|
I will be offending the liberal
circle with this ludicrous and heretical view. But somehow we need to take a
hard and dispassionate look at the road Nigeria had travelled so far. Forty
eight years on, it had been far from smooth. Let me declare from the outset
that I am guilty of Afro-pessimism. It is a state of mind which crawls on you
at that moment of realisation of black Africa’s loss of hope. Black Africa’s
loss of direction. The loss of progress, prosperity and political voice in a
frenetic and rabidly changing world.
I am constantly in anger each time I
see the images of black Africans on Western television. Their programmes
ridicule our collective existence. Their jaundiced news output erodes our
respect and dignity before critical viewers, who are themselves unforgiving of
blackman’s degenerate world. I am tired of defending Africa’s woes before
cynical white audience!
There is a growing belief, not least
within the ranks of progressive Afrocentrists, that appears to favour an urgent
reconquest of black Africa. They have come to the conclusion that leaders in
black Africa can neither plan their economic and political fortunes nor guide
their people with great visionary exactitude.
To add weight to the views of the
progressives, the American CIA not too long ago conducted a research into the
fortunes and misfortunes of the world by the year 2015. It was a grim reading
for the entire black Africa, south of the Sahara. These purveyors of doom
concluded that black Africa, rather than explode into political and economic
renaissance, as dreamed by President Mbeki, will recede further into anarchy,
abject poverty, speedy death and economic stagnation.
It is this new reading of history
that has strengthened the resolve of progressive Afrocentrists to demand that
rather than allow black Africa to continue her unbroken epic tale of horror, we
should all prepare ourselves for a new imperial experience. No doubt, any
implicit suggestion of recolonisation has always been laden with high emotion
among black Africans and their sympathisers. Haters of colonialism will
fulminate on its demerits and gently ignore all its enduring merits. The mere
fact that the whiteman created artificial borders on vastly different tribes of
people; the soulless buccanisation of our resources, the imposition of foreign
culture and the emergence of white superiority over black Africa are enough to
shut the doors to objective analysis of the legacy of white, colonial
administration in black Africa.
So, tired and sick of watching the
imperial arrogance of the whiteman in black Africa, the late charismatic Tom
Mboya of Kenya at the All Africa Congress in the 50s called on Europeans to get
out of Africa and that Africans have had a enough of them. This lone,
courageous voice led to a massive tidal wave of freedom and independence
agitators. By 1956, the British fled Sudan. In 1957, Nkrumah wrestled Ghana and
in 1960, Nigeria was delivered into the hands of her expensively educated local
managers. Fifty two years after independence, Sudan, the largest country in
sub-Saharan Africa is still arming janjaweed militiamen from the north to
murder and despoil villages of their Christian black brothers in the south.
Ghana has had a tragic past under its ex-dictator, Jerry Rawlings. The Kabilas
have entrenched dynastic regime in the Congo with the succession of Joseph Kabila,
a shy inexperienced young army general as the President of the Democratic of
Congo. Mugabe is still taking care of business in Zimbabwe and unmindful of
passing his sell-by-date.
Independence which was supposed to
be the harbinger of prosperity for black Africans has turned into nightmare for
most of black Africa. The poor are poorer and heavily mired in the miry clay of
poverty than under colonial rule. Malaysia and Singapore had their independence
at the same time as black Africans. These two countries have rewritten their
destiny in showers of economic prosperity and First World infrastructural
development.
The case of Nigeria is absurd. The
British left behind a non-viable nation out of an assortment of tribes that
viewed one another with mortal suspicion and hostility. The hegemonist and
islamicist North entrenched tragic military misrule on helpless Nigerians.
Corruption was incorporated as statecraft. The northern rulers of Nigeria
crafted a leadership which could be best described as transactional leadership.
Northerners perfected a deal-cutting, wheeler-dealing form of governance where
public servants appropriate whatever percentage in any given contract. The era
of the ten percenters was birthed and has stuck ever since.
These political and economic
tragedies may be viewed initially as inevitable for an emerging republic after
years of colonial imposition. May be! But forty eight years after independence,
Nigeria is still unclear about its destiny. Its nine years embrace of democracy
has ironically not delivered the poor from their crushing and painful penury.
My yearly travel to Nigeria reveals a country that has collapsed. Forget about
Lekki! Forget about GSM! You don’t measure a nation’s progress by mansions and
mobile phones!!!
Years of military dictatorship and
mindless plunder have destroyed the country’s institutions and left a
generation that are as corrupt as their rulers. A kind of Godzilla syndrome you
might say. I have decided to pick out NEPA or PHCN as the ultimate litmus test
of our progress as a nation. A nation that could not supply light to her
citizens after 48 years will ultimately fail on all other counts. For me
to ask for political and economic sagacity in a country of thieves and brain
dead, ritualistic-minded politicians will amount to expecting something
resembling Adeboyesque miracle! Musa Yar’Ardua is begging for time when
Nigeria’s time on life support machine is almost over.
It beggars belief that with all our
fabled wealth plus Oxford and Harvard educated engineers we cannot
provide uninterrupted power supply for suffering and snubbed, poor Nigerians.
Nightime Nigeria is a blanket of darkness where people silently nurse damaged
eardrums because of the cacophony of noises from generators now called, ‘I
better pass my neighbour’. The glossily and grossly exaggerated omnipotence of
Obasanjo, the chicken boiler merchant of Ota, did not make NEPA roar to life
during his eight years tenure in Aso Rock. The guy was busy distributing 4x4 to
Ogwashuku, Ibusa and Asaba concubines who populated his dirty harem.
After forty eight years of
independence, our legislators and senators still share state money in
Ghana-must-go bags to our shameful acquiescence. Each over-pampered legislator
has over 6 aides to fix his or her life on a daily basis. Politicians are meant
to be servant of the people, in Nigeria they are the emperors of the realm.
They are the monstrous masters of our universe who waste this nation’s destiny
debating silly things, like how much cleavage we are permitted to see, when our
women decide to flaunt their boobs. The legislative arm is still carpet-bombing
the executive and indeed providing more ammunitions for the progressive
Afrocentrists in their core belief that black African politicians need outside
help.
The tiny, comfortable elites may
find the idea of recolonisation abhorrent, even evil, but the majority and
permanently poor Nigerians who may suffer from anarchy, poverty, disease,
brutality and economic stagnation as predicted by the CIA will definitely
welcome a new imperial intervention. The poor and brutalised people of Sierra
Leone knew this brutal reality when they greeted British troops with warm
embrace and songs and asked them to stay and rule over them during one of
Africa’s greatest genocides. They were not ashamed to show capitulation
and total loss of faith in black rule.
In Nigeria, you can find people who
look back with nostalgia to the time of UAC when it had more positive impact on
the people than the oil and gas money which circulates in few pockets. People
still look back with nostalgia to the time of missionary schools, good roads,
train transportation, orderliness, probity, efficient civil servants,
functional hospitals, the beauty of Lagos Marina with its landscaped paradise,
the fountains of Tinubu Square and other colonial legacies that have
disappeared under self rule.
The argument for white take over
becomes more strident with a debt burden of over $700billion dollars weighing
down black Africa’s economic, social, and political destiny. Bahrain, Saudi
Arabia, Venezuela, Dubai all have the same black gold Nigeria is blessed with,
but would you compare Nigeria, a black nation, with any of these brown-skinned
fanatical sheikhs from the Mediterranean desert outposts? The reality on black
Africa’s begging bowl requires a saving face through a kind of ‘Negotiated
Reconstruction Project’ or a ‘Marshall Plan for Africa’, sadly on whiteman’s
terms.
Tijani, a social and Afrocentric
scholar lives in London.
|
Posted by Robot| 14.04.2008 15:17