Centenary of Misrule: Living the Legacy By Abimbola Lagunju

There is a Yoruba proverb that says if the wrapping leaves of a piece of soap are left for too long on the soap, the leaves turn into soap. A very apt proverb for the Nigerian existential experience in the un-abating atmosphere of misgovernance that has dogged this country since 1914. But for a few gruntlers, who, as soon as they shout foul are silenced with a Russian salad of plum appointments and loads of cash in all possible colours, we, the masses have learnt to accept failure of governance as a norm. Our norm. Misgovernance permeates every aspect of the Nigerian life. Homes, communities, schools, hospitals, government and religious ministries, banks, companies local and foreign, embassies etc. all revel and thrive in the most atavistic human instinct of survival of the fittest. No rules, even in the era of rule of law. For Nigeria, it has always been law of Rulers. The masses, who take hard knocks from the wooden rulers in the misguided hands of our Rulers, only have themselves to blame for their coconut heads. In short we are and have always been victims of social Darwinism. Social Darwinists (Herbert Spencer, Andrew Carnegie, William Graham Sumner), and their theory (now of blessed extinction on saner shores) argued that social existence was a struggle among individuals with different capacities and traits. The better the traits the more the chances for success and wealth; and those with less capacity and weaker traits became poor. Graham Sumner pushed it further by claiming that “it is not the function of the State to make men happy”. This odious social theory has been consigned to the dustbin of history and replaced with saner social policy by many countries of the world. Nigeria is not on the list of these countries. In fact it appears that Nigeria has decidedly embarked on a continuous exercise of reinvention and re-engineering of social Darwinism.

Ninety-five years (since Lugard) of misrule in different shades of colour, modes of dresses, ideologies, religions and constitutions is a very long time. Our Rulers have faithfully kept the banner of misrule flying. The legacy of misrule is being passed on from generation to generation of Rulers, each adding a new standard to surpass his predecessor. And the once virgin leaves of the masses are turning into this perfidious soap. We have no reference in our history for good governance. Scratch the veneer off our celebrated heroes and see what lies underneath. And because we know this, and cannot do anything about it, we are unconsciously metamorphosing from our state of submission into a copycat state. We copy misrule. We thrive in misrule. We worship misrule. We practice misrule in our homes, neighbourhoods, places of work, in the streets, places of worship and indeed everywhere. We have learnt to become vicious miniature Rulers; practitioners of social Darwinism. Everyone oppresses anyone oppress-able. The gateman of a company in his cubicle rules without the rule of law, policemen with one or two stripes rule the streets, cashiers rule the banks, secretaries reign supreme in the outer office, and messengers are kings who disappear files at will. These small Rulers will in turn be ruled and oppressed by their immediate bosses, who will then be oppressed by their bosses and the chain of oppression moves up the ladder. Haven’t you ever seen a special adviser to a governor or a councilor behaving like a mini-god? You think I am generalizing? Let him without sin cast the first stone. Think hard before you pick the stone though.

Nigerians have learnt to revere the legacy of misrule in all spheres of our life. We do not question the sanity of what has been handed over to us. Indeed we flaunt our deep knowledge of the legacy in courts, in the streets and even in distant lands. See the way our Traditional Rulers wrestle with each other in courts either over small border disputes or who should wear a beaded crown and who should not among them. And what documents of reference do our learned lawyers use to prove their points in these strictly traditional cases in courts? Documents handed over by the colonialists who misruled us and who twisted our logical order of reasoning. And our hallowed judges go on to rule on the basis of these same documents. No questions as to the sanity of who wrote the document in the first instance, neither are questions asked about the motives of the colonial administrator who wrote the document and worse still is that our over-learned compatriots do not even bother to ask themselves the relevance of these documents to our condition and existence. Suffice that it has been written by a warped colonial mind, it becomes sacrosanct in the hands of our learned citizens.

We cherish documents, good or bad. We worship any document written in the guise of a policy by anyone (with superior traits) who manages to get to sit on the throne of our nation. It does not matter if the ‘policy document’ out-rightly denies us of all rights; it is sacred if it is written. We are dead scared to think of making changes that will save our lives and enhance the quality of our existence. We are even more scared to throw out the document along with its author into the dustbin of best forgotten history of our nation and come up with something else. Nigerians live this fear in the macro and microcosms of our daily existence. At the national level, we are scared of touching the military 1999 constitution. We cannot amend it, we cannot change it and thinking of throwing it away altogether is a nightmare scenario. At the state level, we brandish about with pride despicable edicts of military governors and administrators some of whose names we have even forgotten.

“It is not the function of the State to make men happy”! If people want to be happy, they must do something about it individually or collectively, but they must not expect anything from our nation state. The State represented by the Rulers abdicates its responsibility and declares itself to be on a long, probably permanent vacation. Nigerians have learnt to live this, but it beats all sense of decency when this State on vacation imposes the responsibility which it has abdicated on the citizens through an edict. The State asks the citizens to carry out its obligation while it is away on holidays! One Mr. Chinyere Ike Nwosu, a one-time Military Ruler of Oyo State made an edict in December 1995 called “Mobilization of Community Development Committees Amendment Edict” through which he ordered the citizens of Oyo State to “contribute financially for the sustenance of vigilante groups and execution of projects embarked upon by the Community Development Committees to safeguard security of their neighbourhoods”! In a most outrageous display of ignorance of the responsibility and functions of a State, this Ruler went on to impose sanctions against non complying landlords and tenants: “A landlord or tenant who unreasonably refuses or fails or neglects to pay an amount fixed by his ward as his contribution for the sustenance of the vigilante group or for the execution of a particular project to safeguard security of his ward shall be guilty of an offence and shall be liable to a fine of 200 Naira for the first offence and a fine of 400 Naira or a term of imprisonment of two months for a subsequent offence….” This document, written in the twentieth century conjures up in one’s mind a pre-historic state of nature where there is no structure, no state, no police and where small group of individuals with clubs in hands come together for their collective security. The document was rightly sent to the dustbin of aberration and forgotten when the Ruler left.

About fourteen years later, a group of well-meaning landlords somewhere in Oyo State exhumed the Edict and circulated it in their neighbourhood. They will like defaulting landlords to pay up their dues, and having run out of ideas to get these recalcitrant landlords to take up the responsibility given to them by the holidaying State, they resurrected the Edict. The soap of misrule has permeated the virgin leaves of our psyche. I am sure these bright landlords can do better than wavering about a despicable testament of misgovernance and ignorance of the role of a modern State.

As we all prepare for the centenary (1914-2014) of misrule in our nation, I will like to remind our different rulers, small and big, that there is another African proverb that says no matter how long a log of wood stays in water, it will never turn into a crocodile.

I am Not who I am By Abimbola Lagunju

I remember the hesitation,
my yet unanswered question,
“To be or not to be”, and on
which side of infant statistics to stand:
Infant mortality or Child survival.
An undecided lone voter,
curious, but afraid of their world,
their calendar of
Six hundred and sixty six days crammed into a year.

Someone decided for me,
I heard shots, hormonal shots from
glandular guns assisted by syringe-propelled grenades,
Boom…..boom,
I scampered for safety;
A rough hand, un- tempered by latex gloves
pulled on my head, hard.
They said to cross the bridge before the dam broke
and save me from myself....

Taken into cephalic bondage,
I take anything, I agree to everything.
When I ask questions, minor questions,
I am silenced with a cocktail of glucose,
to hyper the minority hypo, they say.

Fed on stabiliser E334, emulsifier B654,
low fat, cholesterol-poor, sugar-free, carbohydrate-starved,
CFC-safe, low-tar, high-fibre, caffeine free, nicotine high,
electron-free, atom-rich, tall and short molecules’ diet,
I AM
a walking multinational (quoted on the stock exchange), where
oxidizing agents work for reducing companies.
I AM the malleable concrete
of wired organics stranded on inorganic DNAs
conditioned to conform,
bribed with genetically modified dreams.

Will God recognize His creature,
this new me, reinvented by competition,
pushed to the edge by profit margins, and
driven out of Eden by market forces ?

I AM certainly not who I AM.

Books by Abimbola Lagunju

Books by Abimbola Lagunju
Cyclones of the Human Heart
The Shadow of Rainbow
The Children of Signatures
The African in the Mirror
The Days of Illusions
In the Embrace of Fear
Fouta Celebrates Life
The Pelting March of the Storm
Verses from Under the Sands
Gombii and Other Short stories
On the African Bus


Cyclones of the Human Heart
Abimbola Lagunju, drawing upon timeless African memories, has provided us with a poetry of images, a notebook of observations and a portfolio of perceptive musings.
We are swept along upon a mystery tour of his imagination, stopping only to consider grand themes, simple human tableaux and personal revelations...Whether we are seracing through the macrocosm or investigating the microcosm, we find that he has been there before us......This is afine collection of poems that covers the full range of human experience from love and awe, to injutice and betrayal......


The Shadow of Rainbow
The Shadow of Rainbow is a collection of poems inspired by the author’s view of current day Africa and its place in the world today vis-à-vis the developed world.
The collection covers diverse topics, including African politics, relationships between states, love, friendship and war. It is a glimpse of the world seen from the point of view of an African passionate about inspiring the creation by Africans of a more just future for Africa......


The Children of Signatures
The Children of Signatures embodies mixed feelings of love and disappointment. While it expresses profound love for Africa, it also portrays the problems facing the continent as self-induced. With flashback into history, it draws parallels with the present state of the continent and challenges Africa to view its problems from a moral mirror. Simple in language, rich in depth and imagery, the collection also touches on other aspects of life..........


The African in the Mirror
The African in the Mirror takes us through the predicament of Black Africa from slavery times till the present day. It seeks to establish the cause of vulnerability of the African in his relationship with the outside world and his historical predisposition to self-inflicted catastrophes. The book analyses different diagnoses and solutions that have been proffered to African economic and political problems and proves the futility of these solutions. It propounds the theory of societal relational energy dynamics and seeks to explain the problems that Africa faces through its choice of distribution of this energy.
It challenges black Africa to rise up to its historical responsibility to redeem itself and the black race.


The Days of Illusions
Hillview, a densely populated and poor working class neighbourhood is the melting pot for all those who dream to make it to the Plateau, the plush city centre, a seemingly unrelated appendage to the squalor in the country. It is also a rallying point for those who had made it to the Plateau and rolled down its very steep sides. Disillusioned by the persistent failure of politicians to deliver on many pre-election promises and crushed under the weight of economic hardships, Hillview inhabitants conclude that they are on the brink of imminent extinction. Under the guidance of the local barman, the Association for the Prevention of Extinction (APE) intended to secure funds from the IMF and the WWF is conceived. The struggle to occupy important posts in the APE leads to an early break up of the association into three factions.

Akinola Igwe, an easy going, honest and law-abiding inhabitant of Hillview and a reluctant leader of one of the factions of APE soon becomes entangled in intrigues, manipulations, and threats…..

Days of Illusions is a satire on contemporary African politics.


In the Embrace of Fear
For centuries, Africa has lived with fear and has, at a great cost adapted itself to its vagaries. The challenges of the modern world have not only made this approach obsolete but very dangerous to the continued survival of Black Africa. Survival can no longer be taken as a given. Africa must struggle for it. This struggle entails concerted efforts to move away from basic existence to sustainable quality of life. Africa must rise up to this challenge. The cost of ineptitude in the face of fear is dispersion and extinction.

In the Embrace of Fear seeks to demystify Black African manacling fear through a frank non-narcissistic self-examination.


Fouta Celebrates Life
In the pursuit of the Right to Life, both the government and the governed have obligations. The government has the irreducible minimum obligations to provide high quality, easily accessible, sufficient and efficient social goods and services to the public; and to inform the public, not only of the existence of these services, but also of their inalienable rights to them. The public, on the other hand, has the obligation to demand free-from market forces life-enhancing social goods and services. If any of the two parties is deficient in their obligations, life, from conception through old age loses its sacredness and exists only as a commodity in the hands of market forces.

Despite all the odds, Fouta courageously celebrates life in style….


The Pelting March of the Storm - Published with Okey Nwanyanwu
In the Pelting March of the Storm is a collection of poems about historical and contemporary African existential tragedy. It laments the helplessness of Africans in the face of man-generated and natural calamities, and encourages a renaissance forged on strong identity, self-pride and determined self-driven recovery.


Verses from Under the Sands
Verses from Under the Sands is a collection of poems on the African situation from the colonial times to present dispensation. The poems highlight the relationship lose-win between Sub-Sahara Africa and the outside world and also between Africans themselves.
Many of the poems highlight the failure of the duty bearers at the politico-economic and the traditional guardianship levels towards the suffering masses oppressed by systems and establishments which ought to protect and cater for them. Some poems focus on the hopes and aspirations, the immediate survival reactions and the accepted-as-their-destiny helpless attitude of the downtrodden in the face of the failure of their leaders.


Gombii and Other Short stories
Gombii and Other Short Stories is a collection of sad and funny stories. These are stories of lost traditional values and tragic consequences of misunderstood imported and borrowed systems in rural and urban Africa.

On the African Bus
On the African Bus is a satirical story of the views of Africans riding On the African Bus on their past and their present, their local and foreign leaders, their traditional and imported religions, the savagery of politics in their environment and their different survival strategies. The book portrays in a very comical way, how the international community sees and relates with African leaders.

Will Sub Sahara Africa ever develop? By Abimbola Lagunju

Seminar Delivered by Me at the Department of Political sciences, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Ibadan On 23 April 2008

Will sub-Sahara ever develop? In order to answer this question, we must examine other related questions and find answers to them from ancient and contemporary history. We need to examine the mind and the capability of the African.

- Had the African ever been capable of any development?
- What happened to the African in the course of history that truncated his development capability?
- What has been the African response to these development-blocking factors?
- Can Africa ever recover from these negative influences and develop?

Had the African ever been capable of development?
Let us look into ancient African history, un-influenced by foreigners and much before the arrival of Islam on the African soil in the 8th century: We now know that the much celebrated ancient Kemet civilization, the Meroe, Ethiopian, and the Nubian civilizations were orchestrated by Africans and were pure black African civilizations. Of these civilizations, the most famous still remains the Kemet civilization, which until the works of Cheik Anta Diop was considered and presented by Eurocentrists as a European civilization – the result of an invasion of the “primitive peoples” of the Nile delta by “northern tribes.” From research, in the field of construction, we now know that the famous Giza pyramid was constructed by the black King Khufu, who is also known by the greek name "Cheops," He ruled from 2551 - 2528 B.C.

In the field of medicine, Imhotep, the royal advisor to King Zoser during the Third Dynasty of Kemet is now regarded as the world's first recorded multi-genius; Imhotep was an architect, astronomer, philosopher, poet and physician. As an architect he was responsible for designing the Step Pyramid and the Saqqara Complex. As a physcian, Imhotep is believed to have been the author of the Edwin Smith Papyrus in which more than 90 anatomical terms and 48 injuries are described. This is well over 2,200 years before the Western Father of Medicine Hippocrates was born. Some 2,000 years after his death, Imhotep was deified by the inhabitants of Kemet and was known later as Asclepius, God of Medicine, to the Greeks. As a philosopher and poet, Imhotep's most remembered phrase is: "Eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow we shall die."

On the religious front, facts have also emerged that Akhenaton (1375-1358 B.C), another black Kemet pharaoh, was the first ruler in recorded history to invent, believe and propagate the concept of One God. He and his wife Queen Nefertiti changed Kemet's culture so radically that their influence is felt for centuries right up until today.
On the military front, Greece's Father of History, reported that Greece had once been conquered by a king named Kepre Kare Senwosert I, Twelfth Dynasty King of Kemet (1897BC) known to the Greeks as Kekrops and Sesostris. Greek mythology also indicated that the legendary founder of Athens was an Egyptian named Kekrops. Further, Taharka, the king of Nubia (710-644 BC) probably one of the most famous rulers of Napatan Kush. He is said to have commanded military campaigns in Western Asia as far away as Palestine and led expeditions all the way to Spain. Mention of his great campaigns can be found in the Bible (Isaiah 37:9, 2 Kings 19:9). During his reign, Taharka controlled the largest empire in Ancient Africa. He was able to initiate a building program throughout his empire which was overwhelming in scope. The numbers and majesty of his building projects were legendary, with the greatest being the temple at Gebel Barkal in the Sudan. The temple was carved from the living rock and decorated with images of Taharka over 100 feet high.

These are to prove that before the arrival of foreigners on the African soil in the 8th century, the black African had the knowledge, the ability and the skills to develop on his own soil, in his own way, and indeed, he laid the foundations for today’s development through his influence on ancient Greece.

What happened to the African in the course of history that truncated his development capability?
The contact with the outside world in form of invasion whether for religious reasons or economic reasons truncated the development of Africa by Africans and charted a retrogressive path for the African. In the course of these contacts, which would later result in occupation of the land and the mind, the African was reduced from the originator of ideas to a rabid consumer of other’s ideas. The transatlantic slave trade probably had the most damaging impact on the mind of the African as regards his subsequent loss of confidence in himself. We shall briefly examine the slave trade: The transatlantic slave trade which began in the middle of the 15th century denuded Africa of 15 million and 25 million able-bodied men and women respectively. This calamity did not only truncate the natural development of sub-Sahara Africa (the foundations of which had been laid many centuries before), but also took away the confidence and the dignity of black Africans. The relative ease, with which Africans were deceived, manipulated and run over by marauding slavers laid foundations for future exploitation and manipulation of Sub-Sahara Africa. It also gave rise to supremacist ideology and views of Western scholars, politicians and the clergy who relegated black Africans to the bottom of the human ladder and even sought to exclude them from the human race. Georges Curvier, a French biologist, once wrote, “The African manifestly approaches the monkey tribe. The hordes of which this variety is composed have always remained in a complete state of barbarism…”. America’s Thomas Jefferson also shared this position and said, “...I advance it therefore as a suspicion only that the blacks whether originally a distinct race or made distinct by time and circumstances, are inferior to the whites in the endowments of the mind and body…" Georg Wilhem Hegel in his Philosophy of History, said this of Black Africans: "….their condition is capable of no development of culture, and as we see them at this day, such they have always been..." The Vatican, through Pope Julius II after having declared at the beginning of 16th century (1512) that Indians in South America could be considered the sons and daughters of Adam and thus could not be enslaved, but that Black Africans could be enslaved as they were not of Adam and Eve, recanted in 18th century by advancing the doctrine that indeed, Africans could also be considered as children of Adam and Eve, but that they were the accursed sons of Ham (Genesis 9: 18-27). Africans came and continue to be viewed as objects of history. Any role of Black Africans as agents of history is either actively negated (and backed by “research”) or given a Eurocentric twist when physical facts make induced amnesia impossible. One may want to think that these Eurocentric views have changed over the years (following multiple declarations and charters of human and peoples’ rights), however, like many bad ideas, this negationist ideology has taken firm roots in the Caucasian mind and has, to a large extent contaminated the minds of peoples from other cultures including modern day Black Africans. It has become the basis of policy and decision making in matters that concern Africa. Mr. Nicholas Sarkozy, the French president put the cards on the table for the Africans to see when he declared on 26th July 2007, in a speech in Dakar, Senegal that “The tragedy of Africa is that the African has not fully entered into history. The African peasant, who for thousands of years has lived according to the seasons, whose life ideal was to be in harmony with nature, only knew the eternal renewal of time, rhythmed by the endless repetition of the same gestures and the same words. In this imaginary world where everything starts over and over again there is no place for human adventure or for the idea of progress. This man (the traditional African) never launched himself towards the future. The idea never came to him to get out of this repetition and to invent his own destiny. … Africa’s challenge is to enter to a greater extent into history. Africa…is to realise that the golden age that Africa is forever recalling will not return because it has never existed.”

The effect of this aggressive negation of the contribution of the Black African to human development on the black African is the loss of confidence in himself and his ability. This would later make him prone to near fanatical embrace of values of other cultures. An inveterate consumer of others’ ideas and values. The ease with which Africans abandon their values to embrace new ones on contacts with foreigners is a telling symptom of the loss of confidence and it is one of the root causes why the Eurocentrists feel vindicated and why the humanity back-seat has been permanently attributed to the African.

What has been the African response ?
We shall look at the African response from the leaders’ and the common man’s perspectives:

The leaders:
The politically “independent” Africa was born into an ideologically polarized world and the pre-independence vision of fathers of modern Africa leaders of a strong unified Africa by and large became a casualty of the cold war. It served the interests of the two ideological blocks to see Africa divided and polarized along their own philosophy of life. Though the two blocks had strong differences in their political and social structures based on capitalist and socialist ideologies, they both had a common goal as regards Africa; that Africa should never constitute a threat either militarily or economically to their interests. This, they could only achieve if Africa was in disarray. It is tempting to imagine what would have been the relationship between the two blocks as regards Africa in a hypothetical event of an economically strong and militarily capable and unified Africa during this period. This however was not to be; and Africa became a free and willing field for putting their theoretical military and espionage lessons into practice.

The different ideological and philosophical approaches to governance in post independence Africa failed to address the problem of loss of confidence before proposing solutions. Amilcar Cabral conceded that “History teaches us that certain circumstances make it very easy for foreign people to impose their dominion...…….." What were these circumstances?
The approaches adopted in the diagnosis of these circumstances and solution proffered had their shortcomings in being offshoots or negations of different European schools of thought. Either they swung towards socialism as an antidote to the capitalist colonial system or they further entrenched the colonial system of governance. More importantly was that they all had their basis in what they claimed to have mentally rejected with the attainment of political independence. This so-called independence comes under question when viewed in the light of Dr. Chancellor James Williams’ declaration that “those who do become free in fact, will no longer grab the white man’s ideologies….whether capitalism, Western version of democracy or communism, without a critical review and analysis to determine whether Africa’s own traditional system, when updated, may not be superior and best fitted to meet the aspirations of the Black world.”.

The system of governance, the judiciary and the parliament were fashioned after one colonial form or the other. It is an absurdity of Africa that the judiciary and educational system of many African countries still strongly retain their colonial roots. In the case of the judiciary, there are the orthodox courts and native (sometimes called traditional or customary) courts. One is inclined to ask who is the native in 21st century self-governed Africa? Is there something wrong in merging the so-called orthodox judiciary with traditional one to produce something more understandable and readily accessible to the largely traditional African population? It is an absurdity that Westernized Africans and their international managers in 2004 and 2005 expressed worries of miscarriage of justice in village courts set up by the Rwandan government to try genocide suspects! The performance of these courts has proved the inherent superiority of unexplored home-grown African ideas to imported ones.

The colonial administrative system was created by the colonialists to facilitate the oppression of the colonized peoples and to repress any form of challenge to their pillage and enslavement. The administrative structures were not put in place to favor the oppressed but to serve the oppressors. With the attainment of independence, one would have expected that this form of governance and public administration would be gradually dismantled and substituted with an alternative home-grown, people-friendly system of governance that would plug all the holes of plunder committed by the colonialists. The famous declaration of Sekou Toure that the colonial “structures that we have inherited would be reconverted so that they would serve the aspirations of the people” was however not to be. The system that facilitated the plundering of Africa by the colonialists was adopted by African leaders to further plunder the continent. In the words of Frantz Fanon, “spoilt children of yesterday’s colonialism and of today’s national governments organize the loot of whatever national resources exist”[i].

The erstwhile plunderers now shout foul on their African successors. The founders of corruption and plunder now call their pupils names. In order to reverse the situation and armed with incredible foresight, the former colonialists invented institutions which would slowly permeate into the very fabric of the “independent” national governments. The system of governance and public administration structures in present day Africa gradually evolved from a colonial tool into a powerful field of play for the IMF and the World Bank. In present day Africa, ministries bear similar names across the continent on the prescription of the IMF and the World Bank. The functions are required to be similar in order to facilitate the parasitic work of the pundits of these neo-colonialist institutions. Regrettably, Africa has not deemed it fit to put its feet down and insist on home grown alternatives that would serve its people.

Some would be quick to argue that there would be less misery if these institutions were to function properly. This is an illusion. The alien nature of these structures and the legacy of pillage and plunder which they represent make it impossible to expect any useful outputs from them.
In the absence of any viable African alternative to governance and public administration, the African successors of the colonialists dearly held on to their heritage of colonial system. The common man whose aspirations during the liberation struggle had been based on the emergence of a new system, where he would not just be a number, but an active member soon became disillusioned. This appears logical given that the system was in the first instance created by the colonialists to serve their own interests to the complete exclusion of the interests of their African victim. The common man, not understanding the absurdity of keeping this oppressive colonial system and its tools of oppression intact in the post-independence period soon became disoriented and consequently estranged and disconnected from the system of public administration and governance. The administrative structure with its accompanying political system came to acquire an abstract form in his mind, and he began to feel anonymous in the new dispensation.

The abstract form of this alien form of governance and the complete disconnect of the common man from it inform the relegation of any imported form of modern governance to the backseat in favor of a more familiar, home-grown traditional one in which “the individual is very much exposed to the community and anonymity is virtually out of the question”[ii] as John Mbiti declared in his paper titled General Manifestation of African Religiosity.

Western democracy falls within this alien form of modern governance and does not and will not have an appropriate response to the aspirations of the common African man because the alien nature, manipulation, oppression and exploitation inherent in the historical raison d’être of the system have alienated any form of possible association or even the remotest sense of ownership of this system from his mind.

The Response of the Common Man
The feeling of anonymity of the African common man within the abstract structure of governance and public administration left by the colonialists and adopted by African leaders engenders his potential disregard for system-imposed civic duties or norms. He deregulates his behavior as a form of silent protest against the system and as a means of survival in an unfamiliar environment. In the words of Wole Soyinka, “abstract...fetters…make passionate revolutionaries of the most cosseted life”[iii]. The defacement of major African cities, crime, and systematic destruction of scarce public infrastructures are all symptoms of estrangement of the common man with the system of governance. There cannot be a sense of ownership of an abstract alien system and its structures.

It goes without saying that the same African would behave quite differently in his own village or community where he readily identifies with the traditional community form of governance. He lives within the norms of his environment, respects the tradition and culture even when he is convinced that these might be based on superstitions. In the same manner, he would behave differently in other cultures. Most black African professionals who have left Africa to work in Western countries are known to be very hardworking, assiduous and competent. This attitude sometimes surprises their Western colleagues who are inclined to think that if Africa has such hard working and competent professionals, why is it that the continent continues to face the enormous problems which it faces.

The black African working in this environment does not necessarily form any opinion on the abstract form or otherwise of the system in which he works, nor does he worry about anonymity or not within it. He is simply part of a system that works for its creators. And he has other concerns too. He feels constantly challenged to prove his ability to his colleagues; and he contents himself by doing much more than is expected of him. Contrary to what people like to think, financial remunerations, though important occupy a secondary place in his mind.

The African professionals working in Africa are not less competent than those working abroad. Their presence is however unfelt because they fall into the African society mentality trap; the team becomes abstract and they function as independent individuals within this intangible nebula.

The new era of pseudo-democracy in Africa provides a thriving environment for further entrenchment of deregulated behavior and its consequent social ills. The ruling party irrespective of how it gets to be the ruling party wants to stay in the good books of the electorate, not by doing good for the society, but by allowing the electorate to do, in the name of civil liberties what it chooses within the framework of deregulated behavior. The ruling party employs a deliberate confusion of civil liberties with civic norms as a strategy. This strategy is useful both on the home front and the international arena. On the home front, it serves to obfuscate the common man’s potential demand by revolt for a favorable and decent environment for the legitimate pursuit of means of survival. In the international arena, it serves to convince the international community of the ruling party’s commitment to “human rights”. Under this smokescreen, the ruling party puts his colonial inheritance of instruments and structures of plunder into use.

Like the common man on the street, the civil service workers perceive the civil service as an enormous and abstract system, the role of which is questionable in their minds vis-à-vis their concept of a society. They adopt an indifferent attitude to their work. It is common knowledge that the civil service system is Africa is fraught with ineptitude and disorganization. Many cases have been reported in Africa where occasionally, the government in power makes a show of attempting to put the civil service “on track” by actively tracking punctuality of civil service workers at their posts. The show goes on for a week or two and soon everyone tires of the game and returns to business of lackadaisicality as usual.

The public office holder also sees the public service as an abstract structure towards which he feels no responsibility or sense of being there to serve. Like his common man compatriot, he feels also anonymous and estranged within this abstract situation and at a higher level shows complete disregard not only for the responsibilities conferred on him by his position but also on the direct consequences of his attitude. Under this situation, he gives no second thought to diverting into his pocket, funds which are meant to deliver public goods and services. He sees no link between his action and children dying from preventable diseases, the decaying infrastructure and the squalor that surrounds him in his opulence.

Behavior deregulation eventually leads to the known African trademarks of social disorder, corruption, wars, ineffective public services, non-functional public utilities. These problems of attitude later result in dire economic situations, that lead African leaders to Bretton Woods institutions, who in their “wisdom” and “knowledge of Africa” interpret the situation as an economic one and prescribe among other things further deregulations which translate into more social disorder.

Rudolf Julius Emmanuel, a German physicist, described entropy in his second law of Thermodynamics as a tendency of natural processes to move from order to disorder. In the case of Africa, this process was actively assisted by the incursion of foreigners on African soil and the subsequent occupation of the lands and minds of the people. It is an unfortunate course of African history that post-independence Africa still continues along this process. This same law also states that the greater the entropy in a given system, the less the available energy for useful work. Increasing entropy has consumed useful energy that could bring about any meaningful development of Africa inspired by Africans despite enormous human and natural resources in the continent.

One may ask the question that if the black African were indifferent to and felt anonymous within the imposed system, why then would Africans engage each other in wars which at times are senseless in order to take control of this same system? It would appear logical that there should be a general unwillingness to spill blood over an abstract concept.

It is generally assumed, based on alien economic theories, that most wars in Africa can be linked to access to and control of resources. This is true for the engineers of these rebellions, who in most cases are foreign interests and their local agents. The common man, the foot soldier in these wars does not engage in these conflicts for this reason. According to Wole Soyinka, the common man represents “…a people misled into making sacrifices for.…. the entrenchment of an exploitative socio-economic mutuality”[iv]. He sees his participation in these conflicts as a probable means of substituting the abstract system in which he has been reduced to an anonymous status with a more concrete system in which he will have a tangible and recognizable role to play. If the side on which he has fought wins, he soon becomes disillusioned in the post-war period when the abstract concept which he fought to do away with reinvents itself. If his side of the conflict loses, he remains with the thoughts and hopes of overturning the tables one day. In both cases, he remains a latent tool to be manipulated at any time into another conflict with the promise of his desired change.

Can Africa ever recover from these influences?
Sub-sahara Africa has fully accepted its subservient role in the world. It cannot and does not see itself as being capable of any form of development outside the scope of Western establishment. It has learnt and accepted to be a helpless consumer of political, social and economic ideas. This helplessness permeates collective and individual psyche of sub-Saharan Africans.

Some Western scholars and indeed some Africans would argue that Africa is making some progress according to its own calendar, making its own mark in its own way. This view is not only condescending but smacks of a deliberate conspiracy to delude the African that despite being stuck at survival levels of humanity’s pedestal he is making some imaginary progress. The quality of life cannot be relative; therefore human endeavor to improve the quality of life cannot be condemned to “African calendar” or to some other calendar. That Africa has to quickly move up from survival level is a historical obligation that cannot be spread over some spurious calendar. Africa has to know when to call its losses (not that it has much to lose now anyway), accept past mistakes and re-organize itself so as to occupy its rightful and dignified place among nations. Black Africa could only take this place among nations when it consciously makes efforts to put its human and natural resources to useful service in order to continuously generate home-inspired inputs not only to enhance its survival, but to improve the quality of its existence. As a continental goal, these inputs have to be proportional to the inputs of other nations, which have had a head-start that qualifies them as “developed”. The parameters of measurements of these inputs cannot be different from one race to the other; the parameters are universal and are the yardsticks with which groups of peoples are measured and classified as developed or primitive. The lower the inputs of a people as per universally acceptable parameters, the lower they are put on the scale of “development” and the more prejudice is meted out to them.

Africa belongs to the low-input group. Some have tried to console Africans by drawing parallels between contemporary Africa and the medieval times in Europe, arguing that internecine wars, corruption, disease are part of the process which Africa has to go through; “kinder” social analysts prefer to compare Africa with Europe or United States of 200 years ago. They argue that Africa may have to go through the experience of those on the upper part of the inputs scale, and that this is a long process which needs the support of those on top of the scale. The African experience has shown that those on the top of the scale use debts and aid as tools to kick the African off the ladder and to undermine any possibilities of Africa’s meaningful contribution except as a source of cheap raw materials. Africa is therefore left with no choice but to accept adapting outputs of other cultures to its reality.

Human history has shown that prejudices can be reversed against a group of people when their level of inputs becomes significant on the world arena. On the other hand, when the inputs of a previously performing people dwindle for any reasons, the respect and regard for the people are accordingly scaled down. The process of adapting others’ outputs to Africa’s plethora of problems has unsurprisingly become an onerous task, given the one-size-fits-all nature of these outputs and the inability of African leaders to either out-rightly reject those outputs that are prejudicial or cause the few useful ones to be transformed by Africans into more suitable tools. Africa is consequently regarded as a continent where tested and proven ideas fail.

Africans do know that only a very small fraction of foreign-conceived solutions and models are useful and are not potentially harmful to the African cause. The inability of African leaders to capitalize on the few workable outputs to begin the process of transformation of the continent is what raises questions and consternation. When these questions are raised, African leaders have their standard plethora of excuses linked to others but themselves. These excuses of debt burden, wars, trade barriers, unresponsive (to their stretched arms) international community are overflogged and nebulous; they smack of lack of vision and courage to seek and provide alternative home-grown solutions. Rather than sift through the mess of solutions (aid, debts, political orientation, etc.) and find the right adaptable output and identify the right partners, African leaders ask for more solutions in aid and debts. Africa is further not helped by placard-carrying activists in other cultures who either put these arguments into the mouth of the African leaders or help them echo these excuses. These arguments engender an acceptance of helplessness and undermine any desire or drive to explore latent potentials.

It is a natural human instinct that when confronted with immense odds, one puts all his resources to use to overcome these odds. This is also applicable to groups of peoples as nations, as a race, as ethnic or religious groups. In the case of a race or a nation, it is fundamental that internal differences be put aside and a common front be found to overcome the difficulties. Appropriate matured political philosophy, whether as a civil religion or ideology is crucial in this regard. The history of persecution of Jews around the world and the seeming un-end to these injustices culminated in the convocation of the first Zionist Congress in 1897. The Congress sought to unite the whole of Jewry in order to put an end to this persecution. Many other focused congresses and meetings with the same objective would follow this first initiative. In other words, conscious collective efforts were made by Jews as a people to overcome the odds facing them in all corners of the world. A direct or indirect consequence of these concerted efforts is the emergence of a powerful nation of Jews (Israel) strong enough to take on any nation that dares to repeat what happened in Nazi Germany. Even if there are still occasional anti-semitic sentiments in some parts of the world, the great lengths to which the political leaders of these countries go to, to denounce these sentiments and the magnitude of the state apparatus which they invest in curbing these sentiments are a confirmation of the successful strategy of Jews in affirming their right to self-esteem and dignity, not as a political concession but as a hard-earned right, supported by the might of their tiny nation.

Black African peoples, who have literally and figuratively been victims of atrocities for most of their existence, have not, not at any point of their recent history, been able to set aside their internal differences to overcome the odds that face them as a race. It is not enough to struggle to get the title of “human beings” or to veer off on exhumations of historical heroism in order to claim a place among other races. These claims have to be backed up with a continuous conscious process of re-inventing the self to meet the challenges of the world and thereby earn dignity and respect as a result of input, not as a political or moral concession. Unfortunately, Africa is synonymous with energy-sapping and time-consuming internal divisions founded on a repertoire of legitimate and illegitimate excuses ranging from ethnic differences, through differences in imported religions to differences in official foreign languages.

It is an absurdity of our helplessness that others who are alien to African culture, traditions and philosophy of life come with different tools and theory to decipher African problems. It is a known fact that the solutions of these “experts” have not in any way changed the continent. On the contrary, the repertoire of ideas they have proffered and experimented appears to have further muddled up the situation.

The overrated assumption that all problems disappear under the blanket solution of Western-style development is not only a gross misunderstanding of the underlying fundamental problem but it also highlights the unwillingness and probably intellectual laziness of African actors and their foreign development technical advisors to address the issue. The very nature of this problem renders ineffective any imported armchair economic theory or socio-political experiments.

Is the loss of confidence a symptom of a more profound problem?
The loss of self-confidence translates into fear. Sub-sahara Africa has, from slavery times, through colonialism and neo-colonialism learnt to live with fear. Fear permeates the society and undermines its development.

The combination of exploitation (internal or external) and fear are major setbacks for development of any society and they constitute the root causes of underdevelopment. Exploitation in this case is defined broadly as any direct or indirect conscious action or design, subtle or crude, pacific or violent, orchestrated to usurp, to dispossess, to steal, to manipulate or to beg for, under false pretences from a group of people all forms of resources (including the mind of the exploited) to which the exploiter has no moral rights to under natural laws. There is an inverse relationship between development on one hand, and loss of self confidence induced fear and exploitation on the other hand as the hypothetical equation below shows:

Development = 1/Exploitation X Fear²

.The more the fear or exploitation, the less the chances of development of a society. Moreover, there is a direct relationship between fear and exploitation. All forms of fear abound in situations of exploitation. Fear serves as an instrument to facilitate exploitation; and exploitation flourishes in an atmosphere of fear. If however, there were no exploitation and the only denominator is fear, one can deduce from the equation above that such a society would be much better off than another where exploitation increases the denominator and reduces the level of development.

The hypothesis inherent in this equation is based on the certain assumptions:
1. Varied levels of internal exploitation exist in all societies. These levels are graded on a rising scale of 1-10. The higher the exploitation, the higher the number on the scale.
2. Varied levels of fear exist in all societies. These levels are graded on a rising scale of 1-10. The higher the fear, the higher the number on the scale.
3. Therefore, the denominator in the equation can never have a value of zero.
4. Consequently, development cannot be infinite.

We shall consider two different societies (Society A and Society B) for the purposes of illustration of this hypothesis. In the case of Society A, the society makes huge investments in fear-overcoming skills and technology (and thus, largely dominates fear) and puts enormous human and material resources to reduce exploitation by others (outsiders) to the minimum. For this society, we shall attribute 2 points to exploitation and 1 point to fear. The equation thus reads:

Development: 1/2X1² = 0.5.

In society B however, there are no fear-overcoming skills and technology; the society depends on foreign aid, several multinationals are exploiting the natural resources, and the society is caught in a web of debts. We shall attribute 7 points to exploitation and 8 points to fear. The result will be:

Development: 1/7X8² = 0.002

From the example above, one can see that society A is 224 times more developed than society B. It is however important to note that society A, has not only used the resources of society B in the quest to overcome its fears, but has also deliberately kept society B exploitable through many devices like debts, political interference, deprivation of capital, commodity-price manipulation, and trade imbalance.
How then, can we calculate fear and exploitation indices? In order to determine the Fear Index, the following constitute some indicators that can be developed, and for which mathematical values can be ascribed (as is done with Corruption index):
1. External aid per GDP
2. External interference in political orientation
3. Debts
4. External interference in the political, economic and social directions.
5. Trade imbalances
6. Number of multinationals in the country
7. Employment policy of multinationals,
8. Tax payment by multinationals,
9. Income declaration by multinationals.
In the same manner, Exploitation Index can be calculated from several indicators derived from the above definition of exploitation.

Subjecting contemporary sub-Sahara Africa to the Equation
In order to answer this question, we will need to examine how colonialism and neo-colonialism ripped open Africa and sub-saharan Africans to exploitation. The destruction of the social and political fabric of the African society by slave trade reduced the un-captured African from the highly differentiated producer to a basic survivor, whose preoccupation was to escape being caught and taken into slavery. Walter Rodney in his book, “How Europe underdeveloped Africa” states: “the European slave trade was a direct block (to African development) by removing millions of youths and young adults who are the human agents from whom inventiveness springs. Those who were not caught by slave traders were pre-occupied about their freedom rather than with improvements in production.” The African producer was in this fragile state when colonialism settled in. Driven by its economic interests rather than any pre-occupation with the well-being of the slavery-traumatized peoples, the colonialist transformed the hitherto complex producer to a simple producer of its agricultural products. In other words, heterogeneous was forced back into homogenous; the complex back to the simple. This deliberate political agenda to force the Black African back to the bottom of human development ladder (which he deserted more than 5 thousand years ago) was frankly expressed by Hendrick Verwoerd, the architect of grand apartheid in South Africa. He said in 1953 “Natives will be taught from childhood to realize that equality with Europeans is not for them”. He said further, “there is no place for the black in the European community above the level of certain forms of labour.” This un-development doctrine was not limited to economic production only, but also touched on the cultural and religious values of the African. These values were dis-membered by the colonialists (the missionary faction) and then re-membered according to their own values and beliefs. The African mind was colonized. In the words of Steve Bantu Biko, “the most powerful weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed.” Colonialists and neo-colonialists have since used this weapon very effectively against Black Africa. Under this assault, the African with little of no self confidence became a victim of fear.

The denatured and frightened African, the newly created “homogeneous structure” gradually moved towards “political independence.” Here, we shall not go into details on the different “struggles” put up by Africans to obtain independence, however, we will, with the benefit of hindsight look at the veracity of the claims of victory by our “freedom fighters.” Immediately after the partitioning of Africa, African rulers who had been collaborators with the European slave industry suddenly found themselves threatened by the loss of their land and their authority over their peoples. These leaders put up spirited fights to drive out the colonial adventures. They were however all defeated, and their lands colonized. There was a very strong economic interest on the part of the colonizers to take possessions of these lands. The motivating factor for the wars was economic interest. Had this economic interest disappeared at the eve of independence? No. Were the colonizers suddenly more sympathetic to the cause of the Africans? No. Hadn’t the colonizers enough guns to suppress the rebellions? They had. Honest answers to these questions would reveal that the granting of independence to African states was first and foremost an economic decision by the colonizers. The independence of colonized African states cannot be viewed as isolated, not-well-thought-out events, rather as part of a grand geopolitical and economic strategy by the colonizers.

Let us look at the role of Bretton Woods Institutions: In the wake of the Second World War and following the great depression of 1929, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank (called International Bank for the Reconstruction and Development) were created in 1944 with two main objectives: Creation of global economic rules that would promote economic stability and Post-war rebuilding of Europe. These were lofty objectives. In parallel to the International Bank for the Reconstruction and Development, the Marshall Plan was created by the United States to rebuild post war Europe. By the end of 1953, the Marshall plan has successfully usurped the role of the World Bank in the reconstruction of Europe: over 40 billion US$ were transferred through Marshall Plan and only half a billion through World Bank for the reconstruction of Europe. This meant that nine years after its creation and eight years after the World War ended, the International Bank for the Reconstruction and Development had difficulties in achieving its objectives and the relevance of its existence came under question. In order to continue to exist, the International Monetary fund and the World Bank needed clients and they went to “emerging-from-colonialism” countries. African states constituted soft targets.

Between 1958 and 1966, all the component Institutions of the World Bank Group had been created: International Finance Corporation (1958), International Development Association (1960), International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (1966) etc. Many of the poor but resource-rich African states got their “independence” at about the same period. Whether this was mere coincidence is best left to imagination. The former colonisers, armed with the knowledge that they had left “homogenous producers” in their former colonies, began to manipulate the world market price of raw-materials, which were the main source of income of newly independent African states. The crash of the price of gold that sent Ghana on its knees in the mid sixties is a good example of this manipulation. Many newly independent African countries did not have any option but to go to the World Bank and the IMF for loans.

The IMF and the World Bank introduced political and economic conditionalities into lending. The conditionalities include reduction of public spending, elimination of subsidies, increase in taxation, liberalization of trade, privatization and general deregulation with the result that African states were sentenced to producing and exporting low value items (commensurate with their “natural capacities”) and were compelled to open up their markets for imports (they claim in order to generate revenue through import duties) resulting in the flooding of African markets with manufactured goods and even agricultural products – leading to a collapse of the local manufacturing sector, high unemployment rate, loss of revenue for the government and deepening the already bad debt crisis. The imposition of reduction in public spending and the loss of revenue for the African governments put the governments in an awkward position vis-à-vis their people. On the advice of the experts of these institutions, user fees were introduced for the basic services like education and health, thus alienating and de-legitimizing the weak governments. Within a period of 40 years, 75% of income of IMF comes from fees on debts of developing countries. However, the poor clients that sustain the institution have little or no say in the policy and decision making of the body: 75% of votes and representation on the executive boards are in the hands of developed nations, the former colonizers and their collaborators. Christian Aid estimates that Africa has lost $272 billion in the past 20 years from being forced to promote trade liberalization as the price for receiving World Bank loans and debt relief.

The Pacte de l’Independence, proposed and signed by France with its “former” colonies is another example of well a thought-out disabling economic strait-jacket to keep Africa open to exploitation and manipulation. As part of the agreement to grant African nations occupied by France independence, these countries were obliged to annually (and without any time limit) remit sixty-five percent of their foreign reserves to the bank of France. This is still in practice till today. This amount is completely out of the reach of these nations. This agreement in essence means that the more productive the people of these nations are, the bigger the amount that goes into the coffers of France. Beside this direct remittance, the Pacte de l’Independence further stipulates that France has the right of first refusal when any new natural resources are discovered in any of the “former” colonies. And French companies also have the first rights to any major public transaction by the governments of these former colonies.

Further on the economic benefit of granting independence to African states, I will cite a recent example:
Britain took away far more money from sub-Saharan Africa than it gave in aid and debt relief in 2006, despite pledges to help the region, the charity, Christian Aid claimed in a report. In all, it took away £27 billion from Africa. In the 12 months since an annual Group of Eight (G8) summit in Scotland July 2006, the British economy gained a net profit of more than £11 billion ($20.3 billion) from the region, Christian Aid said. The charity calculated that almost £17 billion flowed from Britain to sub-Saharan Africa in the past year, including donations, remittances from salaries earned by Africans in Britain and foreign direct investment. At the same time, more than £27 billion went in the opposite direction, thanks to debt repayments, profits made by British companies in Africa and imports of British goods and capital flight.
Do you think Britain ever made so much from Africa during colonial rule? No, when one takes into consideration the costs of running overseas administrative offices, problems with the locals etc.

In order to further incapacitate the so called “independent” African countries, skilled workers, the heterogeneous, the ones referred to by Walter Rodney as the bearers of ideas and inventiveness necessary for growth and development are being progressively taken out of Africa through discriminatory visa policies (American green visa, European blue visa and France’s Immigration choisi). It is claimed that in the US alone, “African immigrants are the highest educated class in the range of all immigrants….there are over 640’000 African professionals in the US; over 360’000 of them hold PhDs; 120’000 of them (from Nigeria, Ghana, Sudan and Uganda) are medical doctors. The rest are professionals in various fields – from the head of research for the US Space Agency, NASA, to the highest paid material science professors…..”

From the above, we can deduce the following:1- The Black African is a victim of ruthless foreign economic exploitation. We may, on the basis of existing facts, empirically assign “9” to Exploitation in the formula.
2- The Black African is helpless and entrapped by fear. We may, also here assign, albeit empirically “8” to Fear in the equation.

Thus, development index in contemporary sub-Sahara Africa will be:
= 1 1
9 X 8²

= 0.002

It is very unlikely that the development index was ever at this level before the arrival of foreigners on the African soil.


Solving the problem of Fear and Exploitation
How can Africa solve the problem of fear and Exploitation? We now know that we can only talk about African development, only if Africa can find ways to overcome fear and reduce exploitation (internal or external) on its soil. We are further faced with the following questions:
- Which of the two problems should be prioritized? And why?
- Should steps be taken to address the two at the same time? How?

Solving the problem of Exploitation:
There are two aspects to this: external and internal exploitation. The general tendency is to leave the question of external exploitation untouched because it touches on the economic (and the national security) interests of big powers. African governments that have challenged the exploitative relationship of big powers with their countries have either been unseated, demonized or killed. Sekou Toure of Guinea, Samora Machel of Mozambique and Patrice Lumumba of Congo are examples of such leaders. African leaders have learnt to leave this question under the table and have been encouraged by the big powers to take on less dangerous enterprise of fighting internal corruption (another form of exploitation). As a reward for turning the blind eye on the big fish of external exploitation and chasing the small fish of internal exploitation, African governments are rewarded with aid and access to credit. While it is true that reducing internal corruption might to some extent contribute to development, the major development-truncating economic predation is the external one, and there cannot be any talk of meaningful development until Africans have the courage to check it.

Solving the problem of Fear.
Intractable under-development is a major consequence of resignation to “fate” in the face of odds. Fear depletes society’s resourcefulness capacity. Knowledge is limited to the mastery of others’ outputs and the society is unable to generate adequate answers to its own problems. Some of the governments of the most under-developed (fear-incapacitated) societies in the world today are staffed by academics and scientists who have mastered other cultures’ outputs. However, their knowledge and skills crumble under the society weight of “fate” and self-induced helplessness.
The crippling toll of under-development, consequent upon its manifold phobias on a society demands that a solution be found to address the debilitating fears. If left untreated, phobias can have very dire consequences, as is the case with an individual. How then does one treat a society incapacitated by phobia? What kind of treatment can liberate it from fears of the known and the unknown, internally and externally generated factors of fear? In addition, who can liberate such a society from its fears and its consequences?
Can the treatment be found in throwing money at this society under any pretext? Can money help the society to overcome its fears? This is doubtful. If this external money helps bring about some transient changes in the society, the source of such money will, in time become an additional source of fear in itself. The society learns to add this source to its long list of fears. The strangling hold of the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the different money-lending clubs on their debtor nations is a good example. The immense burden and stress that African governments face in “justifying” funds allocated by United Nations’ multiple agencies and their diverse funding systems have become a source of concern even for this organisation. A fear-debilitated society caught in this complicated web of dependency dreads the consequences of losing these funds, and it further digs itself into the trenches, giving more grounds to fear. Moreover, the managers of this money (the government) may in turn use this money to create more internal fear-inducing factors. A new chain of fear is thus established. The local managers of money fear the distant source; the rest of the society fears the managers of the money.
Can the treatment of society phobia be found in an imported socio-philosophical prescription? This is also doubtful. The exporters of such solutions like to use their society as a reference of successful treatment of fear. They seek, and readily find analogies between the fears that their society underwent at a particular time in its history and what the other society is undergoing. These similarities (the symptoms) end in their being identical as symptoms. The time and space of the events (the underlying cause of the illness) culminating in the emergence of these fears in the two societies under comparison are completely different. However, the doctor-society conveniently overlooks this fact in its self-deluding bid to cure the sick society. Thus, the imported prescriptions are directed at the symptoms in the hope that by curing the symptoms, the underlying cause of illness will somehow disappear. Experience has however shown that, when and if one symptom disappears, two or more new ones take its place. The doctor-society becomes baffled and again searches for another symptom-directed treatment, with or without the consent of the patient-society. After many trials of different treatments, the doctor-society, confounded by its failures, threatens the sick society to either get well on any of its treatments or face the consequences of doctor-fatigue. The sick society, high and confused on multiple concoctions of treatments soon adds the dread of doctor-fatigue to its list of fears. Fear gains more grounds.
Can the treatment be found in an imported political ideology? The appropriateness of an imported political ideology to address the problems of a fear-imbued society is debatable. Any political ideology takes its roots from the historical and philosophical specificity of its country or society of origin. It evolves to address the philosophy of life and the way of life of the society in question. It is tailor-made for that society. It is not an export material under any guise. The importation of a foreign-born ideology by a fear-afflicted society to address its phobias, and the consequences of this defeatist strategy are glaring symptoms of the magnitude of the power-balance in favour of fear in that society. It is a sign of intellectual laziness, a proof that the society has very little energy for resourcefulness. It seeks a ready-made solution, an easy way out. Not unexpectedly, this imported solution fails to cure the sick society of its fears. Confounded by their failure, and obsessed with keeping themselves in power, the managers of the society (importers of ideas) convert this ideology into an instrument of fear. The exporters of the ideology, who seek to re-create others in their own image or to execute their not so hidden agenda, go to great lengths to keep the importers of ideology in power. The reckless support of murderous regimes in Africa by belligerent ideologues of the cold war is a case in point. As is the case with the use of money as treatment, this ideological export-import strategy creates a new chain of fear in the phobic society.
Can the solution be found in religion? Members of a phobic society tend to look for individual solutions in religions. They flock to places of worship in search for individual way-out of the collective fear. This is another proof of the lack of energy reserves for resourcefulness. Through religion, they seek miracles to make fears disappear. They invest the little energy left to them in worship and leave things to take their course according to the dictates of “heaven”. The managers of religions aggravate the fear of their flocks by adding heavenly fears to their already long list of earthly fears. People adhere to religion because of fears and religion reinforces their fears and even adds to it. Fear again gains grounds on the religious front.
Civil societies, realising the debilitating effect of fear on development, advocate individual and collective empowerment. The word “empowerment” is however not clearly defined by its professional users and is loosely employed as a catchword, a fanciful rhetoric with diverse, colourful, and sometimes far from reality concept. Taken to its fullness, empowerment means overcoming fear, and when pursued as such, it provides the only plausible way out of the vicious fear-society energy imbalance. Unfortunately, however, this philosophy is confronted with many obstacles deliberately or inadvertently engineered by the advocates of empowerment on one hand and the victims of fear on the other hand. In being cautious not to offend the local sensibilities, the advocates of empowerment tend to leave out the most profound fear-inducing factors and deal only on the surface. Serious empowerment advocates that have at one time or the other attempted to go beyond the permissible surface have been accused of wanting to demystify the local culture, impose their own philosophy of life, and thus hold their beneficiaries to ransom. In other words, local interests tend to see and portray these advocates as having a hidden neo-colonising and acculturating agenda. The victim-society’s historical experience of oppression and injustices under different pretexts (trade, religion, civilizing missions, etc.) constitutes a major obstacle to this empowerment philosophy. Although, the history of fear-gripped society moves in circles and keeps repeating itself, the people, unaware of this fact are unwilling to consciously contribute to a re-enactment of their difficult past experiences. They are unconvinced even with the most powerful of arguments and are distrustful of any foreign abstract (to them) concept that does not address their immediate needs. This plays into the hands of the government; it is innately reticent to see its people liberated from some of the fears, which it has also put in place. It fears a change in power-balance between it and the people it governs. The government dreads a situation where it becomes the only victim of fear of its foreign friends on one hand, and of its people on the other hand.
The “what” as regards empowerment as a liberating philosophy is clear, however, the appropriate “how” constitutes a major challenge. Many see the “how” in human rights’ promotion and enforcement; however, many obstacles confront this point of view. There is no doubt that universal respect of the concept of human rights without double standards may reassure members of phobic societies and lay bare the irrelevance of their fears. However, the skewed demand of obligations by the impunible advocates of human rights who flout the same rights at will when their interests are perceived to be threatened constitutes another source of fear for phobia-gripped societies. Such societies in their fragile state want to know what moral rights do these impunible flouters of human rights have to impose their lopsided dictates and demands on others. Rather than seeing it as a liberating philosophy that can be modified, if only to have the freedom to overcome fear and thus acquire other freedoms, the phobic society sees another mangling manacle being waved about by the proponents of human rights.

How can Africa develop?
Africa needs to overcome its fears and take steps to rebuild self-confidence. This should be an all-inclusive, fear-banishing effort that makes the best of the potentials of the continent, and out-sources necessary skills from all useful sources. It does not imply copying verbatim what others have been able to achieve, neither does it imply seeing oneself through their mirror. Japan in the immediate post-Second World War period and current China are good examples of this option. The State of Israel with its less than one hundred year of existence is another good example of a society that has successfully employed this option.

Conclusion:
The loss of self-confidence and the accompanying fear in the African following slavery, colonialism and neo-colonialism truncated the development of Africa. The historical African heterogeneous producer and thinker was compelled to become a homogeneous one in order to facilitate his exploitation and the plundering of the continent.
Africa needs to regain its self-confidence and banish fear in order to develop. When Africa finally gets to accomplish this through individual and collective efforts, development will come as a collective decision and drive of African peoples to improve the chances of their survival by improving the quality of their lives. This mechanism to kick-start this collective internal drive cannot be imported or exported.

The failure to overcome fear portends a gradual extinction of the black African race.

References:[i] Frantz Fanon. Wretched of the Earth. Penguin Books 2001.[ii] John Mbiti : General Manifestation of African Religiosity.[iii] Wole Soyinka: The Man Died. Spectrum Books. Ibadan, Nigeria.
2002.[iv] Wole Soyinka: The Man Died. Spectrum Books. Ibadan, Nigeria.
2002.

New Generation Nigerians and the Rebuilding of the Nigerian Nation-State By Abimbola Lagunju

Jean Jacques Rousseau in his treatise on Social Contract contends that at a particular moment in the development of man, the forces against him overwhelm his individual brute power to defend himself and his immediate family. In order to ensure his survival, he makes alliances with others to improve his security situation. In forming the alliance, he gives up his own natural liberty in order to acquire civil liberty, within which he becomes a member of an indivisible whole, which meets his security needs and rights to property. As Jean Jacques Rousseau puts it "Each of us puts his person and all his power in common under the supreme direction of the general will, and, in our corporate capacity, we receive each member as an indivisible part of the whole." This, according to Rousseau is the basis of the creation of a state. This whole, this collective will called the body politic or the state, has the responsibility of assuring the individual and collective security of the constituent members. This obligation holds true even when the nation-state is an artificial and imposed one with unwilling and dissenting members. The imposed illusory state may, with a lot of conscious efforts transform into a real and viable entity when it learns to function as a real state founded on a real social contract. One way of achieving this status is to install democracy, where the people of the illusory nation-state go through the process of learning to give up their natural liberties through their votes to acquire civil liberties and rights. This process demands a commitment of the people involved and the transparency of those in positions of responsibility in the society. When any of these two important pre-requisites is lacking, the dream of the creation of a nation-state remains a dream, and the likelihood of disintegration becomes real.

In poor multi-ethnic countries with defective or absent democratic processes, the notion of a state is reduced to bloodlines, clans and ethnicity, and the country’s borders only exists on paper and in the mind of the rulers. In such countries, the ‘state’, though with internationally recognized borders is distrusted by its citizens and there is an almost unbridge-able disconnect between the central ‘government’ and the ‘citizens.’ If the state is the collective will of the people, then such fractionalised ‘states’ bear the unmistakable signs of failing or failed states. They only exist on paper and in the minds of those who occupy the presidential palaces. This is the case with many African ‘countries,’ which were artificially created at the end of 1884/ beginning of 1885 at the Berlin Conference by the colonial occupiers.

More than forty years post-independence, most of the artificial African nation-states are still holding together, despite the dismal performance of the political class, poor economy and numerous ethnic wars which the continent has witnessed and is witnessing. What is responsible for this? Why haven’t things fallen apart? When one excludes the intrusive ‘mediation’ role of international community and the manacling aid, which are primarily linked to the economic interests of the members of this ‘international community,’ the thread that holds the collective will together within these incongruous nation-states may lie in individuals who, despite enormous odds strive to make a difference. These individuals, through their exemplary behaviour, vision and actions, whether in the private or public sector are the bearers and beacons of hope. Luckily for Africa, each generation has been blessed with such individuals in the political and private arenas.

Nigeria has had its fair share of such individuals, and despite our pathological disposition to squander vision, goodwill and hope, the remnants of the legacy of these individuals have in a way taken roots, albeit struggling-for-survival ones. The legacy of these individuals manifests in the national spirit with which certain members of the present generation, whether acting in their individual capacity or as part of a private or public enterprise put themselves at the service of the collective. They are the new purveyors of hope for an otherwise disenchanted body politic divided against itself. These individuals or institutions quickly become our national reference point, the role model that breaks ethnic and religious barriers. Individually or collectively, Nigerians are proud to be associated with them. We hold our heads high when we say we come from the same nation as these individuals. We write off our politicians as the undesirable exception of our lot and we seek representation in these individuals and the institutions which they represent.

In the common parlance used to differentiate the non-functional from the functional, the chaff from the grain, (and which has nothing to do with age), these individuals and their institutions are the New Generation Individuals and Institutions. Malam Nuhu Ribadu, formerly of EFCC, Dr. Dora Akunyili of NAFDAC, Mrs. Carol Ndaguba of NAPTIP are examples of the beacon of hope, the purveyors of vision, and the true foundational members of the Nigerian nation-state. They, along with others, through their engagement, actions and vision have committed themselves to make the emergence of a true Nigerian State a reality. Despite the fact that the institutions that they head were created by politicians as signs of intentions rather than actions, these individuals have not only transformed the institutions, but have converted them into symbols of pride for millions of ordinary Nigerians within and outside our borders.

And there are other individuals too, who do not head any institution, but who respect the collective will of the people by executing with fervour and honesty, the tasks which have been entrusted to them by the people. It is much more difficult to encounter this category of people in the public service, particularly in Nigerian Police Force. But one officer stands out. Mr. Francis Ojomo, the Divisional Police Officer of Akobo Police Station in Ibadan is a New Generation cop. During a recent visit to Nigeria, I had the opportunity of meeting with different people who live within the jurisdiction of the police station headed by Mr. Ojomo. As is common to many formal and informal gatherings in Nigeria these days, the problem of security found its way on top of the agenda of an informal gathering of neighbours, to which I had been invited by a friend. To my utmost surprise, and very much contrary to what I had expected to hear, the people gathered were full of praises for Mr. Ojomo. Adjectives like hardworking, brave, responsible, responsive to people in distress and honest were used to describe him. Mr. Ojomo was not at the gathering and he could not have known that a social party in which he was being discussed was holding. I have never met Mr. Francis Ojomo, and I do not know his rank; but one thing is certain from what I heard at this party: the gratitude and the goodwill of the people in the area under his command in Akobo will forever surpass whatever promotion he gets until his retirement in the Police Force. Unknowingly, Mr. Ojomo has made himself a life-time honorary citizen of the area presently under his command.

Failing states cannot use as excuse the lack of examples or exemplary individuals for their descent into failed states. In the case of Nigeria, we have an abundance of exemplary individuals with visions. The common Nigerians value the New Generation individuals and for their sake, the question of the validity of the existing body politic and the demand for a redefinition of the social contract in the place of an imposed one is put on the back shelf.

Our rulers, whom we hope will become leaders one day have the moral responsibility to strengthen the existing threads which holds the collective will of the Nigerian peoples together and also to nurture the emergence of New Generation Nigerians. And most importantly, they must stop squandering the legacy of those committed to the emergence of a true Nigerian nation-state.

Sarkozy to the Rescue: Lessons to Unlearn By Abimbola Lagunju

Sometime at the end of October, a plane with a group of 6 French Aid Workers, 3 French journalists, 2 Spanish pilots and 4 members of crew and a Belgian were arrested while trying to fly out 103 children who the Chadian authorities claim to have been abducted by the French aid workers.

As the story unfolded, it was found out that the children were not Darfuri orphans as claimed by the aid workers, but Chadian children with living parents and relatives. It turned out that these aid workers had, under false pretences, convinced the parents of these children to entrust them to their care for education in nearby towns.

While the drama of arrest of the group was going on in the town of Abeche, unsuspecting French foster parents of these “orphans” were waiting anxiously in the airport for the arrival of the plane bearing their foster children. Each of these foster parents had indeed been made to pay some money in advance by the “charity association” for the “logistics and administration” of bringing the children over from Africa.

There is no doubt that this looks and smells like an advanced case of 419. Not having famous section in their Criminal Code, the Chadian authorities immediately charged the group with “abduction,” “kidnapping” and “conspiracy to traffic” children. In Nigeria, the group would also have been charged under the 419 code in addition to the two Chadian charges. In the spirit of good neighbourliness and African fraternity, Nigerian authorities will do well in sharing this famous code with their Chadian counterparts in order to increase the burden of guilt on future adventurers.

Enter the French president! On hearing the case, Mr. Nicolas Sarkozy acted the judge. He said “I think they were wrong to do what they did.” This gave a cue to his Chadian counterpart, who delved into history books and declared “they treat us like animals….it is dreadful, I am revolted. I cannot accept it….here is the truth about this Europe that portrays itself as helping, this Europe which seeks to give lessons to Africa.” He vowed that the culprits would be punished according to Chadian laws. Mr. Idriss Deby also acted the judge.

About a week after the incident occurred, Mr. Sarkozy went to Chad and by the evening of the same the day he was flying back to France via Spain with seven of the detainees – three journalists and four Spanish hostesses. Somehow, the two judges in a private Ndjamena court session, probably over lunch, decided on the case. They acquitted some and decided to review the case of the others at a probable next sitting. Mr. Sarkozy, apparently the senior judge, later declared that the others would be released whatever the outcome of the sidelined Chadian courts. According to BBC, the French president said he would go again to Chad “and bring back those who stayed behind, regardless of what they have done.”

It is indeed laudable that a president passionately seeks to protect its citizens in any part of the world “regardless of what they have done,” however the behaviour of Mr. Nicolas Sarkozy in the management of this crisis needs an analysis in the light of the utterance of Idriss Deby that Europe seeks to give lessons to Africa. Here, there are some examples of lessons which have to be unlearnt. Firstly, the French president usurped the role of courts of law. He became the law himself and pronounced the group of sixteen guilty. Then he appealed his own judgement and reversed his decision about the collective guilt. Mr. Sarkozy acted as if France did not have any institutions in place to handle the matter.

Secondly, not satisfied with usurping the role of the President of the Supreme Court of France, he also took over the role of the Ministry of foreign affairs. He became the Ambassador and the Minister for Foreign Affairs at the same time. He personally took the four hostesses to Madrid and ceremoniously handed them over to the Spanish Prime Minister. This was not the first time that Monsieur Sarkozy would assume all these roles. The whole world was astonished when a few weeks after assuming office, he was able, through his ex-wife, to secure the release of 5 Bulgarian nurses and one Palestinian doctor who had been accused of infecting over four hundred Libyan children with HIV virus and had been sentenced to death. The six medics were also flown in the French presidential jet to Sofia. Even the European Union was surprised.

It beats the wildest imagination that any African president, whose citizens have been found to have contravened the laws of a western country will fly to the country to directly “negotiate” the release of the citizens. He will probably meet with a very junior official without an office space. And he will be given loads and loads of lectures on the respect of the rule of law to take back with him on his return trip. Is it imaginable that an African president, under any circumstances, whether in a foreign land or in his own country, could have taken these Sarkozy steps without being flayed by the world press for not respecting the rule of law? He would have been given names like “strongman,” or “dictator” to transmit the image that he tramples over all the institutions in his country. One cannot help but think of Monsieur Sarkozy as a strongman too. An international strongman, that tramples not only upon the institutions of his own country, but also of other countries, and in this case, the institutions of a poor African country to which “Europe seeks to give lessons.”

The Mo Ibrahim Foundation African Leadership Prize – An absurdity By Abimbola Lagunju

Created in October 2006, the Mo Ibrahim Foundation launched a five-million dollar prize for “good governance” for leaders of African countries. This African Leadership Award has as its potential beneficiary, any elected African leader that voluntarily steps down at the expiration of his term. Mo Ibrahim says the prize is to discourage African leaders from clinging to power at all costs, to encourage good governance and discourage corruption.

Three key words/phrases, namely “elected,” “good governance,” and “step down” figure prominently in the qualification requirements for this award. “Elected” presupposes an election process, an exercise during which the people of a country decide who they want to lead them. It is a ceremony of the signing of a contract; an employment contract with the conditions that the leader, the employee of the people will, during his term of office deliver goods of public interest to his employers. A condition sine qua non for the validity of any contract, its monitoring and successful execution is that both signing parties fully understand the conditions of their agreement. This is a mandatory first step in signing any agreement. Herein lies the root of good governance. In Africa, it is generally presumed that the mere process of going to the polls in the presence of observers, both local and international implies that the employer and the employee fully understand their duties and obligations in the contract. The Constitution, a complicated document only interpretable by the best minds in the legal profession and often written in the adopted official European language of the country is put on the table as the people’s conditions for the contract with a would-be leader. In a largely illiterate population, it goes without saying that the people, the employers, have no notion of the terms of their own contract. Needless to say that they do not have an informed knowledge of what steps and procedures to undertake when their employee flagrantly breaches the conditions of the contract. They are invited out in a jamboree, in the name of “democracy” to put their hands on a document which they do not understand; and by so doing, the beneficiary of this manipulative exercise claims his dubious legitimacy. The employee, armed with the foreknowledge that his employers have little or no idea of the terms of his employment, buys out the vocal dissenting few through juicy appointments or outright bribery and then puts the majority at his mercy. The international community then comes to the “rescue” of the employers when the employee betrays them. In the process of the “rescue,” very often, the employers are sidelined by the rescuers and the people do not understand the role of the “rescuers”. The “rescuers” may be seen by the historically traumatized majority as interfering in their internal affairs or having a neo-colonizing agenda. The plundered employers then take sides with their merciless employee.

The use of any form of inducement, financial or international recognition to supplicate the leader (employee) not to mangle his employers (the people) does not solve the basic problem of lack of understanding of the conditions of the contract by the employers. The employers need to be assisted to fully understand the duties and obligations of their employees and must be empowered to take appropriate actions against defaulting employees. Mo Ibrahim’s prize does not address this fundamental need. Rather it seeks to reward the employee according to its own criteria. It is not clear if this prize is supposed to represent the gratitude of the people for the execution of a contract of which they have no notion. Or is it a token of appreciation of the foreign arbiters of democracy? Or is it a belated reward for unchecked economic predation under the guise of “liberalizing the economy”? This huge sum, (which some African States crawl on their faces to get from creditors) can strengthen democracy by empowering the people. And one way of doing this is to translate the Contract agreement (the Constitution) into diverse languages of the different nations that make up our continent, so that people in the remotest rural villages will understand the duties and obligations of their leaders, and will be able to clearly differentiate rights from privileges.

“Good governance” is not a gift that the employee bestows on his employers. It is not a privilege to be given or withdrawn at the whims of the leader. It is a right of the people. It is the very foundation of the contract that links the people with their leader. Rewarding a leader for “good governance” reduces the concept to a prerogative of the leader; to be bestowed or not. It confuses right with privilege; and reinforces the existing confusion of these two concepts, not only in the minds of the leaders, but also in the minds of the people. If there would be any prize at all for good governance, it should go to the people for demanding this right from their leaders and for ascertaining that the leader does not confuse his obligations and duties with “benevolence” as is the case in contemporary African “democracies.”

The Mo Ibrahim Foundation African Leadership Prize also seeks to discourage corruption by African leaders. In Mo Ibrahim’s words, “few Africa States can afford to provide their ex-leaders with money to enjoy a comfortable retirement,” and his prize seeks to redress this! In order to discourage African leaders from dipping their hands in to the public purse, Mo Ibrahim Foundation will provide comfortable retirement funds for them!

Firstly, it is not the responsibility of a corporate mogul to reward a former employee of the people. If the leader serves the people according to the letter of the contract of his employment with them, then he and his family will forever enjoy the goodwill of the people after the leader has stepped down. Julius Nyerere, Thomas Sankara and Samora Machel are such examples of leaders whose children, grandchildren and generations to come will always enjoy the goodwill of African peoples. The recent 20th anniversary of the death of Thomas Sankara that attracted thousands and mobilized the solidarity of millions beyond the borders of Burkina Faso is a good example. Mo Ibrahim Foundation’s extravagant five million dollar prize can never buy this goodwill.

Secondly, the targeted leader is not the only public servant that at one time or the other will have to go into voluntary or forced retirement. So what happens to the others? The prime ministers, the governors, the ministers, the district administrators and the whole army of the civil service? Do they not deserve “a comfortable retirement” too? By singling out the president for this award, this Foundation has reduced the whole democratic process to the person of the leader only. The leader is the embodiment of democracy! Everything begins and ends with the president. This reductive prize contradicts the spirit of democracy itself.

Thirdly, how much will the dangling of the carrot of this prize in the faces of serving African presidents influence them to facilitate their nations’ markets for Celtel of which Mo Ibrahim is the chairman and an important shareholder in expectation of this lavish prize? It is an indirect way of currying favours with serving African leaders. The Mo Ibrahim Foundation may be accused of what it claims it wants to eradicate.

Corporate social responsibility is not an investment in a serving or in an ex-leader. Provision of useful social services, the strengthening of democratic institutions and the true empowerment of the people constitute some useful examples of corporate social responsibility.

The Mo Ibrahim Foundation African Leadership Prize should be scrapped. The people come first, not their employees.