Christmas, 2015

It is Christmas again,
And winter cannot
stand the all-day rain

No potly santas
And silly elves
Float in the clouds

It is Christmas again
Trumpets of justice
Summon our conscience
to the Timesquare!

On the 2015 Nigerian Election

All is not well in Nigeria. And in two months Nigerians will go to the poll to elect a new President, legislature, and some governors. Since the return to democracy in 1999 Nigeria has not had a competitive federal election, and that is part of the problem with my country of birth. All the three elections so far has been supposedly won by the self-described "largest political party in Africa," the Peoples Democratic Party. The PDP--which I like to think as a more baroque and soiled version of the later-day ANC in South Africa--has run the country with a mixture of careless arrogance, stupefying ineptitude, and unparalleled thievery.

As far as I am concerned 2015 is a referendum on the Presidency of Goodluck Jonathan and his party, PDP. And the most important question for me is not whether he and his party have earned the privilege of leading Nigeria for the next four years. I cannot imagine how anyone who is deeply invested in and truly cares for Nigeria can say that GJ and PDP should remain in power one day more than their present term. Here is the record of the PDP government that is asking Nigerians to allow it run things for the next four years.

• National power generation that was around 5000 MW a few years ago has fluctuated between 1500 and 3000 MW, despite that the government has reportedly spent more than $10 billion on power. Just for comparison, according to a 2010 report in The Economist, "this [Nigerian output] is as much grid power as the area around Narita airport in Tokyo." Right now in my hometown Umuoji in Anambra State, we have not had power for the past three months. 
• Under their watch, our foreign reserve declined by more than 11 Billion USD, in the past year.
• The currency, Naira, is at is lowest dollar rate ever.
• External debt that was controversially paid off by the Obasanjo government is now back to 10 Billion USD
• Under GJ and PDP, corruption has reached a level not seen even during the Babangida and Abacha regimes; on top of that they defanged rather than strengthen the EFCC, the anti-corruption agency.
• Under their watch a cabal in the Niger Delta is now siphoning as much as 300k barrels of oil ( way more than 10% of production) EVERYDAY (in 2012 it was a measly 7%), adding massively to our economic woes, according to reports. Official corruption has, expectedly, spawned widespread, illegal oil theft, with added devastating environmental consequences.
• Under their watch Boko Haram disappeared many hundreds of young women (including the better-reported 200+ Chibok Girls, and has murdered thousands of Nigerians, Muslims and Christians among them; more than 500k displaced from many overrun towns, villages and Local Government Areas in the North East. If not for the corrupt enterprise called GJ/PDP government, confronting the menace of BH ought not have been the unmitigated and manifest disaster it is. 
• GJ and PDP have squandered their mandate and opportunity to make Nigeria a better place; and if they could not do this when oil earned Nigeria a lot of money, is it now that the coffers are emptied, with collapsing oil prices, that they can bring about positive change? 
• As a sign of runaway lawlessness, last month the police apparently under orders from the Presidency teargassed and locked out the speaker and members of the Federal House of Representatives that had resolved to initiate impeachment proceedings. The Inspector General--appointed by the President--then went on record to state that he did not recognize the office of the speaker. Imagine then what happens to rule of law elsewhere in the land!
• The biggest threat to Nigeria as a nation is corruption, which under GJ has grown like an aggressive tumor. And does any clearly-thinking person believe that GJ and the PDP can stop feeding this cancer and save sick Nigeria? Or do they just want to remain in power so they could serve as undertaker?  If Nigeria continues to rank very low in the international corruption index, it is because the PDP-led government has shown that governance is nothing but a process and practice of looting the nation's petroleum-enriched treasury. And for the first time, as far as I know, there is a viable Presidential/VP team (selected by the another party) for whom fighting corruption is the primary mandate. And my question to Nigerians is this: WHY NOT GIVE THEM A CHANCE?
• We simply NEED someone else to try managing Nigeria and its multiple and festering troubles, since what we have had these many years is NOT working; and if that person and party cannot at least begin to turn the tide in four years, they should be shown the door. That is the only way the positive change we sorely need can happen. And that is how democracy works, or at least should work.
• And, oh, this last point: under this government, defending African champions, the Super Eagles could not even qualify for the 2015 Nations Cup! How bad do things have to get before we demand change?! 
• Nigeria cannot afford the political status quo, for the sake of our children. 

CAA Board of Directors: Please vote!

I wish to announce that I am a finalist for the College Arts Association Board of Directors. Voting starts in January 2015, leading up to the Annual Conference in New York in February. As the largest and arguably the most important association of arts professionals, membership on the board of directors is crucial, as it will determine the direction of the CAA's work for the next four years. I am particularly interested in getting the CAA address issues of artists' rights in resale of works; diversifying the organization's membership; expanding its international footprint; and taking more assertive position in important issues that affect (not just the arts, but) our world today. If you are a member of the CAA, I  ask for your vote!

Here is the page with information (statements and biographies) on the six candidates. Four candidates with the most votes will join the board:

PLEASE VOTE!

The Law Against Black Men

• Whatever law allows a policeman to go blameless for shooting dead an unarmed youth a dozen times, even in the head, is simply wrong. 
• Whatever law allows a policeman to kill a youth because this youth is said to be "charging" at the policeman is simply wrong. 
• Whatever politics that permits white policemen who are perpetually afraid of black men to police black communities is wrong. 
• Whatever law permits a white lawyer whose father was killed by a black man to decide whether or not to charge a white officer for killing a black man is wrong.
• Whatever system that saw nothing wrong with the handling of the Michael Brown case by Ferguson police and prosecutor is wrong
• Is the law rigged against black men in America?

Conversation with Renee Stout and Radcliffe Bailey @ Princeton, Nov. 20

This event is open to the public.

 

Postdoctoral Associate, Center for African American Studies, Princeton

This is a great opportunity for young scholars working in the field of African and African Diaspora studies:

Don Cosentino, "Kongo in the American Imaginary" lecture today

"Four Moments Revisited: Kongo in the American Imaginary"

Donald Cosentino ,  Emeritus Professor, UCLA November 17, 2014 4:30 P.M.  •  McCormick 106   Donald Cosentino is Professor Emeritus of World Arts and Cultures. His research interests include Black Atlantic myth, rituals, art and popular cultures. He has done extensive fieldwork on oral traditions in Sierra Leone;  on Vodou art and mythology in Haiti; and on the flowering of alternative religions in Los Angeles. He is the author of Defiant Maids and Stubborn Farmers: Tradition and Invention in Mende Story Performance (Cambridge University Press,1982, 2008) and Vodou Things: The Art of Pierrot Barra and Marie Cassaise (University of Mississippi Press, 1998). He was the curator, editor and chief writer for the award winning project, The Sacred Arts of Haitian Vodou (1995-99), and for Divine Revolution: the Art of Edouard Duval-Carrie (2004). As a Guggenheim Fellow (2006), Cosentino completed fieldwork for Chasing the Dead, a book he is writing based on his travels with an Argentine-American magus and his Kongo spirit guide. Cosentino is currently chief curator of "In Extremis: Death and Life in 21st Century Haitian Art," a traveling exhibition, which opened at the UCLA Fowler Museum in Fall 2012 and travelled to La Musee de la Civilisation in Quebec City in 2013-14. He has a Ph.D. in African Languages and Literatures from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. This lecture is part of the "Kongo Arts in Africa and the World" lecture series organized by Chika Okeke-Agulu in conjuction with the exhibition "Kongo Across the Waters" at the Princeton University Art Museum (October 25, 2014 - January 25, 2015). Please contact Rebecca Aguas with any questions.