The Nation Newspaper

Category: Banji Akintoye

  • Let us seriously begin to prosper

    There I have my home in America, there are farms in all directions. It is true that America is the world’s greatest country of technology, industries, hi-tech inventions, etc. But America is also the world’s greatest home of farming. The state of California alone produces and exports more food that any sovereign country besides America. So too does the state of New York. If all national barriers to food importations were cancelled by all countries, America could feed the entire world. That is the truest picture of national prosperity.

    Though Nigeria is not as large as America, Nigeria can also produce most of the world’s food. And the Nigerian South-west can compare quite creditably with California or New York. It is all a matter of proper governance, proper planning, proper attention to farming and to farmers.

    In particular, we in the South-west already have the tool. Education is the tool for making progress in all directions in the modern world. We have made ourselves one of the world’s most educated peoples. Education is today’s sharp tool – and we hold it in our hand.

    The first step into our farming revolution should be to spread the word around – in our governments, among our leaders and politicians, in our schools, colleges and universities, in our social clubs, in all our towns and villages and farmsteads, everywhere. And the word is that we as a nation are returning very seriously to winning the gold from our soil again.

    For those of us who have become used to thinking that farming is not an occupation for the educated or the rich – but an occupation fit only for the illiterate, the aged and the poor – here is some information to ponder. Successful farming is a major pillar of the economic prosperity of almost every one of the leading industrialized countries of the world – such as America, Britain, Germany and Russia. Farming is also a big pillar of the growing prosperity of rising Third-world countries like Brazil, China, Argentina, India, etc. Israel is a small desert country, a young country founded only in 1948. The Israeli leaders knew from the beginning that their country must make a success of farming if it was to succeed at all. Today, Israel is one of the leading exporters of fruits and vegetables in the world. Starting from the prosperity in farming, Israel has now become one of the leading technological and industrial countries in the world.

    It is therefore almost certain that if we in Nigeria or the Nigerian South-west do not make a success of farming, we will not make a success of our general economy. In other words, if we want to conquer the poverty that is now buffeting us, the place to start is to make a success of our farming right away. It is that clear and simple. Waiting for the oil of the Niger Delta is, for more than 99% of Nigerians, particularly of the Yoruba people of the South-west, waiting for more poverty and more suffering. Waiting for our state governments to provide employment for most of us from the handouts that they get from the oil money from Abuja monthly, is inviting disaster upon ourselves and our families.

    In recent years in our South-west, our governments have been paying some attention to agriculture, but, unfortunately, they have been following Nigeria’s insane practice of holding everything in the hands of governments and bureaucrats – and therefore achieving no real success. We need to learn how other Third-world countries are creating a virile class of modern farmers.

    For a start, our governments must immediately begin to encourage and assist us private citizens to invest in farming. All of us belonging to the younger generations in the South-west are educated. That is an asset. Quite a good number of us who are educated have some education in some aspect of agriculture or business. That is another asset. Many of us (professionals, businessmen, political leaders and civil servants) command some financial resources or some access to finance. That is a great asset. To make immediate success with farming, our governments must immediately encourage and entice our people to divert some of these assets into farming.

    Here are a few examples from some other Third-world countries.  For Ivory Coast to become a very successful agricultural products exporter (exporting vegetables, pine apples and other fruits and cocoa) in the 1950s, the country’s first president, Felix Houphuet-Boigny, showed the way by going into very big farming. (I visited his extensive farms in the 1970s). Many prominent citizens followed his example, and then many common folks. The first Prime Minister of Israel, Dr. Ben Gurion, gave up political leadership and became a farmer in a settlement that was turning a desert into farms – and thus contributed much to the Israeli farming miracle. In Brazil, there are many factories processing and exporting farm products. In one such factory – an enormous tomato processing factory outside Sao Paulo – I watched farmers coming to deliver truck-loads of tomato for a whole day. It was the same in a company that I visited in the Philippines – a company exporting fresh and canned pine-apples to the United States. Argentina is a major exporter of beef because many in the Argentinian elite invest in cattle ranching.

    In summary, for those of us who already command some assets, the opportunities are virtually limitless in crop farming, crop packaging, crop processing, livestock raising, meat processing, various export businesses, agricultural machinery importation, sales, rentals, and servicing, etc. Agricultural machines are the tools of modern farming. It is important to realize that, for our educated folks, the age of hoes and cutlasses has passed. Men who import agricultural machinery, and those who sell, rent out, service, and operate agricultural machinery, are the life-blood of modern farming. For our educated youths, the door is also open for inventions of various kinds of farming tools and food processing tools, as well as for various new kinds of processed foods, snacks, spices, etc, for home consumption and for export. A businessman whom I met in South Korea made his wealth through packaging and exporting South Korean native spices and herbs. In such ventures, our country is virgin land – a land in which the enterprising and sagacious can quickly amass a fortune.

    The beautiful grasslands of the northern-most parts of Yorubaland must turn into cattle ranches belonging to rich Yoruba ranchers, and we must become a net exporter of meat products. We must recover our position as one of the world’s largest exporters of cocoa. We must expand cocoa acreage in our forestlands, and replace our old and tired cocoa trees with new and better quality trees. And we must re-energize our Cocoa Produce Marketing Unions.

    Finally, our state governments are, of course, our frontline assets in this revolution. It is they who must chart the plans, lay out the rules, and do most of the motivating of our people. Happily, they are already awake to these tasks. In the agenda for South-western Regional Integrated Development, agriculture leads the way.  The awareness already exists; all that is now needed is that they must approach it right. They must believe that we the common people can get it done.

  • What Scottish nationalism teaches us

    The large nation of England and the small nation of Scotland agreed, by an Act of Union in 1707, to form a union. From the very first day, however, there were always some Scots who did not want union with England – who wanted the Scottish nation to preserve its separate identity. Such people were the founding fathers of modern Scottish nationalism.

    Not long after 1711 (roughly from the 1780s), the nationalism of ethnic nations gradually grew into a force in Europe. It started with the French. Emerging from their French Revolution, the French became a strongly unified nation, went forth to try and conquer all of Europe, demonstrated how strong and proud a unified nation could be, and made every other European ethnic nation jealous. In response, the Italians, who had been living in separate small kingdoms, forcibly unified their country together as one country of Italy in 1861. Ten years later, the Germans followed suit and became one Germany. Then the many small nations that were parts of some large countries began to demand their own separateness too. Such demands resulted in the breaking up of such multi-nation countries as Austria-Hungary and the Turkish Empire into smaller countries.

    But the most powerful countries of Europe did not yet fully understand ethnic nationalism, especially the nationalism of small or weak nations. Therefore, when they broke up Austria-Hungary and the Turkish Empire, they grouped some small nations to form what they thought would be viable countries – such as Yugoslavia (consisting of Serbs, Croats, Slovenes, Albanians, Bosnians, etc), Czechoslovakia (consisting of Czechs and Slovaks), etc. They also established boundaries that split up some nations – such as the Kurds (today 30 million in population) who were split between Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria. And when European countries came to Africa and Asia to create empires for themselves at the same time, they did what they had done in parts of Europe – they forcibly grouped some nations to form new countries, and they created boundaries that split up many nations.

    Since the beginning of the 20th century, the world has learnt more and more one hard lesson – namely, that these multi-nation countries, and these boundaries that split up nations, are simply unrealistic and, therefore, unsustainable. Nations, no matter how small, are incredibly tough entities, each being a product of many thousands of years of evolution. Nations don’t usually die. Countries that are made up of different nations usually break up sooner or later along ethnic national lines. All the powerful multi-nation empires of the past broke up in that way. All the multi-nation countries of today are in trouble; almost all are unstable; many have broken up; more and more are moving towards breaking up. And the United Nations has ruled that each ethnic nation has the right to choose to be a separate country.

    If a multi-nation country is well-governed, prosperous, powerful and proud (like Britain is), it is not so easy for the nations in it to break away. That is what we saw last week in the Scottish independence referendum. Enough Scots see so much to love in Britain that they don’t want to separate from Britain, but the nationalists are proclaiming that the struggle continues. In contrast, if a multi-nation country is (like Nigeria) poorly governed, corruption-ridden, makes its citizens poor, and makes its citizens ashamed in the world, its chances of quickly breaking up are very high. The Soviet Union was phenomenally powerful, but its central government was, in its relations with its small nations, far too domineering and repressive – and the country broke up, with each nationality becoming a separate sovereign country.

    Realistically, therefore, Nigeria is not likely to live for much longer. Nigeria is too strongly set in its path of crookedness, corruption, unfairness, hopeless poverty for more and more citizens, mutual hatred among nations, conflicts, and stiff-necked resistance to change. Nigeria has become a monstrous agency of destruction of all morality, and even all human virtue. And the result is that more and more Nigerians are retreating from love for Nigeria to love for their own small nations in Nigeria. For Nigeria, the basis for being one country does not exist anymore.

    A couple of years ago, our Wole Soyinka said that if changes didn’t come soon, he could see Nigeria breaking up. We can say today that things are not only not changing, but that things are getting worse and worse. The growing indication now, therefore, is that Nigeria may be entering into an era of separate nationalisms. Igbo nationalism, Yoruba nationalism, Hausa-Fulani nationalism, Kanuri nationalism, Edo nationalism, Nupe nationalism, Ijaw nationalism, Birom nationalism,  and so on – these now seem likely to dominate Nigeria’s near future. And the reason is that more and more of the people of each of Nigeria’s nations feel that their nation is being gradually destroyed in Nigeria, by Nigeria.

    When I wrote in the Gbogun Gboro column some months ago that many of the enterprising Igbo people were fleeing from their “battered Igbo homeland”, one Igbo reader took offence at that phrase. He or she thought I was denigrating or deriding the Igbo people. But I wasn’t doing any such thing. What I was doing was saying what we all know to be true – namely, that Nigeria has seriously battered the Igbo nation. As the Igbo were rising up by the 1950s, the prospects were great that their kind of dynamism could quickly produce a technologically and industrially notable nation in Nigeria and Africa. But the drastic disorientation occasioned by Nigeria has brutalized that prospect. And more or less the same has happened to every other Nigerian nation.

    Concerning my own Yoruba nation, I can say we were broadly and confidently prospering by the 1950s, and that we are poorer today than ever before in our known history, thanks to Nigeria. When I see countless thousands of highly educated Yoruba youths roaming the streets for years without jobs and without hope, when I see large crowds of highly educated Yoruba men and women lining up at foreign embassies every day seeking visas to escape from the Nigerian hell, when I see videos or read about highly educated Yoruba and other Nigerian  youths trying to walk across the Sahara Desert in order to reach Europe though North Africa (with many of them dying in the desert), I, who in the 1970s had excitedly given up my successful career to go and help build a great Nigeria,  am today filled with overwhelming sorrow and worry about my Yoruba nation.

    I know, of course, that there are some of the Yoruba elite who are benefiting, or who hope to benefit, from the Nigerian corruption outfit, and who therefore want Nigeria to continue. But I am relieved that, in all directions, large numbers of Yoruba people are recognizing and accepting that our nation needs to free itself from the grip of destruction and establish an independent existence of its own. I look forward to seeing a Yoruba nationalist movement (like the Scottish nationalist movement) emerge among these masses of patriots, and I desire to march with them in their peaceful but focused and resolute independence demonstrations. That, I am sure, is the path ahead.

  • Nigeria: We can sort the future out amicably

    What follows hereunder is about “nations” or “nationalities”. So then, for starters, what is a nation or a nationality? A nation or nationality is a human group defined by a common culture (language, customs, worldview, etc) and a common homeland. The nearly 50 million Yoruba are one nation, and so are the nearly 50 million Igbo, the 15 million Ijaw, the seven million Catalans of north-eastern Spain, and the five million Scots of Scotland in the northern part of Britain.

    Most pundits would say that each nation was created by God and that, obviously, the Creator’s purpose is that each nation should rule itself and manage its own life. We know, however, from human history, that from time to time, human activities unify neighbouring nations together to form one united country under one government. This can happen through conquest, or through friendly agreement, or through marriage between rulers.

    But we also know from human history that such unifying of different nations into one country is hardly ever permanent. All the large empires of ancient times, each combining many nations by conquest, ultimately broke up. In the past 100 years, many countries consisting of different nations have been breaking apart – with each nation becoming a country and ruling itself.

    It is not necessarily because a multi-nation country is poor that its different nations want to separate. In the past 300 years, Britain, consisting of the English, Scots, Irish, and Welsh, has been one of the richest, one of the most powerful, and one of the most beautiful countries in the world. And yet the Irish broke away from Britain about 90 years ago and formed their own separate country; and the Scots and Welsh now want separate countries of their own also. The Soviet Union was wonderfully powerful, but about 20 years ago, all its 14 different nationalities broke apart and formed separate countries of their own – many of them very small and weak countries. Canada is a very rich country, but the French-speaking provinces of Canada want to separate from Canada. Some small non-Chinese nations want to separate from China, and some non-Hindu nations want to separate from India. The eight different nations of Yugoslavia broke into eight separate countries about 20 years ago. Two small nations have recently broken away from Indonesia, and some more want to do so. One of the two small nations of the tiny island country of Sri Lanka wants a separate country of its own, and so does one of the two small nations of the small country of Belgium. In Spain, the Catalan and Basque nations are agitating for separate countries of their own.

    Nearer home in Africa, the same movement is going on. South Sudan recently separated from Sudan. However, South Sudan is not a good example; the separation was not along “national” lines but along “racial” lines (separation of the Black peoples of South Sudan from the Arab peoples of North Sudan). South Sudan is still made up of a number of different nations – and these nations are likely to break apart in the future. There are many better examples. The Eritreans broke away from Ethiopia about 15 years ago, and the people of Somaliland from Somalia about the same time. The Buganda nation wants to separate from Uganda.

    Under certain very painful circumstances, the large Igbo nation tried to break away from Nigeria about 50 years ago and, with the smaller nations to their south, attempted to form a new separate country known as Biafra. Emotional, even romantic, about their newly independent Nigeria, the rest of Nigeria forcibly suppressed the Biafra attempt. But, from what is known of the behaviour of nations in our world, it seems impossible that the verdict of the Biafran war will last forever. For virtually all Igbo, Biafra (as a separate country of the Igbo nation) remains an immortal reality and goal – even if some among the Igbo elite currently seem  hesitant and undecided about that goal. Among the masses of educated Igbo youths, various organizations keep Biafra vibrantly alive.

    As for the large Yoruba nation, a culture-based tendency towards introspection and caution limits effusiveness about separation from Nigeria. But by now, most Yoruba at home and abroad have reluctantly come to the belief that, for the Yoruba nation to come out of poverty and find its true destiny as an enterprising nation in the world, separation from Nigeria has become mandatory. When Nigeria commenced the recent National Conference, significant parts of the Yoruba elite and people were still resolved that the Yoruba nation must continue to contribute to making Nigeria work. But, following the nebulous conclusions of the National Conference, the desire to get out of Nigeria has become observably very strong among the pauperized and suffering masses of educated Yoruba youths.

    I am not saying that large and potentially powerful nations like the Yoruba and Igbo would have forever remained in Nigeria  if Nigeria were better organized and better managed, or if Nigeria were a prosperous country. All I am saying is that the current instability, poverty, and insecurity in Nigeria have tended to optimize the desires of some of our nations  to separate from  Nigeria. Even if Nigeria were orderly and prosperous, it would still be inconceivable that such nations as the Yoruba or Igbo would remain part of Nigeria for much longer.  Look at the facts: Each of the Yoruba and Igbo is larger in land area and population that most of the countries of Europe, and, on its own and in its own country, can become one of the leading countries of the world. The same is true of the Hausa-Fulani nation too. And to, may be, a lesser extent, the same is true too of our smaller nations like the Ijaw, Edo, Tiv, Kanuri, Nupe, etc, each of which is bigger and potentially richer than countries like Belgium, Holland, Switzerland, Austria, Singapore, South Korea, etc.

    In short, as multi-nation countries are becoming an endangered species in the world, it is critically important that we Nigerians should become much more realistic about the immediate future of our Nigeria. If we are realistic, we will be able to ensure that a development that is essentially natural and inevitable does not become the occasion for massive conflict, fighting, chaos, and mass blood-letting.

    Published stories this week that some Nigerians are surreptitiously and illegally shopping for arms abroad – no matter who may be doing it – point to certain fearful probabilities, especially when added to earlier stories of secret arms importations into Nigeria, and to repeated and explicit threats from some quarters that violence and even war will be used for resolving Nigeria’s future. As the Czechs and Slovaks taught the world when they sensibly and  peacefully dissolved their Czechoslovakia not long ago into two new countries of Czech Republic and Slovakia, there is no need for any Nigerian nation to arm itself for war against any other Nigerian nation. We are bound to separate by and by anyway. If we strongly desire to do so right away, then let us do it peacefully and amicably – and remain good neighbours and partners in development afterwards.

  • Wanted: True leaders

    Dictionaries, even the smallest school dictionaries, always give many meanings to the word “lead”. And in every one of those meanings, to lead is to do something beyond oneself to or for some people – usually to a group. To be a leader is to help a group diagnose or identify a strange or puzzling group problem; or to propose and promote solution to a known group problem; or to guide the group along a path towards the solution of a problem or towards the achievement of a group goal; etc. In every case, a leader brings some value into the group’s life. In some way or other, the leader gives himself to the service of the group, towards the achievement of something.

    Leadership therefore relates to a current problem or situation in a group’s life. For instance, in this column last week, I described how the leaders among a national group, the Catalan people of north-eastern Spain, are providing leadership for their Catalan nation.  The Catalans are an enterprising people, and their little nation of Catalonia is one of the richest provinces of Spain. But they are one of the ethnic minorities in Spain. And succeeding governments of Spain have tended to try to repress the Catalans, and even to try to suppress the Catalan culture and identity. The masses of ordinary Catalans hate all this, but, like ordinary people all over the world, they cannot do much about it; they cannot fight the powerful government of Spain. However, some citizens arise from time to time among them who dare to speak out for their nation – who dare to call on their small nation to stand up together and defend their group dignity. These are the persons who deserve to be called leaders of the Catalan nation.

    Let me remind you of some of the things I said last week about these Catalan leaders. Because they are citizens of Spain, different persons among them belong to different Spanish political parties. That means that they do the things that political parties and politicians do against one another, especially for the purpose of getting votes at elections. But, over and above that, they are loyal to the aspirations of their Catalan nation, and they are united when it comes to defending the interest of their Catalonia. Consequently, they have succeeded very much in obtaining regional autonomy for Catalonia in Spain.

    In fact, they are now in the process of trying to achieve independence – the status of a separate sovereign country – for their Catalonia. And they are virtually all united in the quest – even though they belong to different political parties. Because the government of Spain is threatening to prevent them from holding their “independence referendum” this next November, the Catalan political leaders, of all political parties, have become much more united than ever before over the issue of independence. Indeed, some of the opposition political parties have seriously warned the Catalan regional president not to yield to the threats by the government of Spain. And the regional president, Artur Mas, has become enormously more confident in the struggle. He consults regularly with the other party leaders, and frequently joins with them to tell the masses of Catalans that the plan to vote for independence next November is unchanged and unchangeable, and to urge them to get ready to fight “democratically and peacefully” to make it happen. I hope you remember these statements of his: “If we fight we can win and we can lose; but if we do not fight, we have already lost”. “Our goal is to rule ourselves freely”. “If we lose because we won’t fight, then we do not only lose the struggle, we also lose our dignity – and that is the worst thing we can do to ourselves”.

    Now, we must remember that Spain is a rich and powerful country. These Catalan leaders can plausibly claim, if they so choose, that because of their fear of the Spanish government, they dare not speak up boldly for their own small nation. Many of them can also easily make deals with the Spanish government, get positions or money for themselves, and do nothing for Catalonia. Any of them can easily claim that because of the “interest of Spain” they have to make compromises and therefore junk Catalonia’s interest. And any of them can choose to focus only on the ambitions and agenda of their political parties and behave as if they are not aware of the situation and desires of their Catalan nation. These Catalans are not doing any of these. United, loyal, dutiful and resolute in the interest of their Catalan nation, though also participating in the politics of Spain, they are leading their nation in the fight that their nation has chosen – towards the goal that their nation seeks.

    It is very painful to most Yoruba people  that the leading men and women among the Yoruba nation do not act like these Catalan leaders – do not act at all as true leaders of their Yoruba nation. There is very deep disillusionment and hopelessness among us Yoruba people today, and the cause of it is not so much because we have serious problems (problems created by Nigeria’s brutalization and even destruction of our achievements and assets), but because we do not have leaders trying creditably to confront the problems, telling us what direction the road ahead  should be, and dutifully offering themselves as guides forward towards a goal –daring boldly to defy Nigeria’s opposition to our progress, and trying boldly to rally us in support of a Yoruba national programme.

    Our system of education (our flagstaff achievement in the past 100 years) lies in ruins, resulting in disgraceful performances by our children in public examinations (such as WAEC), and resulting in the shame that our youths are learning virtually nothing in our schools and colleges. Disgracefully, we do not have a programme for turning our educated youths into skilled workers, entrepreneurs, businessmen at home and abroad, inventors, patent owners, modern farmers, etc. Examples of how to do this are many in our world today (I recently wrote in this column about the example of Singapore), but we make no effort to learn or emulate. As a result, we squirm and sorrow in unbefitting poverty, and depend on imports and refugees from other parts of Nigeria for much of our economic life. Now, we tremble as an Islamic fundamentalist terrorist army, manufactured in another part of Nigeria, threatens to overrun all of Nigeria, including our homeland.

    But, worst of all, no Yoruba leader stands forth to challenge any one of these problems.  In practical terms, most of what we ever get from our leading citizens are efforts to conform to the putrid norms and standards of Nigeria, to share in Nigeria’s corrupt wealth, and to obtain positions in Nigeria’s chaotic and unproductive power system.

    The time for change has come. We cannot let Nigeria kill and bury all that is good in our nation’s life. Let the true Yoruba leaders, whether young or old, begin to emerge. We will welcome and support them – as we welcomed and supported Awolowo and his colleagues in their time.

  • These Catalans are admirable!

    I have fond memories about Barcelona, the leading city of the Catalans of north-eastern Spain. Without knowing anybody in the whole of Spain, and without having any friends or acquaintances on board the plane on which I was flying, I landed in Barcelona in July 1957. I was young (a young UCI student) and I was eager to use my first trip to Europe to know as much as possible of Europe. I had been attending a student conference in Switzerland and, instead of simply flying back home to Lagos, I managed to amend my flight ticket to fly to London, Amsterdam and Barcelona – and then Lagos.

    I landed in Barcelona having almost no money.  I spent all day seeing the lovely city, bought inexpensive snacks and soft drinks along the streets, and, when night came, managed to get a room in an inexpensive motel. Next morning, I continued my sight-seeing. By the time I headed for the airport in the afternoon, I was starving, but I knew they would serve some food on the flight home. I had achieved my purpose.

    I have visited or passed through  Barcelona a couple of times since then, but it is that first visit – as a poor and starving student who was determined to see and learn – that I remember most about  Barcelona and the homeland of the Catalans. Since then, I have followed avidly the story of Catalonia. And, in recent times, I have particularly found it very interesting that the story of Catalonia and the Catalans as part of the country of Spain is uncannily similar to the story of my own Yorubaland and Yoruba people as part of the country of Nigeria.

    Catalonia, the homeland of the Catalans, occupies the Mediterranean coast of north-eastern Spain. It is one of the most beautiful provinces of Spain. Their experiences in Spain, and the experiences of the Yoruba in Nigeria, are very similar. Just as the Yoruba of south-western Nigeria have an old tradition of hospitality to strangers and foreigners, the Catalans have an old tradition of hospitality towards non-Catalans. As a result, considerable parts of Catalan population can trace their ancestry to non-Catalan origins. In most of modern times, Catalonia has been one of the most industrially developed, one of the economically most prosperous, parts of Spain. Throughout the existence of Nigeria since 1914, the homeland of the Yoruba in south-western Nigeria has been the most economically developed , the most industrialized, and the most prosperous part of Nigeria.

    But the similarities even go further. Politically, Catalonia has experienced much repression from the central government of Spain. When Spain was ruled by a dictator in the 1930s and early 1940s, Catalonia came under particularly serious repression. Their provincial autonomy was taken away, and their indigenous language was even banned. The Yoruba have generally experienced much the same kinds of repression in Nigeria, especially since independence. Only two years after Nigeria’s independence, Nigeria’s federal government launched an attack on the predominantly Yoruba Western Region, suspended its regional constitution, imposed a federally appointed dictator over the region, and proceeded in various ways to destabilize the region and slow down its development. Since then, especially under the military regimes that ruled Nigeria for nearly four decades, Yorubaland has been steadily, though mostly subtly, marginalized and repressed, and most of its pre-independence achievements have been brutalized or even destroyed.

    However, the responses of the Catalans and the Yoruba to these repressive experiences have been widely different. On the whole, beyond the immediate reactions of Yoruba youths against the painful experiences of 1962-5, and their periodic revolts against electoral fraud by federal agencies in the Yoruba homeland, the Yoruba elite have proved surprisingly inept in responding to the experiences of their nation in Nigeria. In the political, economic and business life of Nigeria, the Yoruba elite prefer to be generally submissive and docile, apparently operating on the philosophy that it is better to submit, adapt, and survive than to stand up for their integrity and just entitlements. Even when the situation has clearly demanded Yoruba national unity and solidarity, the Yoruba elite have preferred to emphasize freedom to differ and to oppose one another – often claiming that the freedom of choice characteristic of Yoruba political and societal life is the most important thing in all situations. As a result, most of the fire in Yoruba politics in Nigeria is usually directed by Yoruba against Yoruba – with the result that Yoruba politicians have been known to hurt one another quite seriously in Nigerian politics. And even though the Yoruba, from the sophistication of their traditional political system, often have ideas and proposals that can greatly benefit Nigeria, they never unite to push such, and they are usually ready to surrender and accept compromises –claiming that such compromises are “in the interest of Nigeria”. Among them, working for different Nigerian political parties tends to be regarded as more important than working for the good of their Yoruba nation. Leading Yoruba persons in high governmental positions (elective and non-elective), and in successful business,  fear to be associated with nationalist aspirations among their people – as a result of which a recognizable and open Yoruba nationalist expression does not exist in Nigeria.

    The Catalans are different. The Catalan elite do belong to different Spanish political parties too.  But, even against the most fearsome dictatorships in Spain’s history, they have capably stood up and fought back. Therefore, in recent decades, they have demanded and won more and more autonomy for their region in Spain. Today, the Catalan regional government commands great autonomy over the affairs of its region.

    In recent times, the Catalans have been demanding separation from Spain – that is, demanding a separate country of Catalonia. Virtually all Catalans in leading positions in the Spanish political parties openly support Catalan nationalism and independence. Over a year ago, Catalan nationalist leaders decided to hold a referendum to assess popular support for independence. The Spanish government opposed the move, and got the Spanish Constitutional Court to declare that such a referendum was illegal and must not be held. The Catalan leaders responded that their referendum was to be a “non-binding” referendum – that is an affair only of the Catalan people which the Spanish government would not be asked to accept or act upon. And so, they went on and held their “non-binding” referendum. Over 95% of those who voted supported independence for Catalonia. Even among the people whose origins were from other parts of Spain, the vast majority voted for independence for Catalonia. Such a strong showing at the “non-binding” referendum immediately became a mighty tool in the hands of the Catalan nationalists; it made it possible for them to claim categorically almost all their people want independence.

    Now, they have scheduled a final, “binding”, independence referendum for November 2014. Again, the Spanish government opposes. But all parties are united for it, and the regional president is calling on all Catalans to fight democratically and peacefully for it.  The Catalan President says, “If you fight, you can win and you can lose, but if you do not fight, you have already lost”. These Catalans are admirable!

  • Being realistic about Nigeria Part 2

    Last week, I wrote on the topic, ‘Being Realistic About Nigeria’. I concluded with the following paragraph:  “While trying to find explanations (to Nigeria’s stubborn and irreversible crookedness, decline and failure), I must reject the explanation often proposed by those who despise the Blackman in the world – the explanation that Nigeria’s decline and failure are the product of inherent or genetic faults in Black people, and in us Nigerians.  We are not inherently or genetically incompetent or crooked peoples.  The builders of our various precolonial civilizations and states were by no means incompetent or crooked. The trouble, I believe, is most probably from the nature and making of the country which was forced upon us. Being together in one county like Nigeria does not seem to be the way we really wish to live. Doesn’t our dignity as humans demand that we should realistically consider this?”

    I have read and re-read that troubling conclusion many times in the past many days. In particular, I have read and re-read it in comparison with other things that I am reading about other peoples or nationalities in our world. And the comparison has led me to fearful questions about us Nigerians, and about all the Black peoples of Africa – since what we see in Nigeria is true also of all Black African countries. .

    Here are some of the things that the whole world is reading today – about some other peoples and nationalities of the world. By nationality is meant a human group with its own culture, ancestral homeland, language, etc – like the Yoruba, Igbo, Hausa, Edo, Ijaw, Kanuri, Tiv, etc.

    First, about the different nationalities that make up the country called Great Britain. (We Nigerians know Britain very well. Britain is the country that used force to push all of our nationalities together in 1914 and gave us together the name Nigeria. For many hundreds of years, Britain has been made up of the English nationality of England, the Scottish nationality of Scotland, the Irish nationality of Ireland, and the Welsh nationality of Wales). But most of these nationalities or peoples have been saying more and more in recent times that they want separate countries of their own; that they do not want to continue to be parts of Britain; that, as separate nationalities, their true destiny is to have separate countries of their own and rule themselves according to their own unique national cultures and ways.

    These agitations started only a few years after Britain forced our nationalities together to create Nigeria. The Irish people were so insistent that they were allowed to go on and hold a referendum in 1921 to determine whether they really wanted a separate country. The Irish people voted massively that they did want their own separate country. And so they were allowed to have their separate country – the Republic of Ireland.

    The Scotts and Welsh have also increasingly demanded their own separate countries. In fact, for some years, some Scottish youths resorted to violence and terrorism to push their demand. However, the violence has long been given up, and the Scotts have persistently used open, peaceful and democratic methods to advance their demand. Now, they are close to their goal. Next month (specifically on Thursday, September 18), they will hold their “independence referendum”. Of course, no big country wants to lose any part of its territory and citizens, and the British government has been very busy trying to persuade Scottish people to vote ‘No’ and reject independence. But the voices of the Scottish nationalists have been much stronger and louder, and they appear set for a great victory for independence for Scotland on September 18.  Note that Scotland’s total population is only 5.3 million.

    The Welsh nationalists are moving too, though not as fast as the Scottish nationalists. For years now, they have set up a commission to work on developing their native Welsh language as the language of their future independent country. They are also busy working on developing their city of Cardiff as the future capital city of their future independent Wales. And they are saying that they too will soon be ready for their own independence referendum. Note that the total population of Wales is only three million.

    Secondly, here is what the world is reading today about the peoples that make up Spain, another leading European country. Spain is made up of three nationalities – the Spaniards of native Spain (who constitute the large majority people in Spain), the Catalans of Catalonia in North-eastern Spain, and the Basques of Northern Spain. Catalans and Basques, led by Catalan and Basque nationalist movements respectively, are strongly demanding separate countries of their own. For some years, some Basque nationalists resorted to violence and terrorism, but they have given up violence in recent years, and the Basque nationalist leaders now confidently say that they expect to have their own separate country soon.

    As for the Catalans, they intend to hold their independence referendum on November 9 this year. The Spanish government is trying to stop them from holding their referendum, but the Catalan branches of all of Span’s political parties have joined ranks to announce that they will go on with the referendum as planned. (That is like if the APC, PDP, Labour and all other parties in the Yoruba Southwest were to suspend their rivalries and join hands to decide to hold a Yoruba independence referendum). The outcome of this referendum is a foregone conclusion. Spain is likely to lose Catalonia before the end of this year.

    The huge question then is this: Why can’t we the nationalities of Nigeria have nationalist movements that are as focused and determined as the Scottish, Welsh, Catalan and Basque nationalist movements? Our political leaders, once elected into public office (or even when only seeking election into office) all keep far away from any talk of national independence and avoid their national countrymen who are nationalists. Why is this so? One answer is sure: It is not because these politicians are satisfied with the way Nigeria is brutalizing and destroying their various nationalities. Join any group of prominent Yoruba or Igbo or Ijaw folks, etc, at any gathering, in Nigeria or abroad, and you will find everybody to be talking of the terribly destructive effects of being part of Nigeria on their various nationalities. Why then don’t we have really strong nationalist movements openly and resolutely demanding separate countries out of Nigeria? Why do we as peoples, young and old, educated and not so educated, prefer to suffer in a monstrous country like Nigeria, and only complain and grumble, rather than strike boldly out to try and have separate countries of our own?

    Why are we, as nationalities in Nigeria, like this? Among the British who forced all our nationalities together into Nigeria, various nationalities have now realized that every nationality should live in a sovereign country of its own, are demanding separate countries, and are breaking up their Britain into separate countries. And they are using open, democratic and peaceful means to do it. Why are we not seeing the same in Nigeria? What is wrong with us?

  • Being realistic about Nigeria

    Most old folks of my age don’t surf the internet, mostly because we don’t know how to do it. I am one of those who don’t know how to do it. But occasionally I stumble upon some things that have been said on the internet concerning my Gbogun Gboro column.  Recently, I stumbled on this that someone wrote: This Gbogun Gboro must be an old Yoruba person who is very knowledgeable about the Yoruba nation, about other Nigerian nations, and about Nigeria. Concerning Nigeria, his is often the most realistic voice out there. I appreciate that comment. I prefer it to the comment by another writer who wrote that Gbogun Gboro doesn’t ever seem to see good things about Nigeria.

    Sure, I see good things about Nigeria. I have known a lot of good things about Nigeria. When I went to school as a young boy, our Nigeria, just over 30 years old at that time, was the great excitement that ran through all our school learning. Nigeria made us dizzyingly proud. Children tend to create childish myths, and we created many about our Nigeria. For instance, we “knew” that our Nigerian football team was the best in the world, and that some members of that team were so good shooters that they could rip goal-keepers apart with their shots. We even had stories of how, during a tour of England, our national team simply terrified English teams. There was a litany which we used to recite proudly: Nigeria is the largest producer of groundnuts in the world; Nigeria is the largest producer of palm oil in the world; Nigeria is the largest producer of cocoa in the world; Nigeria is the largest producer of tin in the world. We were sure that our Nigeria was going to become the greatest country in the world – and we were eager to get ready to serve her with all our might. Nigeria was an intoxicating possession.

    For the most part, the dream and the pride grew as we rose higher and higher in the educational system. In my secondary school years, Chief Awolowo’s generation of leaders in the Western Region turned on an incredibly bright leadership light, and made our region “first in Africa” in most areas of development and enterprise. We could only think that the rest of our Nigeria would catch up soon, and that that was the direction our country was destined to go. Later, at the University College, Ibadan (UCI), the peak of the educational system, we students lived, learned, dreamed, and walked the earth like on-coming servants of one of the greatest countries of the immediate future of the world. If any among us did or said something shoddy or unbecoming, we politely chastised him with, “Arise, gentleman”. Shakespeare wrote in one of his sonnets that it is at “heaven’s gate” that the lark sings; we students of UCI lived in the confident hope that it was on top of the world’s highest mountains that Nigeria and Nigerians would soar.

    In those wonderful years in the life of our country, I had the privilege of representing UCI and Nigerian students in a number of international conferences – in Africa and other parts of the world. Again and again, I had the awesome experience of standing face to face with important leaders of the world as they said, “Young Nigerian, we hope that you Nigerians are aware that your country holds the key to Africa’s future”. We Nigerian student leaders made it the rule among us to be humble and cautious in our statements before the word; but even so, one of our most senior student leaders once allowed himself to say in a conference in Switzerland, “It is whithersoever my country Nigeria goes that Africa will go”. Though we later rebuked him in private for his gaff, we nevertheless believed (nay, we knew) that he was right.

    Unhappily, very unhappily, virtually none of the great dreams of Nigeria has had fulfilment. Since independence, our Nigeria has declined relentlessly. From the enormous wealth of our country’s resources, we have succeeded in producing very sordid poverty for our people. Even our federal government admits that about 70% of Nigerians live in the awful condition classified as “absolute poverty”, and that the percentage continues to increase. Some estimates have it that some 78% of Nigeria’s youths are unemployed, and that that percentage continues to increase. For decades, Nigeria has been classified, year after year, as one of the most corrupt countries in the world. As a result of violent crimes, Nigeria is classified as one of the most unsafe counties in peace time in the world. Year in, year out, countless thousands of Nigerians die as a result of inter-ethnic conflicts.  Year in, year out also, countless thousands of Nigerians die from religious conflicts. Today, a most extreme Islamic fundamentalist sect holds a whole region of Nigeria in its grip, accounting in the past five years for some 12,000 violent deaths, according to official estimates. Nigeria has become the home of hopelessness, crookedness and unrelieved vileness in human and group relationships.

    A recently held National Conference will place its report before our President today. Many of us are congratulating ourselves for some of its fairly reasonable decisions. However, some of its other decisions – like the decision to splinter our federation into 54 states – certainly will doom the more reasonable decisions to failure. And the heavy issues that the conference did not touch represent a preservation of a devastating part of the status quo. The conference does not touch such issues as corruption, poverty, unemployment, crimes, spreading inter-ethnic hostility and conflicts, and religious terrorism. It tells a horrible story that this is the best we can produce from a National Conference. And that horrible story gives a hard new emphasis to the question, “Should we continue to insist on being one country, or should we consider other paths to our future?”

    These are the reasons why it is hard for me to be otherwise than toughly realistic about Nigeria. I have seen Nigeria flying to the gates of heaven, only to see her turn around and plunge down to the gates of hell. It is perhaps permissible for younger Nigerians, who did not see the beauty and pride that used to belong to Nigeria, to accept today’s wretchedness and even continued decline. I, in contrast, cannot resist trying to find the true explanation – and that is where my being realistic comes from.

    While trying to find explanations, I must reject the explanation often proposed by those who despise the Blackman in the world – the explanation that Nigeria’s decline and failure are the product of inherent or genetic faults in Black people and in us Nigerians. We are not inherently or genetically incompetent or crooked peoples. The builders of our various civilizations and states were by no means incompetent or crooked. The trouble, I believe, is most probably from the nature and making of the country which was forced upon us. Being together in one county like Nigeria does not seem to be the way we really wish to live. Doesn’t our dignity as humans demand that we should realistically consider this?

  • Nigeria’s irreconcilable cultural differences

    The federal government’s management of the security for the recent gubernatorial elections in Ekiti and Osun States has left us something big to ponder.  In both states, we witnessed a very massive mobilization of the military, the police and other security apparatchiks. We also witnessed the arrests of some politically active citizens, even before polling day in some cases. Some were reported to have been detained for some time –without charge.

    I will notdwell here on the motive of these actions. Understandably, members of parties other than the party in control of the federal government are angrily suspicious that the purpose was to rig the elections in the two states. And it is true that, in the distorted and crooked federation that Nigeria has become, part of the destructive culture proudly upheld by the federal establishment is to rig elections and cause disruption in all parts of Nigeria. I agree that that is a very major subject worthy of attention, but it is not my focus as I write this article today.

    As we have all watched the military, police and security forces in their bombardments of Ekiti and Osun states, one reality, among many, has stood out most sharply in my thoughts – namely, the cultural implications of these governmental brutalities in the homeland of the Yoruba people. Whether other Nigerian peoples choose to recognize it or not, brash, brutal, insensitive, and violent leadership and governance are very strange to the political culture and expectations of Yoruba people. I am not suggesting at all that those among us whose party controls the federal power would not have been happy that their big party-men from Abuja came with all the coercive forces of the federal government to help their electoral efforts in their state. What I say is that the Yoruba nation and its people, as a people, have, in all essence, long graduated beyond over-coercive and brutal governance in their history – long before the coming of the British or of Nigeria.

    For many centuries before the coming of the British, the Yoruba had evolved a political system characterized by respect for the sovereignty of the people; the right of the people to select their rulers and chiefs; the right of the common people to be respected by their rulers, chiefs  and leaders; the duty of the rulers, chiefs and leaders to uphold accountability, dignity and integrity in leadership and governance; and the right of the people to speak freely in matters concerning their community and their government. Among most other peoples ruled by kings, a deceased king is automatically succeeded by his child, and his subjects have no say in the matter. Unlike them all, we Yoruba established the right to select our kings. We also established the right, and the system, for peacefully removing unpopular kings.  Unlike kings in most other cultures, our kings were not autocrats; they had to work with councils of chiefs. Unlike most other peoples, we Yoruba people established powerful agencies that watched over the conduct of our rulers, our chiefs and our prominent citizens, agencies that had the power to seriously penalize even our highest rulers or chiefs or prominent citizens for infringements of their high codes of honour.

    Unlike most peoples in the world, we Yoruba traditionally give a lot of scope to our women. In our traditional family compounds, the influence of the women (the wives of the men born to the family) was considerable. In the larger community, every Yoruba kingdom had different kinds of women chieftaincies.  Although we usually talk as if royal thrones were only for men, there is probably no Yoruba kingdom that never had a woman on the throne in our history. Even in cults that are supposed to be for men only (like the Egungun cult), we Yoruba almost invariably established positions for some women in the top leadership. Above all, traditionally, Yoruba women commanded a large share in their country’s wealth – much more than one would find among the women of most other peoples in the world. This is because Yoruba women controlled almost all the trade of their country. As traders also, Yoruba women freely took trade throughout their country, as well as to most parts of Black Africa, and established trading colonies as far away as today’s Sudan, Mali, and the valley of the Senegal. They made the Yoruba language the language of trade in many distant parts of West Africa. Among the Yoruba literate elite today, women are very influential.

    As a result of all this history and culture, the average Yoruba person tends to have a high degree of self-worth, and a confident assurance that he or she may freely make his or her voice heard in the affairs of his or her community or nation. Collectively, we Yoruba desire to live in a situation in which we respect and honour our rulers, and they dutifully and decently respect us the common people.

    These are the fundamentals of Yoruba political behavior and Yoruba political expectations today. It is the reason why Yoruba people have usually shown themselves much more hostile to the Nigerian culture of election rigging since independence. We Yoruba cannot stand it when some big federal bosses come arrogantly to our states, presuming that their positions and power entitle them to manipulate and rig our elections, and fraudulently choose our state rulers for us.

    In fact we Yoruba are only barely tolerating Nigeria’s presidential system – the system in which a president operates as the almighty controller of all power, all resources, all localities, and all assets in Nigeria, and in which state governors operate as the controllers of all the rest of power and management in our states and show no respect to elected State legislators or even their own commissioners.  We are not used to being ruled by autocratic governments. What we are used to is a system of government characterized by collective and shared responsibility, mutual respect among high public officials, and a reliable culture of respect of government and leaders for us the people.

    In short, we Nigerians live in a cobweb of cultural differences that are essentially impossible to sort out. Almost every people in Nigeria feels, one way or other, that Nigeria is trampling rough-shod over them. And yet, as the trajectory of Nigeria’s existence powerfully shows, any hope that Nigeria can, or will, change its course is futile day-dreaming. We have now had a National Conference which we cannot claim to have been manipulated or wrecked by a President, and yet,  the total effect of its outcome is very likely to be a stronger federal establishment and weaker, and subordinate, federating units. The disease that has been killing Nigeria has been given greater power to kill.

    But hope is not lost – I mean hope of sensible systems of government, of better governments, of sensitive and patriotic leaders, of emerging crowds of skilled workers, entrepreneurs and business owners, and of rapidly expanding opportunities for all citizens. Reading what Nigerians write in the media these days, one cannot miss the growing desires for new and smaller countries in which these hopes can quickly become reality – countries carved out of Nigeria.

  • South-west: Emulate Singapore’s economic miracle

    Four weeks ago, I described Singapore’s economic miracle – how Singapore started off as a poor country without natural resources in 1965, and became one of the richest countries in the world in less than 10 years. My purpose is to show the South-west something to emulate.

    The South-west is supremely ready to achieve the Singapore miracle. Sixty years of free Primary Education, and over 30 years of free Secondary Education, have made the South-west the most educated part of Africa. In the plans of the originators of the educational progress (Chief Awolowo and his colleagues), the mass education was meant to be the base for the building of a great modern economy.

    Unfortunately, however, the South-west is not a country on its own. It is part of a much larger country in which purposes are diverse and different, and  ill-will and animosity among peoples are powerful influences over central policy. The controllers of the Nigerian central government at independence regarded the South-west’s economic ambitions as over-ambitious, divisive, capable of weakening the central government and possibly even breaking up Nigeria. Since then until now, pulling the South-west down has been an unspoken but constant purpose in the operations of Nigeria’s central government.

    In the midst of this “pull-them-down” experience, the rulers of the Yoruba South-west have lost both confidence and focus. They know what their people need and desire, but they usually try to play it safe by behaving like the rulers of other parts of Nigeria. On the whole, in all fairness, the South-west governments  still tend to outperform the governments of other regions of Nigeria, but, unfortunately, much of their performance misses the point altogether.

    Here is the point: All phases of a people’s modern development are parts of one and the same package of development. Educational development is not an end in itself; it is a means of preparing and strengthening the people to carry out all the other facets of development. At the present stage in the development of the massively educated South-west, the prime development programme must be to put the people to work. Putting the people to work is not a side issue; it is not a haphazard action of a governor, an action aimed at winning electoral support. This does not mean  that other aspects of development (like building of roads, beautifying towns, etc) should stop; what it means is that putting the people to work must be the NUMBER ONE priority of the government.

    As Singapore’s economic miracle should teach us in the South-west, putting the people to work should consist of various programmes. First, we must give our people the kinds of skills that a modern economy demands, starting with basic skills and quickly expanding to more sophisticated skills. For us, this should include, first, snatching our educated and jobless people from the streets and giving them various training in productive skills, as well as strong work ethics. This is like a remedial programme. To get it done, a state government will need to respectfully involve our business people in it, in order to establish skill-training facilities of various kinds, public and private. Involving the business people from start will ensure that business people will see the improving skills as an opportunity for them to expand their businesses. This will also encourage new businesses – and, altogether, result in the expansion of businesses.

    The state government must then intervene in various ways to encourage businesses. First, provide all sorts of facilities that can attract businesses to the state –for example, well planned industrial estates and shopping centres well served with roads, water supply, and electricity. I said electricity because it is an absolute essential. In Nigeria where poor access to electricity is a damaging problem, investing state funds for regular local supply of electricity to an industrial or shopping centre can generate a big boost to a state’s economy, and thereby create jobs. Secondly, help the owners of certain local businesses to upgrade their businesses – such as owners of restaurants, inns and motels, mechanic workshops, recreation centres, group homes, private retail outlets, etc. Thirdly, encourage and help business starters. Singapore did this by creating various facilities and centres for training educated and skilled people in the basics of business, and various aspects of business management. She also did it through various financial supports to businesses. Some of our state governments have given small loans in the past; but they have done it in unproductive ways, and have usually linked it to politics. We must learn from a country like Singapore, Taiwan or South Korea how micro-credit systems are properly organized and managed to boost the economy.

    Fourthly, set out to attract foreign businesses to come and invest and do business in your state. Learn from a country like Singapore the many ways it did this successfully. But I can say now that one cardinal step is to ensure that your politics is predictably orderly and stable. The rulers of Singapore tell us that a predictably orderly and stable political life is NUMBER ONE STEP in attracting business people from other parts of the world. In this matter, being part of Nigeria is a big problem – since every Nigerian president believes that it is his right to rig elections in any part of Nigeria, no matter how much turmoil that may cause. How should our South-west states handle this unpredictability? We should learn to deal with it as best we can – and strive towards having a separate country of our own soon.

    Fifthly, while raising up businesses among our own people and attracting foreign businesses to come, we must give special emphasis to businesses that produce goods for export to other countries. Experience has shown that such businesses are the leaders in quickly building a country’s prosperity. When your workers produce goods that are exported, the income they earn is essentially from abroad – it means the people of other countries are providing good jobs for your people, and that is a great thing. Exports can be from our farmers, all the way to our workers employed in the most sophisticated technological businesses. To make our goods acceptable all over the world, we must ensure high quality in our goods.

    Snatching our educated people from the streets and quickly turning them into skilled workers and business owners is the first stage of our development – the “remedial stage”. The next is the long-term stage. In this stage, we reorder our educational system so as to prepare our children to grow up to be mostly skilled workers, businessmen, managers, etc. It is a new ball game in education. We will need to give totally new emphasis to mathematics, science, language and civics in early elementary schools; and,  later,more mathematics, science, technology, knowledge of trends in the wider world. To achieve these, we must sharply raise the training, competence and prestige of our teachers, and make our schools proud centres of learning and exploration. This stage is the real gateway to our future greatness.

    All these would be easier in our own separate country, but we must start now.  And we must integrate our states’ development agendas to improve our chances of success.

  • Nigeria’s vital signs getting more and more faint

    As I sit down to write this column this morning, I feel like the small American boy whose story I heard recently. Let’s call him John. John and his mother are alone in the house. Mother suddenly slumps to the ground and appears to be dying. John picks up the phone and dials the emergency number, 911, and a 911 operator answers. John says, “Mom’s lying on the ground, not moving”. The 911 operator asks, “Is she breathing?” “Yes”, answers John, sobbing, “but her breathing is getting littler and littler”.

    It shakes me up to say, “Nigeria’s vital signs are getting littler and littler”. But, sadly, it is true. Look in any important direction, what you’ll see most of the time is decline, decay, and rot – and each one of them getting worse and worse.

    Oh, I know, I know. Some ‘super-patriots’ would hurry to point out that Nigeria’s economy was rated Africa’s largest economy only three weeks ago. That’s true. How could anybody forget that? But, what does “largest economy in Africa’” mean to us Nigerians? How has it benefited our lives? Our own federal government has been honest enough to tell us that nearly 70% of Nigerians live in “absolute poverty” – meaning that nearly 70% of us skimp, starve and suffer on just one US dollar per day! And more and more of us are falling into this condition of “absolute poverty”.

    Our Minister of Power said a month ago that less than 50% of Nigerians have access to electricity. Compare that with Egypt where 99.6% of the citizens have access to electricity – or with South Africa with 75.8%, or even Ghana with 60.5%.Our situation is not only horrible, it is in fact getting worse. Some five years ago, about 50.6% of Nigerians had access to electricity. But that is not all. At any given time, even the few Nigerians who have access to electricity can only expect steady service for only a few hours per day – or even per week. And the implication is heavy. Electricity is the energy that moves the economy of our world; without it, the ability to produce goods is seriously stunted. Therefore, this one factor – lack of access to electricity –is one of the most devastating causes of our poverty in Nigeria. Every government of ours gives us glowing promises about it; but none ever does anything measurable about it. Predictably, it will continue to get worse, not better.

    The same decline and decay are true of most other aspects of our lives in Nigeria. Look around you. In many towns that had pipe-borne water in the 1950s, the water no longer runs in many streets where it used to run – because the pipes have rusted away. Public school buildings are deteriorating in most of our states, and the quality of education has fallen and keeps falling. Even some of the most important of our highways (like the Lagos-Ibadan expressway) have collapsed and become death-traps.

    For the most part, the root has been cut from under our economic well-being. Overwhelmed by   the almost sudden emergence of large mineral oil revenues in our economy, our rulers shifted all attention to the mineral oil and pursued policies that have virtually destroyed those factors that had begun to build our prosperity during the years before independence. By 1960, our country was the world’s largest exporter of groundnuts and palm produce, and the second largest exporter of cocoa. The income from these exports (with cocoa in the lead as foreign exchange earner), and from many other smaller export products, strongly upheld our economy and put fairly respectable incomes into the hands of our common people. By the 1980s, all these had vanished, and we were no longer serious exporters of groundnuts, palm produce and cocoa. Meanwhile, our rulers and leaders had established a powerful culture of corruption around the mineral oil revenues – becoming vicious, insensitive and self-indulgent robber-millionaires, and making it impossible for the benefits of the oil wealth to reach the lives of our common people.

    These are the fundamental reasons why our people are now so desperately poor, why there is so much unemployment among our people, why nearly every Nigerian is scrambling to get some share from the stolen oil money, and why we are sharply losing creativity as a country. It is the reason why our governments and public services have deteriorated abysmally and are still deteriorating. It is the reason why our infrastructures (roads, electricity, water systems, schools, communication systems, hospitals, etc)are all steadily deteriorating. It is the reason why our leading universities, once proud centres of academic excellence, have lost their edge. It is the reason why there is such horrifying insecurity – crimes, conflicts, terrorism – in our country. Our country is one of the most unsafe places in peace-time in the world.

    In the context of all these, participation in politics has ceased to have the objective of serving country and people; it has become a route to getting access to, in order to steal, the oil revenues. Legally (through allocating indefensible remunerations to themselves), and illegally (through countless practices of corruption and graft), Nigerian politicians have made themselves the best paid politicians on earth. Year after year for decades, Nigeria has been counted among the most corrupt countries in the world.

    In both the federal and state governments, elected legislatures have ceased to have any meaningful role in our country. It has become their central preoccupation to rival the people in the executives in the sharing of the stolen oil revenues. In the process, the legislatures have traded away their constitutional power of oversight over the executive arm of government and over the use of public money. More or less, whenever we hear any noise from them nowadays, it is because they are quarrelling with the executive folks over their own pay or over the magnitude of the bribes they are getting from the executive folks. As for most elected Local Government councilors, all they do these days is to share their Local Government allocations.

    All other agencies of order in our country have caved in and collapsed – the police, the military, the secret service, the electoral commission – all. Nigerians live today with the sickening reality that their military forces are so riddled with corruption and inefficiency that they simply no longer command the capability to defend any of our towns or villages against even hoodlums like Boko Haram.

    When our president inaugurated a National Conference three months ago, very many Nigerians, including me, hoped for great changes to follow. Now we all know that we were deceiving ourselves. Worthy changes can’t happen here.

    What then is left of Nigeria? Not much. Many Nigerians would say, “Nothing”. How can a country so comprehensively abused keep living?

    A visitor to Nigeria remarked that Nigeria is a failed state that somehow manages to keep a semblance of standing. An eminent Nigerian remarked that if nothing changes, Nigeria would break up.  Another pleads that all that is important now is that we should do our best to break up peacefully. What then is in the future for Nigeria?