Chxta Profile picture
Jan 23, 2020 16 tweets 6 min read Read on X
A few days ago, twitter.com/arbiterznigeria tagged me in this article - bit.ly/37leH8f which is a response to this article by @DavidHundeyin - bit.ly/2uoWUyr.

As I tend to do when I can't read something immediately, I saved it. Now I have read it.
Unfortunately, what is meant to be a criticism of David's piece falls flat in my view.

It is not enough to render David's warnings as "alarmist", it is important to also properly scope the problem.

The article limits its scope to the NURTW.
Let me start with his view (I assume it's a 'he') on NURTW's lack of ideological pitch, it is important to note that #Nigeria lost the battle of ideological governance after the first coup.

At such, no one has needed an ideology to govern this country.
#NigeriaDecides2019 was the first time in living memory that fundamental ideological cracks showed between the two main contenders.

And the man with the outdated statist ideology won, not necessarily because he preached ideology.
What this showed, amongst others is the fact that the less educated the populace is, the less ideology would matter to them.

#Nigeria has a badly educated populace, so ideology is for the gods.
The writer failed to acknowledge the fact that the Lagos chapter of the NURTW is actually a de facto arm of @followlasg itself.

These are guys that successive governors have used to enforce tax collection.
The recent harassment of @OPay_NG and other ride-sharing services was done by this same NURTW the writer sought to dismiss as "big-muscled guys who are only critical for winning elections".

Truth is, while they are not in power per se, they are actually empowered.
Even if it is a client or patronage politics, these guys are basically in charge already.

How else can we explain the police protection that Mr Oluomo received after he was stabbed last year?
It appears to me that this writer has never been outside #Lagos. The idea of an "Educated Agbero" rings more in the Niger Delta and maybe other parts of the country.

Even where these people are not educated, they go on to either win elections, or hold strategic positions.
In #Rivers, in 2003, a certain Asari Dokubo whom we all know and needs no introduction contested the 2007 gubernatorial elections from prison!

What is more, Ateke Tom who equally made his mark in the Niger Delta struggle is currently the paramount ruler of Okochiri kingdom.
Ateke holds a strategic position that relatively decides the political leadership of Rivers state.

Various members of the Rivers House of Assembly who cut their teeth from street gangs have contested and won elections in the state.
The chairman of Rivers APC, Ojukaiye Flag Amachree is one of such. Also, Victor Ihunwo, a member of the house representing one the PHALGA constituencies is another. In Delta State, Tompolo nominated Ifeanyi Okowa's deputy.
These may seem like low offices to some of you, but believe me, they are influential, and it would be wrong to dismiss them to the very nadir of mere thuggery and cannon fodder for the much-vaunted "better-educated professionals".
Heck, I'd suggest that the writer read up on such great names as Boss Tweed, so he'd realise that #Nigeria is, at the moment, at pretty much the same developmental stage as #America was in the 19th century.
Our politicians make use of thugs to enforce their will, and those thugs become men of society. With wealth and influence.

That we are in the same anthropological region as 1840s America doesn't guarantee the same outcome.
The elite class in 1840s #America was at some point able to come together.

The elite class in 2020 #Nigeria does not understand enlightened self-interest.

At least not yet anyway...

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More from @Chxta

Jan 6, 2023
There has been a lot of recrimination due to the musician, Brymo's misguided tweets. I won't join issues with him except to mention that as a Tinubu supporter, he is simply doing what I have said, so many times, would be done by Tinubu supporters, ethnicise the elections.
What I want to talk about, very briefly, before returning to @EdPaiceARI's excellent book is the tendency for Nigerians, in general, to keep behaving like our country's civil war did not end 52 years ago.
Igbo people in #Nigeria are generally treated like we are all fifth columnists who secretly support Biafra.

This ahistorical view completely ignores that even during the war, there were Igbo people, Ukpabi Asika and Ike Nwachukwu as examples, that fought for Nigeria.
Read 12 tweets
Nov 27, 2022
I had a discussion with someone yesterday that brings to my mind the nature, to some extent, of the damage that the current Japa wave is doing. This time, not to the body-corporate #Nigeria
I've discussed that in some form here, and I've done a thread on the effects on the middle class, who are the primary movers of this migration.

I recommend reading @tundeleye's 2017 piece about why people were leaving #Nigeria bit.ly/2WvirUH
The #LekkiMassacre of two years ago merely accelerated what was already a trend.

But not much is being said about the effect of this trend on the lower classes, the people who used to be house helps, nannies, stewards, drivers, cooks and maiguards.
Read 16 tweets
Nov 24, 2022
Words matter, especially when they come from someone with influence.

That is the theme of my latest column in @FinancialNG bit.ly/3VhvOAI, the impact of the words of @JoeBiden before he became POTUS.

Bear in mind, this was written before #America's mid-terms...
Faced with the implications of his words during his presidential campaign, the Biden administration rediscovered the concept of realpolitik and tried to make good with the Saudis by visiting #SaudiArabia in July and ending up with that infamous fist bump. Image
In November 2019, Joe Biden fingered MBS in the killing of @washingtonpost contributor Jamal Khashoggi and committed to making the Saudis pay.

He followed up upon assuming office by rejecting contact with MBS and stopping US assistance to Saudi efforts in its war in #Yemen.
Read 8 tweets
Sep 5, 2022
On #FreshlyPressed981 with @SopeMartins and @monsieurceee this morning, we'll be asking how the NNPC came to the conclusion that petrol will sell for ₦462/litre without the subsidy.

@Smooth981FM in 15 minutes...
The NNPC is just involved in unnecessary fear-mongering.

Our neighbours, who are poorer, pay a lot more than we do for petrol. What I see in all this is people committed to maintaining their cushy subsidy scam going on.
Consider the attached chart, published in February.

As of February, based on the exchange rate, we were paying 40 cents per litre of petrol. In #Benin it was 95 cents, in #Niger it was 97 cents, in #Chad it was 89 cents, and in #Cameroun, it was $1.09. Image
Read 9 tweets
Aug 17, 2022
“We have seen your type before, and they all fizzled out. Let’s see how long you will last.”

That's what someone told @DavidHundeyin as recounted in his @BusinessDayNg column today: bit.ly/3JZzB0N

That thing cut my soul because it is true...
For all the flak that the Nigerian media gets, people tend to forget one crucial fact: they are products of their environment, working within that same environment.

Only a very few people in this life have the fortitude of Job.
The overwhelming majority of humanity, including me these days, would make the required compromise to just keep things moving.

One problem we have in #Nigeria is that we never interrogate these things. We must ask, "why"?
Read 17 tweets
Aug 16, 2022
In the 1963 movie, Cleopatra, there was an interesting dialogue between Mark Anthony and Octavian, the man who would later become Augustus Caesar, the first emperor of Rome about the birth of Julius Caesar's son, Caesarion:
Mark Antony: "You were so shut at the mouth just now one would think your words were are precious to you as your gold."

Octavian: "Like my gold, I use them where they are worth most."

This is instructive...
Also instructive is that during his 19 years as chairman of the US Federal Reserve, Alan Greenspan did not give any interviews. Having taken over from the inflation-busting Paul Volcker, Greenspan knew that words from his position carried weight and so had to be used sparingly.
Read 6 tweets

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