The Nation Newspaper

Category: Jide Osuntokun

  • Evolution of modern Nigeria and Africa – 2

    When the British came under the rubric of the Royal Niger Company it was not too difficult for them to knit together the disparate and puny states under them into a viable large geographical area. British penetration of Nigeria came through the coast and the bombardment of Lagos in 1851 and eventual occupation of Lagos in 1861 presaged the eventual take-over of the country in detail sometimes through diplomacy but mostly by force. The exponent of the use of force was Colonel and later Sir Fredrick Lugard. It was not accidental that the British government called on him to consolidate into one, the two British colonial holdings of southern Nigeria with the colony of Lagos and the protectorate of northern Nigeria.

    The amalgamation of the two Nigerias. Before the amalgamation of Nigeria in 1914 two separate colonial administrations existed in the Nigerian area. The northern administration was financially strapped because it depended on what was called “Native treasuries” or “Beit -el-Mal” comprising of poll tax and jangali “Cow tax” levied on inhabitants of the various Emirates in the north. It was built on existing traditional tax system that predated the coming of the British . The tax was collected in the name and authority of the emirs and divided into three parts two thirds of which went to the colonial government and the emirate councils kept the remaining one third. What was raised in this way was hardly sufficient for the work of administering the huge area under the British colonial government. Initially imperial subventions came from London but this was not sustainable. In any case the cardinal principle of British imperialism was for the mother country to benefit from its empire.

    The colonial administration in the colony of Lagos and southern Nigeria was financially self-sufficient even though the local people paid no taxes. Revenue came from custom duties levied on cheap potato gin known as “trade gin “imported into the country from the Netherlands and Germany. To discourage wide consumption of alcohol, heavy custom duties were placed on it. Because of religious reasons, this “trade gin” was forbidden in northern Nigeria. Huge amount of money was raised in this way in the south. Christian missionaries unsuccessfully campaigned against the importation of any kind of alcohol but the colonial regime obviously liked the money that came through taxation on alcohol. Lugard saw a way out of the dilemma of the impecuniosity of the northern administration and the surplus of its southern neighbour by recommending merger of the two to the home government. This was also in tune with established British tradition of federating contiguous British administered territories whether in Canada, Australia or South Africa. The only difference in the case of Nigeria was that the people were not involved and their opinions were not sought. But in fairness it would have been logistically impossible to do this. There was not a body of knowledgeable men and women who could be consulted apart from the educated gentlemen of Lagos, many of whose political horizons did not extend beyond the Yoruba hinterland.  Sir Fredrick Lugard in any case was averse to dealing with them because of their acerbic criticism of his regime. The emirs, Obas and Chiefs which were the building blocks of Lugardian indirect rule system of administration were naturally only concerned with their immediate domains. The creation of a Nigerian council of colonial officials in which the Emir of Kano and the Alaafin of Oyo sat was a caricature of local representation. Amalgamation therefore came in form of British fiat and it is arguable whether in the long run this has been good for Nigeria. The important thing to note is that the boundaries of the two Nigerias were ill-defined because sometimes the same people straddled the borders. There were also no natural barriers separating the two administrations and the pre-colonial economic relations were obvious to the British to make unification the right thing to do.

    Since 1914 Nigeria has tried to translate this administrative measure into political and economic reality. Ironically the British themselves sometimes made the journey difficult. Colonial administrators in the North such as Charles Temple, the lieutenant governor in the north and Richmond Palmer, one of the most influential Residents defended northern administrative interests against their counterparts in the south to such an extent that Sir Hugh Clifford, Lugard’s successor said there was a remote possibility of a civil war breaking out between British administrators in the north and in the south of Nigeria. Some of the northern administrators became so romantically involved with their Fulani emirs that they began to romanticize the Fulani as belonging to the same Caucasian race of the British conquistadors. This was the position of Charles Temple who wanted to preserve the north as the British met it and argued the north should be allowed to develop at its own pace. Perhaps there is nothing wrong in preserving a peoples’ culture but to attempt to freeze a people’s cultural development is unreasonable because culture is dynamic and not static. This policy was also the more inappropriate if the long term aim of the British was to help cement the ties that they themselves were trying to build was to be realized. Unfortunately for Nigeria, the development of separate northern identity was passed from one British colonial governor to the other from 1914 to the very end of British colonial administration of Nigeria in 1960. British aim in Nigeria was the protection of British interest and they methodically went about doing this.

    Right from 1914, the western educated elite in Lagos had laid claim to leadership of Nigeria on the basis of their western education acquired through access to British missionary schools. Since the north was closed to missionaries for a long time, the educational chasm between the north and the south began to widen until it became almost unbridgeable. The wave of nationalism sweeping the colonized world of Asia and Africa, first after the First World War, but more after the Second World War had wide ramifications all over the world. Nigeria was also touched by this. Educated Nigerians began to demand participation in government and subsequent claim to national sovereignty became a strident call. Newspapers that had existed in Lagos in particular since the advent of colonial rule led the campaign for home rule. Students of various colleges and in particular the Yaba Higher College began to mobilize nationalist elements in the country. Educated people like Herbert Macaulay and later American educated Nnamdi Azikiwe joined the students to form the National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons in 1944 to channel nationalist agitation towards a demand for independence. This new agitation was to sweep away previous leaders like Sir Kitoyi Ajasa, Dr Adeniyi Jones, Earnest Ikoli, and Dr Kofo Abayomi who were more like assimilationists who wanted to be accepted as British citizens rather than Nigerians. The nationalists spoke in the name of all Nigerians. There were pockets of their organization in the municipal areas of Nigeria and in places like Kano, Bauchi, Kaduna and Zaria. Northerners were largely prevailed upon to shun the nationalist movement because they were told it was not in their interest. There was a growing western educated elite in the north mostly graduates of Barewa Government College and teachers college in Bauchi. In most cases these educated northerners were sent to school and paid for by the emirate councils to which they remained largely loyal. In response to southern Nigerian led nationalist movement the jamiyar mutanen arewa (Northern People’s Congress) was formed in 1951. Before this time, there began series of constitutional conferences in Nigeria and in London spanning the years 1947 to 1959 to identify structural, political and economic architectural needed to weld the country together before serious consideration could be given to granting internal autonomy and eventual independence to the regions and eventually to the country.

    The emergence of the NPC had its parallel equivalent in the South-west part of Nigeria dominated by the Yoruba people. In 1947, Chief Obafemi Awolowo and like minds had formed a cultural organization called the “Egbe Omo Oduduwa” that is, children of the eponymous ancestor of the Yoruba people. Before this organization, the Igbo, led by Nnamdi Azikiwe had formed the Ibo State Union as a cultural organization to promote and champion the cause of Igbo people. These cultural organizations in the north and south were manifestations of the differences that existed among Nigerian peoples which in spite of amalgamation continue to fester and to grow. The political dimension was the emergence of regional political parties, namely the NPC in the north, and the Action Group in the south-west while the original mass movement of the NCNC became increasingly identified and associated with the interest of the Igbo. With this came a tripartite struggle for power among the regional parties and leaders which every effort at political engineering before and since independence has been trying to resolve.

  • Evolution of modern Nigeria and Africa – 1

    Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah the first president of Ghana and political avatar of modern African nationalism famously  prayed to God to grant us in Africa political freedom and all other things would be added unto us.  We are today much wiser than our leaders of yore because through experience we have found out that political autonomy and freedom are just the beginning of our long march to political and economic development. The optimism of those post-colonial days has now been replaced by the reality of the moment. Indeed this current reality is almost tinged with pessimism.

    What with ethnic wars in many African countries from the biggest of them Sudan which has now been divided into two and yet still plagued by the same problem of ethnic division and despair. The Federal Republic of the Congo has been virtually at war since the collapse of Belgian Congo in 1960. Senegal, Mali, Mauritania, Guinea-Bissau, Central African Republic, the inter-lacustrine  states of Uganda, Burundi and Rwanda and Mozambique at one time or the other since independence have witnessed internecine wars that almost tore them apart. Nothing is even settled in some of them up till today. Nigeria itself the African flying elephant went through three years of ferocious civil war between 1967 and 1970 leading to the loss of over a million souls. Even where there have been no wars in Africa, the various states have had to contend with the fissiparous tendencies presented by different tongues and ethnicities.

    This has been the case in places like Kenya, Zimbabwe,  Sudan and even the new state of South Sudan. The worst example of ethnic differences leading to genocide has been the case of Rwanda and Burundi where in spite of common language, people paid the supreme sacrifice for either being short like the Hutus or being tall like the Tutsis. In Nigeria, our ethnic and linguistic differences have been compounded by the religion of Islam and Christianity. The point to note is that peace which is a precondition for development is largely lacking in most African states. Where there is  some semblance of peace as in Rwanda, Uganda, Congo (Brazzaville) and Zimbabwe,  it is precariously based on the shifting sand of one-man rule and dictatorship and the worst kind of authoritarianism and corruption that by the nature of things would not last. Africans on their own and perhaps with a little prodding from outside have now realized that democracy works and makes room for stability. The journey has not always been smooth and many African countries have come to this  democratic crossroad by traversing one party rule, military dictatorship and some form of guided democracy. Times are however changing. Africa is not an island uninfluenced by happening in other parts of the world. But there is a lot of work to do.

    Nigeria is the cynosure of all eyes on the African continent and beyond:  Some Nigerians see divine hand of God in creating Nigeria.  Some Nigerians are wont to dismiss this kind of thinking. As far back as 1947, one of those aspiring to lead the country, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, borrowing a leaf from  Giuseppe Mazzini’s description of  Italy during its il Risorgimento and movement towards national unity as a geographical expression. Chief Awolowo said there were no Nigerians as there  are English, French or Germans and that Nigeria merely described an area around the Niger and the Benue rivers. He went on to argue that Nigerians primarily saw themselves as members of their ethnic groups before being Nigerians. This was probably true but the concept of Nigeria is an evolving concept just as being Hausa, Ibo or Yoruba. It is also not true that the people now called Nigerians had no contact with each other before the coming of the Europeans gingerly in the 15th century and much more forcefully in the 19th century when what is now Nigeria crystallized.

    From the north, the Hausa traded with the Kanuri of Kanem- Borno from where Islamic civilization came to Hausaland . The story of Bayejjidah coming to Daura to kill a snake called  sarki terrorising the local people after which as his prize he married the Queen of Daura is a way of explaining the significance of the ( East) in West African historiography . Bayejiddah then became the king of Daura and fathered the kings of the seven Hausa states of Kano, Rano, Zazzau, Katsina, Gobir, Zamfara and Bauchi. This same looking towards the East is seen in the Oduduwa legend in which Oduduwa is seen as the son of Nimrod king of Arabia who also took over Ile-Ife and became father to founders of the most important Yoruba kingdoms of Oyo, Ilesha, Ketu, Sabe, Otun Ijebu and Benin. In another variant of the Bayejddah legend, some states are regarded as Banza states among which Ilorin belongs. Ife and Benin relations even though couched in myth are no less significant as an indication of ties in the past between two distinct peoples –  the Edo and the Yoruba. There are stories of joking relationship between the Oyo and the Gobirawa and between Kanuri and Yoruba. The people of the Niger Delta were also heavily influenced by the Benin kingdom just as the coastal Yoruba up to present  day Lagos  witnessed some form of Benin over-lordship.

    The western Igbo,  like the people of Onitsha Asaba and all the western periphery of Igboland, were directly influenced by the Benin kingdom. The area now known as the Middle Belt of Nigeria at one time or the other came under the suzerainty of the Kwararafa Empire based in Wukari. The influence of this largely forgotten civilization extended to the Cross River and Benue valleys as well as to Zaria and  Kano. Even if the degree of contact among our different peoples in the past are buried in ancient history and mythology, this is not the case with our languages which apart from Hausa and Kanuri but including fulfude  belong to the same kwa branch of the Niger- Congo family of African languages. Migration  is a common factor in human history and people in Nigeria have been influenced and impacted by series of movements, some rapid others imperceptible. The effect of this is the fact that Nigerian people are products of ethnic miscegenation. For example many of the Ibo people are perhaps more Igalla than Igbo especially in Delta and  Anambra  states. Trade promoted inter-ethnic relations in precolonial Nigeria. For example, the Hausas  and the Kanuris traded with the Yoruba buying kola nuts in exchange for cows  and horses.  The cavalry forces on which the Oyo built their formidable empire could not have been done without the provision of horses from the north since Oyo had no indigenous horses of its own. The Nupes were apothecaries and Berbers in Yoruba land. The Alaafin Sango in the 15th century had a Nupe mother. Ife as earlier mentioned provided prince for the Benin kingdom and many parts of eastern Yorubaland were influenced by either Nupe or Benin civilization. By the time of the jihad of Usman Dan Fodiye, many parts of Nigeria came under one political and religious influence without attention paid to ethnicity.

  • Forms of government

    It was Alexander Pope the British philosopher who said “for forms of government let fools contest that which is best administered is best”. How true is this today? The western world will dispute the fact that an undemocratic government can be good. They will even go further to say that a democratic government that is not parliamentary government can be good. In essence, democratic government must also embrace the idea of supremacy of the legislature. But today in many parts of the world there seems to be a trend in which parliamentary and presidential system are combined. This is the practice in China, France and Russia to mention a few. The United States maintains some form of separation of powers and the legislative branch functions independently of the executive. Ministers (Secretaries) are not members of Congress even though they could be summoned to appear before Congress, they are not compelled to do so if the President is against their appearance before Congress but as a courtesy they usually accede to Congressional call to appear. The American type presidential system seems to be the commonest system in the world today. It is the prevalent system in the entire Latin American region whereas the parliamentary system where ministers are chosen from the ranks of parliament is found in Great Britain and across most Commonwealth countries of Canada, Australia, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, the various West Indian Islands, and New Zealand. The African members of the Anglophone Commonwealth seem to have chosen the presidential system in preference to the parliamentary system. South Africa is experimenting a unique mélange of parliamentary and presidential system. The president of South Africa sits in parliament and ministers are also parliamentarians. In Nigeria, the military imposed a presidential system on the country since 1979. The Obasanjo military regime that did this in 1979 claimed that it was more in consonance with African tradition of sovereignty. It was suggested that the tradition of an official leader of opposition was not African and that once there is an Oba, emir or Obi, he remains unopposed unless he commits a sacrilegious offense for which he would stand removed. The argument was also made that African countries needed strong governments and a leader who will epitomize the yearnings of the people and who will be above petty tribal or nepotistic tendencies. This was said to be necessary to overcome petty ethnic and fissiparous tendencies in our country. In Nigeria, the military governments that ruled us had done so from a command and centralized control characteristic of the military. In the 1970s, most of us supported the military in the choice of the presidential system. Nigeria having just come out of a fratricidal conflict bought the idea of the presidential system uncritically. This was before we found out that our country is over-centralized and our presidency is the most powerful in the world with the power of appointment of hundreds of thousands of people and control over our financial resources and the Central bank.

    There is now a belief in the country that we need to review the presidential system. The reason for this is that from experience all the promises of the presidential system remain unfulfilled. Those who have held the post have unfortunately pandered to ethnic demands and this is not good in a plural society. I can say without any hesitation that only President Olusegun Obasanjo has fulfilled the demand of rising above ethnic prejudice and solidarity in the appointment of state officials and sometimes to the point of putting his own ethnic group down and last. Others have simply ignored the demands of fairness and have gone ahead to pack their administrations with their ethnic cohorts. Nigeria’s experience under Abacha who used his office to denude the Central bank of billions of the country’s dollar reserves has made people to be wary of concentrating all powers in the hands of a military or democratic Poohbah. What operates at the centre also operates at state levels where the governors have almost absolute and total control of the finances of their states leading to grand larceny and looting of states resources. A way must be found for proper parliamentary control of leaders of government business at state levels and they must be members of state assemblies where they will presumably be controlled by the assembly.

    The last national conference sponsored by Jonathan perhaps to avoid over-concentration of power in the hand of one person suggested that Nigeria should adopt the French model of a prime ministerial government under an executive president. It has not always worked in fractious France where sometimes different parties control the parliament and the presidency thus leading to what the French call “cohabitation”. This would have been occasion for chaos in many places including Nigeria. The South African model with slight modification of  a ceremonial presidency like we had in the first republic and perhaps five deputy prime ministers with each having responsibilities for Foreign Affairs, Finance, Interior, Defence and petroleum and gas  and representing the zone that did not produce the prime minister. No constitution is perfect. In most cases it depends on the integrity and commitment of those operating the constitution and their desire to make it work. Those who have been shouting about the implementation of the Jonathan constitutional conference should first read it and tell us which aspects of which they want implemented. Will it include a 54   states structure as was recommended? This government can easily devolve police powers to the states while maintaining some kind of federal policing. This kind of incremental improvement in governance can be done without going the whole way of fundamental constitutional changes.  This is not to say there is no need for a review of the present unwieldy 36 states structure. It is apparent to me that the present states structure cannot stand because they have failed the yardstick of economic viability. Therefore we should be talking about a 12 states structure as we had during the Gowon years.

    When Alexander Pope made his famous statement there was a functioning civil service on which the success of all governments depend. If we have a functioning civil service recruited on career open to talents, then it would not matter what kind of government we have. The lives of the vast majority of the people will not be affected by the vagaries of the changes about who is in or who is out or which political party has won or lost elections. The modern state depends on the efficiency of the bureaucracy. But unfortunately the civil service has been undermined by internal corruption, political and external interference. The security of jobs and tenure which were the hallmarks of the civil service is no longer there. Since self-preservation is the first law of nature, civil servants now take care of themselves before taking care of the state. Erosion of the power and security of appointment means therefore that we can no longer rely on the civil service. Furthermore, American type of presidential system believes in a revolving kind of bureaucracy with each party bringing in members of the top echelon of the administrative staff. The horde of special advisers special assistants now do what civil servants would ordinarily be expected to do. This may work to the benefit of the state in the USA, but it is doubtful if it is working in Nigeria. This may be one of the reasons why there is no development in our country because of absence of institutional memory provided by experienced civil service.

    This is a critical matter because countries like South Korea, Singapore, Taiwan have done reasonably well under authoritarian leadership and with a good civil service. Totalitarian states like China and the old Soviet Union had done reasonably well in delivering services to the people and protecting the integrity of the state. Because at the end of the day, the purpose of government is to ensure the happiness of the greatest number of the people and it will not really matter to the ordinary citizen under what system of government they are living. Some of our people during difficult times have been heard to say “Na democracy I go chop?” I think this is the test which all governments must pass. It has of course been proved that human ingenuity thrives better under freedom. Freedom does not necessarily mean political freedom. What freedom does a hungry poverty-stricken man have in a democratic state? Will he not prefer comfortable life and forfeit political freedom which to him may seem esoteric? These are the issues facing governments all over the world. Ideally it will be nice to have freedom from want as well as political freedom and the fundamental freedoms of association, thought, movement, ownership of property, life and freedom from arbitrary and unusual punishment and to live in a society of laws. Some pride themselves in this kind of freedom that they have been heard to say give me liberty or death.

  • Uncle Sam and John Bull as identical twins

    Much has been said about Great Britain and the United States as having special relations that grew out of shared history and worldview. It is common knowledge that the early settlers of the early AMERICAN colonies came from Great Britain. These were people running away from religious persecution and intolerance in Europe. On settling down they swore not to be involved in the wars and diplomatic entanglement that characterized old Europe from which for political and economic reasons, they severed their ties by their Declaration of Independence from Great Britain in 1776. Massive migration from all over Europe has diluted the British component of American population to the extent that by now people of German ancestry outnumber those of British descent. Overtime  and In spite of traditional American isolationism, the United States have been drawn into two world wars by the old Country and since 1945, the United States has had to remain militarily engaged to protect American will, order and worldview in Korea, Vietnam and Afghanistan. The air campaign against ISIL (Islamic state in Iraq and the Levant) is the latest of American engagement with the world in spite of President Barack Obama’s pledge not to go to war but to wind down American military intervention and putting American boots on the ground anywhere during his presidency. Events however seem to force Obama to go back on his pacific commitment because as we write, American special forces are increasingly being deployed in Iraq and northern Syria to stiffen the forces fighting the Caliphate forces and in the case of Syria, those fighting the caliphate and Bashar -al-Assad’s regime. In all the American military interventions outside the Americas since 1945, the British has always followed American lead whether in Korea, Iraq or Afghanistan. This must be seen as the British reciprocating American support for the British in the First and Second World War when it was with reluctance that the USA went into war during those two global conflagrations. Since 1941 at the height of the Second World War, Great Britain and the United States have coordinated their plans about the running of the world. So we can say up till the premiership of Winston Churchill and the presidency of Delano Roosevelt, American and British relations could be described as that between twins even if not identical twins. This does not mean they always agreed. In fact, in the immediate post Second World War global politics, the USA was not in favour of Britain holding on to its colonies and disagreed with Winston Churchill when the British politician stated that he was not going to be the first prime minister to “preside over the liquidation of the British empire”. His successor Anthony Eden was rebuffed by the USA in 1956 when an Anglo-French force with Israeli support invaded the Suez Canal after Colonel Gamal Abdel-Nasser had nationalized the canal thus expropriating the Anglo-French company that built and owned the canal. When the Russians issued a threat against the invasion, the British asked for American support to which the USA responded that the USA will carry out its responsibilities under the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s protocols which was a loaded omission used in diplomatic communication which in this case meant America would not support Britain because the NATO protocols call for support of NATO members only in Europe not when such members were waging a colonial war outside Europe. The lesson of not expecting unquestioned American support encouraged a future Conservative Prime Minister Harold Macmillan to issue the statement about the wind of change blowing in Africa and persuading his country men and women that independence for African countries was inevitable. Even the residual settler colonies of the Rhodesia, that is (Zambia and Zimbabwe), Namibia and the big elephant of South Africa until it became clear, received coordinated resistance of the British supported by the USA. But since we have transited to a new world of sovereign independence of nations, cooperation between the two English worlds of America and Great Britain has been in the area of economic cooperation worldwide and military cooperation to secure the dominance of the English world which sometimes goes under the Anglo-Saxon world. English, thanks to America’s global dominance remains a universal language just like Latin was the dominant language at the time of the dominance of the Roman Empire thus signifying a correlation between power and global language. Even though NATO remains the pivot of western security, the special relations between Great Britain and America within NATO is a major factor in American diplomacy. We can even say we live in the AMERICAN century in which English is the language of technology, particularly ICT and diplomacy. This fact is traceable to American military and economic might as epitomized by the fact of the dollar being a global reserve currency. The British benefit tremendously from this American glory. This special relations is however under increasing scrutiny.

    President Obama for example has publicly stated that while not dismissing the idea of the special relations, he has been more interested in emphasizing the America-pacific relations. He said having been born in Hawaii, he naturally sees more sense in the pacific orientation of American foreign policy. First of all, Asia particularly the Pacific Rim countries of China, Japan and other countries in South Asia and South-east Asia hold the future of the world in their hands. Secondly, Asia is where  two-thirds of the world resides and the increasing economic prosperity of the area constitutes the largest market in the world. These factors are also leading to a loosening of ties between the Anglophone Commonwealth countries of Canada and Australia and Britain and a pull towards China. Does this mean Chinese may displace English in the future? It does not appear likely because  there may be one and a half billion Chinese, but they do not enjoy the spatial distribution that English language enjoys.

    The recent pull out of Great Britain from the European Union  has apparently  diminished  the  importance of Great Britain in global  significance. President Obama said this much when he advised  the British electorate not to vote to leave the European Union. He was rebuffed and the current British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson  even insulted him that he was anti-British because as he said Obama has anti-British proclivity because of his Kenya origin. There is a growing isolationism in Britain and the United States. The Brexit  vote showed what one would call little englandism,  a tendency that has a long beginning in British history where the British have always shied away from European entanglement. The vote was also a vote against immigrants and the possibility of people flocking into Britain particularly from Eastern Europe and against the economic policies of the David Cameron government. The result is that Britain is pulling out of Europe. This withdrawal from Europe has resonated with Donald Trump who has styled himself Mr Brexit, supposedly meaning he would shock the world by winning the presidential election. If one can make sense from Donald Trump’s  numerous incomprehensible statements about American withdrawal from NATO, NAFTA, WTO and asking Japan and South Korea and perhaps Germany to develop their own nuclear weapons instead of relying on American nuclear umbrella, there is a growing feeling in building fortress America and allowing every other country to build and take care of its own defences. The leader of the BREXIT campaign  Nigel   Farrage has been seen campaigning with Trump  and saying America must take its own country back just as the British have taken their country back. This  is a coded phraseology of putting non-white people in their place. The Trump rise in American politics hinges on his anti-immigrant posture and racism. The important thing is that there is a meeting of minds between American and British conservative politicians  in recent years and if Trump wins there certainly will be more rapprochements between the Trump White House and No 10 Downing Street. The tie of the English language and culture is so strong that it will really not matter  who wins the presidential elections in the USA the special ties will  continue to remain strong. Of course the old days of WASP (White Anglo-Saxon Protestant) domination of AMERICAN politics may be on the wane since  Catholic J. F. Kennedy ‘s election in 1961 and the demographic diversity  of the American population. This diversity indicates the fact that there will be other factors that would drive American policy than the interests of the previously dominant  Anglo-Saxon  sentiment.

    Finally the increase in American power compared with the diminution in Great Britain’s power would lead not to equality of relations between the two countries; rather the United Kingdom will have to increasingly dance to American tune as if it were one of the states of the American Union. In African parlance, Britain will be a junior brother to its senior American brother, thus leading to a historical reversal of role in the world. Britain’s exit from Europe rather than increasing its leverage and independence will rather quicken its decline as a major power. But it will continue to have influence   but not power because of its historical ties with the Commonwealth countries and America itself with which it shares a common language, culture, common law and judicial tradition and democratic praxis.

  • Alabama God damn!

    Donald Trump on August 22 and 23 in Akron Ohio and Austin Texas respectively while campaigning for the presidency of the United States challenged black Americans to vote for him saying they have nothing to lose but their poverty and black on black violence. He also said the Democratic Party blacks always vote for have nothing positive to offer them than moral platitudes and welfare package. He said he will offer them good schools, good jobs and violence free streets. His offer seems tempting but does he mean what he is saying? This is a man supported by Klansmen among his blue-collar conservative and angry working class white men. He has until now ignored black and Hispanic population of the United States. It seems he has suddenly realized that he needs their votes to beat Hillary Clinton and without conviction decided to pitch for Afro -American votes. His appeal has angered large section of black American population who in spite of the Obama presidency are still largely outside the so-called American Dream. Theirs has been a nightmare. This has made me to reminisce about the black experience in the United States

    I have had a recent opportunity this year August to visit Alabama, a state that was in the news in the 1960S and 1970S for the wrong and bad reasons. This will be my second time of visiting the state. I deliberately visited the University of Alabama from Washington DC in 1980 just to see the state that I had heard so much about and which I hated with all the emphasis at my command. I was pleasantly surprised in 1980 to find the university in Birmingham Alabama run like a normal university. I did not tell my hosts then about the apprehension I had before visiting the state and the university.

    Alabama was governed by a Dixiecrat, in the person of Governor George Wallace from 1963 to 1967, 1971 to 1979 and 1983 to 1987 on the platform of a racist ideology that denied even the humanity of black people.  This evil man was in power for 16 years blighting the lives of millions of black people. He was shot by one of his deranged followers Arthur Bremer in 1972 and paralyzed from waist downwards only to be nursed in his old age by a black woman who took care of him. This made him to recount in his dying years and to ask for forgiveness from the black people whom he had seriously hurt and injured. This evil man provided the environment and template for other racists to thrive which eventually led to the assassination of Medgar Evans, a civil rights leader in Jackson Mississippi on June 12, 1963 and Martin Luther King Jr. on April 4, 1968 in Memphis Tennessee.  This was after he had achieved his historic march on Washington DC in on August 1963 in which he had famously asked that man should not be judged by the colour of one’s skin but by one’s character .The violence that engulfed the United States in those years took the lives of even the President of the United States, the unforgettable John Fitzgerald Kennedy and his younger brother and former Attorney -General of the United States, Robert Kennedy.

    In the meantime and for most of the presidency of Richard Nixon 1968 to1974, another man driven by hate for the black people, Blacks in the state of Alabama under George Wallace were herded to ghettos where they dared not venture out. They were denied decent jobs, housing, good schools, and transportation and when they died they were buried separately from their white over lords. Discrimination was a directive policy of the state government. Yet Alabama was in the so-called Bible Belt with its hundreds of Baptist churches. Even churches belonging to black people were serially fire-bombed. In one of those occasions, the future Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was lucky to have escaped being roasted alive when her church in Birmingham was attacked by white supremacists. When a successful black man bought a house in any decent part of the town, members of the KKK (Ku Klux Klan) would assemble in the night covering themselves with hooded white dress to burn the cross in front of the house of the Blackman while shooting sporadically in to the house. It was so distressing and depressing for all black people who had to go through the ordeal. Those of us who were not involved and far away in Africa but who watched helplessly felt so unhappy about these inexplicable things that were done by men to others just because of the difference in colour of the skin. Unfortunately this kind of scenario was found all over the southern states of the USA but the situation in places like Alabama was more odious and vicious than in other places. The situation in the northern AMERICAN states was just marginally better. It was this sad situation that made the government of Nigeria declare in 1960 after independence that our country’s foreign policy would protect and uphold the dignity of the black man no matter where he was. This was a lofty aim but it was important to our founding fathers to make this pledge. It helped in adding our voice to those of the blacks in the USA who were agitating for change using either Martin Luther King’s non-violent protest or those who engaged in violent protest as was the case with young students like Stockley Carmichael, Rap Brown, Angela Davis, Hugh Newton, Eldridge Cleaver and the black Muslims like Elijah Muhammad, Malcolm X and Muhammad Ali. I remember our government offering James Meredith, a black American student who had to be escorted on the orders of President JF Kennedy before he could be allowed to attend the University of Mississippi to come and study at the University of Ibadan in 1963. He came for a year before he returned to the USA. In a way, the destiny of all black peoples in the world was inextricably linked. The experience of humiliation was the same and it did not matter whether in South Africa, Namibia, the USA or Nigeria. For some reasons, we remained unconcerned about the plight of the black man in Latin America generally. This was due to the fact of the propaganda that the Latin Americans did not pay attention to the racial differences in people. Of course we were wrong. Racism was as bad in Latin America as it was in the northern hemisphere. But as a country, we were for decades seized with finding an end to colonialism and apartheid in Southern Africa at considerable cost to our exchequer. But it was worth it. Very few Nigerians are aware that at a time their fellow countrymen could not live in Ikoyi or any of the so-called reservations in Ibadan, Kaduna and Enugu and their provincial counterparts which were designated as white areas. Even the nationalist leader, Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe and others had to picket Broad Street Hotel in Lagos because they were refused service there in the 1950s. I remember as late as the early 1970s that one could not be easily served in Hill Station Hotel Jos even by compatriots who worked there for fear of being reprimanded by their white bosses for serving Nigerians.

    My hope is that we the victims of racism and colonialism can forgive our oppressors. Going through Alabama made me feel sorry for the present people of the state who should not be held responsible for the sins of their parents. Even though there is residual racism all over the United States, changes are also noticeable. I could also see many business places shut down as signs of economic decline affecting blacks and whites. I also had a Ghoulish and unusual feeling as if the thousands of murdered people were asking for justice.

    No country is perfect but there ought to be some kind of restitution by the government of the United States for the families of those who were murdered during the civil rights protests. This will include whites and blacks because some white people fought side by side with blacks. Until restitution is paid, the blood of black peoples that was shed and that still continue to be shed by rampant killing by the white police would demand  and cry for justice. There can be no closure of the inhumanity of man to man until there is collective recognition of past injury and sin committed by one people against the other. Chief MK Abiola before he was killed committed a portion of his wealth to ask for reparation for the blacks comparable to what Germany has paid to the Jews. He was supported in this endeavour by my teacher, the late Professor JF Ade Ajayi and Ali Mazrui. We should always leave this door open and we should not allow the world to forget.

  • Political stability in Africa and Middle East

    Recently, US Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump said he admires Saddam Husain the late president of Iraq who was judicially lynched by the successor Shiite government of Iraq during the American occupation of the country. People were aghast at his comment. He also said he sees no reason for America to be an eternal enemy of Russia and that even if the USA does not like Russia, it should cooperate with Russia to defeat ISIL (Islamic state of Iraq and the Levant) and that the USA fought along with the brutal dictator Joseph Stalin during the Second World War to defeat the axis powers of Japan and Germany. One may disagree violently with Trump on almost everything but in this particular instances cited, I can see some sense in his usual madness.  I am convinced that the likes of Saddam Husain maintained some kind of peace in the Middle East in spite of the brutality of his regime. Even though he came from the minority Sunni population and treated all opposition Shiite or Sunni with brutality, he ensured that there was peace which was what the generally apolitical ordinary people of Iraq wanted. The mistake people in the West made was wanting to graft democracy on a traditionally autocratic conservative Arab environment.

    When people in the West were hailing the so called Arab Spring, I had the sneaky feeling that things will not turn out well. This was when I listened to the ambassador of Syria to the UN sometime in 2010 at the plenary of the UN General Assembly pleading for understanding of his country’s problem. He had argued that Syria was a delicately balanced country of Alawites, (Shiite) Sunnis, Christians, Kurds, Armenians and Aramaics and that backing Sunnis who want to overthrow the Bashar -al-Asad regime would bring all sorts of external forces and complications which will not augur well for the future of Syria and the Middle East. After more than a decade of warfare and a whole country with an old civilization destroyed, there has neither been democracy nor peace in Syria; rather a murderous group calling itself a caliphate has emerged bridging the frontiers of Iraq and Syria and imposing its draconian rule and will on a helpless and hapless people leading to the largest migration of a destabilizing horde of people since the end of the Second World War. But for the tenacity of the Sharifian dynasty in Morocco and the FLN government led by the old and infirm Abdelaziz Bouteflika in Algeria who were able to resist the forces of the dissidents particularly FIS (Front Islamique de Salut), the so-called Arab Spring would have engulfed the whole of the Maghreb. The situation in Libya was unfortunately not the same for several reasons. NATO wanted Muamar al Ghadafi to be removed from power because of what was considered as his dangerous ambitions in the past especially wanting to develop nuclear and chemical weapons on the other side of the Mediterranean which Europe considers a European lake. Even though he had given up the ambition, he was never trusted. So when the occasion for his removal presented itself, NATO was not going to allow it to slip from its hand. Their forces instigated a local rebellion which it joined to murder without trial an incumbent head of state. But what has replaced the years of stability in Libya is chaos and the take-over of part of the country by forces pledging allegiance to the Caliphate. The situation in Libya is like the case of Humpty Dumpty and everybody is waiting for which forces will secure the vast country of Libya. Whatever anybody may say about Ghadafi, he secured the country for decades after the overthrow of King Idris -al-Sannusi . Egypt is back in the hands of the military after the initial hoopla of getting rid of President Mubarak. He was replaced by Mohammad Morsi for about a year before he was overthrown by General Muhammad -al-Sisi. It appears that the Egyptians would rather have stability than some wooly democracy or chaotic rule by the Islamic brotherhood of Morsi. The effendiyyah in Egypt is just too sophisticated for that. It is only in Tunisia where the Arab Spring has brought in some form of constitutional regime albeit under an 82 year old president! Yemen is in turmoil and the Saudi army is there fighting a proxy war with Iran that is backing the Houthis who are Shiites. Oman and the other Gulf States including Saudi Arabia are maintaining some precarious peace with their Shiite subjects cowed down by overwhelming Sunni forces. Iran continues to pose existential challenge to the gulf Arab states and even far afield to Sunni domination or threatened domination in Lebanon, Syria and Iraq. Egypt which could have provided Sunni counterweight to Iran is held down by a collapsed economy and terrorist challenge in the Sinai. The chaos in North Africa and Middle East has reverberation in Africa where the Al Qaida in the Maghreb and West Africa, Boko haram in Nigeria, Niger and the Cameroon and al Shabbab in Somalia and Kenya constitute variants of the same Middle East Islamic terrorism. The direct effect of this is the proliferation of weapons of precision that are fuelling insurgency all over Africa.

    One common denominator to the Middle East and Africa is their sit-tight presidents in Museveni’s Uganda, Mugabe’s Zimbabwe, Bashar’s Sudan   Paul Kagame’s Rwanda and other dictators in the inter-lacustrine state of Burundi as well as virtually all the Francophone states of the two Congos , Central African Republic and the Spanish  speaking Equatorial Guinea. Even the new state of Southern Sudan is torn by ethnic war because of the sit-tight syndrome. While this goes on, there is neither growth nor development of the economy. On top of this is the rising population of young people who have no hope of employment. Even countries like Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana, Senegal, Ivory Coast, Ethiopia and Tanzania to mention a few are also afflicted by unimpressive economic performance and joblessness of their ballooning youthful population. This a time bomb in both Africa and the Middle East. The situation is so bad that young people are ready to die crossing to Europe by leaky dinghies and boats across the Mediterranean Sea.

    What is to be done? It seems to me that Africa has largely accepted that the democratic way is the way forward. There may be debate about what style of democracy. It is obvious that the western model may have to be modified to suit the peculiar condition of each African state.  This is not the same as supporting any bastardized democratic contraption called home grown democracy which is a euphemism for dictatorship. The market-driven economic prescriptions of the West may not work because of paucity of foreign and local investors. The state would have to intervene through direct investment by state corporations side by side with private investors like it happened in South Korea. The enforced orthodoxy of market economy will have to give way to practical solution that would also generate employment for the teeming masses of the people.

    But as for the Middle East and North Africa, democracy may not work there for long time to come. The Middle East will only survive if a way is found to satisfy its young people who are suffering from unemployment. This problem would worsen with the decline in the price of gas and oil which will make it impossible for the gulf countries to continue to bribe young people with generous perks because sooner or later they will run out of cash. The future of the almost 350million Arabs is uncertain unless realistic solution is found to the economic and political conditions of those countries. There will also have to be reconciliation between Iran and the Arab states as well as between Sunni and Shiite sectarian traditions in Islam. Finally the question of war and peace with Israel must be resolved by accepting the existence of two states, Israel and Palestine, in old Palestine. Inability to solve this problem may drive Arab youth to extremist tendencies which would not augur well for peace in the Middle East an absence of which could pose a threat to global peace.

  • Pro-poor development in Nigeria

    The concept of pro-poor development was conceived by the Commonwealth around the year 2000 or there about. I actually served on a pro-poor development committee headed by DrMahoman Singh who subsequently became Prime Minister of India for almost a decade. Before this time he had served as minister of finance in India so he brought to the job of chairman of pro-poor development committee, experience, gravitas and knowledge. A document was issued after our endeavour and presented to the Commonwealth summit in Abuja in 2004. The thrust of the recommendation is that development plans in the developing countries should primarily target reduction of poverty. Yes important as are infrastructural development such as highways, railways, seaports, telecommunications maybe, if they do not address poverty-reduction, then we have failed. Pro-poor development focuses on issues such as primary healthcare, rural economy, primary school education, population controland status of rural women,land distribution, potable water, rural irrigation and other forms of social welfare schemes that help the poor.Above all, it focuses on how to help the poor come out of poverty .But while still poor, the poor must not be left behind in their poverty but must be assisted through financial transfers to them as is the case of the dole in the United Kingdom and welfare cheques in the USA.

    When Clement Attlee formed the post Second World War Labour government in Great Britain in 1945, he was faced with the suffering of the bedraggled poor citizens of his country who had just emerged from almost six years of bitter conflict with Nazi Germany and Hideki Tojo’s imperial Japan. Prostrate Britain, helped by the United States started to rebuild, but Attlee rightly said development was about people and he embarked on fundamental transformation of his country.

    Against entrenched interest, he decided to socialize medical practice through the national health scheme through which no one should be denied medical assistance because of poverty. In spite of the enemies of the scheme, it has survived until this day. Attlee also introduced the dole by which all unemployed people were paid some living allowance to tide them over until employment was found. Even though this was sometimes abused, it has also survived frontal attacks by the Conservative or Tory party which has consistently argued that the scheme bred laziness and social dependency. The third plank of the Labour Party’s transformation was massive building of what were known as council flats to accommodate those too poor to build or buy houses of their own and finally opening up of the education space to all the citizens for the purpose of upward mobility of the poor.

    This social welfare state has been copied by many countries in the world including the United States which has adopted the financial assistance to the poor. Obamacare affordable medical insurance has deprecated what is popularly dismissed as socialized medicine. The movement of Bernie Sanders of the Democratic Party in recent times has convinced everybody that socialism is no longer a dirty political word in the United States. The attractiveness of socialism since 1917 communist revolution in Russia was because of its relevance to alleviating the plight of the poor. The Bible is categorically states that we will always have the poor among us and therefore directs all people of faith to take care of the poor.

    What then is the relevance of this in Nigeria? The Boko Haram phenomenon and the insurgency in the Niger Delta and other ethnic protest movements are largely manifestations of poverty. Although there may be arguments as to whether there is a linkage with or direct correlation of poverty with terrorism, there is no doubt in my mind that in Nigeria insurgency feeds on poverty. Yes the Arab terrorism may not be directly linked with poverty. Disparity between the poor world and the rich world however provides fertile grounds for terrorist seeds to germinate. It follows therefore that to tackle our problems in Nigeria, we have to take the twin road of pacification and poverty eradication. While having the Kalashnikov in one hand, we must have bread or tuwo shinkafa in the other hand. We must also not wait for insurgency to break out before we have a strategy to tackle it. We have to be proactive.  Nigeria is hopefully coming out of the war in the South-south and the North-east and we must approach our poverty programmes as fundamentally as other post-conflict countries have done.

    The federal government must take the lead in all this by creating a social welfare department or ministry appropriately staffed with demographers, social work experts, sociologists, epidemiologists, economists and local government experts to bring out schemestargeted at the poor. These must be practical programmes that can be implemented immediately. We must not try to reinvent the wheel. There are programmes that have worked in other parts of the world that we can domesticate to fit our peculiar circumstances, needs and our financial resources. All states of the federation must take a leaf out of the suggested federal programme and if need be the federal programme can be devolved to the states with appropriate funding but with strict supervision to avoid misappropriation and misapplication of funds. I am happy to hear that the federal government is planning to embrace the Aregbesola children feeding programme and the Kayode Fayemi monthly support scheme for the elderly and apply these across the nation. The recent announcement of a massive house-building programme by this government is policy in the right direction. We must however ensure that these do not become another financial jamboree for party hags and henchmen. When houses are built they must be tailored to the needs of the poor and they must be affordable. In building these houses, government must induce young Nigerian jobless engineering graduates to form companies to bid for contracts and government must deliberately favour them. This same approach should be the case for catering and nutrition science graduates in the award of contracts to prepare food for school children. In all these, government must deliberately try to help the unemployed youth, the poor and the elderly. In doing this government will be creating wealth, tackling unemployment and poverty and removing grievance which fuels insurgency and terrorism.

  • Political stability in Africa and Middle East

    Recently, Donald Trump said he admires Saddam Husain, the late president of Iraq who was judicially lynched by the successor Shiite government of Iraq during the American occupation of the country. People were aghast at his comment. He also said he sees no reason for America to be an eternal enemy of Russia and that even if the USA does not like Russia it should cooperate with Russia to defeat ISIL (Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant) and that the USA fought along with the brutal dictator Joseph Stalin during the Second World War to defeat the axis powers of Japan and Germany. One may disagree violently with Trump on almost everything but in the instances cited, I can see some sense in his usual madness.  I am convinced that the likes of Saddam Husain maintained some kind of peace in the Middle East in spite of the brutality of his regime. Even though he came from the minority Sunni population and treated all opposition Shiite or Sunni with brutality, he ensured that there was peace which was what the generally apolitical ordinary people of Iraq wanted. The mistake people in the West made was wanting to graft democracy on a traditionally autocratic conservative Arab environment.

    When people in the West were hailing the so-called Arab Spring, I had the sneaky feeling that things will not turn out well. This was when I listened to the ambassador of Syria to the UN sometimes in 2010 at the plenary of the UN General Assembly pleading for understanding of his country’s problem. He had argued that Syria was a delicately balanced country of Alawites, (Shiite) Sunnis, Christians, Kurds, Armenians and Aramaics and that backing Sunnis who want to overthrow the Bashar-al-Asad regime would bring all sorts of external forces and complications which will not augur well for the future of Syria and the Middle East. After more than a decade of warfare and a whole country with an old civilization destroyed, there has neither been democracy nor peace in Syria rather a murderous group calling itself a caliphate has emerged bridging the frontiers of Iraq and Syria and imposing its draconian rule and will on a helpless and hapless people leading to the largest migration of a destabilizing horde of people since the end of the Second World War. But for the tenacity of the Sharifian dynasty in Morocco and the FLN government led by the old and infirm Abdelaziz Bouteflika in Algeria who were able to resist the forces of the dissidents particularly FIS (Front Islamique de Salut) the so-called Arab Spring would have engulfed the whole of the Maghreb. The situation in Libya was unfortunately not the same for several reasons. NATO wanted Muamar al Ghadafi to be removed from power because of what was considered as his dangerous ambitions in the past especially wanting to develop nuclear and chemical weapons on the other side of the Mediterranean which Europe considers a European lake. Even though he had given up the ambition, he was never trusted. So when the occasion for his removal presented itself, NATO was not going to allow it to slip from its hand. Their forces instigated a local rebellion which it joined to murder without trial an incumbent head of State. But what has replaced the years of stability in Libya is chaos and the takeover of part of the country by forces pledging allegiance to the Caliphate. The situation in Libya is like the case of Humpty Dumpty and everybody is waiting for which forces will secure the vast country of Libya. Whatever anybody may say about Ghadafi, he secured the country for decades after the overthrow of King Idris al-Sannusi. Egypt is back in the hands of the military after the initial hoopla of getting rid of President Mubarak. He was replaced by Mohammad Morsi for about a year before he was overthrown by General Muhammad -al-Sisi. It appears that the Egyptians would rather have stability than some wooly democracy or chaotic rule by the Islamic Brotherhood of Morsi. The effendiyyah in Egypt is just too sophisticated for that. It is only in Tunisia where the Arab Spring has brought in some form of constitutional regime albeit under an 82 year old president! Yemen is in turmoil and the Saudi army is there fighting a proxy war with Iran that is backing the Houthis who are Shiites. Oman and the other Gulf States including Saudi Arabia are maintaining some precarious peace with their Shiite subjects cowed down by overwhelming Sunni forces. Iran continues to pose existential challenge to the gulf Arab states and even far afield to Sunni domination or threatened domination in Lebanon, Syria and Iraq. Egypt which could have provided Sunni counterweight to Iran is held down by a collapsed economy and terrorist challenge in the Sinai. The chaos in North Africa and he Middle East has reverberation in Africa where the Al Qaida in the Maghreb and West Africa, Boko haram in Nigeria, Niger and the Cameroon and al Shabbab in Somalia and Kenya constitute variants of the same Middle East Islamic terrorism. The direct effect of this is the proliferation of weapons of precision that are fueling insurgency all over Africa.

    One common denominator to the Middle East and Africa is their sit-tight presidents in Museveni’s Uganda, Mugabe’s Zimbabwe, Bashar’s Sudan, Paul Kagame’s Rwanda and other dictators in the inter-lacustrine state of Burundi as well as virtually all the Francophone states of the two Congos, Central African Republic and the Spanish-speaking Equatorial Guinea. Even the new state of Southern Sudan is torn by ethnic war because of the sit tight syndrome. While this goes on, there is neither growth nor development of the economy. On top of this is the rising population of young people who have no hope of employment. Even countries like Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana, Senegal, Ivory Coast, Ethiopia and Tanzania to mention a few are also afflicted by unimpressive economic performance and joblessness of their ballooning youthful population. This a time bomb in both Africa and the Middle East. The situation is so bad that young people are ready to die crossing to Europe by leaky dinghies and boats across the Mediterranean Sea.

    What is to be done? It seems to me that Africa has largely accepted that the democratic way is the way forward. There may be debate about what style of democracy. It is obvious that the western model may have to be modified to suit the peculiar condition of each African state.  This is not the same as supporting any bastardized democratic contraption called home-grown democracy which is a euphemism for dictatorship. The market driven economic prescriptions of the West may not work because of paucity of foreign and local investors. The state would have to intervene through direct investment by state corporations side by side with private investors like it happened in South Korea. The enforced orthodoxy of market economy will have to give way to practical solution that would also generate employment for the teeming masses of the people.

    But as for the Middle East and North Africa, democracy may not work there for long time to come. The Middle East will only survive if a way is found to satisfy its young people who are suffering from unemployment. This problem would worsen with the decline in the price of gas and oil which will make it impossible for the gulf countries to continue to bribe young people with generous perks because sooner or later they will run out of cash. The future of the almost 350million Arabs is uncertain unless realistic solution is found to the economic and political conditions of those countries There will also have to be a reconciliation between Iran and the Arab states as well as between Sunni and Shiite sectarian traditions in Islam. Finally the question of war and peace with Israel must be resolved by accepting the existence of two states, Israel and Palestine, in old Palestine. Inability to solve this problem may drive Arab youth to extremist tendencies which would not augur well for peace in the Middle East an absence of which could pose a threat to global peace.

  • The tragedy in Turkey

    Turkey is the example of a largely Islamic country that has successfully reconciled democratic modernism with its Islamic tradition.This fact goes back to the deliberate action of Mustapha Kemal, the Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey on the ashes of the collapse of Ottoman Turkey after the First World War. General Kemal had come to the conclusion that the degenerate Ottoman Porte with its lavish palaces filled with wives and concubines from European subjects of Turkey had weakened the empire and that a non-hereditary regime fashioned after the victorious Allies that had seen the defeat of turkey was the way forward.He therefore designed a constitution that was to guide the Turkey of his dream and he made the Turkish military the guardian of the Turkish democratic secular constitution.He banned any external symbolism of Islam such as the kaftan and the hijab characteristic of Muslim men and women before his revolution. He wanted Turks to dress like Europeans and distance themselves from the Middle Easterners who were their subjects before the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire by the Versailles peace treaty of 1919.He wanted Turkey to emphasize its European geography even though the larger part of its territory is in Asia. This is why he bridged the straits of Bosphorus and Dardanelles with a feat of engineering to link the two parts of Turkey.This tradition had prevailed in Turkey since then and the military had jealously guaranteed the kemalist heritage and political order of separation of mosque and state until RecepTayyip Erdogan became Prime Minister and now president of Turkey. Erdogan decided to cut the military to its size and to remove the institution from most of its privileges as guardian of the secular state of Turkey. He decided to showcase the Islamic tradition of Turkey without apologies to anybody. He apparently sees himself as some kind of a reincarnation of the last Ottoman Sultan. He is determined to concentrate all powers into his own hand. He has been largely successful because until recently he has built a strong economy in Turkey and embarked on large-scale reconstruction works that has modernized the infrastructure of the country. With the help of its NATO allies, he has built a formidable military second to none in its area. Turkey has the largest army among its European NATO allies and its proximity to Russia makes it of vital importance to NATO and the United States. Erdogan had also hoped the European Union would accept Turkey as a member and the country’s application for membership has been pending for a long time. This is because some members are not too comfortable admitting Turkey a country of 80 million Muslims into a largely nominally Christian European Union. Some members also feel that Turkish democracy is superficial and not ingrained. The Turks have also not been able to resolve the ethnic problem tearing Turkey apart by pitching the forces of Turkish nationalism against that of the Kurds who form substantial portion of the Population of Turkey. The Kurds are an ancient people who are largely Sunni Muslims divided among Syria, Iraq, Turkey and Iran with the ones in Turkey being the largest segment.Refusal of Turkey to grant them a large measure of autonomy has led to a guerrilla war for decades and urban terrorism for longer before the current campaign of the ISIL (Islamic state of Iraq and the Levant). To compound the problem of Turkey, the wars in Iraq and Syria has led to substantial gains for Kurdish nationalism in both countries. The Kurds virtually now have their own state in northern Iraq while they are virtually free with their own army in Syria. These events have had considerable impact in Turkey where there is exponential rise of Kurdish nationalism to the chagrin and irritation of Erdogan and his fellow Turkish nationalists. He has had to intensify bombing of Kurdish guerrilla in the Kurdish mountains of Iraqi Kurdistan and northern Syria to the irritation and anger of the United States that has been propping up Iraqi Kurdistan against the forces of the Islamic caliphate and possibly as a counter-weight to the Shiite dominated Iraqi government in Baghdad that is now influenced by Iran. It is a complicated picture and jigsaw political puzzle. Added to the mix is Russia that is fighting on behalf of the Basher’s regime in Syria because of not wanting to lose a strategic naval base in a country that had been an ally of Russia since the Union of Socialist Soviet Russia’s days. Because of American pressure, Erdogan has had to allow American Air Force to use a military air base in Turkey against the caliphate forces in Iraq and lately Syria. Ordinarily Erdogan wanted the fall of the Shiite regime In Syria to the point of being tolerant of the caliphate before he was made to take a stand against them. He had earlier asked Turkish Air Force to shoot down a Russian plane that was menacingly bombing dissident forces near the Syrian-Turkish border.

    This is the political and complicated background of the situation in which Erdogan had to negotiate. His abrasive nature did not prepare him for compromise either with democratic forces or youths manifesting discontent with his rather draconian social programmes or building malls in parks favoured by young people or with the democratic Kurdish demands for autonomy and language rights.On top of this, he had to contend with the military that was increasingly worried by the outward Islamic tendencies of the Erdogan regime far away from the secularist tradition of modern Turkey. Furthermore was the disagreement with one of his previous supporters – the Islamic cleric  Muhammad Fethullah Gulen, founder of a movement called Cemaat with tremendous influence in academia, the civil service and the press as well as the military that tended to hark back to Turkish Islamic roots and tradition and supposedly championing the interests of the ummah in Turkey. Following a break with Erdogan, Gulen had gone into exile in the state of Pennsylvania in the United States. But he still had a large following in Turkey.

    When there was an attempted coup d’état in Turkey recently, Gulen was fingered as the spiritual inspirer. The coup itself failed because the Turkish critical mass of students, ordinary people and the political elite including the opposition parties and Kurdish democratic forces rose against it by blocking military vehicles on the roads and challenging soldiers at the expense of their lives. Inability to kill Erdogan proved the undoing of the coup plotters. When the dust of the abortive coup settled, Erdogan struck back firing in one swoop about 100,000 civil servants, academics, teachers, judges, military and police officers and putting pressure on the press where he suspected there were gulenists. He also at one point accused the American CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) of complicity in the coup simply because America did not accede to his request to extradite Gulen to face trial in Ankara. It is surprising that he had expected America to send Gulen back to what would have been judicial lynching. Because of this, Erdogan has embarked on politics of brinkmanship playing the Russians against his long term friends and NATO member, the United States. He has gone to Moscow in a widely publicized visit to Vladimir Putin just to demonstrate his independence of the United States and its European allies who though supporting Turkey are a little apprehensive of Erdogan’s heavy post-coup high handedness. This has however been misconstrued by Erdogan for lack of sympathy for him personally and secondly for Turkey whom he has thought he personifies.

    There is now some form of a return to reality. In a recent statement by the same Turkish Prime Minister who had said America was behind the abortive coup, he is reported to have recently said the United States and Turkey remain eternal allies thus eating his own words.

    Turkey’s role in its area is just too important to be trifled away through emotional outburst or by playing the game of the enemy of my enemy is my friend as it tried to do with Russia, a foe of the USA. But the fact remains that Russia’s national interests in the Caucasus are directly in conflict with those of Turkey. Turkey is also a stabilizing force in the tender box of the Middle East where it has influence in the Sunni dominated region which is in contention with Shiite Iran and its influence in Iraq, Yemen Syria and among the Hezbollah in Lebanon. Turkey for years has also had some rapport with the Jewish state of Israel in spite of recent break in diplomatic ties which were restored on the eve of the attempted coup which made some to suspect that that may have had some influence on the minds of the coup plotters. It is therefore in the interest of peace in the area for stability to return to Turkey. But this will not come easily because of Turkish domestic problems which are almost unsolvable and added to this is the spreading suicide and terrorist campaigns within Turkey associated with either the so-called caliphate and or Kurdish guerrilla forces. With this in mind, it will be suicidal for the Turkish state to cut itself loose from its NATO security rampart no matter what Erdogan may feel or want. Above all the temperament and ability of Erdogan to compromise with his enemies and to bow out when the ovation is loudest and watch for a peaceful democratic succession may be in the overall and long term interest of Turkey.

  • The joy of Olympics

    I have thoroughly enjoyed watching the just finished Olympic Games. The old saying that the joy of Olympics is in participating but not winning is difficult to sell in a world where sports have replaced wars as a way of measuring the strength of states. This is happily so. Because of this, many states put a lot of resources and effort in organizing and ensuring that they win sporting events and not just participating. In other words, sports have become part of international politics. This is part of what we call cultural diplomacy in the study of international relations. It is cheaper and more effective than the expensive traditional diplomatic way of advancing the influence of states. The small country of Jamaica is probably more well known for good today than many bigger countries because of the achievement of its sports heroes. Usain Bolt the sprinter and his country do not have to hire lobbyists to make themselves known where it matters in the world. Sports as a way of advancing the interests, especially of poor countries in the periphery of world affairs has therefore become a useful tool in the hand s of diplomats. I remember when I was presenting my credentials as Nigeria’s ambassador to President Baron Richard Von Weisachker of Germany in 1991, he was more interested in the Nigerian soccer team and Nigerian writers – two areas constituting cultural diplomacy than in any other thing about my country. He did not ask me about Nigeria’s armed forces or gas and oil. The point I am making is that for our own good we have to place more emphasis on the development of our sports and culture generally, two areas in which we may have comparative advantage.

    Our recent woeful performance at the Rio de Janeiro games in Brazil calls for comment. Those who were following our shoddy preparation for the games knew we were going to be embarrassed by its outcome. I feel thoroughly ashamed that our country of 170million people could only secure one bronze medal. We have been on slippery decline in our sports for years without much attention being paid to it. We concentrate only on soccer as if other sporting events are not important. Even in soccer we have not been doing well. We only manage to reach preliminary stages before we are eliminated. It seems we are satisfied with our pedestrian performance and yet we have a whole ministry of sports with the usual bureaucratic burden with no performance worthy of note to show for it. Our show of shame in Brazil should sadden all Nigerians even at this time of economic difficulties at home. Our athletes wore track suits they wore in the world athletics games in Beijing two years ago while most countries wore their traditional colourful outfits. We had always been cynosures of all eyes in our colourful dresses in years gone by. So what happened? Are there no more tailors in Nigeria to sew ordinary brocades or adire? The track suits and other outfits of the Nigerian contingent we are told arrived on the 13th day of the Rio games! The football team was stranded in Atlanta and we are told a Japanese plastic surgeon out of the goodness of his heart sent $200,000 to fly the team to Rio and promised to pay each member of the team $10,000 bonus if they won a medal. This is what is in the global media and if it is true it is most shameful. Have we become a banana republic that we cannot fund sending our team to an international sports event like the Olympics?  This is so sad and sadder still when a statement was issued on behalf of our president urging the team to bring home medals. Everybody laughed at us and our children in diaspora were hugely embarrassed. We must remember that this is a critical economic constituency contributing perhaps more to our foreign exchange earnings than the so-called gas and oil sector whose so-called owners have been blackmailing the country and holding us by the jugular.

    Somebody must take the blame for this humiliation in Rio in which the entire ECOWAS countries were wiped out. But for Kenya, South Africa and Ethiopia, Africa would have remained irrelevant in the Rio global sporting arena. The millions of dollars Nigeria spent in sending people to the Rio games was a waste of scarce resources. I suspect the money may not have been released on time but this problem should have been anticipated and dealt with expeditiously. We must learn the right lessons from this debacle by preparing now for the Tokyo games in 2020 and for the World Cup in Moscow two years from now. In doing this we must begin to look for fresh talents and not rely on the old and time wearied old hags we resurrect from the dead and expect them to perform. Most athletes are past their prime by the time they are 25 and we also have the problem of old people passing themselves as young people in order to cheat their ways into international competition where they are exposed when they meet genuine stars who are adequately prepared and trained.

    There is much to do in our sports sector. We need to beef up the domestic league, bring back interstate soccer and athletics competition on yearly basis. The local soccer league should be organized as big business and our television stations should be forced to show  them instead of a situation where everybody is talking about English, German, Italian and Spanish football leagues. If so organized, apart from footballers the local league will employ thousands of young people as stadium managers, grounds men, advertisers, masseuses, organizers physical trainers, physiotherapists, sports medicine practitioners, advance men, insurers, television and telecast technicians, accountants, nutritionists and so on. Sports all over the world is big business and the Nigerian is nothing but a sports loving person. In sports we can also find a means of escape from our boring and sometimes unhappy and depressing lives. It is not only the structure of government that needs restructuring, our social and sporting lives need radical transformation.