This past
weekend, specifically on 08/16/2014, Nigeria’s Vanguard newspaper (part of the
elite media houses of Nigeria) came out with this screaming news headline: “Hope Dashed as U.S. Declares Drug
Pesticide.” The report went on to say as follows: “HOPES of immediate relief for victims of the Ebola Virus Disease
[,] following reports that doses of an experimental drug, nano-silver, had been
delivered [,] were dimmed yesterday. The United States Food and Drug Administration
said the drug is a pesticide and warned those claiming that it could prevent or
treat Ebola to desist from doing so” (http://www.vanguardngr.com/2014/08/ebola-hope-dashed-us-declares-drug-pesticide/). I was shocked beyond measure at this hint of how deep Nigerian society in
general, including the news media, has become so mentally and psychologically
dependent upon external powers and influences. So, Nigeria, as a sovereign
nation, does not have an independent capacity, in this 21st century,
for assessing the efficacy or lack thereof of any medical invention? So,
Nigeria does not possess its own scientific capacity for assessing risks (all
medical inventions and procedures tend to have side effects) and benefits
inherent in a medical device or cure? Oh boy, if the answers to these
rhetorical questions are in the negative, then Nigeria, which by its immense
size (a population of 166.6 million), represents a barometer for measuring the
pulse of the affairs of other African nations, has evolved—after a half a
century of “independence” from British colonialism—to become a worrisome
example of a “free” but hopelessly dependent nation. Dependency theory of
development holds that due to their legacy of colonial indoctrination through
educational and religious institutions, as well as partnerships between a compromised
middle class in the former colony and the Metropole and its exploitative global
economic order, post-colonial nations are experiencing dependent
development, and not a desirable advancement away from dependency upon the
institutions, directions and worldview of the Metropole and its associated
exploitative international system. Historian
Basil Davidson termed this phenomenon “dependent capitalism.”
Dependent Thinking
Dependent
development has a variety of symptoms. Among them are a lack of belief in self
and a constant outward search for validation from external institutions in
various spheres of life. All the drama that has unfolded since the outbreak in
West Africa of an infectious decease described as “Ebola,” points to an African continent
that, generally-speaking (with exceptions here and there), is steeped in dependent thinking. During the
U.S.-African Summit that was held in Washington (August 4-6, 2014), African
leaders collectively betrayed a streak of this dependency syndrome: “The United States, in partnership with the
African Union, will support efforts to establish an African Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention, which will build on longstanding U.S. support for an
increasingly capable health and science sector in Africa” (http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2014/08/04/fact-sheet-us-african-cooperation-global-health).
I was aghast when I read about it. I asked myself what type of nation or group
of nations surrenders its healthcare to another nation, whose primary
responsibility is to its own people, its own population. I asked myself why the
African leaders did not exhibit African agency—that is, why didn’t they first initiate
and build an African Center for Research on Disease Control designed to help
find scientific solutions to African medical problems. Isn’t the New
Partnership for African Development (NEPAD) meant to serve as a mechanism for
actualizing African visions for development? NEPAD’s name itself betrays a
lingering and troubling sense of a continental leadership which does not
manifest a belief that the people of Africa can self-determine their own destiny
without external spoon-feeding. Yes, African leadership can seek external collaboration
and external assistance, but the primary impetus for African development, in
all sectors of life, should come from within Africa! The well being of the
people that inhabit Africa depends primarily on Africa and its ruling elites.
The external world should help, but the primary initiative should come from
Africa. Never, for once, think that the external world considers you and your
problems a priority. Within that world are nations who are saddled, and rightly
so, with their own domestic socioeconomic and political challenges.
Where are our African Universities?
One other
disappointing signal of institutional incapacity that the Ebola outbreak has
brought to light is an almost total absence and silence of African universities
on a disease that is wreaking havoc within their terrain. When adequately funded and creatively managed, universities are not
only meant to impart knowledge and skills in their students, they are supposed,
most importantly, to serve as conduits for generating social and scientific
answers to problems that afflict their communities. Universities perform this
important role in their communities through research. Given that prior to its
current outbreak in parts of West Africa, Ebola (whether a natural phenomenon
or man-made)(go to http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-ebola-outbreak-u-s-sponsored-bioterror/5396176
to see Dr. Jason Kissner’s speculation about where the latest strain of Ebola
came from)) had also stricken parts of Central Africa, should I believe that no
virologist in any African university had initiated funded research on this threat to
the lives of Africans? Should I believe that no African government, prior to
the current outbreak, deemed it necessary—as a responsible guardian of its
territorial environment who ought to be planning head—to commission a research project on Ebola? If the answers to
these questions are in the negative, then the masses of Africa must worry about
their leaders. Do these leaders possess a sense of history? Are they aware of
how the rest of the world perceives Africa—a perennial problem.
Can’t we avoid begging all the time?
A few days
ago, it was reported in the news media that Nigeria—a naturally well-endowed
nation full of some of the hardest–working and smartest people on the face of
this planet, but who are being perennially mis-managed by a succession of
decadent governments—stretched out its begging hands to President Barack Obama
for doses of an experimental cure for Ebola. Although it’s reported that the
U.S. government has not yet responded positively to that request (Obama himself
had said at the U.S.-Africa Summit that the experimental drug was yet to be
certified as a proven cure), it’s my view that, for the sake of the innocent
victims of this Ebola monster, the U.S. and other well-positioned governments
of the world should not hesitate to provide all medicines, technical and material help that
can kill Ebola for good. On the other hand, I can understand an apparent
reluctance to spoon feed a well-endowed nation like Nigeria, which, like the
United States, should have been planning ahead for the future of her people. Given
the geographical locations of Nigeria and the United States, which nation had a
reason to worry more about Ebola? Given that Ebola manifested itself most
recently within Africa, a logical expectation is that African intelligentsia
and governments, particularly the ones that are geographically most proximate
to the sites of the earlier occurrences of Ebola (go to "An Introduction to Ebola: The Virus and the Disease"), should have had it on their
plate as a priority for medical research. Yes, developing countries cannot
afford to devote as much of their budgetary resources to research and
development as developed countries tend to do, the former must, however,
remain alert to the fact that no social development can occur without a healthy
population. So, the place of research and development in their budget
priorities must be elevated!
Nigeria’s elite and their love of foreign medical facilities
Instead of
working tirelessly to strengthen Nigeria’s internal medical capacity, Nigeria’s
ruling elite—at both the federal level and 36 constituent states of the
federation—has had an enduring practice of flying abroad or being flown abroad
for medical treatment and implicitly leaving the rest of the masses to find
cure from internal medical institutions in which the former has little or no faith.
For this outward-looking ruling elite, the favorite foreign destinations for
medical care include the United States, Britain (which their nationalist forebears
fought hard to drive away as a caretaking colonial master), India and South
Africa. A climax of this dependency of Nigeria’s ruling elite on foreign
medical care is India’s recent announcement (http://sunnewsonline.com/new/?p=71267)
that it planned to build hospitals in Nigeria in order to help it cope with the
volume of Nigerian medical help seekers. Did that announcement send any signal
to the rulers of Nigeria? Did it hurt their national pride?
Make hare
while the sun shines
In closing,
we must always remember that those who fail to build and maintain their own
homes/institutions, will, for as long, remain vulnerable and dependent tenants on
other people's properties! And landlords will always endeavor to act
rationally, that is, pluck as much profit as possible from the temporary
occupants of their homes. Similarly, those who fail to read the weather
correctly and buy their own umbrellas, will inevitably be caught unprepared and
thus drenched when rain begins to fall.
