A Half a Century Later

August 28, 2013, marks the 50^th anniversary of the 1963 historic march on Washington at which the late Revered Martin Luther King, Jr. made his national transformational “I have a Dream" Speech.  That march, which was attended by a crowd of over 250,000, along with its famous speech, occurred in the middle of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s and 1970s. It was a pivotal moment in a national grassroots social change movement whose overall goal was to transform the United States from a society that was legally based on a social doctrine of separate but equal to a de jure system of racial integration. An excerpt from that speech aptly encapsulates the state of affairs then for Americans of African descent:

Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.

But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. And so we've come here today to dramatize a shameful condition (http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/08/24/3580335/full-text-of-martin-luther-king.html#storylink=cpy).

Globally-speaking, King’s speech was one of the most powerful oratories of the 20^th century. Though a national holiday has been proclaimed in his honor and a national monument, the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial,  has also been erected in Washington, D.C. in recognition of the greatness of the civil rights leader, Dr. King, jr. did not live for long on this earth after that speech of 1963 (on April 4, 1968, he lost his life to an assassin’s bullet). Indeed, the Civil Rights Movement proved not to be a fad. Through a set of legal reforms (such as the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the now-Supreme Court-diluted Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the Equal Housing Act of 1968), the movement revolutionized the United States from a society where racial discrimination was legal and overt to one where it is supposed to be illegal. As the events of the past few days, which were meant to commemorate the 1963 March on Washington, must have conveyed, it’s of vital importance for us to remember that the Civil Rights Movement was not a one-day affair involving a single speech--though powerful in its content and oratory--that instantly changed everything and everybody. By 1963, when King delivered his now inter-generationally famous “I have a Dream" Speech, he had been playing a leadership role in the Civil Rights struggle for eight continuous years, dating back to 1955 when the young 26-year-old church minister was recruited to lead the Montgomery Improvement Association in the wake of Rosa Parks’ much-celebrated refusal to give up her bus seat for a white passenger in Montgomery, Alabama. And, long before the speech, the 1954 Brown judgment of the Supreme Court which enthroned racial desegregation of the school system of the United States—and, in effect, overthrew the earlier century’s 1896 Plessy vs. Ferguson’s Supreme Court’s ruling that affirmed racial separatism in the social life of America—had emerged as an affirmation of a long, post-Reconstruction African American struggle to get America to live up to its ethos that “all men are created equal [and] they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights [, including] life, liberty and pursuit of happiness” (http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/declaration_transcript.html).

In the context of world affairs, the Civil Rights Movement of the 20^th century was not an isolated event. It partly coincided with and was spurred on by an across-the-globe upsurge for freedom and for self-determination. The 1948 declaration of Universal Human Rights by the United Nations was a major impetus. So was Cold-War geo-politics. Specifically, as part of a global movement, the Civil Rights Movement in the United States flourished alongside continental mass struggles for freedom from colonial rule in Africa,  following India’s achievement of independence from British colonial rule in 1947. The legendary Mahatma Gandhi spear-headed that Indian independence movement through his tactical deployment of mass civil disobedience. Following in his footsteps years later, Dr. King championed America’s own Civil Rights struggle through his non-violence philosophy and tactics.  Thus, symbolically and ideologically, these trans-continental movements fed upon one another. As another example, while prominent leaders of the African movement for independence from colonial rule included personalities, such as Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana and Nnamdi Azikiwe of Nigeria (both of whom studied in the United States) and Jomo Kenyatta of Kenya, who studied in London, England, and in doing so, received inspiration from black protest and Pan-Africanist visions of the W.E.B Duboises, George Padmores, the Eric Williams, the C.L.R. James, and the Ralph Bunches of the African American world, the attainment of independence by a succession of African countries mostly in the 1960s (though Egypt became independent of Britain in 1953, followed by Ghana in 1957), in itself became a source of pride, inspiration  and affirmation of black humanity in a United States whose racial history includes an academically-valorized notion of black biological inferiority--in tandem with a similar posture of Western civilization as a whole. The emergent African independent nationhood was an asset that the leaderships of the Civil Rights Movement could show off to the cynical among their white compatriots about a black ability to take charge of black social, political and economic life without white tutelage.

Now, let’s fast-forward to the post-Civil Rights era and do some stock-taking. There is no question that the United States of King’s era is not the United States of today. Only someone who does not have knowledge of that era would find a basis—though one that’s obviously ill-informed--for contesting that fact. Though racial inequities persist, we live in an era of legal racial integration. Much like other multiracial and multicultural societies of the world, the United States still faces its share of racial and ethnic antagonism and bigotry. Be that as it may, and thanks to both Civil Rights Movement’s induced-transformational education and significant demographic shifts that brought about record changes in the people-of-colors’ share of the United States’ national population, the first decade of the 21^st century witnessed the emergence of a black President of the United States. Though both in the first (2008) and second (2012) elections (check out a Pew Research Center’s analysis of the 2012 presidential election), President Barack Obama received a minority of the white vote, much in sync with modern trends in US politics whereby Republican presidential candidates attract more white votes than their Democratic counterparts--but the totality of the votes cast by people of color tipped the electoral scale in his favor--the United States, as a society, still deserves credit for those earth-shattering electoral triumphs of a US president who demographically comes from a segment of the nation that accounts for less than 14% of the national population.

Society must keep in mind that history repeats itself unless the people of the present generation make a conscious effort to learn from it. In order to learn from the mistakes of history, the present generation of America must be educated meaningfully and truthfully about its national history.  In guiding the education of the present generation about its past, the powers-that-be must resist temptation to sugar-coat that past. For such sugar-coating would inevitably become the equivalent of a medical doctor’s deliberate rosy but inaccurate diagnosis of a medical ailment, which, in turn, would lead to an under-estimation  or misdiagnosis of the nature of the problem. Such a misdiagnosis of the patient’s ailment could then give rise to an inadequate or incorrect prescription that, invariably, would fall short of what’s needed in order to make the patient wholesome again. If education must continue to serve as a basis for positively reforming humanity and for continually moving the world forward towards a just society--and not backwards--the leaders who are entrusted with its stewardship, must not lose sight of the moral lesson inherent in the preceding medical physician analogy. As we commemorate the 50^th anniversary of the 1963 march on Washington for freedom and for jobs, we should also use the occasion to recommit ourselves to the educational transformations brought about by the parent Civil Rights Movement of that era—transformations that, by and large, enabled the United States to achieve a deeper self-understanding necessary for social tranquility and progress.

Ex-Federal Minister Femi Fani-Kayode: a mirror of what nationhood is all about in contemporary Nigeria?

No doubt, ex-Federal Minister Femi Fani-Kayode was inflammatory in his August 10, 2013 essay, entitled “the Bitter Truth About the Igbos.” He was primarily reacting to fellow Nigerians who publicly expressed outrage over Lagos State Governor Babatunde Fashola’s “deportation" of a set of individuals  (who were said to be Igbo and destitute) to Anambra state.  There were conflicting news media reports of the number of persons who were affected by the "deportation." While some reports placed the number at 70, the Lagos state governor claimed only 14 individuals were involved.  I suggest that another diatribe is not a useful response to Fani-Kayode's rhetorical over-reach. Remember the old adage that two wrongs do not make a right. However, the controversy generated by his essay presents an opportunity for one to re-visit constitutional issues and challenges triggered both by his vexatious opinions and Governor Fashola’s own action that provoked all this brouhaha.

First, I would like to advise that those of us who might have been looking at the unfolding issues from the standpoint of their living experiences in the United States, should remember that in practical social terms, Nigeria is not the same kind of nation as the United States although constitutionally (as this essay shall demonstrate), Nigeria aspires to be like the former. Nativism or indigenousness, statism and tribalism prevail in Nigeria and do impact significantly on the life chances of individuals. Whereas what predominantly matters in the United States is one's state of residence (although covert racial intimidation and ethnic intimidation, powered by racism and its institutional support structure, do still rear their ugly heads from time to time) due mainly to the immigrant basis of its national formation, in Nigeria, on the other hand, an important life-chances determining factor is one's state of origin or even one's local government. So, to that extent, Fani-Kayode’s essay merely reminded all of us of the social realities of Nigeria--realities that may strike those of us who have become accustomed to the US system of social organization as oddities.

Second, it's common knowledge that by and large, Nigeria's federation's resources were used in creating modern Lagos, which used to be the capital city of Nigeria up until 1991, when the capital was moved to newly-constructed Abuja. It’s also common knowledge that as a federal capital, Lagos was regarded by all Nigerians as a commonly-owned territory of the Nigerian nation even though there was a simultaneous understanding that Yoruba-speaking Nigerians are much more native to that land mass. Thus, even if one were to play a devil’s advocate of a Fani Kayode revisionist-history declaration of Lagos as an exclusive ethnic enclave-- given the territory’s history of being developed with Nigeria’s federation’s resources and simultaneously being vested in by Nigerians across ethnic and class lines-- Lagos, to Nigerians in general, is still not an Ibadan, a Kano, an Enugu, a Jos or a Calabar. To Nigerians in general—probably both in their short-term and long-term memories--Lagos is still more like Abuja even though the latter has taken the official place of the former as the federal capital territory. Its continued dual attribute of being both the most populous city in Nigeria and the nation’s economic nerve center, despite losing its erstwhile status as the center of the federal administrative machinery, is reflective of a historic place that it has occupied in the imagination of Nigerians in general as a viable source of life support in the form of jobs.

At this juncture, one must recall, however, that 46 years ago, specifically in 1967, the Federal Military Government, headed by General Yakubu Gowon made a politically-expedient decision of granting statehood to Lagos, when it created the first set of 12 states (they have since grown to 36 states), which necessarily broke up the tripartite regional stranglehold over the neck of the Nigerian federation but also clipped the wings of the emergent Biafrian secession through its divide and conquer act of carving out Cross River and Rivers states from what used to be Eastern region. (The defunct Republic of Biafra was meant to cover all of the territories formerly known as the Eastern Region of Nigeria, or what today are known as the south-eastern states of Nigeria.) By granting statehood to Lagos (an action that would be the equivalent of granting statehood to Abuja), Gowon’s federal military government laid the foundation for and played into the hands of the kind of claim of exclusive ethnic ownership of Lagos that the Fani-Kayodes of Nigeria are now asserting—that is, that Lagos belongs exclusively to Yorubaland. If Lagos had been preserved officially as a federal capital territory, instead of being granted statehood, there would have been a stronger political and pragmatic basis for contemporaneously challenging that claim. Unfortunately or fortunately, depending on where you stand on this vexed issue, Lagos is a state of its own. It's in that context that Fani-Kayode apparently disagrees with a point of view that Lagos is "a no man's land." Given that the Nigerian ruling elite of the 1960s made the afore-mentioned political mistake of conferring statehood on a territory built up, by and large, with both federation's resources and collective, across-the-board contributions and investments of ordinary Nigerians, including Yorubas—in much the same fashion as present-day Abuja--Fani Kayode and other Nigerians who reason like him, were handed a basis for stretching that political mistake to mean that Lagos is now exclusively owned by Yorubas, and, therefore, fellow Nigerian Lagosians, who happen to be non-Yoruba, are merely temporary guests.

Be that as it may, Nigeria is indeed a country of profound contradictions—contradictions that keep her from realizing her full potentials. So, while Nigerians, in general, view their states as “states of origin” and remain psychically attached to their given ethnic groups, the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria does not label or categorize any state as belonging to any ethnic group. Whether we like it or not, the idea of "nativity" or indigenousness is deep-seated in the Nigerian ethno-cultural ethos, and clearly, it transcends both statehood and nationhood. Each of us, don’t we, believes that we are a native or indigene of this or that town/village in Nigeria. In that case, we always distinguish "indibeanyi" (that is, natives/indigenes) from "indibialabia" (that is, residents or persons who came from elsewhere) no matter how long such residents have lived in our midst.  Though culturally in vogue and deeply-rooted in the consciousness of Nigerians, there is no provision for an Igboland, a Yorubaland, an Hausaland, an Ijawland, or a Nupeland in the currently-operative 1999 Constitution of the federal republic of Nigeria. What that constitution says in chapter 1, part I (2) is that “Nigeria shall be a Federation consisting of States and a Federal Capital Territory.” Sub-section 3 (1) of that chapter then provides that “there shall be 36 states in Nigeria, that is to say, Abia, Adamawa, Akwa Ibom, Anambra, Bauchi, Bayelsa, Benue, Borno, Cross River, Delta, Ebonyi, Edo, Ekiti, Enugu, Gombe, Imo, Jigawa, Kaduna, Kano, Katsina, Kebbi, Kogi, Kwara, Lagos, Nasarawa, Niger, Ogun, Ondo, Osun, Oyo, Plateau, Rivers, Sokoto, Taraba, Yobe and Zamfara.”

It is also instructive that under the Nigerian constitution (part IV, section 318 (1)), the term, “government” is interpreted as “the Government of the Federation, or of any state, or of a local government council or any person who exercises power of authority on its behalf.” Thus, there are three categories of “government” in Nigeria: the federal government, the state government and the local government. The constitution spells out a list of matters that are under the exclusive legislative authority of the federal government and also matters that are shared by both the federal and state governments, known as a concurrent list.  The “functions” of local governments are spelt out.

As this discussion unfolds, It is important that the reader keeps in mind the preceding definition of “government” under the Nigerian constitution because it will help us to put in its proper context the functions that are vested in that entity, be it at the federal, state or local level of “government.” The constitution (chapter II, section 13 (2b) declares that “the security and welfare of the people shall be the primary purpose of government.” As one of 36 state manifestations of “government,” each state administration, constitutionally, is therefore responsible for “the security and welfare of the people” that are located within its territory. Notice that the constitution refers to the security and welfare of “people,” not just of “indigenes” of a state, as responsibilities of government.  A state is merely a component administrative expression of “government.” So is a local government.

It is also important for the reader to note that chapter II of the Nigerian constitution, otherwise known as “Fundamental Objectives and Directive Principles of State Policy” provides that “the composition of the Government of a State, a local government council, or any of the agencies of such Government or council, and the conduct of the affairs of the Government or council or such agencies shall be carried out in such manner as to recognize the diversity of the people within its area of authority and the need to promote a sense of belonging and loyalty among all the people of the Federation.”

It is also of importance to recall that chapter II, section 17 (1) provides that “the State social order is founded on ideals of Freedom, Equality and Justice,” and sub-section (2b) complements it by adding that that “every citizen shall have equality of rights, obligations and opportunities before the law.” Along those same lines, sub-section 18 (1) provides that “Government shall direct its policy towards ensuring that there are equal and adequate educational opportunities at all levels.” Thus, as I have argued in a previous write-up, Nigeria’s state governments’ explicit or implicit practice of using  “state indigenousness” as a criterion for admission to state higher institutions of learning is an unconstitutional act that abridges the right of all Nigerians to “equal and adequate educational opportunities at all levels.” 

In addition to the afore-mentioned directive principles of state, Nigeria’s constitution contains a set of fundamental rights for Nigeria’s citizens. Here is a sample. Section 42 (1) stipulates that “a citizen of Nigeria of a particular community, ethnic group, place of origin, sex, religion or political opinion shall not, by reason only that he is such a person:-

(a) be subjected either expressly by, or in the practical application of, any law in force in Nigeria or any executive or administrative action of the government, to disabilities or restrictions to which citizens of Nigeria of other communities, ethnic groups, places of origin, sex, religions or political opinions are not made subject; or

(b) be accorded either expressly by, or in the practical application of, any law in force in Nigeria or any such executive or administrative action, any privilege or advantage that is not accorded to citizens of Nigeria of other communities, ethnic groups, places of origin, sex, religions or political opinions.

(2) No citizen of Nigeria shall be subjected to any disability or deprivation merely by reason of the circumstances of his birth.

It is also of notable importance to call attention to the fact that section 43 of Nigeria’s constitution provides that “subject to the provisions of this Constitution, every citizen of Nigeria shall have the right to acquire and own immovable property anywhere in Nigeria." 

Earlier on, I noted that every government within Nigeria is responsible for the security and welfare of the people within its area of jurisdiction. I also noted that “people” does not mean only natives or indigenes of the affected area. Juxtaposed with that constitutional imperative is the fact that the formula for disbursing federal revenue to the states and local governments includes "population." The population in question covers all of the persons/people who are domiciled in a given state or local government area. So, it's hypocritical for a state to circumvent the constitution by engaging in statism—that is, the act or practice of focusing state resources on state natives or state indigenes--after collecting money from the federation’s account partly on the basis of the official population of human beings within its borders. In real terms, isn’t statism, what predominates in Nigeria?  Isn’t statism—as opposed to constitutional federalism—the basis upon which Governor Fashola had his state agents round up and “deport” 14 or 70 persons, described as Igbos, to Anambra state? Is statism not the basis upon which Abia state government, not long ago, expelled fellow Igbos, who are not state indigenes, from his state’s public employment? Those of us who experienced the Nigerian civil war, even as teens, would have thought it impossible or unimaginable that a future Igbo leader would, someday arise, who would achieve a notoriety in history for dismissing fellow Igbos from his state civil service on account of the fact that such expelled Igbos belong to a different administrative unit called a state. What about some states’ practice of extending “contact-only” appointments to non-state indigenes? Are such non-state indigenes not, thereby, being treated as second-class citizens in their own country?

As America's President Abraham Lincoln once famously warned while condemning a dual labor system that prevailed in the United States during the era of slavery (wage labor in the North and slave labor in the South, prior to the 1865 termination of 250 years of African enslavement in the United States as a result of the North's victory in the civil war of 1861-1865), a country divided onto itself cannot endure. For how long will Nigeria continue along the deceitful path of full citizenship here and half-citizenship there--within the same country--for her own citizens?

It’s clear that due to statism, Nigerians are consigned to a life in which they are full citizens only in their “states of origin” but they are defacto second-class citizens in other states of Nigeria where they may reside. This will continue to be a source of tension, ethnic antagonism, tribalism and alienation from the nation-state of Nigeria. It’s clear from the preceding passages that Nigeria’s constitution does not provide for any form of diluted citizenship for any Nigerian anywhere within Nigeria, but the prevailing political culture promotes second class citizenship for non-state indigenes. The term, deportation, is usually applied to expulsions of unwanted individuals from one country to another. The subjection of fellow nationals to “deportation” from one part of a country to another is not an action that’s in conformity with both the spirit and letter of the Nigerian constitution. As a centrifugal form of behavior, it undermines both national cohesion and national camaraderie.

I must not close without mentioning that given his past exulted role as a federal minister, Femi Fani Kayode should be expected to rise above petty ethnic squabbles and to see and conduct himself as part of a national elite that would help uphold and valorize the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, promote national unity, and foster a sense of belonging among the linguistically and religiously-diverse people of Nigeria.

I rest my case.

On balance, Africa is doing a lot better

On balance, Africa is doing a lot better than what the layman believes or commonplace imagination would suggest—particularly within the external world. External perceptions and images of Africa have tended to be dominated by doomsday scenarios, disease epidemia, endless turmoil, mass sexual orgies, and a sense of a general human incapacity that inevitably calls for Western “benevolent” intervention.  Day in, day out, television screens are punctuated with pity-evoking backdrop images of starving and anemic children clutching at the feet of a humanitarian org spokesperson with a microphone in hand, beckoning the world for succor for the needy kids. These are all parts of a “save Africa” syndrome that has become almost an industry of its own, particularly in the Western part of the world. 

Recently, I encountered a real life example of this “save Africa” phenomenon or racket when I went to a local grocery store to buy some food stuff. A young white man (a self-described college student) was standing outside of the store, holding out “a help Africa” sign post in his hands. He was beckoning for donations from incoming shoppers towards a fund which he said he was raising for a trip to an African country where he intended to render some sort of medical help to the down-trodden Africans down there. As I was about to enter the store, I stopped, accepted a brochure from him containing information about his proclaimed charity-mission. It’s probably intriguing to recall that this incident occurred on a fairly cold day—certainly cold enough to cause any human being to want to take refuge inside the comfort of a heated domain. Instead, this guy was outside exposing himself to cold—all for the good of Africa! I must confess that more than anything else, this guy’s defiance of this chilly outside temperature helped to draw me close to him. As I stood looking at him and also glancing quickly through the brochure that he handed to me, I felt strongly like reaching into my wallet for some cash to drop into his donation basket. Silently, I asked myself if I could do what this student was out there doing. I asked if I could brave the cold weather and put my health at risk, as this guy was doing, for the sake of mother Africa. I can’t recall that I found immediate answers to those questions. In any case, I made a decision to contribute to his mission, but unfortunately, there was no cash in my wallet.  I went inside and did my shopping, thanks to the plastic currency. Till this day, however, this incident has not evaporated from my mind. It has continued to provoke additional questions in my mind, one of which is: “Is Africa such a pitiable image in the uninitiated Western mind that a young man can place his health at risk in order to solicit donations from the public for a fund that would enable him to embark upon a rescue voyage to the continent?”

While the average African country is one that manifests class stratification like other contemporary societies of the world—that is, it has upper income, middle income and lower-income classes--there is no question that Africa, as a whole, has a disproportionate share of the downtrodden population of the universe. However, there is also no question that across Africa, governments and non-governmental entities, including external and internal organizations and individuals, have had and have continued to develop various types of public and private sector poverty-alleviating programs and initiatives. 

Whatever may be the case, the idea of a static, hapless and insolvent Africa appears to constitute a perverse and permanent fixture in the Western psyche. By and large, the 54 countries of Africa manifest varying degrees of social development, not unlike other parts of the world.  In sum, I would characterize these nations as struggling societies. Nations of the world are like human families which come in various sizes and reflect various levels of socioeconomic capacities. Some are poor, some are rich, some are super-rich, etc.  It may come as a surprise to some people though that in 2010, out of the 15 fastest growing economies of the world, 10 were African--according to the 2012 edition of the "Economic Report on Africa," annually published by the United Nations' Economic Commission for Africa (ECA). During a recent six-year period, 2002-2008, Africa’s gross domestic product (GDP) recorded an average growth of 5.6%, and this performance made the continent the second fastest in economic growth—second to Asia.

In the opinion of close and expert watchers of African affairs, Africa is currently going through a period of renewal marked by the establishment and institutionalization of political and economic reforms.  With exceptions like the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Mali, and to some extent Somalia, there has been a substantial decrease in armed conflicts on the continent, and consequently, on balance, the continent is experiencing an era of expanded peace, social stability and tranquility—vital pre-requisites for planning and implementation of a social development agenda.

It must not be forgotten that African countries operate in the context of a global geopolitical and economic system, which was set up and which still operates, to predominantly benefit the metro pole.  Apart from the constricting nature of that hegemonic global system, the legacies of colonial re-orientation of the psyche of African societies are still with us. The imperial worldview that was imposed through the colonial educational system, the colonial religious system, the colonial legal system, etc. is still with us. The continuing impact of that worldview can be discerned through the lifestyles and preferences of the contemporary African elite. 

I don’t mean to create an impression that the leaders of ex-colonial societies are necessarily powerless in the face of the constrictive twin global geopolitical factors that I identified in the foregoing passages, namely an imperial worldview that still holds sway over the psyche of the previously-colonized and a global economic system that is biased in favor of the metro pole. Those leaders can mitigate the unfavorable dimensions of the afore-mentioned global economic system through Southern hemispheric initiatives, alliances and coalitions. They can also engineer or lay the ground work for a new educational order within their ex-colonies in order to enthrone an educational system and content that will serve their own societies' needs and suit their own peculiar circumstances. The best system of education is one that is grounded upon the cultural values, socioeconomic, political and technological needs and goals of the society in question. Those leaders can bring bureaucratic corruption under control within their respective borders. Those leaders can mobilize available resources within their respective countries in order to provide safe drinking water for their populations, including the rich and the poor. Those leaders can build an effective police force that can help protect life and property to a humanly possible extent. I recognize though that in most of these places, significant efforts are being made towards attainment of such afore-mentioned goals.

As dependency theorists would argue, it must be said that the deeper an ex-colonial society is drawn into the web of a global economic system that's deliberately constructed to primarily advance the national and material interests of the metro pole, the further that society will contribute towards its own exploitation. For instance, we are all living witnesses to how an original $5 billion that Nigeria borrowed in the 1980s from a group of international creditors, collectively known as the Paris Club, later ballooned into thirty-two billion dollars even though Nigeria had completely paid 16 billion dollars to the club, including the original loan of 5 billion dollars and accruing interests up to a point. But changes in Nigeria’s governing personnel and some disagreements with the creditors meant that the loan stayed alive and continued to accumulate interests and penalties that eventually resulted in Nigeria’s indebtedness to the Paris Club of thirty-two billion dollars. Remember, the original loan from the club members to Nigeria was merely $5 billion! A few years back during the time of Olusegun Obasanjo’s presidency, the exploiters later "benevolently" granted Nigeria a debt relief which resulted in Nigeria paying an additional $12.4 billion to the creditors collectively known as the "Paris Club." Nigeria's leadership settled for this dubious debt relief at a time that international NGOs and even the New York Times were advocating that what Nigeria deserved was an outright debt cancelation. 

Here is another example of an avoidable self-destructive path that some of African leaders have chosen. I call this one a dance of deceit that some African governments have been engaging in regarding a long-established goal of bringing about regional and eventually continental economic integration of Africa. Wise counsel from African intelligentsia advised that in order not to interrupt the momentum of regional economic integration, African governments should avoid counterproductive external bilateral and multilateral economic treaties, such as the European Union-engineered Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) with individual or blocs of African countries. African economic expertise determined that such external economic partnership agreements would undermine the continent's goal of achieving internal regional economic integration. Well, guess what? Some of your African governments have not heeded that warning.

There we go, again!

There we go, again! According to news reports, “The Sultan of Sokoto yesterday urged President Goodluck Jonathan to use the opportunity of his visit to Maiduguri scheduled for tomorrow to grant amnesty to Boko Haram fighters in order to restore peace in the North.” http://allafrica.com/stories/201303060497.html?aa_source=mf-hdlns I am anguished to read that a fellow human being wants amnesty for the cold-blooded hounds who are referred to as Boko Haram—mass murderers who have sent so many innocent souls, including children, to their untimely deaths. 

Evoking the term, "amnesty" is to make a caricature of and suggest an unwarranted moral equivalency between Boko Haram's terrorism and the conduct of Biafran freedom fighters, who fought for about 3 years to try to ward off ground and air military offensives from the federal side during Nigeria's civil war (1967 to 1970). The Biafrans also had to deal with a federal naval food blockade. The war followed a pogrom against the Igbos in northern Nigeria which cost about 30,000 lives. Due to the pogrom, the segment of Nigeria that seceded and proclaimed itself the Republic of Biafra did so because it felt that the security of its members could no longer be guaranteed within the geographical and jurisdictional confines of Nigeria. 

Despite revisionist histories that we have read since the end of the Nigerian-Biafran civil war, it was this general loss of faith in the ability or will of the Nigerian nation to guarantee the safety of Southeasterners in other geographical parts of Nigeria that caused Igbos, in particular, to demand--through mass demonstrations--that their political leaders should proclaim a separate nation that came to be known as the Republic of Biafra. Contrary to revisionist histories, the late General Odumegwu Ojukwu succumbed to that demand. He did not necessarily spear-head that mass movement for secession; he bowed to it! Such was the tension and mass fury within Igboland (over the dastardly slaughter of their kith and kin in the North) in those days that any person who publicly opposed what became a grassroots yearning for secession from Nigeria would most probably have been publicly lynched!!!

The ensuing war waged by the federal side to crush what was called the Biafran rebellion was really meant to secure oil interests that are situated within the southeast. “Keeping Nigeria one” was a slogan used to mask this federal lust for oil. About one million lives, mostly those of Igbos, were lost as a result of the war. A sizeable proportion of the deaths occurred due to starvation and kwashiorkor caused by the federal food blockade.

When the Biafrans surrendered in 1970, the then Nigerian Head of State, General Yakubu Gowon announced a general amnesty for the former Biafrans with his "no victor, no vanquished" proclamation. That was the sensible and pragmatic thing to do! Without that proclamation, and had the federal government pursued a policy of vengeance and reprisal against the former Biafrans, the Nigerian nation most probably would have wasted vital national time waging what most surely would have turned into an endless guerrilla warfare. Secondly, a reprisal policy would not have earned the victorious federal side accolades from the international community. So, Gowon acted wisely and humanely by proclaiming that general amnesty—an amnesty that perhaps tacitly acknowledged the wrongs that the Nigerian nation had done to the Igbos by not protecting them from the fangs of raging and wild mass murderers during the bloody pogrom. The story of the military coups and counter-coups of the 1960s that transpired during this infamous and ugly time in Nigerian history is all too well known. Civilization demands that the individuals who are responsible for specific crimes or specific political killings are the ones to be held accountable. It’s a mark of barbarism for one group of people to begin to slaughter another group because someone or a set of persons from the targeted group are believed to be responsible for political killings that happened during a military coup. It has always been my opinion that shedding blood need not be a necessary step for actualizing a military coup. Furthermore, it’s also my opinion that military coups must not be seen or accepted as an appropriate means of securing political power. Sovereignty belongs to the people, period! Well, pardon me for that little digression. 

Now, in getting back to the main subject of this blog, I dare say that it’s obvious that Boko Haram did not experience any pogrom; Boko Haram was not forced to flee from one part of Nigeria to another in order to escape mass murders of its religious group by any Nigerian side--as happened to the Igbos. Instead, Boko Haram has been carrying out unprovoked massacres of innocent Nigerians who happen to not share its religious preferences and who also happen to have committed a sin of being regarded as indigenous to other parts of Nigeria than the north. It's favorite point of attack is its victims' place of worship. So, what in God's name, qualifies these blood-thirsty, hate-filled hounds for amnesty? If that happens, the International Criminal Court should step in! Does appeasement quell terrorism? The late President Ronald Reagan once talked about his doctrine of “peace through strength.” I think his doctrine makes a lot of sense in a world in which the weak is invariably vulnerable and is more often than not trampled upon by those who believe that they can do so and get away with it! I fear that rewarding terrorists with amnesty may serve as a tempting invitation to others to follow their example because in the final analysis, the powers-that-be would “amnesticize" them, and thus, absolve them of responsibility for their deliberate bloody acts of inhumanity against fellow men and women.

Dreams of the people versus realities of governance

It’s often thought-provoking to read seemingly never-ending news stories and lamentations emanating from a cross section of societies of the world--particularly nations that fall under the umbrella of a group commonly referred to as “developing countries"--that tend to reflect a recurrent theme, namely a bemoaning of what’s usually described as a failure of governance.  As a form of governance through elected representatives of the people, democracy has a tendency to overly raise grassroots expectations about improvements in their standards of living. As they canvass for their people’s mandate, political office seekers make a plethora of promises of a better life for the populace. More often than not, such promises are made and trumpeted before the political office seekers have had a chance to familiarize themselves with the budgetary realities of the entity or society that they aspire to govern. The end result, all too often, both in the developing and developed countries of the world, is a gap between the dreams of the people and actual results of governance. This gap may trigger disillusionment.

South Africa is case in point. After a protracted struggle which cost many a South African life—a struggle that received ceaseless aid from the global community, with exceptions here and there--the oppressive apartheid regime led by the white minority segment of the South African population, gave way to a long-sought majority rule in 1994. Nelson Mandela emerged from 27 years of political incarceration to become the first black president of a new South Africa that was based on a new constitution that promised a multiracial democracy. Apartheid rule had created a skyscraper economy which yielded disproportionate benefits to the white minority. Under the social and legal norms of apartheid, a white person was paid more for the same job—just for being white. Under apartheid, Africans , who constitute the majority, were limited to their so-called homelands (roughly 13% of the land), whereas the white minority arrogated 87% of the land to themselves.

A commonly-held opinion among close watchers of  South African affairs was that the demise of apartheid effectively meant a transfer of political power to the majority, while economic power still rested and still largely rests  with the white minority.  Based on a coalition that consisted of blacks (in the anti-apartheid political lexicon of South Africa,  the term “blacks” refers to  Africans, Indians/Asians and the colored community) and a handful of sympathetic whites, the African National Congress (ANC) inherited  political power in 1994 after many years of crusading against apartheid rule.

Trying, as it has over the years of post-apartheid governance to establish an egalitarian political economy, has not been an easy task for the ruling African National Congress (ANC). This is not to imply that anyone expected that it would take a short amount of time for any government to dismantle and re-structure the skyscraper economy that was created by apartheid rule.

True enough, South Africa has been conducting its political affairs fairly admirably throughout the post-apartheid era--as demonstrated by its continued conduct of successful free and fair elections as well as peaceful political transfers of power from one elected national government to another. Also affectionately called a rainbow democracy, South Africa is a multi-lingual country that recognizes six constituent languages  as official media of communication. They are English, Afrikaans, Sesotho, Setswana, Xhosa and Zulu. The post-apartheid regime has won world-wide admiration for its demonstrated spirit of forgiveness and reconciliation most aptly symbolized by the public truth and reconciliation proceedings that were conducted in that nation in the early years following the end of apartheid rule.

What seems to have eluded the post-apartheid government is its goal of bringing about an egalitarian political economy. Economic transformation has not apparently occurred at a rate that could lift every boat in South Africa. No doubt, change does not come about like a windstorm.  Baring a revolution, change, in reality, tends to take a trickle-down, step by step trajectory that cannot reach every nuke and corner of society at the same pace. Even revolutions themselves never bring smiles to the faces of all members of a polity. Human imperfection being what it's, no known system of governing populations of human beings makes everyone happy. No known system has completely eradicated poverty from its territorial space.

Thus, when news arrived yesterday that a South African political activist, Mamphela Ramphele announced that she has created a new political party in order to rest political power from the ruling ANC, she predicated it upon that theme that we hear so often from the developing world: "Our society's greatness is being fundamentally undermined by a massive failure of governance." As a political activist, it can be said that Ramphele emerged from the shadows of the late Steve Biko of the famous black consciousness movement that played a vital part in re-kindling the fire of anti-apartheid struggles during the last quarter of the 20^thcentury. As a news report put it, Ramphele “was politically and romantically involved with the late Steve Biko” with whom she had two children.   

In announcing her formation  of a new political party (known as Agang), (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/feb/18/mamphela-ramphele-challenge-ancs), she promised to utilize it as a platform for reviving “… the South Africa of our dreams.” Agang, she was reported as saying, would field candidates for South African national elections next year.

While her aspiration sounds good, one wonders whether nineteen years (that is, the time period between the advent of majority rule in South Africa in 1994 and now) is a sufficient time-span for re-structuring apartheid’s skyscraper political economy. While it may be true, as she put it, that  "... the country of our dreams is yet to become a reality in the lives of ordinary people,"‏ a key question though is: what’s Ramphele’s Agang party going to do differently from how ANC has governed South Africa? What’s Agang going to do about the land question?

With a population of 50.5 million, South Africa has a per capital income of $6,960 and a life expectancy of 53 years for men and 54 years for women. To put these figures in some perspective, Nigeria, which like South Africa, is viewed as a major economic powerhouse in Africa, has a life expectancy of 52 years for men and 53 years for women. Nigeria’s per capita income of $1,200 pales in comparison with South Africa’s. One major difference between the profiles of both countries is the fact that Nigeria has a much larger population of 162.4 million.

Based on data related to life expectancy, educational attainment and income, the human development index (HDI) is a measure introduced by the United Nations for ascertaining the prevailing standard of living in a given country. It assigns scores to individual countries, based on how each one performed on this index. The scores are assigned in an asymmetrical fashion so that the higher a country’s standard of living, the lower its score on the human development index. Thus, on the current HDI index, Norway is represented as having the highest standard of living in the world with an assigned score of 1. The United States has a score of 4. South Africa and Nigeria have scores of 123 and 156, respectively. The highest score of 187 goes to the Democratic Republic of the Congo—that is, the country with the lowest standard of living in the world.

Thus, you can see that both South Africa and Nigeria have a long way to go in lifting the prevailing living standards in their countries. These figures perhaps may assist the reader in contextualizing the cries of failure of governance that are awash in both countries.

Not again, NFF!

Barely 48 hours after Nigeria's national hero, coach Stephen Keshi delivered the precious golden trophy of the 2013 Africa Cup of Nations' continent-wide soccer competition, it's disturbing to read conflicting news stories about the future of this heroic coach of the national football squad, the Super Eagles.  In my opinion, he deserves nothing less than a doubling of his annual salary. After all, prior to Keshi's spectacularly successful reign as Nigeria's national coach, the bureaucracy of the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) had, from time to time, engaged in questionable and seemingly opportunistic hiring of national coaches (more often than not, with ultimate results that did little or no perceptible justice to the extravagant costs of such dubious hirings in terms of the subsequent performance of the Super Eagles ) at enormous costs that may outweigh what would emerge as Keshi's new annual salary if his current compensation package is doubled! It was a dubious pattern of hiring on the part of NFF that more often than not left a sour taste in the mouth of Nigeria's public opinion. This pattern of dubious hirings of Nigeria's national coaches became a favorite subject of beer-parlor chatter often featuring speculations about possible foreign exchange deals that might or might not have motivated a particular streak of glutinous appetite in NFF's taste of coaches. 

As a football management entity, the NFF appears to be in a suffocating, unrelenting and unholy grip of a bureaucratic cabal which has a notoriety for meting out indignity to Nigerian coaches, and it's high time that someone put those bureaucrats in their proper place! It's apropos to recall, for instance, the humiliation that ex-national coach, Christian Chukwu suffered at the hands of this bureaucratic cabal that seems to be so well-entrenched that it survives successive federal administrations. I also recall how another ex-national coach, Shaibu Amodu was displaced by this same crop of alleged foreign-estacode sniffing NFF bureaucrats after he succeeded in qualifying the Nigerian national team for the summer 2010 World Cup soccer finals. Applying a questionable logic and a dose of disparaging media propaganda against the coach about his alleged deficiencies in technical expertise, the NFF got rid of the goose that laid the golden egg--that is, the man who performed the feat of qualifying his national squad for participation in the elite world cup finals at a time that many other African nations failed to make it into the list of six African countries that were featured in that global final contest in South Africa.
 
As a global project, the FIFA World Cup involves a weeding out process that eventually reduces the pool of competitors from about 200 to 32. Qualifying matches are played with six continental zones of FIFA, namely Africa, Asia, North and Central America and Caribbean, South America, Oceania and Europe. In 2010, Nigeria was one of six African nations that participated in the world cup finals, including the host nation of South Africa. Usually, Africa is assgined five spots on the 32-member list of countries that participate in the world cup finals, but received a sixth spot that year because the host nation was African--that is, South Africa. Arduous as it is, qualifying one's nation for the small list of final world cup finals' participating nations is in and of itself a great accomplishment for any coach, as well as reflective of demonstrably effective technical know-how on the part of that coach. For coach Amodu, that objective and concrete performance should have served as a sufficient basis for allowing him to carry on and nurture his team of Super Eagles through the world cup finals in South Africa. But the alleged estacode-maniacs within NFF had their sights on some other self-serving objective. Thus, this cabal unceremoniously "dropped" coach Amodu like a used-up empty can, and then hurriedly went for a replacement coach who was reported to have lost a job as the coach of his own national team--just a few months before the start of the 2010 world cup final matches in South Africa. Given the short time span left between the onset of this new appointment and the start of the global competition in summer 2010, it was clear to all right-thinking minds that no new coach--even one with an unsurpassed pedigree of successful coaching--would have found that short time span to be sufficient for learning and understanding a new team, let alone building a collection of team members into a cohesive unit.

Let me conclude for now by letting it be known that if I were Nigeria's President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, I would dismiss the Nigeria Football Federation's (NFF) bureaucracy (and rebuild it later on a clean slate) if heroic Coach Keshi is let go or simply annoyed out by possibly foreign-estacode thirsty bureaucrats. And, I would do it the Nigerian way--that is, in Nigeria, there is an administrative tool called dismissal with ignominy. For now, however, one is consoled to learn from emerging news (http://allafrica.com/nigeria/?aa_source=main-nav-t3 ) that whatever irked coach Keshi has been resolved and that he would stay on as the victorious national coach of the Nigerian nation.

The soccer champions of Africa

Cheers! Cheers!! Cheers!!! Yes, the Super Eagles of Nigeria made all Nigerians proud today by winning the final match of the 2013 African Cup of Nations soccer competition between Nigeria and Burkina Faso! This final game, which ended 1-0 in favor of Nigeria, was played in South Africa. The Super Eagles are now the champions of the continent-wide African Cup of Nations competition! Bravo to National Coach, Stephen Keshi! He is now the king of African football coaching! He has now effectively enthroned his own winning formula for African soccer. It's a new day for the Keshi doctrine of soccer management. Videos of his triumphs will now become a must-see in coaching circles around the world! He has refurbished and redeemed the image of the club of Nigerian coaches. The winning goal by golden boy Sunday Mba, which came in the first half, was of world class standard. May his reign never end! Yes, at least on this score, we can say with pride that Nigeria earned its nickname as the giant of Africa. 

This victory goes beyond soccer in terms of its symbolic implications for the national psyche of the Nigerian nation which has taken quite a beating from a succession of negative news stories and disfiguring images in recent weeks. The nation needed a morale lift! The Super Eagles delivered one today in a resounding manner! 

As happens from time to time, including Nigeria's other glorious moments in international soccer, such as its dual Olympic soccer championships in recent decades, today's victory is reflective of Nigeria's potentials for victory in several other areas of national life--when it can get its act together. That is, when a Nigerian national project is managed effectively, more often than not, it's brought to a successful conclusion. So, the Nigerian nation can win in other areas as well--be it national, state and local politics, national economic affairs, etc., provided that it deploys an effective management. State and local governments can win--when managed effectively! Pipe borne water can flow when managed effectively! The institutions of learning can perform wonders when managed effectively. Instead of being in a permanent state of comatose, the electrical supply system can meet its consumers' expectations when managed effectively! Trash collection will become a routine success when managed effectively! The list is endless. All that this young nation needs to do is to figure out a way manage its affairs effectively, and the masses of Nigeria will begin to harvest the fruits of democracy! In all other areas of its national life, it surely has the potential to do better than it's doing now. More on this later!

Kudos to law enforcement

This morning, as I was preparing for another day of work, I was delighted to receive breaking news that law-enforcement succeeded in rescuing a 5-year old boy who had been taken hostage by an armed man in Midland city, Alabama. As news reports had it, about a week ago, the armed man stormed a public bus with school kids on board, killed the brave and selfless driver who attempted to protect his young passengers, removed the boy from the bus and retreated with the hapless child into what was described as a bunker. Happening, as it did, at a time that the country--nay the world--was still traumatized by the December 14, 2012 massacres of 20 children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in the village of Sandy Hook in Newtown, Connecticut, this armed kidnapping and murder in Alabama state were just like adding salt to injury.  I monitored news stories about the hostage situation.

When law-enforcement performs a good job, such as this successful liberation of the kidnapped child in Midland city, Alabama, the public should be just as generous with expressions of gratitude as it does with expressions of condemnation when the reverse is the case. Some would argue that “Oh yah, they were doing their job!” No doubt, the officers who took part in the delicate and dangerous operation that liberated the little boy were doing their job. But doing one’s job could lead to an undesirable outcome even though we all look forward to a positive and happy outcome.

When a child is placed in danger or threatened anywhere, all of us--as members of a common human family—should empathize with the victim and feel that we have been collectively endangered or threatened, for children are not just precious gifts and means by which society reproduces and guarantees a future for itself, they are that dimension of the human entity that represents the divine stage of human development and maturation.  Some may call it the priceless and transient stage of innocence in human life. In children, we see those unadulterated and divine stages of human metamorphosis that occur before society and its cultural value system eventually transform us into the adult stage of the human lifespan. 

This adult stage is characterized by a mixture of challenges, glories/successes, failures, disappointments, and temptations. It’s during this adult stage that human beings swing and dangle along the pendulum that separates good from evil. A huge irony of human life is that today's mass murderer or monster, such as the perpetrator of the Sandy Hook massacre, was once a child. It would appear that in general, the balance between the divine and the human aspects of the human entity tilts towards the latter as the adult stage sets-in though we do have the will power to make the kinds of choices--subject to the laws and mores of our societies--that can weaken or strengthen our spiritual growth or lack thereof. A journey that started out on a divine note for everyone veers off towards different paths as adult maturation occurs. Some become wolves in human clothing; yet, some become shepherds or even the shepherd of shepherds. Such are the variegated trajectories of human social development!

Let’s not forget though that the good news from Alabama comes against the backdrop of the bloodletting that’s sweeping the city of Chicago where gun violence claimed 506 lives in 2012, a figure said to represent an increase of 17 percent over that of the previous year.  According to a news report (http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/02/03/16825317-chicago-marchers-ask-obama-for-help-over-gun-violence?lite), this New Year alone, the city has witnessed 42 killings and 157 shootings. Chicago is of course not alone in this experience of urban gun violence. Something needs to be done to curb this violence! Fed’s efforts, such as Obama’s new gun control initiative, are encouraging, but local and state containment plans and actions must be stepped up.