of active men breeding children as if every household must have a football team!! >There is something called Fordism, it has its advantages but when it fails it Nigeria-fails >I hope you are aware of that new verb..to Nigeria-fail is to fail when you already crossed the winning line!! >Kole > >PS: > >I am going to write to GEJ for the first time and I will let him know that this problem has a deep history that precedes him. The Military and the Police were in a cold war and to show that they are below them they starved them of necessary funds. I wish someone can help him understand that his visit to the place, the first in many years is not an accident. It has GREAT implications."--- On Sun, 1/20/13, orunmi...@yahoo.co.uk<mailto:orunmi...@yahoo.co.uk> <> wrote: > > >>From: orunmi...@yahoo.co.uk<mailto:orunmi...@yahoo.co.uk> >>Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Harrowing pictures of Nigerian Police Academy cadets' living conditons To: "USAAfric...@googlegroups.com<mailto:USAAfric...@googlegroups.com>" >>Date: Sunday, January 20, 2013, 7:42 AM >>There is no doubt that our leaders must be held accountable for the shameful collapse of public infrastructures. A peep into their homes and offices, both public and private, will reveal the wide gulf between them and the people whose sweat and blood keep them alive. As for Professor Aluko's position, it is obvious that on this particular issue, he has really missed it.I graduated from Ife just about twenty years ago and I remember protesting over the poor state of our environment, our toilets and lawns especially. No VC ever thought of giving us brooms and other such things to clean our toilets. Doing that would have reduced the university to a face-me-I-slap you apartment in the slum af Ajegunle. We also know that in this country at a time, people like Prof Aluko protested against the reduction of a full chicken per student to half. They even had their clothes washed for them. Water and electricity where never lacking. Prof Aluko must not see his action of providing cleaning tools for undergraduate as a solution to the decay in the system. As VC with knowledge of how universities run in other climes, he MUST insist on maintaining university best practices. Actions such as the one he's taken remain the reason our leaders loot our treasury with impunity believing that we would "manage" under any condition. Soon, provision of cutlasses, hoes and buckets to fetch water from the polluted streams or creeks would become a condition to study at Otuoke by the time he completes his tenure. So, Prof, while you're there as pioneer VC, you must set standards that your successors will build upon. "And there you have it".'Tunji Azeez, PhDAg. HeadDept. of Theatre Arts &MusicLagos State UniversityOjo, Lagos >>Sent from my BlackBerry® smartphone provided by Airtel Nigeria. >> >>________________________________ >> -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the "USA-Africa Dialogue Series" moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin. For current archives, visit http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue For previous archives, visit http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html To post to this group, send an email to USAAfric...@googlegroups.com<mailto:USAAfric...@googlegroups.com> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue- unsub...@googlegroups.com<mailto:unsub...@googlegroups.com> -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the "USA-Africa Dialogue Series" moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin. 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"What I am asking for is SHARED RESPONSBILITY: what the government can and should do, let it do; what the citizens can and should do - especially those hygienic things that impact DIRECTLY on their health - let us do. Ditto for universities. I just do not know how ANYBODY can argue with that."

- Professor Mobolaji Aluko
Hmmm... It bears repeating: These pictures of Nigerian police "trainees" in quarters unfit for hogs should break each of our hearts. What you have seen of the Police College is just the tip of the iceberg of the life that I survived. I have previously shared with you the despicable condition of Nigeria's public schools. I ask you again: Would you want your pig to attend these schools? I should know. I grew up in the barracks, born in Ikeja General Hospital (now defunct, I am sure) and went home to Ikeja Police Barracks and then Falomo Police Barracks. My dad is an alumnus of Ikeja Police College in the 50s and also attended a number of training programs there.
I am what you would call a “barracks boy”; I was nicknamed “Babatunde” in the barracks because I was born three weeks after the death of my paternal grandfather. When I was not in Boarding school, I lived in various police barracks. I remember Moor plantation Ibadan; we used to get a supply of fresh milk delivered to our home daily. We were at Eileyele barracks in Ibadan, where my father was part of the first set of the elite “Kill and Go” Mobile Policemen (Mopol 4). Around 1965/66, we moved to Sapele Road Benin City, where my father helped to start the Mobile Police unit there (Mopol 5). My childhood memories are of a blur of barracks – Lagos, Ibadan, Benin City, Igarra, Sabongida Ora, Agenebode, Igarra, etc, etc. My dad is a real Nigerian hero if there ever was one. He never tires of telling me that when the Queen of England visited Nigeria in the late 50's, he was one of 100 hand-selected handsome police officers that performed parades for her wherever she went. She claims that the Queen stopped by him at one of the parades and asked a question about his uniform but by protocol his commanding officer had to respond to the question. My dad was always a fantastic but unreliable historian.
Some have opined that the police officers and their families should also bear responsibility for the squalid mess that we see in the barracks. Well, in the cities, the living quarters in the barracks we lived in were cramped and squalid. It is a structural problem, they were not meant for our way of life. The extended family was an integral part of our existence and if you lived in the cities as we did, there was a constant flow of relatives wanting to try their luck in the cities, get an education, get a job, start a business, or in a few cases, hit my dad up for money. I do not remember any time that someone took a paint brush to the walls of any barracks that we lived in. I do not remember any maintenance. Not that there was much to maintain. There were walls and space, nothing else.
In the police barracks of my childhood, “rank and file” policemen lived in two rooms, a room and a parlor. There was typically a shared latrine and bathing quarters. They were filthy because they were not enough for the hordes of people cramped into the rooms. I hated taking baths and I doubly hated using the latrines. In Benin City, the latrine was a hole that led to a bucket. Each night, the night soil remover or agbepo (as he was called) would come and take away the bucket and replace it with a fresh bucket. Filthy work. For some strange reason these men were cranky and if they caught you doing your business when they were visiting, you were in big trouble. Some kids would fool around with them, put “kaun” or potash in the buckets and watch them foam and pour all over them. Sometimes the agbepo would chase the boys to their homes and pour the entire excrement on their parents’ doorsteps. Life was fun in the barracks.
I have said the living quarters were cramped. They were. I remember rats, lots of them in the kitchen, in the rooms, everywhere. I remember them, because my father, a trained killer and warrior was deathly afraid of them. I derived pleasure watching him jumping on the “center table” and giggling nervously as the rats taunted him. At any time, “t”, there were always at least a dozen people in our “room and parlor.” The kids would sleep in mats on the floor and we would pee over each other. One cousin was particularly bad, he peed on our mat each night. Many rituals were performed to exorcise his peeing demons. One, I remember: He was required to pee on a burning log each night before bedtime. The babalawo said at night each time he needed to relieve himself, he would have a burning sensation and he would wake up and go outside to pee. Yes, at night, we went outside and pee’d. The sensation did not burn him enough, he kept peeing on us. There are many things I witnessed as a child that I should not talk about. My aunt ate shit right before my eyes because her daughter who lived with us had eaten shit and it was taboo. To save the child, she had to eat the shit also. In the barracks. Yes. Savagery.
In the barracks, my job was to sweep the verandah with a long broom made of twigs. I hated the job. I would hold the broom and stare at tomorrow. Literally. My mother would yell at me and say if I stared long enough I would see the spirit world. At the Mobile Police barracks in Benin City, there were “inspections.” The police officer in charge of the barracks would conduct an inspection of the living quarters. That meant we had to clean our apartment, make the beds, take our baths and look wholesome behind our dad as he stood ramrod straight while the inspections went on. It was usually invasive and in some instances humiliating. If the inspector found filth, he would berate your dad who would in turn berate your mom who would in turn berate all the kids.
The Mobile Police barracks in Sapele Road is no longer in use. My point is that the design and implementation of these quarters are colonial. Built in the fifties, these are colonial structures that have not been improved upon since Independence. The colonial masters did not imagine that they would be permanent structures lasting well into the 21st century. You should see the “kitchen” my mother slaved in day in and day out. We used firewood. It is a wonder she did not die of smoke inhalation. My mother is a saint.
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[OLUWATOYIN ADEPOJU]

Gloria,

Ikhide is  balanced in his analysis this time. 

He salutes 'the new advocacy on social media'  that is exposing realities in the nation to wider view.

He makes reasonable suggestions on improving the living conditions of police personnel and asks probing questions about the  conditions that shape the mentality of members of the force, questions that recognise that their sense of agency is significantly configured by poor management by the government. 

He states that he remains pessimistic about the country on the condition of the absence of leadership by  'men and women of character'.

He bases his pessimism on that central conditional factor without stating that he does not see that factor not changing for the better. 

He also relates quality of character to the need to value effective social structures.

I find this  moving because I have experienced it:

'It is not enough to have great structures and processes when there is an ingrained culture of laughing at them".

One may argue that, on leadership,  he exaggerates in relation to Nigeria as a whole, if one were to do a state by state analysis, with varied reports coming out of various states.

At the same time, one needs to enquire what the overall picture is and the prospects for and steps that need to be taken to achieve a healthier polity.

Thanks

toyin 

[Ayo Obe]

We have a long way to go but I'm encouraged by Prof's example in exposing his students to what is for many, a different way of being.

When my niece came to live with me at Queen Street, Yaba, I scolded her for the poor job she had made of cleaning our common bathroom and then set to, to supervise the job.  Despite cleaning materials, disinfectants, bleaches, sponges, cloths etc., she took a piece of lavatory paper and, with her left hand, began to gingerly stroke the toilet bowl seat.  "What on earth are you doing?"  "Ah, Auntie, I can't use my right hand to clean that place o!".  A difficulty that had not occurred to me at all, even though by then, I was definitely no longer a JJC!  It is something to convey to those whose experience of bathrooms and lavatories is that they are flooded and festering evil places to be avoided at all costs (and supposed to be like that), that if you don't clean it, you won't want to clean it!  My aburo imbibed the lesson, but so ingrained is this idea, that when a former driver was seeking to justify his misbehaviour to a third party, he cast about for the worst possible accusation to make against me, and came up with the allegation that I had instructed him to clean my ile igbe (s**t house).  I could only laugh, knowing that if he ever saw the inside of my ile igbe the danger was that he might ask if he and his family could move in there!

Ayo

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