Development aid: Donor and Beneficiary Fatigue By Abimbola Lagunju

Development aid has become part and parcel of the political and economic geography in many developing countries and particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. Broadly interpreted, development aid means, a package (mostly financial) that is directed towards development of a nation or a group of people. The premise of international development aid from the point of view of a donor country is that the beneficiaries are either incapable of developing themselves or they do not have the resources to do so or they are unwilling to develop. 

The donor then offers to provide financial, technical, material and human resource assistance to the beneficiaries to develop them according to a template chosen by the donor. This template is not always understood at the beginning by the beneficiaries or those who represent them. When finally understood and this is often too late, the beneficiaries accept their fate, hoping that their gods would come to their aid to save them from whatever agreement they have signed or in the normal case scenario, they will let the developers do whatever they want, while they either watch from a safe distance or just tag along, hoping that it will all end soon and then they can go back to their normal lives.

In the course of the dynamics of the relationship between the donors and their beneficiaries, the initial enthusiasm that greeted the agreement between the developers and their beneficiaries soon fizzles out and frustration sets in on both sides. The term “donor fatigue” was invented by donors and development aid agencies to convey their frustration at the slow pace of change or no change at all in their beneficiary countries and communities, despite their “huge” investments. They do not see the changes they have planned for, and many times, their development plans based on a template from icy climates or air-conditioned conference rooms either gets blown away in the dusty winds of the Sahel or melts without trace in the humid heat of the West African coast.

The beneficiary side also harbors its own disenchantment of development aid. This disenchantment may be rooted in the culture of the peoples of West Africa. When someone decides of his own volition to give to the poor, he does not hang around the poor to tell him what to do with the money. He hopes that his donation will make an impact on the life of the person and does not expect his reward here on earth. If however, the person decides to monitor how his money is spent, he does not relocate himself to the house of his beneficiary and occupy his house and mind with his own vision of life. This is unimaginable in the African way of life. There is a Yoruba saying which says, “When you give a ram with a rope around its neck to someone, you should let go the rope too”. If however, it happens that the benefactor relocates to his beneficiary’s house to monitor the use of his money, the beneficiary will most likely comply zombie-like with the exigencies of his benefactor or will become refractory to assistance. The benefactor is then accused of having a hidden agenda – maybe there is something in his beneficiary’s house that he wants to appropriate. Worse still, if after relocating and occupying the beneficiary’s house, all the promises turn out to be hot air. Altruism of assistance then becomes questionable and a culture of benefactor distrust begins to emerge.

As far as international development aid is concerned in sub-Sahara Africa today, there is a growing distrustful middle class, a cynical political class and a disillusioned rural and urban-ghetto populace. Development aid donors and practitioners are seen as having a hidden agenda and are accused of self-satisfying and self- aggrandizing pseudo-samaritanism. They are seen as the primary beneficiaries of their development aid.

Sometimes, in order to forcefully change the dynamics of the deteriorating relationship, the donors threaten to wield the big stick – the withdrawal of their aid.  The placid, indifferent and bored attitude of their beneficiaries to this threat and in some cases, an outright encouragement of the benefactors by the beneficiaries to wield the big stick and go away with their aid confounds the developers. The benefactors quietly withdraw their threat and stay put. Donors have again coined a phrase and an acronym for this situation – Africa Wins Again or AWA.  In order to alleviate their fatigue burden and justify their continued “reluctant” support of “recalcitrant” beneficiaries, long term or any term impacts are nudged aside and replaced with in-depth “inputs and outputs analysis”, “process emphasis” and “lessons learnt” digressionism.

Rural beneficiary communities in particular, have become disillusioned with little or no impact on the quality of their lives, despite the lofty declarations of donors and aid agencies over the years. These communities equate aid practitioners’ samaritanic declarations to mere intentions for which they have learnt to understand and accept their inability to hold the practitioners accountable. They now tend to compare the “developers” with their irresponsible politicians. They suffer chronic fatigue from unfulfilled promises. They know they are called the “field” in which they are surrogate players. They have learnt to develop thick skin to “participatory approach” and to all other fanciful phrases entreaties. And when they give their reluctant consent to “participate” in an aid project, they have learnt to also have their own hidden agenda.

Better access to information on the politics and economics of development aid has also changed the views of educated people and opinion leaders in beneficiary countries on the short, medium or long term benefits of aid. When entreated or coerced into “collaboration” with a new aid project, the middle class, which is often represented by a fatigued public service functionary in this dynamics sees a déjà-vu experience with no results. He suffers chronic fatigue from multiple seminars, workshops and conferences.  To alleviate the fatigue, he seeks to get a share of the “aid cake” in financial remunerations for services that are his normal primary duties.

The political class sees development aid as a useful thorn in the flesh. They prefer to have the money but not the development template. They imagine unknown hidden agenda in development aid. But they have their own hidden agenda too, and very often this agenda is linked to how to repatriate the aid money back to the country of origin, but into a bank account bearing their own names. They abhor reminders by the developers of the letter of their agreement. They also become fatigued and refractory.

Both donors/agencies and their beneficiaries have reasons for fatigue. No group has the right to claim more fatigue than the other.  If Development Aid as it is practiced today has not delivered the desired results on both sides, then something new has to be put in its place. Maybe it is time to give transparent and equitable trade a chance. But the big question will always remain: will both sides ever be able to overcome their historical mutual distrust?

Multiple Organ Failure – Outsourcing organs to keep a giant alive By Abimbola Lagunju

A patient with a very small head and a disproportionately large body was brought in a convoy to the International Nation-State hospital. He was unconscious. Doctors and nurses rushed to the emergency unit to attend to the new patient. Soon, word went around the hospital that a monster with a tiny head (what the doctors would later name extreme microcephaly) and a very large body had been brought into the hospital. Other nation-state patients in the hospital left their beds to see the monster. Ghana, who was about to be discharged from the hospital after being given a clean bill of health claimed to know the giant. They were once friends.

Ghana said the giant was born in 1914. The head stopped growing a few months after birth, while the body continued its normal growth. As the anomalous proportions became evident over the years, the monster became a laughing stock of everyone, including children, who at any opportunity, anywhere in the world gleefully threw stones at him. Interestingly, despite having several mirrors, the giant never looked at his own face. He did not know the size of his head. His mirrors were placed in such a way to reflect the enormous body only and the sheer size pleased him immensely. In times gone by, he used to call himself the giant of Africa. The giant only saw in sizes. The bigger, the better: Big political parties, big delegations, big agbadas, big cars, large convoys, big wives. Big life. Quality or substance was alien to the giant. He was only obsessed with extra-large sizes of everything.

The patient was rushed to the intensive unit and put on life support system. The doctors soon began a close examination of the patient and ordered for different laboratory investigations. They were all fascinated by the pint-sized head and the Goliath-sized body. The head was x-rayed. The radiologist looked at the x-ray film, cursed in his native language and beckoned to the other doctors to come over to look at the film. They were all shocked. “Not possible!” One senior doctor said. “Must be a mistake. Repeat the process,” another advised. The radiologist took a new x-ray of the head. The result was the same. There was nothing in the head. The head was empty. No blood vessels, no brain tissue. Nothing! The doctors had never seen anything like this before. They ordered for more sophisticated tests on the head – ultrasound, magnetic resonance imaging, etc. The result was the same. There was nothing in the tiny head! It was empty! How could this man have lived at all?

The heart was also subjected to tests. The doctors were again baffled. The heart was different from any heart they had ever seen – either in clinical practice or as students practicing on mammals. There is no such heart in the animal kingdom. The heart was a piece of rough hollow rock with some liquid that later tested to be crude oil inside it. It had no links with any of the vital organs in the body. No blood vessels. No sign of life. They checked the entire body organs one after the other. The organs had all failed. To the surprise of these doctors, all the laboratory tests to ascertain the causes of failure of the organs came back with the same results irrespective of the organ – corruption, outright theft, nepotism, self-destruction, abuse of office, cannibalism and violence.

Doctors all over the world are known for their indecipherable scribbling and their love for complicated terms and acronyms. The case is not different in the Nation-State Hospital where the monster was on life-support system. The doctors gave new names to the failed organs and tissues in his body and described their causes of failure. As a rule, the hospital assigns names of state agencies and organs of governance to body organs. In the case of this patient, the stomach became the National Assembly; the lungs became the NNPC; PHCN for the eyes; the liver was christened the executive council; the gall bladder became the Police, the large intestine was christened the judiciary, the pancreas became the parastatals and the kidneys christened the water corporation.

The doctors had to decide whether to let the giant die or to try their best to get him back on his large feet. They chose the latter. They had no right to switch off the life support system without the consent of the relatives of the patient.

A United Nations international conference of experts was convened to discuss the unusual case and to decide on the procedures to manage the patient and bring him back to life. All the doctors agreed that the patient would need multiple organ transplants. And not only that, he would also need state of the art immuno-suppressants in order not to reject the transplants.

There was a long debate on which organ to transplant first – brain tissue, heart or other organs. The doctors were fully aware of the virulence of the body organs against each other and the danger they could collectively pose to the survival of the giant.  Finally they all agreed to do a brain transplant. But they were confronted with the problem of the size of the head. How would they fit a normal brain into the small head? Should they relieve the monster of its tiny head and put another one with normal brain in its place. This would be an easier procedure than trying to fit a normal brain into the tiny head. But they considered the problem of recognition and identity. The monster’s relatives and friends would not recognize him if they gave him a new head. They decided to trim a normal brain and fit it into the tiny head. Their reasoning was that half a brain is better than no brain at all.

The doctors began a diligent search for the relatives of the giant to donate some organs in order to keep him alive. When the relatives learnt of this, they all disappeared. No one wanted to donate his brain or any of his organs. But it was all a procedural ruse. The doctors were not really interested in the organs of the relatives. They knew that such organs would be immediately attacked by the other organs and would again end up failing. And there was the problem of hereditary keyed-in failure in the organs of the relatives too. The failed organs have to be outsourced.

Failed local organs have to be removed and replaced very urgently in order for this giant to survive. The police, the judiciary, the parastatals, NNPC, PHCN, the National Assembly and other organs have to be out-sourced in the international market.

But who will donate the brain?

Removal of Fuel Subsidy: A Crisis of Trust By Abimbola Lagunju

It has not yet dawned on the Nigerian government that, trust between the governed and the government is a prerequisite for acceptance of any government policy. It will be an understatement to say that there has never been any mutual trust between any government in power, military or “democratic” and the Nigerian people. Not that Nigerians are a skeptical lot, but over and over again, all the governments that have been in power in this country have betrayed in big and small ways whatever trust people had vested in them. The Nigerian political class has not shown or done anything to gain the trust and inspire confidence in the people. And Nigerians have been forced by these circumstances to choose between being perceived and treated as naïve and being outrightly skeptical. Many have chosen the latter.

Unfortunately, this fact is lost on the Nigerian political class that prefers to see Nigerians as naïve and treat them as such. Nigerian politicians tend to think that winning at a ballot confers a blanket trust. – a license to invent and sell lies as truths. They employ those that they refer to as “spin doctors” to say everything but the truth. Spin doctors! And these individuals revel not only in being called “spin doctors” but also in selling anything but the truth. Truth has become a rare commodity in this democratic dispensation.

There are many versions of truth to any event in Nigeria, and in most cases all of these versions are outright lies. Truth sometime is found in the streets in the rumor web, and very often, every Nigerian borrows or develops his own truth of the same event. And indeed, our political class has invented truth-twisting vocabulary to perfect their deception. “Arrested” by an anti-corruption agency has now become “invited” by the same agency in the Nigerian political vocabulary. “See them” means “corrupt them”.  “Situation under control” means nothing is being done. Haba! We do not know what to believe anymore. And the Nigerian press does not help in elucidating the truth – they report all the versions of fictitious “truths” using the twisted political vocabulary without any criticism or analysis.

Good governance, security, anti-corruption war, generation and constant supply of electricity, creation of employment opportunities for the youths, improvement of infrastructure and the economy have all become declarations of good intentions on the pages of newspapers. It is not unusual to read a sentence like “How to generate employment in Nigeria – by a Minister” or another like “Nigeria can reach great heights if….by a Party Chieftain”.  Just a fleeting inspiration and after their speech, they do nothing. And that is, if they wrote the speech in the first instance. Nigerian politicians in the position of power have learnt not to do what they say, and indeed to do the contrary of their declarations. Road are tarred on the pages of the newspaper. Electricity has been so much generated on the pages of newspapers that we should be exporting the excess by now. Our politicians have poisoned the polity and have made lies and half-truths a way of life in almost all the spheres of Nigerian life.

With a long history of betrayal of trust, how does the government think it can sell any of its policies and particularly the most recent one on the removal of oil subsidy to a skeptical nation? The chances are slim. There are many doubts about the over-flogged so-called benefits of this policy. Dr. Leonard Karshima Shilgba in a recent article posted on Saharareporters asked “what has the Nigerian government been using the annual savings from sovereign debts to do in the past 5 years? If the federal government has nothing to show for the debt cancellation or “forgiveness” five years after, why should Nigerians trust that same government to use whatever savings from fuel subsidy?” There is a serious crisis of trust.

But there must be a way forward – the government must work for the people and somehow a bridge must be made between the governed and the government. The people have already given out the contract and must find a way to for these employees to work for them.

A possible way out was inadvertently advanced by a group of northern senators as was reported by the Nation Newspaper on 8th October this year. The senators conditioned their support to the Bill on removal of subsidy! As reported by the Nation, “The conditions are: the government should account for past fuel subsidy and publish the names of those who have been benefiting from it in the past; and the government should come up with concrete plans or agenda on what it will use the funds gained from the withdrawal of fuel subsidy for.” Conditioned support!

There are four things to glean from the conditions demanded by the senators. Firstly, they are demanding that the government tells the truth, nothing but the whole truth on the “what”, the “who” and the “how” of current oil subsidy. This simply means that simple truth is elusive within and among the Nigerian political class. Secondly, the senators are claiming that contrary to what the “spin doctors” of the government are claiming as the potential benefits of the removal of the subsidy, the government has not really done any homework on how they will go about the use of the funds they intend to liberate by the removal. According to the Nation newspaper, one senator, “who spoke in confidence, said: “Some of us are against the withdrawal of subsidy because the government has no concrete plan in place to cushion the effects of the policy.” Thirdly, whenever truth escapes from its confinements, it comes in an anonymous form from the Nigerian political class. None of the senators who bared their minds on the Bill wanted their names to be associated with the newspaper story. They preferred to be anonymous. They made telling the truth to look like a crime. Fourthly and finally, Nigerians can indeed begin to condition their support and trust in any government policy. This will be a new development in the relationship between those entrusted with governance and their employers, the people.

In addition to the two conditions posited by the senators on the removal of oil subsidy, I will like to add some more and I invite the readers to add theirs too. Like many other things shrouded in mystery in our country, we have no idea how many vehicles the Nigerian state at all levels of government, legislature, judiciary and parastatal institutions has. We will like to know. This is condition Number 1. We will like to know how much of tax payers money is used to fuel these vehicles. This is condition number 2. We will like to know how much the tax payer will have to pay to fuel these vehicles when the subsidy is removed and what percentage of the gains of the removal of the subsidy does this represent? This is condition 3. The same for generators – Condition 4. We will like to know by how much the increase in the travel expenses of our ever-travelling government officials and legislators will eat into the purported gains of the removal of the subsidy – condition 5. We will like to know how much will be left for “the development of the economy and opportunity for the greater number of people.” This is simple mathematics and we will like to know. And we will like to know whose idea this is anyway? World Bank or home grown? And finally, what if the white elephant idea fails and dies a couple of years into implementation? Which zoo-keeper is going to answer?

Democracy is defined as a government of the people, by the people and for the people. It says “for the people” and not against the people as Governor Rotimi Amaechi will like us to believe when, of the removal of the fuel subsidy, he said, “We must learn to take very difficult decisions…” For the avoidance of doubt, we do not, at least here in this country, elect people to make life difficult for the citizenry. Our democracy is a young one, and if it will survive, it is not the people that must make the sacrifice; it is those whom we have elected into power.

And what sacrifice are we asking of them? Simple truth, transparency and good governance.

Is this too much to ask?

The Politics of Shoes in Nigeria By Abimbola Lagunju

Recently, at the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation's annual awards dinner in Washington, D.C, President Obama charged the Black leaders to remove their bathroom slippers and put on their marching shoes. Marching shoes? The Obama shoe-speech represents a conundrum for the Nigerian political space. Ah! Did the black leaders come in bathroom slippers to the dinner? Or have they been seen in their tailor-made suits slopping their way in their bathroom slippers along the corridors to the chambers of the Congress? Marching shoes ke? Did he mean matching shoes and bag? Or mashing shoes?

We have no marching shoes in Nigeria. Where on earth do we want to march to? Here, we talk of matching shoes and bags. This is a Nigerian specialty – ask any young Nigerian girl. She will gleefully reel off to the pleasure of her parents, which shop in Ibadan, Abuja, Kano or Port Harcourt has the best Italian and Spanish matching shoes and bags for women. And the men, in order not to be left behind wear matching shoes and wallet; and recently matching shoes, suits, wallet, wrist-watch strap and fedora hats.

In our environment, the political rulership (civilian and military) does not like marching shoes. Indeed they abhor it.  Why on earth will a well-paid politician want to wear marching shoes? He will be the laughing stock of his colleagues. And any Nigerian senator worth his salt does not want to be out-dressed in the haut couture parade of the National Assembly and Abuja nightlife. After all, he is the plenipotentiary ambassador of his constituency in the Federal Capital Territory and must exhibit the impeccable matching dress sense of his community. He does not need to march to anywhere. He has already marched from his village to Abuja. He has arrived! Political vision on our shores is not about marching! It is about outdoing your colleague in wardrobe wealth, where delicate matching accessories and lots of spare change are fundamental.

And our security service men do not have the couture finesse of our politicians. They cannot afford matching shoes, wallets and bags. They wear mashing shoes. These are not necessarily iron-studded punk shoes; neither do they have the brilho of Gestapo boots. Indeed, in many cases, they wear what Obama advises against – bathroom slippers in all shades and colors. These made in China, or made by Shina the corner cobbler, which have in most cases seen better days, contrast sharply with whatever uniform they are supposed to complement. The more the contrast, the more ominous their dark power. Mashing does not require any vision; neither does it require any finesse. Mash is smash, and any shoes will suffice. And crush they do. Police mash citizens, soldiers crush civilians, navy smash women, Airforce harass villagers, police pound soldiers, and soldiers squash the police. Very often, our politicians temporarily put aside their matching designer outfits and wear mashing shoes to deal with their opponents, real and imaginary. And our judges wear mashing shoes when sentencing small time criminals, and don matching attires with big time political thieves and corporate economic saboteurs.

Nigerians happily alternate between matching paraphernalia and mashing shoes. When in a small or big dispute, a Nigerian says, “I will deal wit you”, he means he will change his matching shoes and suit for mashing shoes to pound his opponent into submission physically or spiritually. And this does not have anything to do with the level of education or qualification. When it is time to display their mashing shoes, it may be difficult to differentiate a motor park tout from a doctor, a pastor, an engineer or a university professor. And the Nigerian womenfolk are not to be underestimated in the display of raw mashing power. Their mashing shoes have sharp stiletto heels.

Known as a nation of mashing and matching shoes and suits, foreigners living in our midst have learnt the trick of deft switching of mashing and matching shoes. They keep their marching shoes, which brought them to our country in the recesses of their wardrobes and join in the mashing fray. The staff of big and small embassies in Nigeria smash and crush visa applicants and information seekers physically and electronically. Telephones are either not functional or unanswered. Their e-mail addresses which are largely 419 addresses do not function – mail enquiries are not answered. And if ever the telephone is answered or the mail replied to, it comes in the form of crushing and smashing rudeness. Those, who have had to stand in long queues in front of some of these embassies or in their unwelcoming reception halls to be interviewed or to obtain information know first hand what it is like to be pulped under the mashing shoes of these foreigners.

And in the evenings, when the embassy officials and our rulers are done with mashing and smashing, they don their matching shoes and suits and invite each other to dinner. While the embassy officials are discreet about the victims of their mashing, our rulers spill the beans on each other - Who is mashing whom? Who has the best crushing boots? Who is funding the pulping boots? They have no limits. They talk to show their appreciation for the invitation. They feel privileged to be wearing the same matching shoes and suits with their hosts, even if just for a few hours.

Nigerians working in factories and companies owned by foreigners in Nigeria have a long experience of being crushed under the shoes of these “investors”. The Nigerian Labour Inspection Units at different levels go barefoot when on inspection visits to these factories and companies and leave with matching shoes, bags and suits or their equivalent in Naira or foreign currency. And these inspection units do not leave the factory of company premises without polishing the mashing shoes of these foreigners. The Nigerian worker does not have any hope for respite. They learn with time to resign themselves to their fate of forever being something under others’ shoes.

Nigerians living abroad or just visiting barefoot or in designer wears are not spared from their hosts’ mashing boots. The crushing boots hound them as they seek to make enough money to buy matching shoes, suits and bags to outdress everyone at home on their “glorious” return. They are pulped for the smallest of unintentional misdemeanors for which other nationals may get a slap on the wrist. And not surprisingly, many of them will happily give up their Nigerian nationality to obtain acquire the nationality of their host countries. They think (and they may be right) that this new nationality is a passport and visa to escape the vicious mashing boots set to crush and smash Nigerians in many countries of the world.

Nigerians are victims of shoes in their country and abroad, because the leadership is yet to learn that marching shoes are better than mashing and matching shoes and suits.

We can only hope that President Obama will, sometime soon, accept to visit Nigeria to speak about shoes. He must however remember to bring along some marching shoes for our politicians and compel them to wear them. We have had enough of matching shoes, bags, belts, babariga and suits.

Revolution as a collective psychotherapy: the Tunisian Experience By Abimbola Lagunju

During the preparation for a visit to Tunisia for a professional meeting recently, I expressed my concern to the organizers of the meeting about the appropriateness of holding the meeting in a country that just underwent a revolution and was preparing for elections. The mental image of Tunisia that I had conjured in my mind was greatly influenced by the events in Libya and also by mentally substituting Nigeria for Tunisia and imagining what Nigeria would look like under these extraordinary circumstances. The organizers reassured me, but I was uneasy until I reached Tunis. I did not know what to expect, and I had made sufficient cash provision to purchase an early ticket out if the situation was as I had imagined.

This was my second visit to Tunisia. The first was in 2004 when Ben Ali was in power and the second was in September 2011, when he had been chased out. I began my observation from the airport. The body language of the Tunisians working in the airport (immigration officials, customs, cleaners, airline staff, and shop assistants) was very instructive. They were quite relaxed as they went about their duties professionally. I did not feel the tension, frustration and apprehension that normally translate into verbal violence in these workers. The airport workers that I saw this year are markedly different in their mien to those that I saw in 2004. A revolution acting on the psyche of a people? Was I imagining things? I reserved my judgment until I came out of the airport. The picture was the same – a friendly people, relaxed, smiling and going about their duties diligently. From Tunis to Hammamet, the Tunisians that I met exuded serenity of a people who had just been relieved of a burden. I felt relaxed – the organizers of our meeting were right after all. No doubt the departure of humiliated Ben Ali was a major therapy for the Tunisian people.

Kefif Macek, a dental surgeon, a political activist and one of the leaders of the Tunisian revolution compared the long reign of the ousted president Ben Ali to a long nightmare, which when suddenly ended was a surprise even to the most ardent demonstrators in the cities and villages in Tunisia. Indeed, all dictatorships are nightmares and waking up through revolutions, peaceful or violent to effect a change is an inevitable event. The fact that no nightmare lasts forever is lost on many sit-tight and oppressive leaders, who, trusting in their absolute control of the state machinery of violence ignore the rightful aspirations of their people. These yearnings gather momentum and become an unstoppable force that ultimately overwhelms and consumes the dictator – a temporary shift in the power equation.

People take part in a revolution for different reasons – some for very personal reasons, because they have at one time or the other suffered injustice from the dictatorship; for some, the burden of oppression has become too much to bear; for others, their self dignity has been trampled upon by the corruption and arrogance of the dictator, his family and political party (when there is one); for others the economic hardship has become unbearable and yet for others, they need a new political breathing space, new faces in the political and economic spheres. Without doubt, everyone that participates in a revolution has his own axe to grind with the dictator or a system. However, they all share something in common – a clean break-up from the past, liberation from the oppression that a dictator or a system represents. A waking up process from a long nightmare. A desire for a new paradigm.

However, the desire to break up with the past is not synonymous with having a vision for the future. In the euphoria of the moment, many assume and believe that the unknown future cannot be worse than the past. Every participant in the revolution expects his grievance to be addressed in the new dawn. Individual and collective expectations in the post-revolution period then grow out of proportion and become a burden to the new dawn with a yet to be defined vision and project. “How do you see the new Tunisia in fifteen to twenty years? I asked Hayet Moussa, a Professor of Sociology in the University of Tunis, who also participated actively in the revolution. After a brief hesitation, she said, “Difficult to predict. Difficult to see even what Tunisia will look like in a couple of years. We must however be vigilant that our revolution is not hijacked by internal or external forces. Our freedom, as Tunisians must be protected.”

“But what exactly are Tunisians looking forward to in the new dispensation?” I insisted.

“Dignity and freedom!” Hayet said without hesitation and Kefif nodded his agreement.

In the quest to create a new political, economic and social order, Tunisians have demonstrated an unparalleled political maturity not only to the Arab world but also to the whole world. Sub-Sahara Africa has a lot to learn from this political astuteness. The challenge to Tunisians at this moment is to create a new Tunisia which will satisfy the expectations of the majority of the people. Tunisians are taking their time to accomplish this – it has been eight months since the departure of Ben Ali and the country continues to function. I quickly remembered the dark curtain of uncertainty, manipulation and the complete paralysis of the Nigerian state during Umaru Yar Adua’s illness and subsequent death. Tunisians have demonstrated to the world that a determined people can make a country function even in the absence of an elected or a self-imposed leader.

As a Nigerian and a Sub Saharan African, I could only admire the determined spirit of Tunisians to make their country a better place. I made a mental comparison between Tunisia (which I was visiting for a second time) and Nigeria. Tunisia has the infrastructures that will keep Nigerians happy for a very long time – they have exactly what we yearn for – good roads, stable electricity, water supply and planned urban and rural development. Nigeria has the wild liberty particularly in freedom of associations that will keep the Tunisians happy for a very long time. There is some degree of unity among Tunisians, whereas this is an abstract concept in Nigeria. Nigeria has weak state institutions while Tunisia suffered under sycophantic ones. In both countries, the state institutions prioritize the desires of the rulership rather than the aspirations of the citizens. Both countries suffer from high level of unemployment among its youths. However, Nigeria largely surpasses Tunisia in the corruption index. Nigeria appears to have all the right conditions for a revolution.

But can a people-led revolution, as was the case in Tunisia, ever happen in Nigeria? It is most unlikely. The Nigerian rulership enjoys and exploits the ethnic, lingual, religious and political differences which characterize the Nigerian citizenry. The Nigeria project is absent in the vision of the average Nigerian; it is doubtful that the Nigerian rulership also has any notion. No Nigerian ruler has ever stated clearly, verbally or written, what is his vision for Nigeria.  Thus, if perchance a revolution happens in Nigeria, it will come in the form of different groupings (ethnic most probably) fighting among themselves rather than a united front against the rulership and its failures. It will be a “revolution” to “disappear” Nigeria as a nation-state and not to improve it.

As I boarded my plane out of Tunisia, I felt a sense of pride and a sense of loss. Sense of pride because the spirit of the people, the collective will, which underscores a nation-state has prevailed against a tyranny in Tunisia. Sense of loss, because this collective will is absent in the Nigerian space. The spirit is alien to us.

And God knows we badly need some collective psychotherapy!

Dial 09141 and Die By Abimbola Lagunju

A Nigerian newborn is probably one of the most courageous human beings in the world. He has overcome all the possible odds in his nine months of uterine life to see the light of the day. Even the process of his birth is a major feat that if transposed on any adult-life challenge, will require the most courageous adult to surmount the odds and live to tell the story. The newborn is born with in-built survival mechanisms. Having overcome all the odds of intra-uterine life and the perilous process of his birth, he comes into the world, endowed with an innate ability to overcome fears and to surmount the comparatively less challenging odds of life.

However, his instinct to survive and live well soon becomes captive of the acquired fears of his environment. The family and the society teach him that the fear of fear is the beginning of wisdom. He is immediately constrained by family and community taboos, founded on their fear of the known and the unknown. He inherits, and is soon held captive by internally generated fears which include cultural fears, fear of the environment and the elements, religious fears, institutional fears, distrust and fear of others, and to this list, he learns to develop and  add his own individual fears.

These fears are characterized by their uncanny ability to self-propagate exponentially in a society already weakened by its internally generated fears. As is the case with fear-induced taboos, the “what” and the consequences of these fears are the only considered factors. The people, heavily burdened by their own internally generated fears do not even have the energy to question the “why” and “how” of the externally induced fears. It is impossible to produce a response to overcome any source of fear if the “how” and “why” are not put under scrutiny. The obsession with “what” and a complete disregard of “why” and “how” in the face of adversity can be illustrated with the recent rumour of a killer cell-phone number.

Someone called me not to take any number that starts with 09141 because it had been reported to have killed some people in one local government in Borno. “A number killed a person? How?” I asked. “I do not know, but someone sent me the message,” my friend said, and warned me not to take any calls starting with any unknown code. He said he was going to switch off his phone until the evil blew away. My friend, an intellectual by all standards, was not overly concerned with “why” and “how”, he was satisfied with the “what” that could threaten his existence. He entrapped himself in fear. Fear took control of his freedom.

There cannot be any kind of freedom in the presence of fear. Freedom abhors fear and vice versa. It is no gainsaying that political freedoms, economic freedoms, social freedoms and progress cannot exist in a fear-driven society. In order to have these freedoms, the society must first learn to liberate itself from the clutches of fear. It must seek the courage to conquer fear. This is the most important pillar of human and societal development. If telephone numbers can send our people scampering for safety, then we should understand that Nigeria is far from any freedom. As the most populous congregation of black people in the world, this does not give a good example of the reasoning capacity of the Black Race. Nigeria should be the light, and not a source of darkness. Nigeria should be a pride to the Black race, not a source of shame and ridicule. Telephone number killing people? Excuse me! We really lost it this time.

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, in their own environment, their knowledge and skills crumble under the society weight of “fate”, fear and self-induced helplessness.

Unlike its victim with his accepted “fate” of helplessness, fear is not static; it seeks to gain more grounds and to metamorphose from its overcome-able form into a real unassailable and formidable force. The victim-society inadvertently, through cowering and lack of imagination actively assists the metamorphosis of fear from its unreal state to a palpable, existing, and overwhelming monster.

A society that has chosen to live in fear fears everything and anything. It fears all odds, small and great, real and imaginary; it fears the consequences of even contemplating to tackle the odds, and it is even more frightened of the imaginary costs of challenging the odds. It draws up very vivid images of life-threatening scenarios if it attempts to change the energy dynamics between it and fear.

This lack of collective internal drive to harness whatever little available energy to overcome fear soon translates into intractable debilitating collective illness, “a cultivated case of social schizophrenia”[i] characterised by a fatalistic resignation to what the society conveniently identifies as its “fate”. Concern for shallow and mundane issues that inhibit productivity, vision, creativity and resourcefulness becomes the principal preoccupation of this society. Life becomes a captive of fear and the right to it cannot be fully exercised physically, economically, politically, mentally and spiritually.

In this prostrate condition, the phobic-society seeks to define its identity within the confines of its “fate”. Values are redefined to portray the relationship of the society with fear. Fear induces “a collapse of a system, a collapse of values, a collapse of sensibilities, indeed a collective blunting of sense of obligations…”[ii]

Haba! Telephone number killing people?  Whither Nigeria?

[i] Wole Soyinka – Interventions I – Bookcraft, Nigeria 2005.

[ii] Wole Soyinka – Interventions I – Bookcraft, Nigeria 2005.

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GADDAFI'S GAFFES (Abla Ungalski) - 13

WOMEN ACCORDING TO THE COLONEL

Now we know

“According to gynecologists women, unlike men, menstruate each month... Since men cannot be impregnated they do not experience the ailments that women do…"
Muammar Al Qathafi: THE GREEN BOOK 1975 

Unto each according to their sex

“…Women should be able to get the education that is suitable for their feminine nature. There has to be one curriculum for men and another for women…”
Address to the Students and Faculty of Meiji University, Japan  December 15, 2009.

They have a natural role

“If a woman is forced to abandon her natural role as regards conception and maternity, she falls victim to … dictatorship.”
Muammar Al Qathafi: THE GREEN BOOK 1975

Because....

“Woman is a female and man is a male.”

“When a woman does not menstruate, she is pregnant.”

Muammar Al Qathafi: THE GREEN BOOK 1975

Nigeria as the 51st American State By Abimbola Lagunju

Crises in all forms and shapes that have defined the Nigerian existence since independence have induced, even in the most patriotic Nigerians, a sense of helplessness and hopelessness of our situation. Nigerians have become fatigued from irresponsible leadership, reckless, visionless and dishonest political class, lack of infrastructure and services, absent state institutions and existential uncertainty. In order words, Nigerians collectively suffer from what can be termed “Citizen Fatigue”, a socio-political psycho-somatic illness.

Nigeria has never really had any peace in about fifty-one years of its existence. The Civil war was a spill-over from the ever-boiling crisis pot. We have no recollection of any moment in our history of which we can say we are proud. We have no historical moments of national lucidity for which we can evoke nostalgia. We have no recollection of peace and security. We have no recollection of when anything ever functioned the way it should.

This geographical entity conceived in mischief in 1914 and born into chaos in 1960 has never been able to find its way to nationhood. Calling it a failed nation-state is assuming that it is a nation-state in the first instance. One can only fail an exam if you appear for it. Nigeria as an entity has never appeared for the nation-state exam. Nigerian politicians have always made sure that Nigeria is always absent. It takes more than a flag, currency, people herded behind borders and a horde of marauding politicians (civilian and military) to call ourselves a nation-state. Nation states are built on sincere collective will. It is this collective will that is at the origin of the phrase: “We the people….”. There is no “We the people…” in the contrivance called Nigeria. The trademark of Nigeria is disunity in all spheres of our existence – ethnic, religious and political. I dare ask, what really unites us?

And their “We the people…” wherever it is written, cannot even be described as a declaration of good intentions because nothing of our 50-year existence attests to any good intentions. What have the politicians done in all these years but to highlight and bring to fore all our differences? If ever a collective will tried to emerge (as in June 12), the politicians destroyed it. Where are the institutions that probably would have nurtured and safe-guarded this declaration of intentions? They are also in crisis. We know about how the Police, the judiciary, the parliaments, the banks and other state institutions have betrayed the trust of us trapped behind the frontiers of this country. What hope do we have? What visions can we build for our children’s future? The politicians have no answer to this, and worse, they have no clue whatsoever. They have made the unworkability of our contraption so evident that Nigerianness is very alien to our thoughts. Our debacle stares us in the face. Nigeria is a political experiment gone haywire. This is the worst case scenario any citizen can find himself/herself in.

Despite the “Citizen Fatigue”, many Nigerians in recent times have been expressing their fears for the present and their uncertainty in the future and have been proposing different solutions. Many are aghast at the bombings attributed to Boko Haram from one section of the contraption, militancy from another section, kidnappings from another section, and armed robbery from yet another part. It appears that evil in all its possible forms has taken permanent residence in Nigeria and each evil form has chosen in which part of the country to reside. A child born into chaos, nurtured in chaos can only beget chaos. There must be a way out. Enough is just enough.

Among the plethora of solutions to solve the present predicament that this geographical entity has found itself, the most commonly proposed in the media are revolution and convocation of a sovereign national conference. Revolution is not workable in Nigeria. There is nothing that unites the people, not even deprivation or poverty. There is no common front. Further, history has shown that leaders of revolutions always turn out to be worse than those they chase out of power. And besides, who will lead the revolution anyway? Some intellectual safely tucked away in diaspora or a local activist? Even our own local experience has shown that newspaper activists or self-proclaimed revolutionaries are not to be trusted with power. In one of the Southwestern States, there was a governor, who until he was elected as a governor was a regular columnist in the Nigerian Tribune. Believing that he meant what he was writing about, people voted him in as a governor. As soon as he got elected, he forgot about his idealistic articles. He joined the reactionaries! What did he do to alleviate the suffering of the masses? Nothing!

The convocation of a Sovereign National Conference to jointly define the conditions of our continued common existence or the parameters of an amicable break-up looks attractive in our present situation. But who will convoke this SNC? Who will be invited to this SNC?  Will it be the same dishonest, corrupt and continuously recycled members of the discredited political class? Will the political class even have the courage to convoke this SNC? The answer is No! The necessity for this SNC is not new. It is something that has been staring at us in the face for the past 50 years and none of our rulers has ever had the courage to put this agenda on the table. There is a Yoruba proverb that says, “Orisha, b’o ba le gbe mi, kuku fi mi sile bi o se ba mi”, which loosely translates into “Orisha, if you cannot add value to my life, better leave me as I was”, but this Orisha, our vicious political class will not add value to our lives and do not have the courage to leave us as were before the drunk Lugard and his girlfriend entrapped us behind the borders to serve the Empire. His successors, our rulers have simply continued the legacy of their British ancestor. There is almost no possibility that a SNC will ever take place in Lugardia, I mean Nigeria.

There just might be another solution. But before we talk about this solution, I will like to state what I suppose majority of us desires as citizens. Firstly we want real democracy, where we count. Secondly, we want strong and incorruptible institutions that are not manipulable by any government in power. Thirdly, we want basic services and basic infrastructure. And lastly we want corruption to disappear from our lives. Our political class cannot deliver any of these. They have shown and proved to us that they cannot. And these are the minimum deliverables that we expect. If our politicians cannot deliver them, then we have to look elsewhere.

The United States has what we, as ordinary citizens want and desire, and we, on the other hand have what they need badly, which is oil. As an alternative to revolution or the convocation of a SNC, Nigeria can ask to become the 51^st State of America. An offshore state, that functions and is ruled like any other American State. Then we will have the dollar as our currency, fly the American Flag and forget “Arise O compatriots”. We will be independent but within the framework of the Constitution of United States, which we copied and have failed woefully to implement as a nation. This is not a return to colonialism. We shall have the same status as any other state in the US. Many of our politicians and bankers already have properties in the US, and some are US citizens, and according to Wikileaks, our politicians low and mighty regularly give their “sitreps” (situation reports) to the American Ambassador in Abuja. They have inadvertently opened the way for Nigeria to become the 51^st American State. And Lugardians (I mean Nigerians) will not need a visa again to go to any part of the world.

The best way to go about this is through a United Nations organized referendum. We cannot trust any of our politicians, even Professor Jega’s INEC with this responsibility. They know that when we become US citizens, many of them will go to jail for a very long time.

GADDAFI'S GAFFES (Abla Ungalski) - 12

Of the Black Race

“The black race is now in a very backward social situation. But such backwardness helps to bring about numerical superiority of the blacks because their low standard of living has protected them from getting to know the means and ways of birth control and family planning. Also their backward social traditions are a reason why there is no limit to marriage, leading to their unlimited growth, while the population of other races has decreased because of birth control, restrictions on marriage and continuous occupation in work, unlike the blacks who are sluggish in a climate which is always hot.”

Muammar Al Qathafi: The Green Book 1975.

And they are very primitive too

“… There are thousands of tribes in Africa. Those tribes fight over water and pastureland…. When the peoples of Africa leave the primitive stage behind them, tribalism will end and so will tribal conflicts…”

Address to the Faculty and Students of Cambridge University October 22,.2007

I will organize them..

“We must unite to establish one big association for the Tribes of the Great Desert. We shall frame a charter that we will all sign and call “The Charter of Timbuktu”…..
"New Challenge" - A Speech in Timbuktu. April 10, 2006.

 

But if I fail....

"I will take Libya out of Africa and put it back into Europe"

BBC 24th February 2011: “In a speech in Addis Ababa Colonel Gaddafi attacked the Ethiopians for what he perceived as racism, accusing them of stuffing the bureaucracy of the African Union with anything but Arabs.”

GADDAFI'S GAFFES (Abla Ungalski) - 11

Let the Africans in…

“At the Libyan border, I recently stopped 1,000 African migrants headed for Europe…. They have the right to do so. .…”

Address to the United Nations General Assembly. October 1, 2009

 Chase those starving and ignorant Africans out!

“There are millions of Africans who want to come in (Europe)".

“We don't know... what will be the reaction of the white and Christian Europeans faced with this influx of starving and ignorant Africans”

"Tomorrow Europe might no longer be European, and may even be black, as there are millions who want to come in, We don't know if Europe will remain an advanced and united continent or if it will be destroyed, as happened with the barbarian invasions....." 

Reported by BBC August 31, 2010

GADDAFI'S GAFFES (Abla Ungalski) - 10

Let us migrate....

“God orders us to migrate to various parts of the Earth. He tells us to go wherever we want in it…. For all those reasons, one is entitled to migrate to different parts of the Earth because God created it for all….”

Address to the African Union/ European Union Ministerial Meeting on Migration and Development, November 22 2006

....Otherwise go back to your roots

“If we are to ban migration, let us then ban the human presence in all continents. Let every one return to the land from which they came. Let the inhabitants of the Americas return to Europe. Let the Europeans go back to Asia. The Arabs of North Africa should return to the Arabian Peninsula. The inhabitants of Australia must return to Britain, Holland or any other country they hail from. The Boer in South Africa, who have become an integral part of its people, must head back to the Netherlands.”

 Address to the African Union/ European Union Ministerial Meeting on Migration and Development, November 22 2006