This is a test article body written from the dev admin console.
Author: Niyi Akinnaso
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Jimmy Carter’s post-presidency
Despite significant legislative achievements, especially in education, energy, and environmental protection; peace-making deals, notably between Israel and Egypt; and historic diplomatic breakthroughs, particularly with China, President Jimmy Carter’s presidency was not favorably considered by pundits and voters alike.
There were at least two major reasons for the poor assessment. One, the economy had taken a downturn, due in part to fuel shortages, which led to a hike in pump prices of petrol, and uncontrollable inflation. Two, Carter’s tenure was consumed by conflict in the Middle East (Israel vs Egypt; Israel vs Palestine; and Iran vs Iraq); Cold War between the United States and the old Soviet Union; and the Iran Hostage Crisis involving 53 American hostages held for 444 days in the American Embassy in Tehran. Unfortunately, Carter’s mission to rescue the hostages ended in disaster due to poor weather and the crash of one rescue helicopter, which killed 8 service members.
Voters reacted so negatively to the economic and hostage crises that they denied Carter re-election in November 1980 and gave a landslide victory to his Republican opponent, President Ronald Reagan, who assumed office in January 1981.
Nevertheless, whatever credit Carter missed as President, he got back in unprecedented post-presidential achievements. More than any other American President before and after him, Carter had the widest range of activities and the most global reach after leaving the White House. To be sure, he was aided by his longevity: He was the longest-lived President in American history, at 100 years and 89 days. He also had the longest post-presidency, at 43 years and 344 days.
Upon leaving the White House in 1981, Carter went back to his hometown of Plains, Georgia, and returned to the family farmland to tend to peanuts, cotton, soybeans, grain, and pine trees. However, as he got increasingly involved in other activities, he soon phased out his farming duties and relied on partners or renters for all farming activities.
For coordinating those post-presidential activities, he used the Carter Center, which he and his wife, Rosalynn, set up in 1982 in collaboration with Emory University in Atlanta. He and Rosalynn also collaborated with Habitat for Humanity International, a global nonprofit housing organisation, established in 1976, to provide affordable housing across the United States and in at least 70 other countries around the world.
Working with these two institutions, Carter and (for the most part) Rosalynn visited at least 145 countries. They worked on healthcare, agriculture, peace, human rights, conflict resolution, promoting democracy by monitoring elections, and building homes for the poor around the world. Carter also pursued his interests in carpentry, woodworking, painting, and writing, while Rosalynn pursued her pet project on mental health. In the last chapter of his bestselling book, A Full Life: Reflections at 90 (Simon and Schuster, New York, 2015), Carter provided a summary of each of these activities as of 2014. He still worked even until 95!
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The central focus of their healthcare project was to eradicate or at least reduce the incidences of malaria and five “neglected tropical diseases” afflicting millions of people in Africa, South America, and Asia. They include river blindness, filariasis, trachoma, and guinea worm. The Carter Center has been credited for working for nearly 40 years to eradicate guinea worm. This mission has been achieved in at least 17 countries. As of June 2024, only three human cases and 297 animal infections were reported, almost 100% reduction from an estimated 3.5 million cases in 1986, when the Carter Center took on the disease.
Their work on peace and conflict resolution took them to dangerous places. According to Carter himself, “These choices are not always popular, because they put us in contact with unsavory people or groups. They have included Maoists in Nepal, the Communist dictator Mengitsu Haile Mariam in Ethiopia, Mobutu Sese Sekop in Zaire (now Democratic Republic of Congo), Radovan Karadzic in Bosnia and Slobodan Milosevic in Serbia, Kin Il Sung and his successors in North Korea, the Castro brothers in Cuba, Omar al-bashir in Sudan, and leaders of Hamas in Gaza and other places.” On many occasions, he was invited by these leaders, because he had acquired a solid reputation as an impartial mediator, and he succeeded in mediating most of the conflicts.
One of the projects Carter really enjoyed to the fullest was his job as a Distinguished University Professor at Emory. He lectured in different departments and schools during the academic year. The subjects included history, political science, environmental studies, theology, African American studies, business, medicine, nursing, and law. For over 30 years in a row, he started each academic year with a town hall meeting with several thousand students, “where I answer unpredictable questions.” His appointment to this role illustrates the elasticity of the American academic tradition. It does not require the NUC’s obnoxious type of “you must have a doctorate degree” to teach in a university, thereby cutting off people with talent and experience like Carter and many others like him from sharing their expertise and experiences.
Carter discovered his love of writing, especially after buying his first word processor after leaving the White House. He authored at least 33 books, mostly bestsellers. He wrote on a variety of subjects, from history to religion, from personal reflections to a focus on his father, from his village of Plains to the White House in Washington, from war to peace, and from the boyhood years to adulthood and aging. None of Carter’s books could be pushed aside.
In the next contribution, Carter’s character, philosophy, and what President Biden described as “simple decency” will be analysed.
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What Orunmila wanted me to do to my new car
In order to understand the story I am about to tell, it is important for readers to have an idea of my background. Briefly, I was brought up in the Ifa tradition, and the first school I attended was an Ifa divination school. Neither of my parents could read or write. But they were very successful farmers. True, my father eventually bought the Bible and Catechism, neither of which he could read, and attended church on Sundays, the remaining weekdays were devoted to Ifa worship. No child was taken to the church or the pastor for being sick or for needing help in any way. Rather, it was to the Babalawo (Ifa diviner) my father took us. He alone had the authority to diagnose our problems and seek Orunmila’s help in prescribing the right sacrifice and necessary antidote.
I had many memorable encounters with the Babalawo, because my father would take me to him at every turn in my health situation or career. And so, we went in 1972 to seek protection for me and my new car on the roads. I had just bought a new Volkswagen Beetle from Mandilas and Karaberis, located at Oke-Bola in Ibadan. The discounted price of the car was £900. The discount was in celebration of the 25th anniversary of the M&K dealership in Nigeria.
My father had given the Babalawo advance notice. He knew about the car already and had prepared the necessary etùtù to ward off danger. So, as we stepped into his divining paraphernalia-filled room, he consulted Ifa again to reconfirm what Orunmila had told told him earlier. He thereafter beckoned to me to kneel down before him. Very quickly, he grabbed my head and made seven small cuts, known as gbere, across the top. He then robbed some concoction into it, mixing it with blood from the cuts. I had had gbebefore. So, it was not strange to me.
The next activity moved to the car outside. With some powdery substance in one of his palms, the Babalawo began some esoteric incantation, followed by prayers in Idanre dialect: oko yí e ní kolu’gi. oko yí e ní kol’ope. oko yí e ní kol’òkúta. oko yí e ní kol’ènìyàn. oko yí e ní kol’oko ’loko. okomúen e den níí kolù ú. (May this car never collide with a tree. May this car never collide with a palm-tree. May this car never collide with a rock. May this car never collide with a person. May this car never collide with another car. And may another car never collide with this car). To every prayer, we said Àse (So shall it be). He blew the powdery stuff across the car, leaving some portion for the four wheels.
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I had thought that was all. But no. The Babalawo beckoned us inside. It was time he told us the sacrifice Ifa had prescribed in order to fully protect my life and safeguard my car. Instead of speaking directly to me, the diviner turned to my father. Ifa says your son should remove all the four tyres of his car and burn them before nightfall tomorrow.
I had thought to myself at the time that the sacrifice was a punishment too severe for my purse. How much was I earning as a young lecturer at the University of Ife at the time? I later complained to my father but he said I should not worry. My life was more important than my worries. He then told me that the diviner confided in him that jealous and envious eyes had settled on the tyres, wishing them to burst in motion and derail.
I did not believe in the connection between jealous and envious eyes and the tyres of my car. But then, my father had made it possible to get a car loan from the Cooperative Society, by standing as my guarantor. When he sensed my hesitation about the loan payments, he offered to pay it off. He was a highly productive cocoa farmer.
I decided to offer the sacrifice to please him. So, off to a known vulcanizer in Akure I went. I negotiated with him to remove my four new tyres and keep them until I came back for them. In the meantime, however, he would give me eight from his pile of used tyres. He agreed for a small fee. So, he removed the four new tyres and replaced them with old ones. The remaining four old tyres were kept in my car.
My father and I went back to the diviner in the village to offer the sacrifice. To the diviner and my father, we had removed the hands of the devil. To me, it was an uncomfortable experience.
But, as fate would have it, the whole experience played out in real time about five weeks later. I experienced my first major car accident on my way back from Abeokuta, where I had gone to spend a weekend with a close friend. I was trying to remove a cassette from the player and insert another one in its place. Unfortunately, I took my eyes off the road for a moment and the car veered off the road into a roadside ditch. The car was stopped by a log of wood at the base of the ditch, which dented the front fender. In the confusion, I quickly got out of the car and left it running. Three other drivers had stopped their vehicles to help me. We managed to get the car out of the ditch, and I was able to continue my journey. My two hands were on the steering wheel and there was no music whatsoever until I got to Akure. I left the car with a mechanic there and went to Idanre in public transport.
When I later told my father the story of the accident, I was surprised that he quickly got up dancing and praising Ifa for saving my life. And where is your car now? He asked. It is outside, and it has been repaired. I was not used to arguing with my father. You couldn’t even argue with your father when I was growing up. But I told him Ifa was not there to save me and that kind passersby helped me out. He laughed! My son, what if you did not offer the sacrifice? But I still had an accident in spite of the sacrifice, I responded. My son, you don’t understand.
Fellow anthropologists later replicated my father’s analysis of the situation, when I narrated the experience at an international conference. Many agreed with my father that my skepticism notwithstanding, my compliance meant that the sacrifice worked, and Ifa was justified. His belief in the system, not necessarily mine, made it work.
My father belonged to the age when the belief system that Ifa worked was at its peak. I belong to the transition period, when some of us believed in Ifa and some didn’t. Those of us who went to school had gone to Christian schools and adopted Christian ways. But my skepticism was not about Ifa alone. I later dropped the Christian baptismal name my father got bestowed on me in his church.
Today, Ifa has been relegated to near oblivion by Islamic fanaticism, evangelical Christianity with unbridled prosperity gospels, and a youth population lost to cultism, cyber fraud, and irredeemable materialism.
Yet, Ifa is a major repository of Yoruba knowledge, epistemology, philosophy, and precepts for the omoluabi ethos. It is for these reasons I have gone back to Ifa again and again as an anchour of Yoruba values and good behaviour. This is the context within which I later reinterpreted Orunmila’s prescription of sacrifice and my father’s joy at following through on the sacrifice.