quote: The photographer Jide Adeniyi-Jones sent this to myself and others today. He intended it to be published in the local newspapers (it was not). Please feel free to forward it on:
Some thoughts that I sent to the papers a month ago, since they were not used I thought I would send them to a few friends:
quote:‘This is Nigeria’
It is hard to say precisely when Nigeria lost its way, but soon after the demise of the first republic we lost our self-confidence. In defense, we took refuge behind words like Giant, Great and Excellence as if their forceful proclamation would endow us with the qualities that they define. The very need for these superlatives in the face of our obvious challenges is itself symptomatic of our neurosis. But it is a little too easy to seek the root of our current predicament in military intervention. After all the military were hardly the bastion of the brightest and the best of our pre-independence population. So in the battle for the soul of the nation, they are unlikely to have won such a resounding victory; even with all the instruments of coercion at their disposal. No, I think we have to look a little farther back.
Pre-independence politics, as dubious as it sometimes was, did not sink to the universal game of shadows and echoes that it has become today; where the vitally important issues of human interaction are in the hands of sorcerers skilled in slight of tongue and hand, with the spoils going to the slickest or most ruthless shyster. A politics of ideas was emerging with inspirational thinkers like Chief Obafemi Awolowo, Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe and Sir Ahmadu Bello prominent among its leaders. Today, of course, all of their epithets Chief, Dr and Sir regularly preface a single individual’s name assigning to him or her unmerited qualities of all the titles. Our fear of accomplishment makes us democratize it, we spread it everywhere, in the process trivializing achievement and making a mockery of cultural, academic, and religious endeavor.
Proof of the early politics of ideas, can be found in the NCNC (National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons) triumph in the erstwhile Western Region. But Nigeria lost its essence the day the western legislators ‘crossed carpet’ to install Awo instead of Zik, a non-Yoruba, as premier. Thought and ability quietly lost their currency as the pursuit of our highest common factor gave way to a desperate clinging to our lowest common denominator. We became consumed with claiming for our ethnic allocation of the national pie, meanwhile the short-circuiting of the fledgling political system in Ibadan resulted in the morass that is Nigeria today. ‘This is Nigeria’ I feel fortunate to be old enough to remember a time when those same words, with slightly different emphasis, carried a code diametrically opposed to what they represent today. The indignant ‘that cannot happen here, this is Nigeria, not some banana republic.’ of my youth, has given way to a resigned, ‘Siddon there my friend, this is Nigeria’. The code works with ruthless efficiency and enjoys universal recognition and acceptance. Nigerians and non-Nigerians alike understand and use the phrase to end discussion of the most shocking and disgraceful occurrences. It quells all outrage or enquiry, as it unfailingly co-opts us into impotent acceptance of our common inability to live up to our potential, after all this is Nigeria. We cannot ask very much of our peers or ourselves; this is Nigeria.
Hearsay has it that, in the run up to the recent Senate reading of the constitutional amendment bill, the third term architects at The Rock, when cautioned that success of the project did not look likely, commanded ‘Make it happen, this is Nigeria!’ Today there is a distinct air of confidence even on danfo buses as I overhear ‘They could never have succeeded sha, this is Nigeria’. Thus the battle for the soul of Nigeria continues. In retrospect, it seems that the whole drawn out third term drama was therapeutic for the nation. Whether President Obasanjo wanted a third term or not is neither here nor there. In the end, the attempt was foiled, not by the will of a good or bad president, but by an emerging democratic structure. Balance of powers, the legislature curbing the potential excess of the executive. Straight from the textbook on democracy, this is Nigeria. As for Obasanjo, with all his strengths and weaknesses, he has always appeared to me to have an eye on posterity. As post colonial African history is written, he has tried to position himself to be in the chapter with Mandela rather than Mobutu. So it seemed to me a distortion of common sense that he would today be striving for a third term in office. It appears that I was probably dead wrong. Robert Mugabe, reviled today in some circles, was a bona fide African champion as he led a courageous and principled assault - from the bush and then the ballot box - on Ian Smith’s stranglehold on Rhodesia. To this day I get goose bumps when I remember him at Rufaro Stadium, after midnight, with Bob Marley celebrating the liberation of Zimbabwe. Liberation that left apartheid South Africa exposed and alone, a night on which he symbolized endless possibilities for Africa. What changed Mugabe? I do not know, not having walked in his moccasins. So it is with OBJ. His experience under the boot of Abacha followed by years surrounded by the sycophantic hordes in Aso and environs may well have altered his self-image. The Museveni example may also have encouraged him to think that a change in the constitution might do the trick.
Constitution change having failed, much time is still being wasted in speculation about what the president will do now to achieve a third term or who he will select to succeed him? This is idle speculation because if we have learnt anything from the last couple of weeks, Baba’s endorsement of a candidate now may be the kiss of death for that individual’s presidential ambition. In our far from perfect legislature, members on the right side of history, have a newfound swagger in their stride. A fresh confidence and pride borne, not from their bank balances, but from the respect and adulation of those whose interest they are supposed to serve. In the system when a few good men and women stand up remarkable things are possible, this is Nigeria.
There are indeed tides in the affairs of men, which taken at the flood lead to good fortune, but if missed leave you high and dry. Luckily, the nature of tides is that they return in cycles giving second and third chances at success. This is cold comfort if you live in a country that serially misses its tides, but it is reassuring in the grand scheme of things to know that with each new surge we have another chance to steer a steadier course. I, like many others, experience ebbs and flows of despair and hope on our chequered road to tomorrow. We have been stuck in a mire of, turn-by-turn, chop and go politics, with our main focus being on whose turn it is chop next. Meanwhile, measured by almost any social indicator that you choose, life in Nigeria has declined or at best stagnated over the last few decades. Today the paradox of Nigeria is exemplified by fiber optic cable being laid through the length and breath of a country whose minister of power says will not have steady supply of electricity for the next fifty odd years. If the flicker seen recently in the national assembly becomes a flame, even the honorable minister may be surprised at what is possible; after all there was a time when we put our best foot forward in an attempt to build a nation. Umoru Altine was the mayor of Enugu. Mazi Unbonu Ojike was the deputy Mayor of Lagos. People like Mercy Eneli were on the Lagos city council (and their seats were not zoned to them). So we will see the not-to-distant day in which the inhabitants of Zamfara State, realize that the administrator in Abuja assuring that their environment is protected from ruthless mineral exploitation is a woman named Oby, and that the local bank manager giving the market woman in Ogun state a loan was born in Borno. That will be the day in which Nigeria has found itself once again.
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Well, this generated much discussion. Judging from the unusualy high number of comments (and debate) on the blog, I thought this was a sure-fire conversation-starter. As it is, this has been my least productive post since"Et in Arcadia Ego," which may have been the least productive post in the history of Hatrack.
Posts: 1332 | Registered: Apr 2005
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In general, Pel, people aren't interested in responding when someone posts a huge chunk of someone else's ideas without giving any of their own.
Why do you care about this post? What does it mean to you? What are your own thoughts and opinions about it?
If you don't give us anything in particular to respond to here, why wouldn't we just join the converastion on the blog you lifted this from?
Posts: 7954 | Registered: Mar 2004
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Jeremy Weate is something of a hero of mine, and, although I have never before heard of Jide Adeniyi-Jones, I have great respect for his words.
Post-colonialism affects us all, and I believe that experience has shown that postcolonial societies are best led by intelligentsia as epitomized by Messrs.. Weate (a philosopher) and Adeniyi-Jones. Too often, African countries end up with a Mugabe, rather than a Mandela or a Nehru. Nigeria is of great significance because it is a poor country which should be the richest in the world and would be if its enormous natural resources had were not handled with the all too typical mixture of incompetence and corruption. Nigeria is also, like much of sub-Saharan Africa, plagued by ethnic and religious strife.
I believe that Africa can be changed, just as Central Europe was changed, but a Václav Havell is needed to do it. Nigeria has been part of empires as great as the Austro-Hungarian and has far greater resources than Czechia (I shall use the name preferred by both the Czech embassy and O.S.C., as this is perhaps the only place where it will not provoke laughter). So why is Czechia, which is almost as religously divided and has been post-Communist for a far briefer period than Nigeria has been postcolonial, a stable democracy and a member of the E.U., while Nigeria is a failed state? Leadership.
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quote:Too often, African countries end up with a Mugabe, rather than a Mandela or a Nehru.
It's worth noting that neither Mandela nor Nehru proved to be all they were initially cracked up to be, either.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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Mandela and Nehru, while far from perfect as either leaders or humans, are probably the best postcolonial leaders in the later half a the twentieth century.
Posts: 1332 | Registered: Apr 2005
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It is enough. Most of world, in tems of both area and population, is postcolonial or postcommunist. Mr. Havell is the leader they should most emulate, but Nehru would not be too poor a choice either. In the land of the blind.... Of course, Nehru and Mr Mandela were both better than many U.S. Presidents I could name, so I should not, perhaps, be so keen on claiming that only postcolonial states are blind.
Posts: 1332 | Registered: Apr 2005
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Isn't the U.S. post colonial? YOu said most of the worlds was... seems to me that there were once 30 some odd British colonies here.
Posts: 9912 | Registered: Nov 2005
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