Africans complain that the countries they inherited from Europeans are problematic. They complain that Europeans made mistakes in arbitrarily lumping different tribes into the same countries thus creating intertribal problems for the ensuing Multi tribal African countries.  They complain about Europeans having their favored tribes placed in key government and military positions. They complain about the parting gifts of the Europeans of rigging elections to enable their preferred tribes handed governments.  They complain about the emergent neocolonial situation whereby Europeans (Metropolis) dictate what takes place in Africa (Periphery); about Europe carting Africa’s resources to Europe and keeping Africa underdeveloped; about Europeans keeping Africa a plantation economy that feeds the industries of Europe while selling Africans manufactured goods at exorbitant prices and thus keeping Africans poor. 

        Africans have complained ad nausea about what Europeans did to them.  Fifty years after gaining Independence from Europe is enough time to have done something about the issues been complained about? Most people are, therefore, no longer listening to Africans constant complaints about what other people did to them; Asians, too, were ruled by Europeans and were subjected to the same negative treatment Africans were, but they have gotten a good handle on their situation and today are among the leading economies of the world.

       As the old adage says: if life gives you lemon, make lemonade out of it; don’t just sit on your sorry ass and bitch about your sorry situation; do something about it. Make the most with what you got, that is the nature of living on planet earth. 

       Children complain about their lot in life, adults do something to improve their lot in life. It is childish to just talk about problems, especially if all that one does is blame other people for them.

        Blaming other people for ones problems is a sign of emotional immaturity.  Mature adults know that whereas in the nature of things, others always contribute to our problems, we also contribute to them.  Mature adults do not sit around whining about how unfair life is to them; they take responsibility for their situation and do what they could to improve it. 

       To be an adult is to take ownership of ones inherited biological datum, personality and social circumstances; study them and where problems exist in them take corrective measures. 

      Life on planet earth is an on going problem to be solved. The solution to one problem becomes another problem to be solved, ad infinitum. The Greeks said that the human condition is like the metaphoric Sisyphus who rolled a stone up a hill only to see it roll right back down and he rolled it up again, and it rolled down again, and he does it again, again and again for that is his life’s job. The moment we stop solving our seeming intractable problems we have given up on life and we die.

       Life is a bitch, pardon my French; you cannot live with her and you cannot live without her! What a bummer; a catch 22.

      Still, life is a joy for those who take responsibility for perpetually solving their problems. How do they say it: every problem is an opportunity, a challenge to do something about it and in so doing grow!  Don’t cry over spilled milk, clean it up.

         It is true that Europe gave Africans a gift of thorns. But such is life in general, cest la vie. Nobody ever promised us that life is a bed of roses!

       Still, in every cloud is a silver lining.

       Actually, if life was all roses and peaches it would be boring!  Excitement lies in trying to solve life’s inherent problems and while at it making mistakes and trying again, again and again, and never giving up.

    Let us get on with it and quit whining about inevitable human problems. So, Europeans gave us countries constituted of many tribes and these different tribes are having a difficult time getting along with each other?  Okay. 

     So, what are we going to do about this problem?  We have talked about it for so long that nobody wants to hear about our talking, any more.  All my life, I have heard about this problem and certainly do not want to hear one more word of it; I want to hear about realistic solutions to it.

       History teaches us that many countries are composed of many ethnic groups who had difficulty getting along with each other. History teaches us how that difficulty was resolved. 

       The old fashioned way of resolving the problem of multiethnic societies was for one tribe to become militarily and politically powerful and subjugate the other tribes and force them to embrace its culture and language.  Here are examples. 

       In the last century before our common era, Julius Caesar conquered what he called Britannia.  In that piece of land lived many Celtic tribes. He forced the different tribes to embrace the culture and language of Rome.  The Romans used the sward to compel the “Britons” to speak their language, Latin. Four hundred years later, when the Romans abandoned their British enterprise to go home and defend Rome from invading Barbarian hordes, most Celtic Britons spoke Latin. In 450 AD, Rome fell to German barbarians. 

       The same German Barbarians sailed across the “English” Channel and invaded England. These Germans: Angles, Saxons, Jutes etc, defeated the Latin speaking “Britons” and took their real estate. They forced their subjects to speak their German language.

       In 1066, Norman French men (who were, in fact, French speaking Scandinavians) conquered Britain and compelled their new subjects to speak their French language.

       Over time, Latin, German, French and Celtic dialects mixed to form what we now call English language. English language is a pidgin language, a language that evolved from the mixture of many languages.

      In Gaul (France), the Romans established suzerainty and had the Celtic tribes that inhabited that land speak Latin. In the fifth century, Rome fell to marauding Germanic tribes. One of the Germanic tribes, Franks, swept into Gaul (and changed its name to France).  The Germans (who, by the way, still rule contemporary France) and their language absorbed the languages of the people they conquered and mixed them with theirs and the ensuing language is French. French, though a called a Latin language is a mixture of German, Latin and Celtic. French is a pidgin language.

       We can go on and on narrating historical realism; the salient point is that a powerful tribe used force to impose its culture and language on its conquered subjects and that over time, the culture and language of the conqueror and the conquered merged to form a new culture and language.

       If this pattern of history were to be repeated in Africa, say, in Nigeria, one of the Nigerian tribes could become very powerful and use force to compel the other Nigerian tribes to embrace its culture and language and, hopefully, solve the present ethnic strife in the country.  One tribe would secure Carthaginian peace in the country. Over time, say, five hundred years, a new Nigerian culture and language would emerge, one that combined the culture and language of the conquering tribe and the conquered tribes.

     As you can readily see, there is a problem with transferring this pattern of historical development to Nigeria.  Nigeria and other African countries were not put together by conquering African tribes. 

       Contemporary African countries came into being through European conquest and, as usual, the Europeans superimposed their cultures and languages on them.  All things being constant, in five hundred years, Africans would evolve unique pidgin cultures languages, those that combined their conquerors cultures and languages and their local cultures and languages; in Nigeria, that is probably going to be a variation of the Creole culture of the urban areas and Pidgin English.

       The fact at hand is that none of the emergent African countries came into being as a result of the conquest of one African tribe over others.  Therefore, no one African tribe has the right (and for that matter ability) to use force of arms to impose its culture and language on others.

      In Nigeria, the British, for any number of reasons, preferred that a certain group rule the country and before departing rigged things up for that group to inherit the country. (The same phenomenon was repeated in other African countries, so, let us not cry over spilled milk; let us deal with the problem, squarely.)

     The reality on the African ground needs being repeated: contemporary African countries did not come into being as a result of a few powerful tribes putting others into their sphere of influence.  This is the reality that we have to deal with and forgetting it makes us make mistakes. I am talking about the mistake made in certain African countries where some tribes now think that it is their divine right to rule others. I understand that in Nigeria certain groups seem to believe that it is their God given right to rule Nigeria! Well, if they have that delusion, let me disabuse them by reminding them that they did not put Nigeria together through their own force of arms, nor are they capable of doing so now. Contemporary African countries were put together by Europeans and solidified at the infamous Berlin conference. (After unifying Germany in 1870, Otto Von Bismarck attacked and humiliated France, her traditional enemy; he then called the conference, 1882-1884, and demanded that other European powers give Germany territories in Africa.)

      The idea of internal colonialism whereby one African tribe rules all others is a short sighted political adventure that could only breed political instability in extant African countries.

       Even if it were possible to replicate the European model in Africa, we must appreciate that that model was not an unqualified success. The countries created by that model are currently making adjustments to present political reality.

      Consider Britain. The Germanic tribes used force of arms to subjugate the Celtic tribes, to bring the Welch, the Scott, and the Irish into their sphere of control.  Think of Oliver Cromwell’s army in Ireland; he used military force to compel the Irish (who are themselves a mix of Celts and Scandinavians) to embrace English language and rule. The Irish were ruled by the English until 1920 (Northern Ireland is still part of Britain). The English used force of arms to bring their neighbors into their Kingdom.  But the natives are now agitating for independence.  That is correct, after over one thousand years of English efforts to assimilate the Celtic tribes; those tribes are today trying to resurrect their cultures and languages. In Wells, Scotland and Ireland, the natives are making conscious efforts to resurrect their Celtic languages.  The natives are restive and seeking independence from England. To keep the English empire together, England has devolved power: give Scotland and Wells self government. The alternative would be war and social unrest.

       All over Europe, attempts are now made to give self governance to hitherto subjugated minority tribes.   European countries are splitting into their tribal components; examples are USSR, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia etc. (If you know anything about history, you know that the current Russia federation, composed of over one hundred tribes, is scheduled to split up in the future and, in the meantime, Russia will be unstable as her internal colonies work against her national interests, and are subjugated by force…Russia’s autocracy actually emanated from her need to subjugate her different tribes; Russia will never be a stable polity until she gives some sort of independence to her restive colonies. Russia remains the sick man of Europe. Russia, that weird amalgam of Asiatic and European peoples refuses to be become democratic.)

       What may have worked in the past, using force to compel different tribes to form a country, is no longer going to work in the contemporary world.  I say so in case an African tribe has the delusion that she is powerful and could use force to compel her neighbors to accept her perpetual ruler ship.

        No one extant African tribe is powerful enough to subjugate others and if any tribe attempts to do so, the result would be chaos and anarchy.

       As we have established, contemporary African countries were put together by Europeans, not Africans and no African should have the delusion that their ancestors brought their country into being hence that they are entitled to ruling it as their birth right. 

        It is not the birth right of some groups to rule Nigeria for they did not put Nigeria together; in fact, in the past, they were only able to rule Nigeria because the British wanted them to do so and gave them the wherewithal to do so; without the British other Nigerian tribes would have eaten them alive.

       In case Nigerian Muslims are not trained in real politics, let me remind them that the Christian West is now at war with the Arab Muslim world and will not likely support those Muslims that want to rule Nigeria in perpetuity.

        This is no longer the twentieth century; we now live in a world characterized by what Samuel Huntington called Clash of civilizations: Muslim versus Christian, theocratic versus democratic; the West is now fighting for her survival and is very unlikely to make alliances with theocratic Muslim Africans, as she did before when it served her need to control the Christianized Africa that challenged the West for power and control of Africa.

       What goes for Nigeria goes for other African countries where the tribe preferred by Europeans and propped up by Europeans pretends to rule other tribes. (Think of Rwanda; there, the Germans preferred the Tutsi over the Hutu; when the Treaty of Versailles in 1919 gave Rwanda to Belgium; the Belgians continued that preference. Now see what the devil has wrought in Rwanda: perpetual strife between the Hutu and Tutsi.)

     The old pattern of holding restive tribes together through the force of arms is no longer tenable and will not work in contemporary Africa. That leaves us with efforts to find a more acceptable and realistic solution to the problems engendered by multi ethnicity in emergent African countries.  We really do not need to look far to find a model solution to this problem.  We can take what is taking place in Europe as our guide.

     No doubt, reactionary and conservative Europeans would have preferred to exist along their traditional tribal lines: German, French, English, Italian, Swede, Norwegian, Danish, and Belgian etc, identify in separate tribe based countries.  But each of these tribes is too small. Alone, none of them can compete with the giant countries of the twenty first century: USA, China, Brazil, India, and the sick but humongous Russia. 

       If Europeans defended their tribal states they would become irrelevant in the current world economy.  So what to do?  They agreed to abridge their national sovereignties and create a super European state, the European Union, and give it powers to make laws that affected all of them.  The idea is to create a large economic and political entity that could compete with the large countries that matter in today’s world.

       The EU is composed of nearly 400 million persons, about the same population as North America (USA, Canada and Mexico). The EU is a large enough market for European businesses to be as large as Americans’. The EU has enough collective resources to mount an army that can challenge the American army. Simply stated, The EU can compete with the USA or China, but each European country can not do so.

      The Euro is already challenging the almighty American dollar as the world’s most desired currency. But left to each European country, their monies are insignificant in the world economy.

       What can we learn from Europeans?  We can learn that African countries, as presently constituted, are, with a few exceptions, too small to amount to anything significant in the contemporary world.  Therefore, Balkanizing the already too small African countries is not the right solution to African tribal issues. 

       The real solution is to rearrange the internal constitution of African countries and make them realistic to human nature (selfishness).

     Each African country is composed of many tribes.  In Europe, the solution is to make each tribe a state within the visualized super state called European Union.  In this light, what we must do is divide African countries along tribal lines. That is correct; the only realistic solution to our tribal problems is to embrace our tribal reality.  Each African tribe must eventually become a state (within a larger political entity).

       Obafemi Awolowo made a similar suggestion in a book he wrote in 1945.

       Nigeria is composed of about ten large tribes and numerous small ones. The large tribes are: Hausa (though Hausa is really a language spoken by many groups, we can consider it a tribe), Yoruba, Igbo, Fulani, Bornu, Edo, Efik, Ijaw, Uhrobo, Ishikiri, and Tivi. Divide Nigeria into ten states with each tribe a state. The small tribes can be lumped into two additional states.

        Nigeria must be divided into twelve self sustaining states. This is the future of Nigeria; folks may hem and haw about it but what will be must be if Nigeria is to survive as a political entity.

      The present thirty six states of Nigeria is a joke; most of these states do not even have the resources to pay their civil servants, let alone engage in economic development; they run to the Federal government for money with which to do anything; yet they demand true federalism! True federalism, indeed; he who pays the piper calls the tune.  Moreover, the Federal government has to steal the money it gives these economically unviable states from the Nigeria Delta and that is not right; each state ought to be self standing and carry itself. 

       Consider the size of Nigeria’s large tribes.  Since Nigeria is unable to come up with a census with reliable population figures, I shall take the figures provided by the World Almanac; according to its latest edition, there are 24 million Hausas, 20 million Yorubas and 18 million Igbos. Compare and contrast those figures with the population of some European countries, particularly Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Belgium, Netherland, Portugal etc.  Each of these European countries is smaller in population than each of the three large Nigerian tribes.

        Each of the Nigerian (and many other African tribes, such as Kikuyu, Zulu, Xhosa, Amharic, Somali, Shona, etc) is larger than many European countries. Therefore, the idea of smallness cannot be used to rule African tribes out as nations; what can be used to disqualify them as countries is contemporary world political economy.

      Flippant anthropologists tell us that there are over 3000 tribes in Africa. They tend to count those who speak dialects of the same language as different tribes. Consider Igbo. They counted more than twenty tribes in Alaigbo (such as seeing Ikwerre, Ika, etc as not Igbos).  Well, those twenty tribes are Igbos. Igbo land stretches from Agbor in present Delta state to Port Harcourt in present Rivers state. 

       If you exclude dialects there are about five hundred authentic tribes in Africa. (I enumerated these elsewhere.)

       What this means is that Africa must be divided into the five hundred tribes in it.  Each African tribe must become a state (those that comprise only a few thousand persons should be lumped together into states).

      In the short run, we can maintain the present African countries but it is obvious that history will, sooner or later, rearrange them. By the end of this century, all of West Africa will probably become one country, all of East Africa will probably become one country, all of South Africa will probably become one country and all of Central Africa will probably become one country;  there will probably be only four countries in Sub-Saharan Africa by 2100.  By the 2200, all of Africa will probably become one country, a true Africa union or Africa Federation, with each tribe a state, a federation of about five hundred states. (Given historical trends, these are inevitabilities; one is, therefore, not proposing to debate with reactionary and retrogressive forces. I make no pretense about it; I am a Pan-Africanist; I prefer that all of Africa be one united country, a federation.)

       At present, we could leave the present national boundaries as they are and restructure their internal organizations along tribal lines. I say so because the ex-colonial powers: Britain, France, Portugal, and Spain are still too powerful and invested in their brain children, African countries. Any effort to rearrange Africa’s contemporary boundaries will probably make these European states to intervene in African politics. If we tried to have all of West Africa merge as one country, France will probably go to war to prevent that from happening; she probably wants to retain her sphere of influence, keep her neocolonial outposts. But reality being what it is, European powers will wane; in fact, by the middle of this century, France, for example, would no longer be able to project power to Africa and at that point we must work for the proposed interim four African nations (a prelude to one Africa).

       One is a political realist (and political idealist) and knows that at present Europeans still have some political, economic and military clout and would frustrate the emergence of large African countries that could challenge their control of them.  One gives to the colonials their due, aware that they are making their last gasps before expiring and exiting from the world stage, as new powers emerge and replace them.

POLITICAL STRUCTURE

     In the present, what seems doable is to rearrange the internal structures of all African countries and make each tribe a state.  Nigeria, Congo, Sudan, South Africa, to pick on the largest African countries, must restructure their internal political framework immediately. One sees each of these giant countries having many states.  Smaller African countries would have less states; Zimbabwe, for example, would have only two states, Shona and Ndebele states.

       The various states in each polity can then choose a federation or confederation as their national structure. (Unitary form of government seem suited to homogenous societies and that seems to rule it out in heterogeneous and multi tribal African countries?) 

       Each state must have an elected legislature (not to exceed fifty members); the earliest age at election should be thirty; five year term in office, with maximum of six terms in office; a governor, the earliest age in office is forty, six year term in office, with two terms maximum, must have served, at least, one full term in the legislature;  an independent judiciary, a civil service based judiciary; young lawyers take examinations to work for the ministry of justice, after ten years of lawyering take examinations to qualify as judges and thereafter climb the judicial ladder until they get to the state high court (which is not to exceed thirteen justices). 

       The local government structure follows the pattern of the state: District Council (not to exceed thirteen members, five year term, six terms limit; District administrator with six year term, two terms limit; District judiciary should be part of the state ministry of Justice; the three tier court system should be town/city court, district court and state high court).

       Each state must be in charge of its resources and economy, but all citizens must pay state and national taxes to run the state and central government. (A minimum of twenty percent flat tax must be paid by all citizens towards defraying the cost of governments.)

      The central government should maintain the military and run the country’s foreign affairs. Like the state, the central government must have an elected unicameral legislature (not to exceed three hundred members, age thirty earliest at election, five year term in office, with six term limit), a president (must be at least age forty-five at election, six year term in office, with two terms limit, must have served, at least, one full term in the National Legislature), and prime minister (selected from the National Legislature) heading a cabinet of ministers (selected from the National Legislature), and an independent judiciary (lawyers take examinations to work for the national ministry of justice, after ten years take examinations to qualify as potential judges, when appointed judges, minimum age thirty five, work their way through the three tier court system: federal district courts, federal appeals courts and federal Supreme Court of thirteen justices, one of whom is the chief justice, minimum age of Supreme Court justices at appointment is fifty, age of retirement is eighty).

         (We do not need bicameral legislatures; they are duplicative and waste our meager resources; the USA chose it for political reasons: to allay the fear of small states that they could be overshadowed by bigger states; the structure I propose for African countries prevents the domination of smaller states by larger ones.)

       In a democracy there are supposed to be many political parties competing to gain control of the government(s) and many interest groups competing to influence the decisions made by the government. This is nice on paper. The facts on the ground are different everywhere.

      In Africa, folks form political parties to serve their individual ego needs and or tribal needs. In as much as we want to build a united country/continent, we do not need more than two or three political parties; we need one party that offers conservatives/capitalists’ opportunity to join it, another that offers liberals/socialists' opportunity to join it and a third that offers the rest of the people, mixed everything, opportunity to use it as the tool for articulating their political aspirations. Under no circumstances should political parties be for propagating individual vanity and or for tribal gains.  If this proposition abridges democracy, may I ask: what is democracy?  Do we have democracy in the USA where only the rich have their goals met and the poor are ignored? Forty five million Americans do not have health insurance and struggle for their daily bread while America masquerades as the richest country in the world!  Is China any less democratic because it is ruled by one party, a country that provides its people basic needs?  Two or three ideologically based political parties are all we need in Africa at this point in our evolution. (And if I sound autocratic, so be it; we need strong personalities like me who know what they want out of life; every persons does not have to be wishy-washy, vacillating, fence sitting do nothing person.)

       Political decision making requires many political actors to present their ideas of putative solutions, preferred policy choices, and those become talking points. What ultimately become policies are a result of bargaining, trade offs and compromises. All significant political actors must give and get something or else the resultant policy will not be accepted by them.

       Given political realism, what I presented above are mere talking points. All Africans talking points would have to compete with mine and, ultimately, a decision made that somewhat satisfies most African political forces. 

       I believe that when Africans face their problems squarely, rather than avoiding them, the resultant political structure of Africa would not be too different from what I described above.

MIXED ECONOMY

       Once Africa’s structural problem is addressed, we must then face the real challenge confronting us: developing Africa.  Africa is the most backward continent and we need to develop it, fast. We need to modernize Africa and join the rest of the world in producing and selling goods and services in the global economy. 

       Elsewhere, I described my wish list for Africa: FREE and COMPULSORY EDUCATION FOR all Africans in primary, secondary, technical and university education.

      All children must begin school at age six; have six years elementary schooling, proceed to six years secondary schooling.  In the nature of things, not all pupils are bright enough to do university work, so have the top third of secondary school graduates, 33%, proceed to state run universities and the next fifty percent go to local government run technical colleges where they learn how to fix things. (See the German model of two years class work and two years apprenticeship, sitting for national examinations to qualify for technical specialist certificates.)

     Upon completing undergraduate education, the top ten percent proceed to graduate school and, ultimately, about one percent qualifies for the doctorate degree, which should be mostly in the sciences and applied physical sciences.

      There must be universal medical insurance for all Africans. In this there is no compromise. Free Education and Health insurance are human right.

       There must be subsidized public transportation, housing for the poor etc. Other than these critical areas where the public plays a decisive role, the economy should be free enterprise (actually, a regulated, mixed economy).

       What I really want is to have an Africa where the leaders totally commit themselves to modernizing the continent. I am sick and tired of coming from the most backward continent on earth. I wish that we could all discard our silly feudal robes (agbada) and put on khaki pants and shirts and go to work industrializing Africa. I wish that each of us worked twelve hour days in pursuit of the development of our continent. 

       My wishes are political idealism.  Political realism modifies my wishes and produces what, in fact, is doable at any point in time.

        It should be noted, however, that without wishes, idealism, human beings are not different from animals. Nevertheless, idealism without realism and human beings are living in fantasyland. The key thing is to separate idealism from fantasy, to make sure that what one wishes for can be accomplished in the world of space, time and matter. Some wishes are simply not doable in a world where the external environment limits what we can do. For example, we can wish all we want to fly but we cannot do so for the laws of aerodynamics requires wings for animals to fly. Fortunately, understanding the same law enables us to build airplanes to fly with; idealism must comport with science and technology otherwise it is illusion.   

CONCLUSION

     The time for mere talking about what is wrong with Africa and who is responsible for it is over; it is now time to proffer solutions and implement them.

      In this essay, I presented my wish list of what I want Africa to become. No doubt, you have your own wish list. Let us hear about them. Let us mix them up and select doable solutions and vigorously implement them.

       It is now time to solve Africa’s problems rather than just talk about them. We have talked Africa’s problems to death; only solutions now matters.

Ozodi Thomas Osuji

August 15, 2006

Robot  Villager

# 1 Africans complain that the countries they inherited from Europeans are problematic. They co...Read the full article. Posted by Robot| 15.08.2006 14:21

BABA FOR LIFE  Villager

# 2 Clearly a well of thought article. I am afraid that your past babbles on this website may have diminished your status as a serious writer. In any case you can certainly start the process by sending this article to all African head of states,and all major publications in Africa. The African Psyche as been beat down so much that it might not be capable of taking action to constructively help it self or it's people. What Africa needs right now is a messiah ' a younger Mandela' that will firstly give us hope and then genuinely put the interest of the people (not cronies or tribe interest )at heart and start dialogging with "leader" that the solutions you have proffered is perhaps the last hope of Africa to arise and be taken seriously by the rest of the world . In the alternative we will continue to see the circle of war corruption diseases and the likes of babaginda parading themselves as African leaders Posted by BABA FOR LIFE| 15.08.2006 20:07

BABA FOR LIFE  Villager

# 3 Clearly a well thought of article. I am afraid that your past babbles on this website may have diminished your status as a serious writer. In any case you can certainly start the process by sending this article to all African head of states,and all major publications in Africa. The African Psyche as been beat down so much that it might not be capable of taking action to constructively help it self or it's people. What Africa needs right now is a messiah ' a younger Mandela' that will firstly give us hope and then genuinely put the interest of the people (not cronies or tribe interest )at heart and start dialogging with "leader" that the solutions you have proffered is perhaps the last hope of Africa to arise and be taken seriously by the rest of the world . In the alternative we will continue to see the circle of war corruption diseases and the likes of babaginda parading themselves as African leaders Posted by BABA FOR LIFE| 15.08.2006 20:09

ithinkbetter  Villager

# 4 the points examined, raised and surgically analysed in this treatise andn detailed thesis in its entirety embed to certain extend realistical and posssible ways of creating workable solutions to present and imminent problems in nigeria and africa as a whole... my fear is; are nigerians, in particular africans, spiritually grown into minded maturity to pursue with vigour some of the points raised...? the answer is capital 'no'.... i will elaborate on this at a late time...! for the meantime, we must pursue a course to first and foremost domesticate nigerian (african) minds through systematic education base on LOVE and SOCIAL COMMITMENTS constructed in presence of abundant selflessness..! maybe, just maybem, eventuality of more intense internal strife may probably bring positive changes in this direction, but, i don't know...i'm a man of LOVE and DIALOGUE! Posted by ithinkbetter| 16.08.2006 08:30

Odinaka  Villager

# 5 Baba for life made a point. But the points Dr Osuji put forward are worth working on. However, I have my doubts (just like ithinkbetter), the rampaging African elites are comfortable with the current status quo and wouldn't bother to do any thing to change it, rather they will be happy to strengthen it by rushing out at break-neck speed to implent imperialist ICJ rulings (Bakassi for example). The only way out would have been a revolution, but I will be the last person to encourage it:we are bad managers of revolutions. Posted by Odinaka| 16.08.2006 11:07

Tony  Villager

# 6 @Osuji. This is what you should have been doing all along.Articulating solutions to Africa's many problems, rather than making sweeping absurd generalizations, based on pedestrian, and beer parlour stereotypes.As it is now, people will be skeptical to take you seriously. Because of the bad image, and reputation you have acquired in the village. All the same, i hope that from now henceforth, you will follow the path of reason and concentrate on constructive articles. Posted by Tony| 16.08.2006 22:01

Tony  Villager

# 7 I hope those mallams are reading this? Posted by Tony| 16.08.2006 22:11

Abraxas  Villager

# 8 Hi, folks! A massive "Thank you very, very much", and 48 "Gbasas" to my good friend, Dr. Ozodi Thomas Osuji, for this unique effort at conceptualising the challenges of governance in post-colonial Africa in general, and in post-military Nigeria specifically. I sincerely believe that this piece should be recommended reading for both practicing and prospective politicians in Nigeria, particularly. Furthermore, I recommend that Dr. Ozodi Osuji should fine-tune and repackage this priceless piece, probably in joint venture with the Administrators of the Village, and to subsequently present a memorandum, based on this piece, to any future constitution ammendment exercise (or National Conference) in Nigeria. I say, this is simply G-R-E-A-T! Muchas gracias, mi amigo. Posted by Abraxas| 17.08.2006 04:52

demonteufel  Villager

# 9 abraxas: you have just spoken my mind...! Posted by demonteufel| 17.08.2006 07:36