Adeyinka Makinde
“Prognosis: Comatose.” A Dialogue on Nigeria between Femi Ijebu-Ode and Adeyinka
Makinde in March 2019
A
wide-ranging discussion between Femi Ijebu-Ode and Adeyinka Makinde about the
problems related to the development of Nigeria and what things need to be done
to enable the country to unleash its full potential.
[Nigeria,
Ba’athism; Negritude; Pan-Africanism; Kodo-ha; Tosei-ha; Obafemi Awolowo;
Nnamdi Azikiwe; Kwame Nkrumah; “Man Know Thyself”; Malcolm X; Boko Haram;
Fulani Herdsmen; Insurgency & Counterinsurgency; CIA; AFRICOM; United
States; France; Scramble for Africa; Sekou Toure; Houphouet-Boingy; ECOMOG; Brookings Institute;
Africa-America Institute; George Bush; Africa Crisis Response Initiative;
History not taught in Nigerian Schools; Oyo Empire; Benin Empire; Kanem-Bornu;
Idris Alooma; Lake Chad Basin; Oil; Yakubu Gowon; Benevolent Dictatorship;
Goethe; Fela Anikulapo-Kuti; Hanseatic League; Ebonics]
FIO: My brother, let me just go back to the tweet
you sent me, where you were commenting about the elections in Nigeria, and you had
said something to the effect that you were “more depressed than impressed about
the whole scenario”; that we still “need substantive intellectual movements
developed in Nigeria” and for “politicians to embrace them and offer the people
a vision”. What exactly did you mean by that brother? Could you add some more
detail; add some more flesh to that skeleton?
AM: I think it’s so important the way ideas
feature in man’s development; man’s understanding of his nature, and how he can
calibrate himself. He can sense his past, his present and the future. And I
think that is what is missing in Nigerian politics and probably the wider
politics of Africa. What I mean by that is it’s not enough to adapt the
mechanisms and the verbiages associated with what the colonisers have implanted
in African societies. It’s very important for people to develop themselves as a
people from within, and relying on their resources, you know, the ability to
deconstruct their psyche in order to make progress. So in other words, what I
mean is that it is not enough just to get an education, stand on a soap box -if
that’s what they do in Nigeria- and engage in sloganeering, and even say
positive things like “I want us to have a minimum wage”; “I believe in workers’
rights” etcetera. I am thinking of underpinnings. That people need to be more
than card-carrying members of a body that has a name -fanciful or not. What
passes as political thought and the mechanism of politics, needs, in Nigeria,
an identifiable intellectual foundation. It needs an ideological underpinning.
And that ideology needs to be capable of being transmitted to the masses so
that the average man has an idea where he fits into his society, as well as (an
idea of) where his country fits into the larger world. I don’t believe we have
that. I think in a previous correspondence with you, I gave examples from the
Arab world and Japan. For instance, in the Arab world, you had Ba’athism as a
political movement, a secular political movement which obviously became rather
perverted under the authoritarian regimes of Saddam Hussein in Iraq and the al-Assad
family in Syria. Nonetheless, Ba’athism was an intellectual movement which was
created, yes, by Western-educated people, but people with a strong sense of
what their traditions were and where they felt the Arab people as a whole
should be headed in the world. I mentioned that as well as the militarist
movements in pre-World War (Two) Japan: the Kodo-ha
and Tosei-ha movements. And by saying
this, I’m not saying that Africa or Nigeria hasn’t had thinkers. I think
Obafemi Awolowo was a deep thinker, as was “Zik”; Doctor Nnamdi Azikiwe. And of
course Kwame Nkrumah with regard to Pan-Africanism. We’ve also had the Negritude
Movement with people like Sedar Senghor and other people from the Black
Atlantic. But I think what is missing is something underlying; something
fundamental. And it’s something that can be difficult to explain because it may
be couched in some instances in abstract terms, but obviously the end result is
that we abide by the first maxim of human existence, which is “Man know thy
self”. You can add your observations to that.
FIO: Thank you very much my dear brother for that
very clear exposition. I was listening very attentively to you and to what you
were saying, and in my own mind I kind of have a phrase for what you are saying
to mean that Nigerians don’t have situational awareness. They have no real
awareness of their situation. That seems to me to be the purpose of what you
are saying. When you were talking about the lack of an ideological base to
anything in Nigeria. The politics in Nigeria, the social development as you
pointed out, we lack a basic guiding ideology. I heard what you just said about
Zik and Awo, and how they were champions of nationalism; African nationalism.
With respect my dear brother I would disagree. I think, yes, the Arabs did very
well with their Ba’athism and that basically formed a platform for Arab
nationalism, and I think everyone knows how far Arab nationalism has taken the
Arabs. It took them quite far. Iraq was a quite developed country before the
2003 invasion, as was Syria before the Western instigated war seven years ago.
The point I’m making, what I think, my own conclusion is our primary problem,
or fundamental problem a very important word you just used, is our lack of
awareness. We are totally ignorant of our true condition. I think that
Nigerians, the intellectuals, as well as the man-on-the-street, have no
awareness of the fact that Nigeria isn’t an independent sovereign country; has
never been an independent sovereign country. Nigeria has always being a colony.
It was established as a colony and it has remained a colony all through its
life span ever since it was created in 1901. I think this is a fundamental
problem, and until we understand that that is the cause of our problem, we
won’t be able to solve it. You cannot solve a problem you that don’t know or you
haven’t identified. You were speaking earlier about knowing your place in your
society and your country’s place in the world and it seemed to me, my brother,
that as you said that, you were almost paraphrasing Malcolm X who once said
that God would bless Black people and everything they did, and that he hoped that we would grow to understand the
problem of the world and where we fit into the world picture. Now, that awareness
of where we fit into that world picture is lacking; is missing from the
psychology of the Nigerian intellectual, much less from the man-on-the-street
who is very ignorant. So that’s my own view of the situation of the fundamental
problem confronting us as a people. You are a geopolitical analyst my brother,
and you analyse situations in more developed countries like Russia. I’ve seen
some articles that you’ve written about Russia. And I think you’ve also written
about some other European country, I don’t remember which one now, but the
point is that you are dealing with more advanced countries. Now, when you turn
the spotlight of your experience, of your intellect based on your experience of
analysing other parts of the world, apart from this lack of an ideological
basis for national development, have you identified any other problems that you
think to be a national priority; that we need to be grappling with?
AM: Well, if you reduce things to what should be
done, if we just push back a little bit before I answer that, in regard to our level
of awareness; I think we need to be nuanced in terms of developing or defining
what that sort of awareness is. The average person knows that the African mind
is colonised and African institutions are neo-colonised whether by previous
colonial powers or by international institutions which have been set up to
perform that task, whether it is the World Bank, the International Monetary
Fund or even agencies of the United Nations. Even on a mundane level, the fact
that people are aware, and they do appear to react in disgust (and) in angst
when they hear of a particular Nigerian politician or wealthy people who go
over to Europe or North America for medical treatment. Or send their children
to school in those countries. Or those who follow football can note that
Nigeria, like the rest of Africa, has such a tremendous potential in terms of
developing football, yet people are fixated on what is going on in the European
Champions League, something which those of us who grew up as children in the
1970s: the rivalries we had between Nigerian football teams, where we thought
the Green Eagles, as they were known as then, were heading to; the amount of
people who went into stadiums: that is not the case today. So they do have a
conception about this. And they might bellyache, but unfortunately nobody
appears to have set a blueprint that enables people as a whole to galvanise
them and to reform their thinking to obviate that (lack of awareness). So
that’s that point as a comeback to your response to my introduction. Back to
what you’ve just said about what other problems are facing Nigeria. I think
it’s just fairly obvious. It’s obviously to do with the economy, and the
ability of government and individual initiative to create the conditions
whereby we can fulfil the potential: the human potential, as well as the
material potential and resources with which Nigeria is blessed on both
accounts. Secondly, obviously, is the security situation with this insurgency
by Boko Haram, and the secessionist movements in the Niger Delta area and among
those from the Igbo ethnic group, And of course we have to mention that battle
between pastoralists and-
FIO: -herdsmen…
AM: - cattle-rearers.
FIO: -yes,
the Fulani herdsmen.
AM: That’s right. The farmer-pastoralist conflicts.
I think those four are obviously the biggest problems that are faced. And I
guess the problem here is -going back to what we were saying about
understanding the African psyche, a means by which the intellectuals can find a
link between those achievements; those developments that were made in Nigeria
up to medieval times by kingdoms such as Benin, Oyo, the Hausa-Fulani states
and modernity, and to bring the African man and the mind of the African into
the 21st century. That is very crucial, because I could use my book knowledge
of how to combat counter-insurgencies; counter-insurgency cultures that have
developed say in Latin America, Europe and Asia. But how does one stop Boko
Haram? I have not seen anybody from the intellectual class (or) from the Nigerian
military who seems to have taken ownership or control of how this insurgency
can be sorted out. It is obviously something which can’t be sorted out (solely)
by brute force. You can’t look and say this is how the British operated in
Northern Ireland. Or this is how the Russians operated in Chechnya and say that
you want to apply that to Nigeria, because the end result is just a mess. We
are merely, as has been the case, appropriating what has been dispensed from
other parts of the world and purporting to apply it to our own circumstances.
This is not acceptable. To say it in simple terms, we need originality in terms
of how we meet these threats. You know, the (challenge) of consolidating
democracy, of combating Islamist terrorism, of trying to solve issues to do
with discontentment and marginalisation from certain regions of the country and
also the matter of solving the farmer-pastoralist conflict.
FIO: Brother, my appraisal of what you’ve just said
is that it coincides with the main points on which Buhari based his recent presidential
campaign i.e. the economy, security and fighting corruption. I think the
problem of the Fulani herdsmen; the pastoralists versus the cattle rearers that
you mentioned, can be subsumed under the rubric of security, as can the Boko
Haram problem. If I may just share a few of my views with you in terms of Boko
Haram. You mentioned the Russians and how they dealt with the insurgency in
Chechnya. And you also mentioned the British and how they dealt with the
insurgency in Northern Ireland. But the difference between those situations and
our situation is in regards to those two countries; (Britain) and Russia: we
are talking about capable countries; countries that have some kind of effective
intelligence service to detect terrorists, to detect those who are funding
them, who are training them, where they are based; those who are supplying them
with arms. Those countries have those capabilities. Nigeria doesn’t have this
capability in terms of identifying the people who are behind Boko Haram,
funding Boko Haram, providing them with training, providing them with military
intelligence with which they can then launch attacks on the UN or the Nigerian
military. The point I’m making my brother and this is a point that has been
widely disseminated, is that Nigeria cannot cope with the Boko Haram phenomenon
for the simple reason that those behind Boko Haram are more powerful than the
Nigerian state. Obviously, we have state actors involved here, and if you also
consider the fact that Boko Haram is an extra-territorial problem; this is a
problem that is affecting the Cameroonians. The Cameroonians are contending
with Boko Haram. That would go to show that this problem is beyond the scope of
Nigeria in terms of managing the Boko Haram phenomenon...
AM: Femi, if I can just briefly interject there...
FIO: Yes sir.
AM: If I could just add to that. Yes, you are
correct about that extra-territorial (dimension). There is obviously the
Maghreb and the other regions in West Africa that are closer that are also
involved some of which was exacerbated by the American intervention in Libya.
That’s true. I thought that I’d just add that.
FIO: Thank you. I am very grateful my brother. And
the reason I’m grateful is because you mentioned America just now, and there
have been a lot of commentators and observers of Nigeria, and Nigerian society
and Nigerian politics who have advanced the view that Boko Haram is a CIA
operation that is designed to destabilise Nigeria; gain access to the oil
resources in the Niger Delta, as well as newly discovered resources in the Lake
Chad Basin. And that this Boko Haram phenomenon started after the inauguration
of AFRICOM, the African Command of the US Army in 2007. The first terrorist
attacks that happened in Nigeria, took place after 2007. And as I said, there
are a lot of people who suggest, with some evidence to back up their suggestion
that Boko Haram is a Western intelligence designed to destabilise Nigeria and
justify the intervention of the US military in that part of Africa. A key point
that some commentators have made is the fact that the capital of Boko Haram
terrorism in Nigeria is in Maiduguri in Borno State, which is a border area.
Now that border region region abuts Cameroon, Niger, and -I think they’re three
separate countries around that Bornu area that adjoin Nigeria...
AM: That’s Nigeria, Chad, Cameroon...
FIO: That’s the one. Niger, Chad and Cameroon.
You’re absolutely correct my brother. Absolutely correct. Those three countries
my dear brother, as you know, are (former) French colonies. Now, it is
absolutely impossible. I repeat: absolutely impossible for Boko Haram to be
running guns and arms and training bases in that part of Nigeria without the
knowledge of the French. Absolutely impossible, given the location of Bornu State,
it should be obvious to anyone who is paying attention that the French are
heavily involved in Boko Haram by virtue of the fact that the hotbed of
terrorism is in an area that adjoins French territories. And you and I know my
dear brother that all these so-called Francophone countries are French
colonies. They have always been French colonies. They were created as French
colonies (and) they have remained French colonies since so-called independence
in the 1960s. All of these territories are controlled by the French. And I
think that actually feeds into this popular view that has been expressed by
very knowledgeable commentators that there is an ongoing ‘Scramble for Africa’
right now; a modern 21st century ‘Scramble for Africa’ where imperialist
powers, particularly the US, France and the UK are deliberately destabilising
parts of Africa in order to gain more control to achieve a greater sense of
control over these countries. And of course, with Nigeria being the largest
market, as one would expect, a lot of attention is focused on Nigeria. Speaking
of markets, you mentioned the economy earlier. Brother, I have often thought we
Nigerians don’t have what can properly be described as an economy. I think that
it would be more accurate what is called the Nigerian economy as the Nigerian
market. An economy presupposes a manufacturing base. We have no such thing in
Nigeria. Nigeria is a nation of consumers. We consume everything right down to
the fuel in our cars which is imported. The food we eat. The clothes we wear.
The cars we drive. All of these things are imported. So, I was wondering, do
you have any comments to make in terms of how you see this question of a
Nigerian economy?
AM: Yes, I’ll gladly do so, but again I’d like to
push back a little to what you mentioned about Boko Haram, because I wrote an
essay about that particular issue back in 2013. I’m not sure if you’ve read it,
did I ever send you (a link to it?)
FIO: I think you might have actually.
AM: It is titled “Nigeria: Candidate for
Destabilisation and Regime Change”. I have heard from Cameroonian media reports
about these suspicious activities of the French military. And of course when
you look at these issues and people say, “America is behind this, the CIA”, you
know what the immediate response is: It is to pathologise such a view, and to
call it a conspiracy theory.
FIO: Absolutely…
AM: But of course we know that there’s been so
much as far as Western machinations as far as Africa is concerned. France, for
instance, was not pleased with the way Sekou Toure wanted to manage the
post-independence situation. Unlike other leaders like Sedar Senghor in Senegal
and Houphouet-Boigny in Ivory Coast, Sekou Toure wanted to pursue a more
independent course and for doing that, the French made sure to do as much as
they could to wreck his economy before they withdrew. In the essay I wrote on
Nigeria and possible American and Western intervention in terms of facilitating
this insurgency, I have certainly examined that possibility. I think that for
all the grief we give Nigeria as a country, we must give credit where credit is
due. I think one issue which may lend credence to American intervention -and I
did write about the creation of Africom on October 1st 2008, the (anniversary) date
of Nigeria’s independence- I think Nigeria did perform a quite creditable
peacekeeping role in terms of policing the West African region and effecting a
peace settlement in the Liberian Civil War in the 1990s. The CIA actually
commissioned reports by the Brookings Institute and they have another institute
known as the Africa-American Institute, which reported that the success of
these peace missions in Liberia threatened to eclipse both Britain and France,
the former colonial powers, in terms of West African influence. So it’s obvious
that given the responses, first by George Bush -he created something called the
Africa Crisis Response Initiative that was intended to serve as a counterweight
to the Nigerian-led ECOMOG. And so this idea of ‘divide and conquer’; (of)
keeping Nigeria in effectively a retarded position fits in well in terms of
this covert support of an insurgency. We’ve seen this time and again, and so
that does not surprise me in the slightest. I have examined that and I think that
there is some logic and there is some evidence to back that up in terms of CIA,
and particularly in regard to French intervention. Also, before I answer your
question on the economics of Nigeria, just to mention the fact having outlined
the security problem posed by Boko Haram, I think that the divisions within
Nigeria; religiously -ethnically also- have had these implications in terms of
how the intelligence services and the military can act in a cohesive fashion. I
think it is similar to the Pakistani intelligence service, some of whom are
hand-in-glove with Islamic radicals and others who are, perhaps, of a more
secular bent and who are more Western-orientated, or under the control of the
CIA. But in the same way in Nigeria with Nigeria, apart from the ethnic
divisions which can lead frankly to incompetence, and a malnourishment in terms
of the growth of vital institutions of the state for its benefit, the disease
of corruption is something we have to admit covers all parts of the society,
and one of the difficulties of the Nigerian Army -because I believe they are
some brave and well-meaning people who have joined that army and who are
fighting and dying on the frontlines- is the incompetent leadership, which has
meant that funds which are supposed to go towards the purchase of materiel have
been diverted. I mean it’s incredible, it’s absolutely astounding, it’s
disgusting that that should happen. But I would put it to you before we leave
this point by saying well, let’s think of practicalities. Anybody who
accumulates knowledge from all parts of the world; (who) understands human
nature will look at that problem of Boko Haram and think to themselves “we have
an insurgency here; if we have a unified army, a unified and competent
intelligence service and a purposeful political class and administrative set up
in the civil service to back it up then what Nigeria should have is a
counter-insurgency strategy. Some of these strategies could be ‘messy’ because
they may involve duplicitous methods of infiltrating Boko Haram and of
eliminating members of Boko Haram in a manner which would strike people as
being extra-judicial. But for some people both in democracies and authoritarian
regimes who’ve combated insurgencies, that may be part of the solution. But
also what I’m saying is that overall, I have not seen any Nigerian military
officer -and I have read a few academic papers (on the issue- or interested
academic who has provided a kind of a blueprint (or) template as to how one
should combat the Boko Haram insurgency. But I can tell you that such a plan
should be composed and developed on different fronts. There should be an
economic angle. One of the things which is fuelling this Boko Haram crisis is
economic deprivation and marginalisation. So the Nigerian state needs to be
doing things to bolster the economy (in the area where the insurgency is
concentrated) to prevent people being used as cannon fodder for these heretical
-I’m not a scholar in Islam, but I believe these people are heretical,
backward-thinking, medieval barbarians. You want to win over the dispossessed,
the disillusioned youth by trying to provide economic initiatives for their
betterment and for the betterment of that sub-region of Nigeria. So you need
something that is geographical. You need an element of the counterinsurgency
which is based on ‘propaganda’. And with the use of propaganda, some of it may
sound negative, but it’s also about positive things and highlighting whatever
successes the Nigerian state can muster out of that situation. So the way you
handle the media and the way you trumpet successes in for instance economic
initiatives and foiling Boko Haram should be part and parcel of this
counterinsurgency doctrine. I could go on but those are two examples I will
give you. It’s interesting that you mention Bornu State and it got me thinking
about the mentality of people; of the African. Much to my shock, apparently
history was removed from the syllabus in Nigeria…
FIO: Excellent point…
AM: ...and when you mentioned Bornu, I remember studying
history -my favourite subject. We learnt about the kingdoms of Ancient Ghana,
which is further inland than present day Ghana which appropriated that name;
Ghana which metamorphosed into Mali, which was transformed into Songhai. We
knew about the Hausa City States, the Oyo, the Benin Empire; all of these things
and in the north east of what is modern day Nigeria -around that Lake Chad
Basin was this empire of Kanem-Bornu. Their most famous leader was Idris
Alooma. When you look back at that and look at what Boko Haram is offering.
They are not offering anything to you. They’re just offering you an Arabised,
sterile backward-looking vision. Whereas if you think about what Idris Alooma
and other leaders of Kanem-Bornu achieved and think about that; this is where
the link comes in that people living in the modern world in Bornu State and
modern Nigeria can then think about what we can extract from that glorious era
into the modern world. Lake Chad is a dying basin area, but think about other
parts of the world where you’ve had regions that are composed of swamp or where
like in Holland, the sea was eating into the soil and the Dutch have reclaimed
quite a lot of land, and why cannot the same be applied among those people who
live in the Borno area. It is so shocking that people cannot have this sort of
positive outlook to life. This outlook that is about developing the mental and
material resources of your environment. And even when you are beset by
disadvantages of not having an abundance of gold in the ground or oil in the
ground, that you can nonetheless overcome these topographical and these
geographical disadvantages. After all in Libya, before it was destroyed by
Western action in concert with Islamists who are their claimed enemies to
overthrow the secular regime of Gaddafi, had that Great (Man) River Project,
which is about getting water to permeate desertified land. Why is that not
within the consciousness of the people? You would not have this tragedy, this
distraction if the mindset of the people: the common man and the intellectual
classes were attuned to studying and planning how to combat the disadvantages
of the landscape. You think about your past, you think about your present and
you look around the world and borrow ideas and put it together in your unique
manner to suit your circumstances. So I just thought that I would add that and
you can come back on that before I answer your other question.
FIO: Yes, brother. Thank you. I think I will. Yes,
it is a very knotty ideal to expect that the African will look back on his
glorious past and try to recreate that in the present. But the difference
between then and now. The time of Idris Alooma and the situation we’re dealing
with in Nigeria today. Idris Alooma wasn’t a captive and Nigerians are captives;
they are Western captives. We’ve been captives for the last 400 hundred, 500
years? Nigeria was created as a captive territory and has remained a captive
territory up until now, as I am speaking to you. Up until this very moment. So in
a situation where people are active, where all their political institutions and
leaders have been co-opted, where the common man is more concerned with getting
a meal to eat on a daily basis than he is about the future of the country, I
don’t think that it is very realistic under these circumstances to expect the
Nigerian to be anything other than what he is: a docile, passive,
long-suffering human being. Slave. I’m sorry. I think that that is the best
description. The Nigerian today is the closest thing to a 21st century slave.
You talk about a Nigerian political class developing an ideology or the media
propagating the successes of the military in combating Boko Haram, but the point
that I would like to make to our listeners, my dear brother, is the fact that
all institutions in Nigeria have been co-opted. All of them. Whether it is
academia, the media, the military, the politicians: everybody! And that is a
function of poverty. Now in a situation where the whole country is poor and
grasping for whatever they can get. Or for their next meal, I don’t think it’s
very realistic to expect such people to be designing blueprints for national
development. Obviously not. And that is why corruption is such a cancer in
Nigerian society; it’s a function of poverty. And again on this subject of
corruption, I would like to share with you my dear brother and our listeners
that the main purveyors of corruption in Africa and in Nigeria in particular
are Western countries, Western organisations. We’ve had a series of scandals in
Nigeria; all of them featuring the corruption of Nigerian state officials have
involved Western companies. I’m talking of Siemens or Julius Berger or
Haliburton. The list is endless. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to
work that one out. If you consider that Nigeria is a country which that doesn’t
produce anything and as such is a consumer nation. So all our revenues are
derived from oil. We don’t produce anything. Of course the people are going to
be poor. Because all the jobs that would have gone into manufacturing all the
things we need are here in Europe, Asia and America. So we have a situation
where a Nigeria doesn’t have the prospect of a manufacturing job until the day
he dies. He will never be employed in a factory. He will never be employed in
anything remotely industrial or the production of goods on an industrial basis.
Now, in a situation where everybody is poor, of course corruption will be an
industry. Of course the institutions of the state will not work properly, and
that is the primary point about the situation in Nigeria today: nothing is
working properly. The whole society is totally dysfunctional. Nothing. Nothing,
I repeat, is working in Nigeria. We have a country where as you mentioned the
civil service, the army, the judiciary, the media, all of these institutions
are comatose. They are corrupt and
dysfunctional. All of them, without exception. There is no sphere, no area of
Nigerian life which isn’t corrupted. And as I said that is a function of
poverty, the condition of the country. My dear brother, you used an interesting
term in describing Nigeria; that we have been locked in a state of arrested
retardation. I think is what you were suggesting. That we have been locked in a
place where we are eternally retarded, and where our progress, our development
has been arrested, and has been held in check. And this has been the reality.
The reality from day one. Nigeria was created in 1901. From 1901 up until
today, a period of 118 years, I would go so far as to say that we are going to
have 10 or so months of genuine independence. Back in the 70s that you
mentioned when Murtala Muhammed came to power. He only ruled for 6 months. And
then the first intervention by Buhari when he came on the stage in 1984, he
ruled for 14 months, I think it was, and that was the only time in our history
when we had genuine independent leaders who ruled Nigeria as a sovereign nation
as opposed to a colony, which is how Nigeria has been perceived and how it has
been portrayed by every other leader since independence. So the point that I’m
trying to make my dear brother is that, again, I think it feeds into that
question I asked you about the economy. If we don’t have an economy, what hope
is there for progress? How can you ever hope to develop or to introduce poverty
ameliorating schemes or projects in a place like Bornu for instance? If the
country is economically comatose. If the country is economically dead. As I say
Nigerians don’t produce anything. The only source of revenue in Nigeria today
is what we earn from oil, which is a natural resource. That is not something we
have manufactured or made happen. No, it was there. And we don’t even have the
equipment or technical know-how or the knowledge to get this all out of the
ground. We have to rely on external parties, the Western oil companies: Shell
in this case. And they are raping us blind. So under those circumstances, would
it not be more correct, or more accurate to describe Nigeria as something very
similar to a slave plantation back in America 200 years or so ago? In so far as
we have a body of Black people whose only function is to consume, never to
produce. So we are talking of a captive audience right there. Captives.
Economic captives.
AM: Well, the assessment you give is obviously
very sobering. Some people might see it as being negative although it is based
on absolute realism. I think the question is you need inspired and creative
leadership. The question is can Nigeria supply the sort of people who can break
this spell and bring, as Zik (Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe) once put it “to lead the Blackman
out of the bondage of the ages”. There are one or two things that I want to say
about the economy randomly before proceeding. The first thing is for us to
recognise that Nigeria, being an oil producer, in some ways is reflecting what
has occurred in other countries that are dependent on oil. You have situations
majority populations to one degree or another; ruthlessly acquire that wealth
at the expense of people who live in areas that produce quantities of this oil.
But also these countries develop this oil dependency syndrome and seem to lack
the means of diversifying their economies. So in that regard, Nigeria is not
that different. It’s not offering excuses, but you have to put all these things
on the table to be balanced and to have as wide a view as possible before you
can suggest and implement improvement or courses of development. I would say,
“yes”, I agree Nigeria is a consumer nation. I think that was developed in the
1970s after the oil boom years with (General Yakubu) Gowon who somewhat unwisely
stated that the problem with Nigeria is not money but “how to spend it”. And
Gowon did do his best. I mean some of it might have been wasteful and
misguided. For instance, I’m aware through family connections -because I come
partly from the island State of Grenada in the Caribbean- that the prime
minister, a guy named Eric Gairy mentioned to a relative of mine who worked
there that at one time Gowon was paying for all the salaries of the Grenadian
Civil Service because they were going through some economic difficulties. So I
think that apart from the Murtala government and the Buhari-Idiagbon duo, there
were attempts at instituting positive things in Nigeria, but this dependency
took root in the 1970s as a result of the oil boom. And I think that part of
this matter of creating a consumer-dependent society and one that is not
creating out of the raw materials that are in that country and the vast human
potential that is going to waste through unemployment, lack of unemployment
opportunities and the overall corruption, we have to be balanced about it.
Obviously part of this is caused by Western (financial) institutions who
effectively profit from enslaving parts of the world economically. But also we
have to look at ourselves and say we can arise from this, but it is about the
way we approach the development of our human resources and capabilities. People
will often, I think, mention the development of South Korea, Malaysia (and)
Singapore. You may come back and say, particularly in the case of South Korea
and Singapore that you had a racially and culturally cohesive group that
created the conditions for developing their national economies whereas the
strife inherent in a multi-ethnic, artificial state put together by imperial
draughtsmen; it takes quite a lot to overcome that. And people should really
think about -although I don’t agree with the methods that are used by the
various pro-secessionist movements in the south eastern part of Nigeria, people
need to think carefully about how Nigeria can continue, if parts of Nigeria are
culturally divorced from the (each) other; whether it is between Muslim and
Christian or secular and religious. That will not be the be all and end all,
because my argument is that even if you created independent oil rich delta state,
if you go into that having a mentality which frankly is generally the same
among other Nigerians, that state is doomed to fail. Like Equatorial Guinea,
with all the wealth that it has, but is being mis-managed by a family of
corrupt profiteers and rather gruesome rulers. So that consumer dependency
culture needs to be overcome. And again, this is where it comes to developing
the mind. This is where you need the creation of movements that create a
foundation. No one is saying that the ordinary man is the one who will be at
the vanguard of this sort of thing. The leadership must come from the top, from
those who are intellectually capable of providing such leadership and creating
the conditions for raising up the levels of the mass of the people. And I think
that one other point that should be made apart from working on developing the
mind and this is very important not just the artificial importation of colonial
institutions or copying the institutions from other parts of the world is the
form of governance that Nigeria may need: Is there a case for a kind of a
benevolent rulership. It may sound anti-democratic, but within a benevolent
dictatorship, there can be democracy. It is just that we are presuming, we are
presupposing that such leadership would not be based on naked violence, or
threats of violence or of the sort of unimaginative leadership that means that
like a Sani Abacha you loot the resources of your country. No, it’s a creative
kind of a leadership which I think some countries in Europe were fortunate to
have. It brought them into the modern world. The structure of Nigeria, as well
as the means by which it is governed by competent and well-meaning and
purposeful and resourceful people should be a priority. And this is where the
political scientists and historians need to go to work. So far they have not
done that. The other point that I would
also say is that part of this idea of deconstructing the psyche of the Nigerian
and of the Black African is about going back to that point about “Man Know
Thyself”. It may sound abstract on a particular level, but it really is the
beginning of all. And it is either that or a sense of decrepitude; a sense of
stagnation and enslavement which you’ve mentioned. That is going to be the
prevailing pattern unless these ideas can be brought to the fore and can then
be implemented through people who can infiltrate the state and get a hold of
the levers of power. I would also like to add the aspect not just of
intellectuals, but also of culture. We’ve had many capable writers and
novelists in Nigeria, but I don’t think any of them whether it is Ngugi Wa
Thiong’o (Kenyan), Chinua Achebe, Wole Soyinka, they’ve been good at
criticising. They’ve been good at describing the past, and the clashes between
the past and the present. But I don’t think any of them have successfully
deconstructed the mind of the Nigerian or the ethnic groups that compose
Nigeria in the way, say, writers in Russia like Dostoevsky or Goethe in Germany
have done. I think that is a very, very important thing because deconstructing
your national character: your strengths, your weaknesses, is a very, very
important thing that artists can do, which can permeate into other levels in
society for the benefit of that society. I’ll give you an example of Germany.
Goethe, the famous German playwright and philosopher lived at a time when
Europe was coming out of the idea of the rightness of the divine right of
kings. The French Revolution had happened and Napoleon, before he became
consumed with the grandeur, he was somebody with a vision. He was republican.
He was progressive thinking, and artists like Beethoven and Goethe were very
comprehending of Napoleon. Now with Goethe, the way he understood it was
that...This is where you can draw analogies with whoever you want to draw among
the names that I’ve mentioned about Nigerian artists whether they are writers,
whether they are sculptors and musicians, of which I’m sure you would give
credit to Fela Anikulapo-Kuti. What Goethe did was that when the French Empire
was being defeated in Russia and Napoleon was on the retreat, there was a surge
of German nationalism. Germany has been composed of all these different
principalities and this surge of nationalism arose when they had the
opportunity to dispose of the occupying French. But Goethe -this is the thing
about moral courage, far-sightedness and the ability to deconstruct the psyche
of your people- was very worried about this because he felt that nationalist
Germany could not handle what they wanted. He felt nationalism would destroy
Germany. He based this not just on his observations of the German mentality. He
thought about Germany and its geographical location; that it was an inland
territory and it had no sea borders, to the north was a calm Baltic Sea. He
felt that if these people succumbed to militarism that was the natural
counterpart of nationalism, it would lead to disaster. And of course he was
proved right. You had the rise of Prussia and you had the rise of the Third
Reich under Hitler and Germany was involved in two World Wars which brought
national catastrophe. What Goethe suggested at the time to the extreme
displeasure of his countrymen who thought that he was unpatriotic: “Why would
you not want to overthrow the French?” He felt that if you gave the German a
gun and a nationalist creed, he would go haywire. He would want to conquer his
neighbours by force of arms, and he would lead himself to disaster. What did
Goethe suggest as the alternative? He said Germany should invest in the
culture, and what he meant by the culture was that Germany could inspire the
world, and in a sense conquer the world through its talents in culture like
music, in commerce, you know, going back to the Hanseatic League from the
Middle Ages to the Renaissance era. These areas that the Germans could focus
their talents on. I don’t want to go into how Dostoevsky deconstructed the
Russians, but if you see my point, and anyone listening to this, I haven’t seen
a Nigerian writer do something similar. To effectively point out the strengths
and weaknesses of the psyche and how it can be used and developed in a
productive manner. It may be abstract. It is something I myself would need to
research and really start from scratch by studying philosophies from Africa and
around the world, because if nobody picks up this baton, I think that anybody
else with literacy skills can do their best to point the way to others to
develop on this. I think that at the end of the day reforming the mind, the
mentality, the psyche is of absolute importance, is of preeminent importance
and it is not just a question of us doing well by legitimately acquiring
academic qualifications, being successful in what we do outside of Nigeria’s
borders; sometimes in Nigeria without being burdened by being referred to as a corrupt
person. I think that this is the be all and end all of the solution to
Nigeria’s woes. A reformation of the mentality.
FIO: Ade, you make a very solid point, and number
one, I’m going to go away and think about that; this project, this task that you’ve
just set about deconstructing the Nigerian psyche, analysing the Nigerian
psyche with a view to determining the weaknesses so that we can make an
effective change in those conditions in Nigeria. It’s an excellent point. You
know, I really need to go and think about this one. Now that you’ve mentioned
it I know that yes, with the possible exception of Fela, I don’t think that any
contemporary Nigerian writer or intellectual has undertaken such a project as
that. I think it is required where someone needs to study the Nigerian psyche
and put it down in black and white. Just write it, describe it, outline it,
define it as you said. I would agree one hundred percent with your judgement,
with your assessment that our culture has a role to play. And I would go so far
as to say that it has played a very retrogressive role in our development. The
most immediate example that comes to mind is the deference that the young are
expected to pay to older Nigerians; where you can’t criticise an older person
-no matter how stupid that older person may be. Just because that person is
older. That encourages a level of subservience in the thinking; the minds of
the youth, which is why I would argue that we remain stagnant. Another reason
why our culture has had a stagnating effect on us. Apart from all the other
problems we are contending with; number one, the lack of education and then of
course our culture. You were going to say?
AM: Nothing at all, but I would say that there is
a lot to draw from the past. One thing that people from other parts of the
world, the so-called orient and certainly from the Western world are ignorant
about Africa, is that Africa was this undeveloped place with people living in
the dusty land or jungle terrain with no distinct forms of governance. I mean,
you would think that, wouldn’t you if you were brought up watching movies to do
with Tarzan in the jungle..
FIO: Yes…
AM: ...very skewered views of Africa looking just
at poverty-stricken places. They cannot comprehend the Ashanti Kingdom, the
Benin Kingdom, the Oyo Empire as being these sophisticated states which ruled
over expansive tracts of land; that had institutions, you know, from Oyo, the
Prime Minister or Bashorun, the Oyo Mesi (State Council), the Alaafin (King); there was logos, a sense of the universe. There
was cosmology and there was in the affairs of governance a constitutional
set-up. There was a system of finance and trading. Yorubas formed towns -they
weren’t just in villages. So that past, without necessarily going on to these
contentious issues of “Were the ancient Egyptians black?”, look to the backdoor
of your history as to what you as a people accomplished. When the Portuguese
came to West Africa, they came as co-equals to the Kingdom of Benin. They were
enchanted by the order of the society they found, the splendour of the Oba of
Benin. Portugal and Benin exchanged ambassadors. This is the pre-colonial era,
the era before colonialism and imperialism. How is all this transmitted? You’re
not going to transmit this to your people if you don’t teach history in school.
And if so-called Nollywood is not doing the business of exploring the past in
an intelligent way and marketing that to not just to Nigeria (but to) other
parts of Africa and other parts of the world, imagine how the view, by a
process of osmosis would change the image of the African. Let’s face it, there
is quite a lot that can be done in terms of (retuning) the African mind, so
that Africa, Nigeria can find its place in the post-colonial society. It is
something that should be fought on all fronts; you know culturally et cetera.
But we need to look at the weaknesses because a lot of these kingdoms, they were
eventually defeated by Western armies. The Ashanti Empire, Benin were conquered
and this was done by supposedly enlightened European nations who were just
doing that to dominate and to exploit. Things like language need to be
explored. You have to look at a language and you have to say to yourself: That
language, if it cannot incorporate philosophy and be scientificated, what
purpose is it doing in the world? These kind of decisions need to be made. I
recall this argument in America, do you recall in the 1990s, whether black
Americans or African-Americans…
FIO: ...the Bell Curve...
AM: ...No, no,no. Not that. We can talk about that
(later) but what I’m saying is they said the teaching of African-Americans that
they should use, what’s the phrase...
FIO: ...Ebonics…
AM: ...Ebonics, that’s right. And my argument was
that Ebonics was just like a dialect. Just like a person from ordinary origins
in Northern England can speak their dialect, they’ll continue using it, but
when they are in the workplace, they will use something different. Ebonics has
its usages in terms of expressions of culture and artistry but is it capable of
… can you write a book on physics using Ebonics? If you can, fine. But if not,
let us not push this retrogressive issue of saying that black kids can only be
educated by using Ebonics in class. And maybe an analogy can be made with some
African languages; that that can be holding us back even though we’ve had these
(European) languages imposed on us. And also for better or for worse the
greater world has to use English and to a lesser degree French and Spanish. So
I think that is an important factor that needs to be explored if we are going
to develop ourselves. Just to sum up, it is about people arising from the
intellectual classes to try to erect new philosophies that develop upon
Negritude and Pan-Africanism and provide some ideological; some cultural basis
for creating the conditions that Africa can now have its own renaissance,
develop itself and take its rightful place in the world, and basically call in
this history of being the willing dupes of colonisers.
FIO: “The willing dupes of colonisers”; now that’s
a phrase, which I am going to get you to explain at a later date my dear brother.
© Adeyinka
Makinde & Femi Ijebu-Ode (2019).
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