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Justifying Nigeria And Other Noble Causes |
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Monday, 29 August 2005 |
What is evident is that we are held together, not by the bonds of mutual communion or by bonds remotely approaching that of mutual interests, but by force. This realization clarifies things a bit, because it opens up the window into elements of our popular culture which seem innocuous, but are instead justfiers of the force of amalgamation. I say popular culture, not because I believe that the supposed Nigerian society has anything so unifying to offer, but because these doctrines by influence of the State have permeated top down into the Nationalities under subjugation and are to be found competing for psychological space among their inhabitants.
The use of force is often justified - even if it is only so that the user of force answers the question: "Why?" The justification of force often invokes the spectre of righteousness and unrighteousness. A cop shoots a criminal - why, we ask. The retort is that the criminal stole something; ergo, the shooting is justified, not of itself, but in a context which involves agents with greater or lesser claims to righteousness and legitimacy.
Lugard justified British imperialism on roughly two grounds. British Imperialism was the deployer of force par excellence. Note that this force was deployed against non-aggressors, i.e. persons and Nations that had not directly threatened the existence or integrality of the British nation, though we may concede that they often did so in the fevered imaginations of the Imperialists. Thus Africans that didnt give a hoot about the goings on in Britain became the subject of art and dreams in which the West was overrun by the darker, subject races and possessed by them. A variant to this was the fear of the missionaries; in which they feared that their poor, noble souls would be corrupted by contact with lewd and lascivious Africans who would lure them in sexual depravity and tempt them from the path of salvation. We know this to be clear cut cases of projection and will not pursue this line of inquiry further here - the question is; what doctrines justified British force against non-aggressors?
We can say that Lugard outlined two broad ideas. First, he claimed that the resources of the Tropics belonged to the superior races to exploit. That is to say, the fact that inferior races dwelt in these regions did not grant unto them administrative or patrimonial rights over the resources. The betterment of humanity as a whole thus meant the dispossession of the inferior races so the resources in the areas which they dwelt could be harnessed and used by the superior races for the betterment of the human whole. We might note wistfully at this juncture how this philosophy, espoused by Westerners, who, given the recent construction of "Western Heritage Doctrines" one would ordinarily expect to be free market capitalists of some kind, given to markets and trade. But on the other hand, we have them talking like veritable Bolsheviks; and espousing philosophies that we are now informed are antithetical to Western thought.
Lugard's second idea was that force as British Imperialism was justified in order to protect the "lesser tribes" from the "greater tribes". That is, a philosophy in which the Imperialist stepped in and served as noble defender of some sort, protecting those receiving the short end of the stick from their more powerful neighbors.
This "Dual Mandate" was rigorously outlined by Lugard. We may pause and look at its implementation and present day effects. If those who read are of any frame of mind as myself, they will notice the contradiction between the mandates so expressed. The first mandate, which justified cruel exploitation is inherently contradicated by the second, which purports to protect and preserve - unless we concede that the second mandate says nothing about protection from British Imperialism - i.e. the dual mandate remains logical if and only if it is the European doing the exploitation. This was the case back then, and it is the case now.
Lugard had some very interesting things to say about the means and methods by which the Imperialist mandate would be effected. In respect to some peoples in what we today call Northern Nigeria, Lugard opined: [...The Fulani of Northern Nigeria are, as I have said, more capable of rule than the indigenous races, but in proportion as we consider them an alien race, we are denying self - government to the people over whom they rule, and supporting an alien caste - albeit closer and more akin to the native races than a European can be...](1). All this was fair in the British book. It was justified, Lugard later went on to explain, because: [... [Products] lay wasted and ungarnered in Africa because the natives did not know their use and value. Millions of tons of oil-nuts for instance grew wild without the labour of man, and lay rotting in the forests. Who can deny the right of the hungry people of Europe to utilise the wasted bounties of nature or that the task of developing these resources was, as Mr Chamberlain expressed it, a "trust for civilisation" and for the benefit of mankind ? Europe benefitted by the wonderful increase in the amenities of life for the mass of her people which followed the opening up of Africa at the end of the nineteenth century. Africa benefited by the influx of manufactured goods, and the substitution of law and order for the methods of barbarism...](2) and also because [...As Roman imperialism laid the foundations of modern civilisation, and led the wild barbarians of these islands along the path of progress, so in Africa to-day we are repaying debt, and bringing to the dark places of the earth, the abode ,of barbarism and cruelty, the torch of culture and progress, while ministering to the material needs of our own civilisation. In this task the nations of Europe have pledged themselves to co-operation by a solemn covenant. Towards the common goal each will advance by the methods most consonant with its national genius. British methods have not perhaps in all cases produced ideal results, but I am profoundly convinced that there can be no question but that British rule has promoted the happiness and welfare of the primitive races. Let those who question it examine the results impartially. If there is unrest, and a desire for independence, as in India and Egypt, it is because we have taught the value of liberty and freedom, which for centuries these peoples had not known. Their very discontent is measure of their progress...] (3).
Posterity is the judge of Lugard's statements. In his treatise on the Dual Mandate, Lugard was wont, as Imperialists are, to rail against the barbarities of the Primitive races - pontificating against Slave Trading expeditions and Market square impalements are signifiers of the barbarism Africa was to be delivered from. That such barbarisms werent seen in Europe, with is perpetual wars, eternal hatreds, inquisitions, witch burnings, jew hating, jew burnings, jew explusions and other social pathologies is of course a testament to Lugard's genius and his superior tunnel vision. There is a temptation to digress here: The imperial dream of many Europeans is to "Play Romans" - Even America, the supposed Country founded on rigorous anti-imperialist doctrines is host to Leaders who salivate at the thought of being a "new Rome". Europe's obsession with Rome and its desire to imitate her could be put down to several things - An oedipal complex, repressed memories in the cultural mind; etc. But our mission today is not to psychoanalyse Europe. It is to examine Justifications for Nigeria, then and now.
Back Then, Nigeria was justified by Imperial fiat. The force applied to congeal the realms which the State would henceforth administer was justified on Imperial fiat. It was justified on the basis of Race, of Racism and of Racial domination. It was justified on the basis of collectivist redistribution policies - that old hound of all governments in which they imagine that they are possessed of such wisdom which enables them to rob the rich and help the poor - or vice versa as the case may be.
The foundation of the Nigerian State is Racism. Without Racism, there would be no Nigeria. According to Lugard, who spoke on behalf of Britain: [...We hold these countries because it is the genius of our race to colonise, to trade, and to govern...] (4)The foundation upon which such Racism rests is collectivism and a singular denial of self determination; yet, we are now informed by dime-a-dozen colonial and Imperialist apologists that such notions are antithetical to the West. Lugard wouldnt have thought so.
In a quote I cited above from Lugards "Dual Mandate" - he asks that questioners examine the results the "civilizing mission" impartially. Though we are about a century removed from his time, we will take up the offer. Nigeria, Britian's largest handiwork on the continent is a hopeless basket case, driven into the grave by the very policies and structures established under Imperial rule. I see of no other conclusion arising from an impartial examination. It is driven into the grave by the very Racialistic ethos that Lugard held to be the key to administering British regions along gradients of primitive races. Where is the happiness and welfare of the "primitive races" promised by Lugard? It is nonexistent. Where is the supposed benefit from manufactured goods? It is as illusory now as it was then. In the case of Nigeria, the State has spawned an endless caravan of incompetent public utility companies and decaying infrastructure. This pattern is repeated almost everywhere else in Africa.
Let us engage the apologists on another ground. Let us consider the notion that Africans were better off under colonial domination than they are now. As with all the other Imperial notions they fail upon the slightest scrutiny - for the inherent assumption is that Africans now, are no longer under colonial domination. Yet, there is no reason to suppose that this is the case. The reality is that there is no African independence. The facts confirm this. Nigeria was not colonized by the British. Nigeria was the instrument for the colonization of Yoruba speaking peoples, Igbo speaking peoples etcetera. These peoples today do not possess any measure of autonomy or independence. Yet, they were the victims of colonization - NOT as Nigerians, but as Yoruba, as Igbo, as Ijaw and as Efik. At the very least, any notion of independence has to incorporate the emancipation of those colonized. This hasnt been the case. The colonized have NOT been emancipated since they are still under the jurisdiction of the colonial instrument. The entire notion then, that "Africans were better off in the colonial era" is complete nonsense since there is no reason to suppose that the colonial era is over. The Nations are still subjugated. This is not the only problem with such assertions of Imperial apologetics but it is a fundmental one. Thus, the state of affairs in Africa today is not only a product of historical colonization with European administrators, it is also the product of contemporary colonization with African administrators. No notion of independence should be countenanced with rests upon the singular denial of self determination that formed such a cornerstone of British Imperial policy and is a major element in the doctrinal ethos of the Nigerian State.
As historical colonizers sought to justify, the contemporary colonizers justify also, with more success. The absence of uprisings against the Nigerian State is proof of this. This consideration leads us to the pith of this piece; i.e. how Nigeria is justified today - largely through State doctrine as I mentioned in the first paragraph, but which is especially concentrated in what we may refer to as "Nigerian popular culture". There are parrallels in the modus operandi of both the historical and the contemporary colonizers. Most striking is the persistent allusion to a gradient of peoples in public discourse. There are "Senior Partners" and there are "minorities" (5). And in the true spirit of British Imperialist Bolshevikist redistribution; we are told that the natural resources with specific ethnic territories belong to all to share. It is instructive that peoples with authoctonous languages and culture - self contained in many respects - have suddenly been "minoritized" by mere interaction with Nigeria. They are not equal partners with equal bargaining power - they are minorities - as though they had no autonomous future or destiny; as though they do not predate Nigeria by centuries. But the narrative of colonization has never been one about equal partnerships. Therefore, we have minorities, since the notion of partnership confers upon the actors involved the properties of volition, choice and agency. These properties are antithetical to the Imperial narrative which demands that its subjects be unable to chart their own course, determine their own destiny, or opt into autonomous futures. Thus we have minorities and "Senior Partners" - a chilling testament to the vehemence against self determination found in both historical and contemporary forms of colonization.
Another notable parrallel is the element of occupation. It is apparent that almost all the National spaces under the jurisdiction of the Nigerian State are under military occupation. There are several clues leading to this deduction. First is the element of foreign invasion. Hausa soldiers in Yoruba land. Ijaw soldiers in Igbo land. Tiv soldiers in Calabar and all of them in the employ of the State - thus presenting a true Imperial scenario reminiscent of one in which the British recruited Sikhs against other Indians, and then recruited Gurkhas against the Sikhs. If we view the Nigerian State as an Imperial, colonial agent, then the entire strategy becomes clear. In order to adminster a territory filled with diverse peoples, the people units must first be broken up, then thoroughly mixed and culturally displaced with other ruptured people units and then forcefully administered from above. Some call this strategy "divide and conquer". It has served Imperialists well for millenia. Another clue as to our colonial state is the mysteriousness of power. A major element of this is the foreigness of speech. Right from Bible days when God told the Israelites that a violation of his commandments would result in a curse in which [...The LORD shall bring a nation against thee from far, from the end of the earth, as swift as the eagle flieth; a nation whose tongue thou shalt not understand...](6), the colonial disruption of societies has involved separating cloaking leadership and power in foreign or unintelligible speech so that it may not be challenged or interrogated. This is evident in Nigeria where the language barrier between the the hoi polloi and the supposed educated elite / leadership virtually makes them persons of mystery, demi-gods of sorts, to the "local", "native", "illiterate" population. The 70% of Nigerians who live in rural areas are all virtually governed by "persons of foreign tongue"; thus, to them, power becomes a mystery which cannot be understood, addressed, or questioned. Local administrators stand in for long gone Europeans and by speech, manner and a projected aqcuiantance with the ways of "the white man", exercise his mysteriousness against the hapless "bush people".
All of this must be justified and to this end, the justifiers require narratives of history and destiny. These narratives originate mainly among the elite, who are in bed with the State. Eventually, these narratives permeate from the head down and show up in music, in film, in drama, in comedy, in school books, in national exams - glaring to any discerning observer, not only because of the story they tell, but also because of that which they dont.
For instance, in response to the fact of foreign invasion as mentioned above - we might query what business Hausa soliders have in Yorubaland, etc - the popular narrator might inform us that first, there is no such thing as Yorubaland, secondly, even if there were, it is now under the jurisdiction of the Nigerian State (a tacit admission of the Imperial situation), thirdly, there is no difference between Hausa and Yoruba (a classic borrowing from a racist, quasi-pan-african script which views Africans as an undifferentiated mass of hunter gatherers far removed from civilization) and fourthly, that we are all "Nigerians anyway". Thus, in a space of 60 seconds or less, a popular narrator justifies not only the colonization of Africans, but their cultural disenfrachisement, loss of autonomy and resource administration and claim to patrimony. Under the supposed noble intent of "saving Nigeria", the popular narrator channels Lugard - acting as an accomplished medium for the spirit of the deceased insane. The popular narrator repeats the exact Lugardian arguments which have resulted in the loss of millions of lives and might very well result in the loss of many more.
We see this every day. We saw it decades ago when Funmi Adams sang [...Nigeria, my beloved country; working together is the key...]- Nowhere in her song were the origins of the State implied, and conveniently so. To justify, one must deny any imputation of guilt and this requires us to adopt the ludicrous position that even if the British did do some wrong, overall, they were a benefit of some sort - Hence, in order to justify our acceptance of the status quo, we justify the oppressor and reap the results - a never ending cycle of colonial State tyranny. We see it in the High school quiz competitions; the Bournvita brain matches, the Pronto Brain matches; the Close-Up essay competitions etc - all funded by corporations interesting in the survival of State power and keen on shaping the intellectual climate of the future. The young are not asked to volunteer one word about the origins of Nigeria, or Sharia barbarism or State plunder. All these issues which compel our youth to think critically about identity, national determination and progress are shoved beneath a pile of relativistic inanities, philosophical fatalism and deception. The popular narrator insists that the Youth view themselves as Nigerians first - In the Federal Government Schools (Kings College Lagos comes to mind), they are Imperial subjects first, Nigerians second and Imperial subjects third. We see it in the pompous pronouncements we all too often hear when old foggies relieve their glory days at colonial Secondary Schools - They, one and all, declaring that their schools are the "Etons of Africa" - whether it be Christ the King, Onitsha, KCL, or some other nurturing ground for our homegrown "Europeons" [sic].
In a speech delievered to "Kingsmen" some years ago, J.K Randle's rhapsodies about the glory days of K.C. as well as offering us the perspectives of an ex-PKC on Nigerian events prod the commonest idiot to realize that all of the purported leaders and "elites" that have been graciously bestowed upon the people as part of the colonial legacy are inevitably shills for Imperialism. No wonder Ojukwu's war to liberate the Igbo contained its own expansionist seed, the sowing of which unleashed a terrible harvest. In a speech given at a KC school leaving ceremony some years back (hereafter excerpted), Randle told of the ex-PKC who [...[offered]his profuse apologies to all those who went through the college under his tutelage. According to him, his mandate was to replicate Eton College, England (in Lagos) under the British Colonial government. He was also mindful of Winston Churchill's famous remark ! (a misquote) "The Prime Ministers of Britain are nurtured on the playing fields of Eton."...] (7)
Indeed.
But the PKC was not done with apologies. Like the popular narrators of Nigerian society today, the ex-PKC glossed over Lugard, glossed over British racism, glossed over territorial and cultural disenfranchisement, glossed over British Hamitism and [...was almost in tears when he admitted that quite frankly, the formula that had worked so well in India and Hong Kong had derailed entirely in Nigeria...]
And why not?
Were we to be less informed about our situation, we would be asking the same question. But we arent - and neither is anyone who is involved with the breadth of scholarship available on ethnic fragmentation, political stability and economic development. This would include the British also, since some notion of fragmentation informed their invention of Nigeria - ergo, the notion of Fulani supremacy.
Randle also tells that what the PKC [...hears about Nigeria is truly frightening. Nigeria has become synonymous with chaos, confusion and corruption (the three C's) plus sheer incompetence. How come ?...]
Indeed - but isnt chaos a traveling companion to racist, imperialist domination?
Randle went on [...Something else the "PKC" told me which really amazed me is that even now Nigeria is still shying away from confronting its demons which were unleased on the country on 15th January 1966, when the first coup d'etat occurred...]
But of course! Africans are left to confront the demons unleashed by the Imperialists not in 1966 or 1960 and certainly not in Africa.
Here again, we have another example of the popular narrative suggesting that Nigeria is an essentially good idea that ought to be improved; instead of a bad idea that ought to be abolished. The reason is simple - we are compelled to justify the imperialists.
In school, the ramifications of racism, hamitism and such arent taught. The anima of British Imperialism isnt taught. The students believe all is well with the world. Contemporary education doesnt capture the intractable demeaning of the African person by colonialists that propelled the movements for "Independence". The students arent introduced to the shapers of British philosophy and thought with regards to the person of the African. Churchill is cast as a hero, not as the vile villain and Imperialist who said [... I do not agree that the dog in a manger has the final right to the manger even though he may have lain there for a very long time. I do not admit that right. I do not admit for instance, that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America or the black people of Australia. I do not admit that a wrong has been done to these people by the fact that a stronger race, a higher-grade race, a more worldly wise race to put it that way, has come in and taken their place...] (8) Video tapes of "Independence" are shown. The Students are not informed that what is going on is a mere changing of the guards - a transfer of power to local stooges; local, but no less colonial. They are bamboozled by laughable fables about a "peaceful granting of Independence to Africans by war weary Europeans" - laughable, we say. What Independence? What Africans? Are the Yoruba, who were colonized, independent? Are the Urhobo, who were colonized, Independent? No. So where is the independence? Absent - a fact that is apparent to any conscientous observer, yet cannot and must not be countenanced by the popular narrator because Nigeria must be justified and the Imperialist must not be impugned.
It is in the same terms that the Nigerian reconquest of Igbo territories (1966 - 1970) is presented. It is a "civil war" to the popular narrator, thus reinforcing the belief that the war was between "Nigerians" - as though "Nigeria" was one country, with homogenous actors in an internal spat. This presentation achieves two things in a critical stroke. It reinforces the idea of a singular Nigerian principality, thus we say "Our civil war" - we accept and personalize it. It also excuses the invisible imperial agent by presenting the war as a "Nigerian affair". Crucial to the deception is the acceptance of the notion that "Nigeria" is ours; it is native. If we accept that, then the reconquest becomes a "local affair" and the Imperialist is hidden. But if we reject it, and insist that "Nigeria" is foreign, then the reconquest is seen for what it truly is - just another expanionist exercise by a colonial instrument; and hence, not a "civil war", or an "internal war", but a war of colonial consolidation. All this is apparent to the cursory observer but cannot be admitted by the popular narrator because Nigeria must be justified and the Imperialist unimpugned.
Sometimes, there are seeming compromises in the popular narrative: Obasanjo recently "denounced" European powers for the "fictional borders" in Africa. To the naive, this might seem like a concession of Imperial guilt, but is it nothing of the sort. "Fictional borders" are not the problem. The creation of borders is an exercise in power and it is futile to denounce or change borders while power centers remain intact. This realization opens the way to another interesting idea; namely that Obasanjo's denunciation of the Imperialist merely serves to lay the ground for a Nigerian take over of surrounding territory on the claim of "rationalizing the borders": an interesting idea, proposed by Ali Mazrui, but which is irrelevant to us here.
The key issue is that amidst all this denunciation and noise; the germinal Imperial creation, the spectre behind it all, which is the State is left unchallenged. The State is the justification for the borders and it is the colonial agent. Addressing borders while self determination is frowned at is a ridiculous exercise wind chasing.
We understand this to be crucial because the growth and perpetuation of cultures and identities is to some extent constrained by State power. Culture and Identity is the basis for opposition to anything. Ideologies, religions, philosophies et al, are essentially individual psychological cultures; aspiring hegemons recongize the neccesity of influencing and controlling culture and the cultural flow of information. In this regard, "Nigerianness" is supplanting "Yorubaness" or "Igboness" - not because it has anything better to offer, but because it has guns on its side. Consider the schools. The campaign of deculturalization begins at an early age where the child learns to disdain Africanity, has his Mother tongue beaten out of him and aspires to a Westernity that is impossible for him to completely imitate. He is told that this is "progress" and "advancement" - but this situation could not survive where the State not required to rationalize a "Anglicization" of the schools by appealing to multinationality. That is, we are diverse peoples, thus, we require the external Anglo-Saxon influence to hold us together. The notion that we need not be together to prosper, or that mutual communion might be obtained on other terms is never entertained. A priori, Nigeria must be justified and the Imperialist unimpunged. Nigeria, and is faux identity is taken as a working assumption akin to the cosmic Ether of Physicists living decades ago.
This working assumption finds its way into the songs. I recently listened to a supposed Nigerian "Afro Hip-Hop" song where the singer rebukes someone for pretending to be Jamaican and appeals to him to recognize his Nigerianness. That no one is rebuking Yoruba persons, excoriating their pretense to Nigerianness and pleading for a celebration of Yorubanness is instructive. You see the working assumption in Sunny Ade's popular refrain, delivered in Yoruba [...Nigeria yi, ti gbogbo wa ni...] (This Nigeria belongs to all of us); an interesting statement considering that Nigeria was sold, NOT to Africans, but to the British Government by the Royal Niger Company for approximately a mere 900,000 pounds - worth, perhaps, in todays funds, just enough to keep the 130 million pieces of "human property" living on less than $1 a day. We see it in Onyeka Owenu's [Nigeria will survive, Africa will survive, my people will survive o...Nigeria will survive...]. No one is singing that the Igbo, or the Yoruba, or the Ijaw will survive. Certainly not. They are held to be primitive vestiges of a primordial past; certainly worth less when compared with the 900,000 pound worth of the Nigerian estate (worth more perhaps, since the discovery of Oil). That the Yoruba etc are to be treated with less concern and their survival to be of less importance than the survival of Nigeria is a crucial part of the working assumption and essential to the popular narrative.
The seemingly innocuous elements of the popular culture of Nigerian society are thus powerful justifiers of the colonial project. Messianic white missionaries in the movies, tales of colonial era school principals retold with nostalgia, the silence about the racially induced colonial collusion with Lebanese and Syrians to defraud Africans in business and silence about the animating motives or the doctrines and speeches of colonial era administrators etc are all part of the same package. Elitism reinforces this - the elite buy houses in Potomac, Maryland and in Kensignton, London - they wheel and deal with the global system and those at the bottom of the food chain believe all is well.
Hence, the downplaying of Africanity and the compulsory insulting of it at the hands of State operatives is taken to be an essential aspect of State performance. Integral to this performance is a seeming celebration of some strange kind of "Pan-Africanism" which in reality is a reinforcement of colonial State power and structures complete with appeals to a supposed mythic, unifying African ethos that forbids challenges to corruption, despotism and is replete with docile subervience to power, cultural collectivization and unbelievable pretense. Pretense, for instance, that "we are all one" - when in fact we are not. The purpose of the pretense being to blind us to affirming our uniqueness while the homogenizing State instruments erode our patrimony completely. This is already the case in some areas - most notably in East Africa where a strange creature called a "Kenyan" may be found and another specimen called a "Tanzanian" may be observed - novel genera no doubt, of the supra taxa Brittannia sp.
We justify Nigeria by decrying "tribalism"; achieving in a critical stroke the devaluation of our Nations into the mere tribes of Imperial imagination in need of a strong hand and at the same time delegitimizing any chance to disprove such notions by insisting on Nigerian supremacy. The usage of the "tribal model" is innocuous, but nonetheless, a powerful justification of Nigeria. It is used by Middle Belt power brokers who demand the inclusion of "tribe" on Census data, by journalists who talk of major and minor tribes, by idiots who affirm the notion by appealing to the notion of a "Lion of the Tribe of Judah" while silent about the concept of an overarching ethnocultural Nation of Israel and by Imperialists and their apologists. Thus, the Rwandan genocide is "tribal infighting" - the tribal idea here being offered as the antithesis of "civilization". This concept, a projection of European experiences on Roman colonization is entirely unsuited to African conditions - but who cares? Popular narrators have never been ones to allow 1000 years of Europes post-Roman colonial trauma to be taken out on Africans; indeed, the Nation-State model that was produced from that trauma is the reason for their narrative - they must justify the superpositioning of Europe on Africa. The idea of the nation-state - one Nation in one State was deployed in Africa on the racist assumption that the States would create the Nations needed to propel them culturally and doctrinally. Thus, a Nigerian State would create a Nigerian Nation, and ditto for Ghana etc. At the foundation of this thought is that no nations preexisted the colonial State, or simply that they were unworthy of recognition - Instead, mere tribes predominated, in need of a strong, imperial congealing force - Pax Romana redux. Thus, the Europeans, by benevolence and might would create Nations, by superimposing States on these disparate tribes without significant language, culture, custom or tradition and thus produce grateful children, as it were, on the dark continent. No other course of action could have been expected from the a priori racist assumptions that Africans had no civilizations or States of their own. Today, we see the result of the model: the offspring of the Imperialist are Vicious States and half formed pseudoNations; Quasimodos leaping dementedly, but logically enough, to their deaths.
We justify Nigeria in the Churches. The Pentecostals tell us that Africa is shaped like a gun; and that it is the gun of God for a worldwide endtime revival with Nigeria as the trigger and South Africa as the muzzle. Never mind that an Ijaw Republic located in the Gulf of Guinea would do just as well for a trigger. Nigerians are exporting Christianity, we are told. They are pastoring the largest Churches all over the world - we justify Nigeria because it seems to be a base for our religious affiliations. "God has a plan for Nigeria," howls the Preacher - the idea that Nigeria is actually a curse is never considered. Yet, a glance through Deuteronomy 28 would suggest that this is the case. Domination by persons of foreign speech, distress, fear of armed robbers, strange diseases and ailments, social confusion and dislocation, etc are rife in Nigeria today. For the Israelites, these were colonial curses: what do they mean for the Nationalities under Nigerian control?
We hold our justification to be a noble purpose because we have constructed a grand destiny of sorts for ourselves. We are the "Hope of Africa", "Big Brother" and besides, we simply would not be able to stand it should Nigeria be abolished and all those other pesky Africans collapse in laughter. After all, they are all jealous of us, as "Nigerians", or so we think.
Our justification is noble because we are convinced that the colonial State is indispensable, neccesary, beneficial or all three put together. That no shard of evidence from 40 years of dismay exists to support this is not a problem for our popular narrators. Their advice to us is to "keep working", "hoping" and "praying for change". Our justification is noble because there are so many with much invested in Nigeria emotionally. From those with psychological investments in its African "bad boy" image, to the clueless numbskull who receives moral license to fornicate with all and sundry in South Africa simply because he is a Nigerian; From the 419 scammer proud of his Nigerian ingenuity, to the Nigerian minority citizen from some village near Port Harcourt who is grateful to partake of that patrimony. From the insecure foreign student in an American Universe who needs to keep repeating that his country is a large producer of oil, to the Nigerian bumpkin in the Los Angeles night club who believes his Nigerianness will compensate for his intellectual deficits. From the yuppie International School Lagos graduate now working for a Chicago firm who wears his inability to speak Yoruba as a badge of honour, to the faker in Japan who pretends to be an African American in Shibuya night clubs in order hear equally fake Japanese lasses plead "biggu dikku irete" or something of that sort. From the naive freshman at the University of Texas, Austin who introduces himself as a Nigerian and a member of the Igbo "tribe", to the bland BET comedian who introduces himself as a member of the same "tribe" with a website to match. We hold our justification of Nigeria and of its Imperialist parents to be noble because we are psychologically invested in the illusion. That this investment is the result of 100 years of deception and lies is irrelevant. Reality is only too often an incovenience that must be dispensed with.
There is more to be said along these lines as anyone who has read this far now knows. But let us stop here. There are those who have it in their power to reverse and repair a significant amount of the damage that is being done and while they arent busy questing for oil rents, it is our hope that they will turn to that neccesary task. Certainly in our individual capacities, there is much we can do, that is, if we deaden our ears to the incessant touting of some whizkid or military apparatchik as the next Nigerian Messiah. In such capacities, we will require much humlitity, patience and focus. Much courage also: Fortune favors the bold, History is shaped by those who take a stand. The notion that the colonial State is a settled affair is the creed of the triumphalists - and understandably so. Worldwide communism for some was also a settled affair. In the final analysis, we must reject the voices of those who tell us that bad government alone is the problem - or who posit that crooks are destined to rule over us even if we abolish their claim to power. Hopefully we now see such mental crutches for what they are. With enough determination, we can recreate our national societies: built on personal affiliations, repsect for the individual and with representative governments that are produced as a result of our continually transfigured cultural passions.
Notes for References and Context
1. Frederick Lugard, The Dual Mandate in British Tropical Africa (1922), pps 197,
198
2. ibid, pps 606 - 609
3. ibid, pps 618, 619
4. ibid, pp 619
5. Umaru Dikko recently insisted that the North was a "senior partner" in Nigeria.
http://www.dailytrust.com/archives/Wednesday10%20August2005/news1c.htm
6. Deuteronomy 28:49, KJV.
7. http://www.usafricaonline.com/jkrandle.obasanjo2003.html
8. Churchill to the Palestine Royal Commission (1937). See more Churchill quotes at Wikiquotes.
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Sir_Winston_Churchill.
That this very doctrine espoused by Churchill was the very same espoused
by Hitler has not ceased the worshipping of this fellow as a Saint, instead
of recognizing him as the cavalier Imperialist that he was: fond of war, of
mass carnage, of Kings, of Emperors and of the glory of military conflict;
his war against his devilish ideological comrade, Hitler, notwithstanding.
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Last Updated (
Thursday, 24 April 2008 ) |
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Posted by Robot| 13.11.2005 14:07