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Why
You Need to Watch This Documentary!
By Adagbo Onoja
Newsdiaryonline
Sun March 27,2011
For
someone like Alhaji Sule Lamido who spent the better part of his
life challenging everyone and everything challengeable in Nigeria,
claiming superiority of social agenda of power, the question
which naturally arises is: where is the conclusive evidence of
his claim of superiority after four years in power? Even in the
epoch of the death of a single or unitary truth or what post
modernists call grand narratives and, by implication, the
stupidity of evidence, we must still answer this question.
Without answering it, the discursive foundation of democracy and
progress in Nigeria will
remain under the threat posed by inordinate ambition, personal
power and the associated charlatanism. Because it then means
anyone can pose as champion of a superior praxis without
providing evidence for that at some point.
There are
certainly many ways in which a claim can be evidenced. Without
falling victim of the cult of facts, any evidence of superiority
in this case must be empirical though without being empiricist.
In this regard, documentary methodology has an overwhelming
advantage. This is particularly so in
Nigeria
where the mass media, the press in particular, is an unusually
powerful theatre, arising from its grip as the daily diet of
those who shake and move the system. As thus the theatre where
the elite settle their quarrels and set priorities, any actor
with anything serious as far as the strategic direction of this
country must aim at maximizing media advantage.
In spite
of the successful but unfortunate hijack of the media instrument
by marketers and their mentality of showcasing projects instead
of elevating discourse politics in Nigeria, the media still
remains the number one theatre for deepening democratisation in
Nigeria to the extent of its mass character. That enables it to
reach the undifferentiated mass with the empirical details of
popular experiences in one part of the country or the other.
One such
experience must be the story of leadership, power and social
change in Jigawa since May 2007 which, within the constraints of
time, money and human resources, has been condensed into a half
an hour documentary. Even though the producer is almost done
after a three months delay, the title of the documentary is
still the subject of debate in Government House, Dutse. Some
people want it to be called “Jigawa: How Lamido’s Horses and
Lamido’s Men Put Humpty Dumpty Together Again”. Others think it
should be called “Jigawa: The Story of a Renaissance”. Yet,
others swear the best title would be “Governor and Governance in
Jigawa State, 2007-2011”. It seems the debate will continue and
the name it takes eventually will be whatever title it bears on
air.
By
whatever name it goes on air, this documentary is the only
source of what was actually on the ground before Sule Lamido
took over. Above all, the narrative structure is not one of the
fussy apologia for vanity and megalomania in power in
Nigeria
of today but a critical celebration of the limits and potentials
of radical populism in contemporary Nigerian politics.
And even
as we await public critique of the documentary, there is already
both a personal and social fulfillment that God and governor
made this documentary possible. And I will explain that, right
away.
In an age
of extreme social incompetence of governments and leaders across
the world and hence the primacy of rationalization, noise and
showmanship, the position of a Special Adviser on Media Affairs
can be a very dangerous appointment. This is particularly so for
some of us who claim a certain ideological consciousness and the
defence of its theoretical and organizational traditions.
I cannot
forget recalling the warning of a comrade legislator way back in
2006 against becoming the Commissioner for Information to any
government in this country on account of this. Such an
appointment, he argued correctly, would totally mess me up
because, most of the people who become governors now have no
stomach for the minimum democratic ethos. Therefore, in his
argument, I would end up rationalizing the sack of workers or
non payment of salaries, among others, as the Commissioner for
Information.
This was
at a time the idea of Sule Lamido becoming a governor and I
being appointed as his Media Adviser were out of the radius of
contemplation. And so, when this appointment happened, it was
not my ethno-religious identity that I feared. Having been
around the Jigawa-Kano axis for a long time before 2007, that
worried me not as much as the fear of the ideological issues
involved in power. I was more worried about the aspect my
comrade legislator talked about before.
I had
been with Lamido long enough to know his turn of minds on the
crucial issues in Nigerian politics and I could say there was no
basis to be afraid. But what if, as governor, the structural
deformities of Nigerian federalism and the subsequent empirical
constraints on power at the state level provided him with the
reason or alibi to go against popular interests, (students,
workers, women and peasants)?
This is
not where I will give my farewell to Jigawa. It is, however,
worth mentioning, for the umpteenth time, that whenever I leave
this government, I will be leaving absolutely happy, proud and
in a moral and ideological position to brag anywhere and at any
time that, all other things considered, I have been part of a
revolution. There is everything to be grateful to God for this
because my experience went contrary to what I was told in 2007.
They said I would leave Jigawa in shame, that I would leave
Jigawa along with the governor as disgraced people. Now, instead
of leaving Jigawa in shame, all and any of us who was associated
with the Lamido leadership would walk tall anywhere and by any
standards. Participation in the government so far will be his or
her badge or testimonial for purposive, serious and competent
use of power. Governor Lamido has so performed that even his
harshest critics cannot but start by acknowledging that. In Nigeria, any leader who has
performed can be granted any and every concessions. And this
also means that Lamido is heading for a landslide sweep of the
polls, come April 2011 and, by the grace of God, another four
years of uncommon leadership.
But
the problem is that I might have been talking from lived
experience. How do I bring the import and implications of the
Lamido led ‘revolution’ to those who were far from it, those who
were far from its inner dynamics, whatever limitations there
were and its human nature? This is the point about the impending
documentary. Happy viewing and your criticism as you watch it.
Onoja is
Special Adviser on Media Affairs to Gov Sule Lamido
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