The Nation Newspaper

Category: Jide Osuntokun

  • Crocodile tears on the grave of Mandela

    The death of Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela (1918-2013) has attracted a lot of emotions, comments and tributes from many current leaders and past leaders of several countries in the world. Some of these comments are genuine, others are insincere and amounts to crocodile tears. About 100 global political players, both current and those who have held positions of power in the world, including President Barrack Obama, current American President and three former Presidents- Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and George W Bush, and the heir apparent to the British throne Prince Charles as well as our own President Goodluck Jonathan and David Cameron, John Major and Gordon Brown, current and former British Prime Ministers respectively attended the official funeral ceremony held at a big stadium in Soweto South Africa. This must have been a security nightmare for the South African authorities. Mandela who initially embraced the non-violent philosophy of Mochandas Ghandhi-Ji later abandoned non-violence and was largely responsible for forming the Umkhonto we Sizwe (the Spear of the Nation), which was the armed youthful wing of the African National Congress (ANC). The young revolutionaries in South Africa by the 1960s were already getting impatient with the conservative and non-violent approach to African liberation espoused by the ANC. Members of the Pan African Congress (PAC) were already critical of the non-violent campaign of the ANC. We can therefore say Nelson Mandela reluctantly took to armed struggle because as he argued nobody can kill a wild beast with bare hands.

    In the history of the liberation of South Africa some attention should be paid to the PAC and Azanian People’s Congress’ roles as alternative platforms for the liberation of South Africa. A comparable situation is what happened in the US where the existence of militant youthful groups such as Students Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) led by Stokely Carmichael and Rap Brown, as well as the Black Panther Movement of Huey Newton and Eldrige Cleaver, and the Black Muslims particularly the faction led by one of its charismatic leaders, Malcom X with their cry burn baby burn made Martin Luther King nonviolent campaign largely acceptable to the white folks. Even though the situation was not exactly the same, white folks saw Mandela as somebody they could ultimately do business with.

    This does not diminish the achievements of Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela but it is important to put the two global icons within their historical context. The two share many things in common especially their ability to forgive their oppressors. Martin Luther King’s tolerance is firmly rooted in Christian religion while Mandela’s ability to forgive is rooted in political reality. He wanted to build a non-racial majoritarian democracy in South Africa and he came to the conclusion that the only way to do this was by forgiving his racist oppressors who had built in South Africa a first world infrastructure and economy albeit on the backs of the blacks. If he had adopted the Mugabe approach of land expropriation, he would have destroyed his much loved country of South Africa for which he paid huge price of 27 years imprisonment. Since 1994 when he became president and now after having been succeeded by Thabo Mbeki and the current President Jacob Zuma, the vast majority of black South Africans have remained largely poor. Of course centuries of Black marginalization cannot be removed within a few years but young black South Africans are not prepared to wait indefinitely for the fruit of majority rule. This is the challenge facing South Africa today. And some of the militant youths have been known to issue militant statements about the conniving and apologetic leadership of the ANC who are only ready to tinker with the white economic structure of South Africa without radically changing it. This is why incredibly as it may sound, Robert Mugabe is perhaps the most popular political figure in Southern Africa today. This also accounts for the tumultuous ovation he attracted when he entered the stadium during the funeral mass for Mandela.

    I had the opportunity to meet Mandela in May 1990, when he came to Nigeria, and the University of Lagos conferred on him an Honorary Doctorate degree after leaving prison and before becoming president of South Africa. Professor Nurudeen Alao who was Vice Chancellor asked me and Dr. Tunji Dare to prepare a citation for the great man. We independently wrote this and after comparing notes, Dare said my citation captured totally the essence of the man, and he subsequently published his own draft, I believe in The Guardian. I remember that one of the things the great man asked us was that he wanted to learn how Nigeria has been able to create a forum like the House of Chiefs in the old regions for traditional leaders to participate in governance so that he could do the same in South Africa. I do not know what became of his interest in this regard.

    After Mandela’s death, I have been thoroughly amused by the comments of our leaders. Some of these leaders have hailed him as a great man, a great African icon and a great world leader that is worthy of emulation. Yet some of these so-called African leaders held power for years without leaving any remarkable or worthwhile imprint on the society. It is surprising that those who overstayed their welcome in office are now acclaiming Mandela as their friend and as someone from whom they learnt something. One only hopes that our current leaders and those after them will learn from this great man’s example, that it is not the amount of money that one has that matters, but that it is the enduring and unforgettable legacies that one leaves behind that really matter.

    The former American President George W Bush also went to South Africa to pay his last tribute to Mandela; I believe his sincerity. But we should not forget that his Vice President Dick Cheney regarded Mandela as a terrorist. And according to General Colin Powel, a former American Secretary of State and his successor Condoleezza Rice both of whom are blacks claimed that they were hugely embarrassed to find Mandela’s name on America’s terrorist list. It is surprising that the Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin and the Chinese President Xi Jinping were conspicuously absent in South Africa to pay their last respects to Mandela; they will not be missed of course. And the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu found a lame reason about security and the cost of the trip not to go to South Africa. Of course, the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas was there because Mandela was a supporter of the Palestinian cause and liberation. Let it be remembered that Israel and the United States under President Ronald Reagan assisted South Africa to acquire nuclear weapons in the late 1970s.

    President Jonathan in some kind of homily during a funeral service for Mandela said that Nigeria is not likely to have a man of Mandela’s stature. I disagree and I say General Yakubu Gowon remains the greatest Head of State of Nigeria with high moral stature on a comparable level with Mandela. Gowon’s case is that of a prophet that is with no honour in his own country. Here was a man who governed this country for nine years and ended up not having a single house or billions of naira, and oil blocs in his name but was responsible for most of the enduring physical infrastructure in the country. Here is a war leader who fought a civil war and ended it without show trials and executions of those on the other side of the conflict. Gowon represents our own Abraham Lincoln and Nelson Mandela rolled into one. Since leaving office, he went back to the university and earned himself a doctorate degree in Political Science and has never soiled his hands with filthy lucre. He has used his moral currency and goodwill to attract funds for good cause such as guinea-worm eradication and has spent along with others, years in praying for the peace of Nigeria. When he was in power, Gowon was a pan-Africanist and extended the reach of Nigeria’s foreign policy to the black Diaspora in the Caribbean. History will be fair to Gowon, he may not have had the press and publicity and international acclaim that Mandela has but Gowon among our leaders certainly made a difference. And he deserves to be celebrated now and in the future.

  • New trends in higher education

    In October, I attended the centenary celebration of the Association of Commonwealth Universities in London, England and for four-days we were engaged in discussing current and future trends as well as problems of higher education. Everybody seemed to have agreed that a universal problem confronting higher education was adequate funding. If this is true of developed countries, one can imagine the problems in developing countries. It is common knowledge that the British and the American governments have been cutting back on funding of higher education in an attempt to balance their budget or reduce their deficits as the case may be. But most universities in the western world are almost self-financing without relying solely on government. In Great Britain, the grants committee still largely funds universities, but substantial amount of funding is derived from school fees and recently, from expensive tuition fees charged on foreign students.

    In the largely market driven economies of the United States and Canada, states’ intervention in funding even though substantial is not proportionately on the scale of that of Great Britain. Famous universities in the U.S like Harvard, Yale, MIT, Columbia, Cornell and the Californian University system, particularly, UCLA and Berkeley charge as much as $45,000-$60, 000 a year. Most famous universities in the Western world like Oxford, Cambridge and the American counterparts gets generous donations from Corporations, successful alumni and bequests from public-spirited capitalists. But in spite of these, many poor people still find it difficult sending their children to universities without bankrupting themselves and sometimes, young graduates have to spend years in payment of debts accumulated during their undergraduate days. In these days of global unemployment, this has become a serious challenge to young people as well as a cause for frustration. This led the Governors of Florida and Texas on two separate occasions to call on their university communities to reduce the cost of higher education to not more than $10,000 a year per student and they went ahead to suggest the way this can be done was by making many of the courses available on-line and that where necessary, students can then go in to write exams or do practicals at minimal cost at existing colleges. There is no doubt in my mind that the future of higher education lies in e-learning and the Americans are already showing the way for all others to follow. The challenge for us in the developing world would of course be infrastructure. We would need electricity and ICT infrastructure to do e-learning.

    This then takes me back to the conference in London where there was a presentation on this particular issue and we were told that within the next decade, there would only be a few mega-universities with famous brands from which most people in the world would want their degrees. It is obvious that most of these universities may be American universities and that present campuses of other universities all over the world may be turned into examination halls and laboratories for practical training necessary to earn the degrees of these mega-universities. We were told that most young people in the world if they have the opportunity would want to have the degrees of Harvard, Yale, Cambridge or Oxford. This does not seem so far-fetched because after all, up till 1963, students at the University College, Ibadan were earning London degrees with their papers being partly marked in Nigeria and London. If this were to happen, would this lead to a drastic reduction in the cost of higher education? Of course the answer is yes because many of the current overheads would be radically reduced, but I have a feeling, that if this were to happen, it would first happen in the developed world and it would take a few decades before it happens in Nigeria.

    One of the most startling revelations that I want to share with my reading public was what the former Minister of Higher Education in Pakistan told the Conference. He said that when President Pervez Musharraf invited him to his cabinet to take care of higher education, he asked him pointedly whether the President would give him a free hand, he said, the President said he has his word of honour to revolutionize higher education in Pakistan. He said the first thing he did was to look at the salary structure and recommended to the president that the salary of a professor should be five times the salary of a cabinet minister and the President agreed. With this kind of comfortable salary, he said the contribution of Pakistanis to higher education rose by geometric proportion and that the world this through recognises through the scientific publications and innovations of Pakistani academics.

    Those of us who are old enough know that what our colleague from Pakistan was saying was not unheard of even in Nigeria. At the time of my youth, Professors at the University of Ibadan were earning the same salary as federal ministers, which means that they were earning more money than regional ministers. Vice-Chancellors were in a different world and were administering Nigerian universities here at home and whenever they went on heir statutory three-month vacation in England, they had offices in London from where they administered Nigerian universities. Lecturers, even junior lecturers had opportunity to spend, apart from sabbatical leaves abroad, short study-leaves as well, all paid for by their universities. Those were the days. One cannot be too nostalgic about the past because the past is gone, but the present should be an improvement on the past. If conditions in Nigerian universities are bad today, we should ask ourselves why they should be so bad as to lead to the closure of Nigerian universities for five months. The reason for the bad situation may be connected to the attitude of our staff and students who want to cut corners and have money without working hard. It could also be due to the fact that there are too many universities and governments, both federal and states are not helping by the indiscriminate establishment of universities. Universities are now established as part of dividends of democracies and centres for development rather than need and national affordability.

    Perhaps in agreement with our London conference, we should be thinking of mega-universities in Nigeria offering courses online while the mushroom universities recently established become mere centres of examinations and laboratory practices. The time may have come for a summit on higher education in Nigeria in tandem with what is going on in many other parts of the world.

     

  • On the national conference

    The calling for a national conference by the President in his recent independence broadcast has generated a lot of comments. Some have wondered why the sudden conversion of the President and the president of Senate to the idea of a national conference when for the past three years he has resisted the idea. Critics of the President have suggested that this is a political move on his part to manipulate the politics of Nigeria towards his re-election in 2015. Some even see some sinister move on his part to grant resource control through the conference to the oil-producing South-south where he comes from. On the other hand, some have hailed the action of the President on the grounds that it is never too late to change. After all, Saul who was a persecutor of Christians later became Paul the Apostle. Those who have called for conference for many years to decide and determine the future of Nigeria have also hailed the President for acceding to their request. The situation unfortunately, has now been complicated by the APC’s decision to boycott the conference. I’m totally against this call for boycott. It is better to discuss our affairs and to try and find ways and solutions to complex political situations than bury our heads in the sand and think that the problems would go away. This may not be the intended purpose of the boycott but the result will tend to validate that intention.

    I personally believe that we must explore and exploit all ways and avenues to force the hands of government to change course in this country or we would all be consumed by the Fire Next Time. I believe a conference can develop its own internal dynamics just like any revolution and those with secret agenda would not be able to contain it. This should be the tactic all those who want something concrete from the conference should adopt. Of course, critics are right to say that whatever is decided should not go to the National Assembly whose members were largely rigged in, but that it should be subject to a national referendum and that whatever “we the people” decide should become the supreme law. The question of two sovereigns at the same time should not arise. Once the referendum has passed, the President through a presidential proclamation would bring the resolution into law and call for new elections into the various organs that the conference would have decided upon. If the APC sticks to its guns that it would not participate, what we would then have is a document produced not by the first eleven, but by people on the reserve seats. This would not be in the interest of the country. I think the APC should think all over it again and go to the conference determined to take control of the discussion rather than standing outside the conference and expecting things to go wrong.

    Beatrice and Sydney Webb of the famous Fabian school believed that “it is better for revolutionaries to permeate political bodies from within rather than to stand outside them shouting at the deaf”. I have always been guided by the Fabian theory and practice and I think all political animals should be guided by them. Our country can be a great country. The economic fundamentals of this country are solid. We’ve got the resources and the people. What is lacking is leadership and determination on the part of leadership to force our nation to realise its full potentialities. We should not wait until this house of Nigeria has fallen before we begin to salvage it. We now have an opportunity in the national conference and I believe we should seize the moment.

    Events in other parts of the world should show us that there is no point sitting on the fences. We should look at countries like Greece, Egypt, Pakistan, which are collapsing into irrelevance and chaos. We are just too many, 170 million of us for experimentation, because if our country were to collapse, where would 170 million people go as refugees? Prevention is better than cure. We have an opportunity to prevent sure political debacle and economic disintegration through this conference and deciding to take necessary precaution to avoid tragic end to the Nigerian project. This is not the time to play politics; it is the time for statesmanship. All Nigerians should support discussion at the national conference and taking positive decisions to change the course of our national development. If after we would have given our support, the political leaders in government today decides to subvert the wishes of the people, then the consequences and the blood of our people would be on their heads.

    Choosing those who would represent the people may be problematic, but I think we should use the current population to decide the representation of the states. Critical stakeholders like labour, universities, and even students should be represented by their leaders. Government in its wisdom may also want to select some leaders of the two main monotheistic religions of Christianity and Islam to represent special interest. This idea of people representing ethnic and tribal entities is totally unnecessary because after all whatever ethnic or tribal groups that Nigeria may have are already represented at state levels.

    One of the issues that this conference should be seized with would be the whole question of revenue allocation, fiscal federalism or resource control as it is popularly known. There should be discussion on consumption and value-added taxation. There should also be discussion on the system of government itself. It has become obvious to many Nigerians that the present presidential system of Nigeria is too expensive and concentrates too much power in the hands of government executives at local, state and federal levels. We should also raise the issue of devolution of power and resources from the federal to the states and local governments. We must also settle forever that it is the states coming together to form the federal government and not the federal government creating states. In other words, there can be no room for federal intervention in local government creation and financing. That should belong to the states’ jurisdiction. So the talk of three-tier system of government is an aberration. We can only have states and the federal government relating in a mutually beneficial way. We should also be discussing whether to go back to parliamentary system of government and cabinet government of collective responsibility and where members of the cabinet would also be members of the house and the President or Prime Minister would be the leader of the majority party in the house and would be subjected to routine questions and enquiry about reasons for government action by a virile opposition in the house. This is of course a cheaper system of government, and the disconnect which currently exists between the executives and the legislatures would be done away with.

    The present concentration of power on a presidential Poobah, which makes our president the most powerful of all presidents in the world would undergo radical transformation. The jurisdiction of each level of government would also be discussed and agreed upon to eliminate the anomaly of a federal Ministry of Agriculture when the federal government has no land of its own apart from Abuja. The starting point of the discussion should be the independence constitution of 1960 which was the only constitution that our political leaders agreed upon without guns pointing to their heads. These are the issues which must be discussed and agreed upon so that the energies of our people can be released for positive development of the sciences and the arts and so that we can stop talking about constitutions while other countries of the so called developing world are already sending probes to Mars.

  • Politics in Ekiti in 2014

    In the last three years, unlike before, Ekiti has experienced stability in governance and politics. This was something that we never had before and it is my hope and the hope of all our people that this would remain the same in 2014. We have been lucky to have a governor and legislature that are performing as expected by the people. We are of course in a democracy and no one is perfect and democracy is based on competition of ideas and personalities. But in any democracy that is worth its name, there is no need for changing a winning team. In the last three years, Ekiti has witnessed tremendous transformation in its infrastructure. Where there were no roads, roads have been built. Where roads were not completed as in my hometown of Okemessi, they have now been completed.

    The capital city of Ado-Ekiti has also witnessed a transformation that was beyond normal expectation. Secondary school students are being trained in the use of computers and are being given laptops to assist them in their education. The social welfare sector has witnessed changes for the better. Hospitals are being revamped and new ones built. The water sector is also receiving attention. All these things are things that we all can see. We would of course want our state to be put on the pedestal of the most developed state in the country inspite of our limited resources. Ekiti has not reached that level yet, but if we maintain stability and peace as has been the case in the last three years, we would get there.

    Under Governor Kayode Fayemi, the tertiary education sector, has witnessed great strides in its march towards excellence. A visit to Ekiti State University and the College of Education in Ikere would show the tremendous physical transformation that has taken place in the tertiary education sector. More can still be done in every aspect of our life in Ekiti, but it would be unkind for anybody to dismiss what has been achieved. Visitors from outside the state always marvel at the excellent network of roads linking our various towns and villages. I myself saw this in a new road between Ikogosi and Efon Alaaye which was hardly traversed by many vehicles, but which also demonstrates that the current administration is well and alive to its responsibilities.

    There can be no development in an atmosphere of chaos and instability. This is why any attempt to disturb the peace of Ekitiland should be decried and resisted by all right thinking people. While political competition should be welcomed, we should never allow bloodletting and thuggery to prevail in our state. I’m not a politician but I can see with my eyes and hear with my ears and I know for sure that Ekiti people are favourably disposed to the current administration of John Kayode Fayemi. Our people have a saying that ‘when your masquerade dances very well in the public, one’s head is bound to swell with pride’. This present governor is dancing well and representing Ekiti in the outside world of Nigeria and abroad, creditably. We are known for our academic prowess and intellectual erudition and Fayemi represents all these in human physical form. It is always a matter of pride for me to listen to him make presentations or to read what he has written or to hear the comments of even his fellow governors about how lucky we are to have a scholar governor. A prophet is without honour but in his own country. We are now living under grace and our prophet should have honour in their own countries. This man Kayode Fayemi should have honour in his own state of Ekiti.

    This brings me to the next election in 2014. The struggle is between the main opposition PDP which nationally is in disarray and doesn’t seem to pose much challenge to the incumbent administration in Ekiti. Opeyemi Bamidele, technically an APC member of the House of Representative who says he wants to contest for governor in spite of the fact that his party has endorsed the incumbent, poses no risk to the government in power and I believe he knows it. There is no need for violence. The sky is wide enough for a thousand birds to fly and as Chairman Mao said “let a thousand flowers bloom.” Opeyemi Bamidele’s entry into the gubernatorial contest should be welcomed without any acrimony. It is unfortunate that some people driven more by enthusiasm than wisdom have been arrested for being involved in murder of an opponent. We pray that this would not happen again and our elders should speak out that this is not the way of Ekiti people. We are known for our honesty and forthrightness and truth and courage. We should let all these attributes guide our action. Violence is against all we stand for in our state and anybody involved in violence should be sanctioned.

    Inflammatory statements should be avoided especially for people in the opposition because no government would want to unleash violence on his people. The onus is on the opposition and those who are being manipulated from outside and from Abuja to cause violence in Ekiti with the hope of unleashing violence and might of the federal government on our progressive state. Politics is not war and all things foul and fair should not be permitted in politics. Deceit and lies and promises that cannot be met should be deprecated. One should avoid throwing stones into one’s own father’s house. A man who wants to be governor can only be governor over a peaceful state. And we should not throw away the peaceful achievement of the last three years which outsiders have always envied us for as the most peaceful state in the country. Any young man who has ambition of being governor should wait for his time, but it is not likely that Ekiti Central Senatorial zone that has produced two civilian governors since 1999 would produce another one in 2014, no matter the resources available to him from a neighbouring oil-producing state. Ekiti people may be poor individually, but we are not for sale.

  • Mike Okhai Akhigbe

    I had heard rumours that Vice-Admiral Mike Akhigbe was ill, but I didn’t know it was unto death. When I was travelling out of the country on September 30, I saw a young man and his wife and daughter in the British lounge in Lagos and this young fellow looked remarkably like Mike Akhigbe and I am one 100 percent sure that this guy must be his son. I wanted to call him and ask if he was Mike’s son, but on second thought, I didn’t ask, because young people these days are unpredictable. He could have said buzz off! Although not very likely.

    I first met Mike Akhigbe I believe in 1984 when I was Professor and Dean of Arts at the University of Maiduguri. I was a member of a committee set up by the Buhari administration to turn the Ojukwu Bunker and the surrounding buildings in Umuahia into a war museum. My former teacher and friend, the late Prof. Emmanuel Adiele Afigbo was also a member of this committee. We had a seminar in Umuahia on the history of Nigerian military in both pre-colonial and colonial Nigeria. A lot of the bright people in the Army, Navy and Air force either served on the National War Museum Committee or came to attend the conference. This was how I first met Commander Mike Akhigbe. Since then, I grew to know him more and more as a highly cerebral and intelligent man who was more at home with academics than perhaps officers in the Armed Forces. When the Babaginda administration came in, the young Mike Akhigbe was made the Governor of Ondo State. I was outside the country at that particular time in 1985, attending one conference or the other. He left words for me that I should kindly get in touch with him immediately I came back to Nigeria. He wanted me to be involved in his administration, but I was not inclined to do so, because I was afraid of local politics. Because of my sad experience with Nigerian politics in the 1960s arising from my Brother Chief Oduola Osuntokun’s equally unhappy experience, I never wanted to be involved in politics, whether military or civilian. Nevertheless, Mike Akhigbe kept in touch with me and I remember his meeting with Ondo State citizens in Lagos and Ibadan, and asking us to ask Babaginda, the then President to give us our due because at that particular time we did not have any representation in government and yet we were the ones producing the cocoa on which the economy of Nigeria rested before the advent of crude oil.

    I believe it was through the pressure led by Mike Akhigbe that a citizen of our state eventual became Secretary to Government. Mike Akhigbe became not only a champion of Ondo State rights, but also a patron of the state. He was more emotional about the state not getting its due than even those of us who came from the state. I remember him leading us to a meeting with the then Minister of Agriculture, Lt. Gen. Alani Akinrinade, Brig. Oni who is from Ekiti, was in this informal meeting in Gen. Akinrinade’s house somewhere in Ikoyi and one of the things that Mike Akhigbe wanted us to argue with the General was the abolition of the Cocoa Marketing Board. This was a carry-over from the old Western Region when the marketing board was created to stabilise price of cocoa in the local market. The marketing board usually bought cocoa from the farming community and their agents, then sold this in the world market at price usually higher than what was paid locally, and kept the excess. These excess was used to cushion the price of cocoa whenever it went down in the world market so that local farmers were not affected by any sudden deep depression of prices. The result of this process was that farmers never really got what was due to them and sometimes up to 60 percent went to the marketing board. So in order for the farmers to enjoy the fruit of their labour, we wanted the Cocoa Marketing Board abolished. The other side of the coin was that abolition could create instability of prices for the local farmers. Mike’s opinion was that the farmers should hold their destiny in their own hands. To cut a long story short, through the force of character and arguments, Mike Akhigbe led us to prevail on government to abolish the cocoa marketing board and this immediately led to increase in cocoa production because farmers got what they deserved. This was vintage Akhigbe. He was never afraid of anybody and even as a military man, he never followed orders blindly, he always spoke his mind and he surely must have gotten into trouble because of his forthright character. He was a great friend of mine. I never socialised with him, but he related with me as a gentleman and as an officer and as a great friend. When he came to Lagos as Governor, he asked me if I would want to serve in the Governing Council of Lagos State University as a member and he appointed me to that council and I remember that one great thing that council did was the appointment of the late Prof. Jadesola Akande as the second female Vice-Chancellor in the country, second to Prof. Alele Williams in the University of Benin. I believed I played a pivotal role in Prof. Jadesola Akande’s appointment and I am proud of it.

    I continued to maintain contact with Mike Akhigbe when I was Ambassador in Germany and when he rose to the pinnacle of his profession as Chief of Naval Staff. He subsequently became the Number Two man after Abacha died, and I believe he assisted Gen. Abdusalami Abubakar in transiting from Military dictatorship to democratic governance in 1999. Mike Akhigbe was a great man in many respects. Some would regard him as brash and hot-tempered but he received as much as he gave, and whenever he spoke, he spoke the truth. He did not throw his weight around as others would have done. I remember him complaining to me about a colleague who was disrespectful to his wife, who was one of our graduate students in the University of Lagos. If he had wanted, he could have used his position to make my colleague uncomfortable, but he never did, he merely complained to me. He himself at a particular time was a student of the University of Lagos and he studied Law and graduated as a lawyer while his wife graduated with a PhD in Education. This must have given him tremendous joy because I believe that if he had had the opportunity as a child, he himself would have gone into academia rather than the military and I believe he had the temperament, the ability, the grey matter to excel in any field of human endeavour. He would be surely and sorely missed both at home and in the Nigerian society. My heart goes to his wife and children and I pray that they know that anybody who lives in the hearts of others cannot die. So it is with Mike Akhigbe. Adieu.

  • Nigeria’s cultural tapestry and challenge of dev.t – 5

    If it appears that the Islamic polities of northern Nigeria had been monarchical right from the pre-jihad era, we should not lose sight of the codifications of norms that governed public civic culture. A striking illustration of this – the fact that governance was taken seriously and guided by some publicly declared rules – is that at least two treatises were written and circulated in the Central Sudan. During the reign of Sarkin Kano Muhammad Rumfa (d.1499), the celebrated Muslim cleric Muhammad b. Abd al-Karim al-Maghili al-Tlemsani (better known as Al-Maghili) authored a treatise, Risalat al-Muluk (The Obligations of Princes), which spelt out Islamic standards of good governance for the guidance of Rumfa, who was a notable Muslim in his own right. Two other examples from the early nineteenth-century history of the Sokoto Caliphate further illustrate the historical depth of the idea of a governance template.

    First, the leader of the Sokoto jihad, Uthman dan Fodio, authored the Kitab al-Farq (A Book of Distinction), in which he distinguished the practices of non-Islamic polities from those of the envisaged Islamic State. It is interesting that when the ulama al-sui, who were embedded in the power structure or siyasa (politics) of the day criticised him for preaching without separating women from the men, he countered that it was a minor and forgivable infraction compared to the greater fitna of keeping women in ignorance. From this we could see that Dan Fodio himself had struck an early blow in favour of girl-child or women education even in a conservative Islamic setting. Small wonder that the cleric’s own daughter, Nana Asma’u, was a poetess and celebrated author in her own right. Not only did Dan Fodio promote women literacy, he practised what he preached in his own household, unlike most modern leaders today.

    Second, in c.1807, in the early years of the jihad, Uthman dan Fodio’s brother, Abdullahi, a poet and lawyer, was so disgusted with the manifestation of worldliness among the jihaddists that he abandoned the struggle for a pilgrimage to the East. However, on getting to Kano, the local reformists prevailed on him to abandon his eastward journey. During his sojourn in Kano, where he also observed some deviations, he composed at his hosts’ request a treatise on how to run the government according to the tenets of Islam. Abdullahi dan Fodio’s Diyâ’ al-Hukkâm (The Light of the Rulers or The Principles of Government) was a sort of governance template for the emergent Kano emirate. It is a moot point whether any ruler in that part of the country is guided by that document or any other on good governance.

    Other examples can be cited from local settings across Nigeria. What is worth stressing is that our traditional values and practices should be re-visited to harness those that can help us to re-invent the culture of civility and developmental governance. How a society treats its women and what it does about peaceful co-existence or the treatment of so-called strangers tell much about its level of development. This is true of Nigerian communities even in pre-colonial times.

    The role of women in various societies is a case in point. In practically all Nigerian societies, even in the matrilineal ones, women have played second fiddle to men, even their own sons and younger brothers. Yet, women have also exercised soft power, which often affected the directions of state policy. The point is that many Nigerian communities recognise and accord women certain roles that men did not play. For example, till date, women are preferred as regents in some kingdoms; in some others they held titles and took part in direct decision making in the highest councils, though always as a minority. In practically all societies, women entrepreneurship was the norm, even when cultural practices limited their mobility. Where they suffered no such restrictions, they accumulated wealth, owned property and played overt politics. The mythical Queen Amina, the historical Madame Tinubu of Lagos and Abeokuta, Efunsetan Aniwura of Ibadan and Omu Okwei of Ossomari, or the more modern examples – Alimotu Pelewura of Lagos, Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti of Abeokuta, Margaret Ekpo of Calabar, Gambo Sawaba, the stormy petrel of Northern Nigeria, Humaini Alaga of Ibadan and Abibatu Mogaji of Lagos – literally rocked the cradle and the crown, often tempestously.

    The treatment of settlers, now a bone of contention in modern Nigeria, is a key issue in the evolution of a developmental public culture. Plateau State has been a theatre of war and various Nigerian communities (Umuleri/Aguleri; Onitsha/Obosi; Warri (Urhobo and Izon versus Itsekiri) and Ile-Ife/Modakeke) have at various times demonstrated our abandonment of the cardinal principle of good neighbourliness and concern for strangers, so-called. It is instructive in this regard, and this is documented by Adamu Fika (1978: 158, n.82), that Yoruba-speaking peoples had settled in Iyagi and Yakasai quarters of Kano since the 17th century. There was no report that they were molested, massacred or expelled at any time during the pre-colonial era. Hausa and Nupe communities have been in Yorubaland for centuries, inter-marrying with host communities. In spite of the conflict that accompanied the rise of the Sokoto Caliphate, trade continued across the ecological divide between northern and southern Nigeria. While not painting an unrealistic picture of unbroken harmony, this writer suggests that indigenous peoples were probably better informed than their modern-day descendants about the benefits of enlightened self-interest, which dictated that one should not see inter-group relations as a zero-sum game.

    We can also extract building blocks from our core values, sage philosophy and aphorisms. Hence, the Yoruba “omoluabi” model, which rested on civic education right from the cradle,  the Igbo concept of “igwebuike,” which encapsulated the virtue of cooperation, and societal opprobrium against anti-social behaviour, such as greed (which the Yoruba express as “anikanjopon,” “wobia,” “jegudujera,” “kenimani,” “ere  ajepajude,” “eni kan kii je ki ilu fe”), injustice and oppression, should be woven into the tapestry of our public culture. But the foregoing cannot be done in the absence of leadership, a critical element in the new developmental culture we are proposing. However, that leadership culture also cannot operate in isolation. It is a siamese twin of the developmental state. One such example is the immediate past ruler of Qatar.

  • Nigeria’s cultural tapestry and challenge of devt – 4

    Nigeria has produced many authors and easily dominates any list of winners of competitive scholarly fellowships and the like in Africa. Yet, obscurantism appears to have been adopted as an official policy. We seem to have canonised illiteracy. The ‘no-nothing’ syndrome has given meaning to the popular saying: “I no know book o.” Once you have money, it seems, that covers a multitude of your inadequacies.

    In politics, when driving on the highway and everywhere else, we resort to brinkmanship and muscle-flexing. Nigerian public culture is replete with one-upmanship and grandstanding. People of power, who should have known better, huff and puff over petty issues of ego and neglect the fundamental issues that concern the vast majority of their subjects. We do not need an accountant to tell us that huge sums of money have gone down the drain as the ongoing ridiculous power show in Rivers State – the shame of the Black race – enters another round. And the common people are the worse for it. In all of this, Nigerians have murdered public shame, opprobrium and outrage. Nothing shocks us any more.

    It is commonly acknowledged that the lack of strong institutions is a major hindrance to development in these parts. It is one thing for the institutions to be fledgling and in need of nurturing. But it is a different matter if Nigerians engage in a favourite pastime: institution-wrecking. It is done with relish as long as it serves a narrow interest, such as unleashing security and anti-corruption agencies against your political rivals, or suborning the electoral commission and the judiciary to facilitate vote-rigging. In one stroke, you effortlessly destroy EFCC, INEC and the judiciary.

    One would have thought that in a system that has been run for over 50 years, Nigerians would have mastered the art of planning. Sadly, where strategic plans and budgets exist at all, they are treated as monuments or documents to be shelved, or glazed and displayed. Hence, we always resort to last-minute measures, ad-hocism, fire brigade approach in an atmosphere of uncertainty and unpredictability. This is why we perform poorly at major global sporting events because we always leave everything till too late or to chance. Yet, when we want to move at all, at the eleventh hour, we now scramble and stampede to beat the deadline. Much energy is wasted and such haste is often without progress and this amounts to effort without efficiency.

    After we have failed to plan and actually planned for failure, we begin to search for scapegoats, usually political opponents and other adversaries, real or imagined. Ultimately, we resort to fatalism in the garb of religiosity. We explain away our failures to the will of God or the designs of Satan, as the case may be.

    The way we handle our waste says much about our national character. Whereas the Japanese, for example, have simplified things through a disciplined use of sorting-at-source, we have mastered the shot-put and “not-in-my-backyard” method of litter proliferation and waste dumping. To physical waste, we have added noise pollution. Unlike the colonial period, where there was noise control in Lagos, Nigerian cities (and increasingly, too, the suburban and rural areas) are notorious for the cacophony of uncontrolled noise from honking vehicles, brawlers, hawkers, entertainers and preachers. Even university campuses are no longer immune.

    What runs through our public conduct is incivility, even in high places. Beyond the ‘uncivil society’ of motor park touts and the like, the hallowed chambers of legislative houses have often been turned into boxing rings without referees and rules of engagement, as exhibited in Rivers State a few weeks ago.

    But this was not always the case and should not continue to be. We need to develop a template for good governance, anchored on our cultural values to promote development.

    An Indigenous “Good Governance” Template? Towards an Enduring, Developmental Civic Public Culture

    The parlous state of our public culture belies the existence of developmental cultural traits in our indigenous societies. Without prejudice to what we have outlined from the experiences of more successful plural societies, our indigenous values contain elements that can enhance a new civic culture that promotes development.

    It is often assumed that Nigerian peoples have never had traditions of good governance even in their village settings. Such misconception could have been informed by the fact that they did not have formal, written constitutions, with elaborate sections and provisions as most nations have today. But, as is well known, there are nations today that do not have a formal constitution or have a threadbare one. The point is that Nigerian peoples practised in their different settings versions of good governance that suited their peculiar epochs. (cf. Ajayi and Ikara, 1985; Osuntokun and Olukoju, 1997)

    While the Igbo of Eastern Nigeria did not have a formal constitution, each village had a conception of “development” as its members understood it, and the vast majority of the people imbibed norms of participation, majoritarianism and consensus-building. The same can be said for other non-monarchical or republican groups, though we must admit that Lugardian indirect rule and the quest for a so-called fulcrum of authority pushed many communities to adopt some form of monarchical rule. This has since been exacerbated among the Igbo, where the kingship institution has spread beyond the western flank stretching from Onitsha to Oguta. But the point is that ideals of participation (“one person, one vote”), freedom of expression and consensus building can still be promoted as a cultural virtue in modern Nigeria, where it often seems that might is right and a minority can brazenly claim victory in elections.

    As for the Yoruba, they operated a constitutional monarchical system that effectively checked the autocracy of a single person, who sometimes was made to pay the ultimate price for breaching the unwritten constitution. For example, an unwanted Alaafin was presented with an empty calabash or a parrot’s egg as a sign that he had outlived his usefulness and must step aside by committing suicide. Not only was succession not by primogeniture, it also rotated among various branches of the ruling house. This entailed some form of selection, if not election in some cases. Of course, this was an oligarchy, from which women were mostly excluded, but it was not an absolute monarchy or the autocratic democracy that many so-called modern nations practise today. From the Yoruba worldview, we can deduce the virtues of checks on arbitrary power and the focus on government as a means to an end – “development.” Hence the goal of “itesiwaju” (literally, “progress”) or “olaju” (“civilisation”) can be attained through politics (“oselu”, which literally means “developing the community/polity”) as opposed to what Chief Obafemi Awolowo called “ojelu” (plunder/rapine – literally, “eating up the community/polity”), when referring to corrupt politicians.

  • Nigeria’s cultural tapestry and challenge of devt – 3

    Acorollary of systemic and endemic corruption is profligacy, the mindless waste of public resources. This, too, has become a great drag on Nigeria’s developmental efforts. Granted that Nigeria earns a fairly steady income from crude oil and natural gas exports (with all the perils of a mono-cultural economy), the country is still relatively poor. Its poverty is revealed by the huge deficits in infrastructure, education, healthcare and local content in industry and critical sectors of the economy, which the totality of internally generated revenue, even with prudent management, cannot possibly fund. Yet, Nigerian leaders have rather focused on white elephant – the proverbial bridge to nowhere: the under-utilized seaports and airports, prestige projects without economic spin-offs – which would yield slush funds to oil the corrupt politicians’ campaign and election and saddle the people with sub-standard infrastructure, which benefits only a small fraction of the population. Driven by megalomania and a bloated sense of Nigeria’s importance, Nigerian officials take very large and bloated delegations to regional, continental and global summits. A retinue of officials accompanies our athletes and sports ambassadors to international engagements. Presidents and governors undertake countless and useless overseas trips, especially the quixotic search for foreign investors, with a huge entourage, all drawing estacode from our national patrimony. The rate at which public officials and their friends acquire a fleet of aircraft and put the latest models of exotic cars on pothole-infested roads betrays the absence of a developmental vision and a lack of self-confidence in our so-called leaders.

    It may be argued that next to corruption and profligacy, the greatest common behavioural trait of players in the Nigerian public space is impunity, and this is not a recent development. As early as the First Republic, notable people and/or their agents committed offences against the state and its citizens, and were not made to face the full wrath of the law. In consequence, such misdemeanour was repeated in later times. For example, the mayhem in the Western House of Assembly in May 1962 was perpetrated by some so-called “Honourables,” who broke the mace, assaulted their colleagues and disrupted proceedings. Till date none was brought to book. The recent affray on the floor of the Rivers State House of Assembly merely rehashed that script. Elections were brazenly rigged in the Western Region in 1964-65, and again in August 1983. In spite of court decisions and/or graphic evidence, the culprits got away with it. In the case of the perennial cancellation of elections in Oguta, Imo State, a commentator, who identified federal lawmakers from the area as major culprits stated as follows: “Any inquisition that ignores the brazen impunity displayed by these elected federal legislators will be patently meaningless.” He added that it had become “paramount to check the impunity of these … people.” (Omeihe, 2013)

    Another trait that dominates public behaviour is self-help, which is widely acknowledged as the weapon of the weak in the face of perceived injustice. Violent reactions to electoral heist, perceived to have been perpetrated by unpopular but powerful state actors with the connivance of judicial and security apparatus of state, have characterized most elections in post-independence Nigeria. Western Nigeria achieved notoriety for the “wet e” spree of arson, destruction of property and murder of political opponents in 1964-65 and in Ondo State in 1983. Sporadic violence also greeted disputed elections in parts of the West, Benue and Akwa Ibom States in more recent times. Self-help can be regarded as an indignant response to weak institutions, brazen injustice and impunity, and the “might-is-right” syndrome. The “might-is-right” type of self-help, typical of powerful Nigerians who abduct creditors or demolish physical structures or forcibly possess disputed land, was recently demonstrated in a long-drawn dispute between two agencies of the federal government. On June 21, the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Security Agency (NIMASA) blockaded the Bonny Channel to compel the Nigeria Liquified and Natural Gas (NLNG) Company to pay a disputed levy. The blockade defied a High Court injunction in favour of the gas company. A newspaper (The Nation, July 8, 2013:19) declared that it was “hard to find a more befitting word than self-help” to describe the NIMASA action. Given the intervention of the court, the paper wondered why NIMASA was “in a hurry to do things its own way.” But this was merely one in a long list of cases of self-help, mainly among private persons, between government agencies and private concerns, and, as in this case, between government establishments. No nation can develop in such an atmosphere of lawlessness.

    What is also becoming alarmingly rife in the Nigerian public space is the suffocating grip of acquiescence to a decadent system and unwholesome practices by the populace. It is reflected in the robotic obedience to unlawful orders by police orderlies who brutalize fellow citizens on the orders of their power-drunk principals. For instance, the brutal treatment of a journalist, Minere Amakiri, by the military governor of Rivers State, Alfred Diete-Spiff, in 1973 was done by underlings in obedience to what was a patently inhumane order. A commentator asserted that: “Nigerians are specially gifted at rising or falling to the level of leadership they’re offered.”(Ogunlesi, 2013:25)

    There is a pervasive cult of silence in Nigeria. It is called “suffering and smiling,” living in denial, pretence, and complicity with injustice and oppression. It manifests in a herd instinct (Fela’s “follow-follow”) or the “if you cannot beat them, join them” syndrome. For instance, those who should have spoken out kept quiet till the Boko Haram insurgency in the North invaded even the hallowed chambers of emirs’ palaces. The bandwagon mentality and appeasement of the “winner-by foul means” or worship of the parvenu (“money-miss-road”) betrays moral cowardice. Sycophancy, eye service, obsequiousness and hero-worship are routinely expressed in fawning congratulatory messages to temporary holders of power on occasions of inconsequential “achievements” or “landmarks.” Even an octogenarian could address a lady half his age but fortunate to be a First Lady, as “our mother,” even when Her Excellency’s conduct belies the title.

    Where nepotism (“man-know-man”) reigns, mediocrity becomes the norm. Banality takes centre stage and reaches new depths in the craving for titles, especially honorary doctorates. Even institutions that do not award bachelor’s degrees brazenly award all manner of doctorate degrees, often styled “fellowships,” and those institutions that do not have the professoriate now organize inaugural lectures! It seems that we have chosen to settle for second-best and sub-standard products, leaders, facilities and what have you.

    Sheer mendacity – brazen lying as an art of governance – what the inimitable Professor Emeritus Tekena Tamuno has styled “lying-in-state” has become official policy. Endorsement now supersedes voting and 16 votes are higher than 19! Official double-speak makes it difficult to know what and who to believe. Usually reliable sources are now suspect. The credibility of government as an institution is eroded and public trust in the integrity of our leaders is weakened.

    In a materialistic world, hedonism and excess should be expected. But the degree and pervasiveness of godless, soul-less greed (“chop and quench”; jeun ko’ku”), avaricious and vulgar materialism, loud and raucous exhibitionism, vanity (“I better pass my neighbour”), get-rich-quick mentality beat the imagination. Our materialism is tasteless and gaudy. We love grandeur and pomp without quality and substance. We are notorious, even in Europe and North America, for our ostentatious celebrations of empty “landmarks.” A columnist lamented that: “Those who should be laying out the framework for reconditioning our minds are too busy over-celebrating underachievements, too busy building castles on the ground for themselves and in the air for the people.” (Ogunlesi, 2013:25)

    Although Nigerians can be aggressive when their national pride is wounded, most suffer from “culture cringe” – inferiority complex – that makes all things foreign superior or more attractive. Anything foreign seems fine, if not better than ours. Foreign degrees, foreign accent, foreign spouses and elaborate wedding ceremonies in foreign lands (Dubai, the UK, the USA, etc.) have now become status symbols.

  • Nigeria’s cultural tapestry and challenges of development – 2

    Returning to our earlier reference to the American cultural tapestry, it is necessary to clarify an important point – the mosaic combines diversity with a dominant, defining national culture. In the American case, the dominant national culture encompasses the predominant values shared by a vast majority of the people and which drives official policies, as well as corporate and individual action. According to Weaver, regardless of their diversity, Americans hold certain values or aspirations dear, such as emphasis on individual achievement, class mobility and distrust of an overly powerful central government, a common language (though Spanish is a second official language in many states) and standing united behind the Stars and stripes – the national flag. The emphasis on personal achievement, which fuels social mobility, is illustrated by the habit of the average American introducing him/herself by what s/he does for a living rather than by his/her family background or origins. Hence, according to Weaver, it is usual for an average American to tell a stranger his name and profession – that is what they do – while for a Nigerian, for example, the likely emphasis would be on his state of origin, lineage or some other reference to who s/he is.

    There are, of course, exceptions to this generalization. It only goes to show what premium each society places on indices of identification and recognition. Americans also share a rejection of the monarchical form of government, given the experience of the first immigrants from Europe, and the glorification of rugged individualism that accords more with republicanism. This extends to a suspicion of “big government,” captured by Henry David Thoreau’s maxim: “less government is better government.” Again, there are exceptions to this general rule in times of national crises, such as wars and economic depression. I am not painting a utopian picture of America, which has its own Achilles heels in gun violence, youth delinquency and institutionalised racism, just as other nations grapple with their own challenges.

    What can be deduced from the experiences of the United States and many other countries is that it is that public/civic culture, the aggregate of the shared values of the people(s), as articulated in daily life and subscribed to by their leaders and ordinary people that shape the fortunes of the nation itself. Consequently, national character that flows from such shared values largely determines the social, political and economic fortunes of the people.

    Many people steeped in the idea of a Nigerian diversity characterized by ethnic-based cultures assume that there is no dominant pan-Nigerian culture, to which a large number of Nigerians subscribe and which defines our national character within and outside the country.

    The post-independence history of Nigeria has been dominated by certain key events, including the systematic and sustained subversion and bastardisation of the democratic system in each of the first and subsequent republics; civil war and prolonged military rule; various ethno-regional irruptions; and the mismanagement of the country’s natural resources, especially, crude oil and natural gas. These events shaped what I have termed the country’s national public culture, which has largely determined the fortunes of the country. My position is that it is those elements of our public culture, much more than any foreign imperialist or neo-imperialist agenda, that account for the Nigerian situation. These traits in Nigerian daily life constitute the sinews of Nigeria’s anti-developmental public culture.

    Constituents of Nigeria’s Anti-Developmental Public Culture

    Regardless of protestations to the contrary, public culture in Nigeria is dominated by most, if not all, of these features. Due allowance may be made for the contexts in which Nigerians live or operate. An attempt will be made to give historical depth to these features by citing examples from Nigeria’s post-independence history.

    It is an understatement to declare rapine or systemic corruption to be the chief defining feature of Nigeria’s anti-developmental culture and the greatest threat to the corporate existence of the country. The scale or quantum has grown exponentially since independence. In the First Republic, the scale of corruption was apparently limited by the quantum of resources available for plunder, and by the relatively more developed public spiritedness of the leading political leaders of the era. Nevertheless, it was not unknown. Even the corrupt governors and ministers of the Gowon era (1966-75) appear saintly compared to their more rapacious successors. So rife and systemic has corruption become that things have become worse with each passing regime since the Second Republic of Shehu Shagari, which eventually collapsed under the weight of profligacy, corruption and electoral malfeasance. The cancer of corruption and political sleight of hand became systemic and symptomatic of the Babangida regime, which was largely associated with the “settlement” culture. Abacha’s brutal regime superintended the looting of the till leading to the flight of billions of dollars into overseas bank accounts, much of which is still being traced.

    The “settlement culture” manifests in two ways. The first one is: “don’t ruffle feathers, just suck it up, let’s cover the shame, let’s forgive and forget, and let’s pretend the evil never happened so as not to expose our friend or our man/brother.” We enjoy sweeping dastardly acts under the carpet in the name of settlement. The other type of settlement culture is that there is no case that has no price. Hence, you hear people talk of “name your price” and this has gradually become a way of life for Nigerians.

    Yet another is the culture of pathetic patronage. Family and associates pester persons who have just been elected into office for corrupt patronage. Undue pressure is mounted on public office holders to pay back financiers (so-called political godfathers) after elections. Contracts are awarded after every election to people who lack the technical competence, managerial experience or resources to handle the projects. Abandoned contracts are never probed, and released funds are never recovered because of our culture of “not opening old wounds,” best described by the story of three proverbial monkeys: “see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.” Consequently, public money now grows wings in billion-naira scams. No nation has ever developed under the albatross of the purloining of the public purse.

    • Professor Olukoju, FNAL delivered this paper at the Nigerian Academy of Letters 2013 Convocation Lecture.

  • Nigeria’s cultural tapestry and development– 1

    Culture and Development are two of the most difficult concepts to define as there are probably as many definitions as the number of writers on the subjects. It has been suggested, for example, that there are “at least four contested definitions of culture.” (Nurse, 2006:35). These are:

    • a developed state of mind (when we say, for example, “s/he is a cultured person”)

    • the processes of this development (with reference to “cultural interests” or “cultural activities”; or, Wallerstein’s distinction between “production cultures” and “consumption cultures” – Nurse, 2006: 38)

    • the means of these processes (“the arts” or “humane intellectual works”)

    • “a whole way of life” or “a signifying system” which provides a lens through which society or a social order is reproduced, experienced, communicated or explored (Nurse, 2006: 35, citing Williams, 1981: 11-13)

    “Development,” too, is open to diverse definitions, and it is better described than defined. According to Said (2004:9):

    development is a historical process through which human beings choose and create their future within the context of their environment to achieve a humanist and creative society. It is concerned with the dignity of the individual that level of self-esteem and self-awareness that is secure and self-accepting and the restructuring of the institutions and culture of society to support such ends.

    Generally, development encompasses the physical, material and spiritual changes in society which produced consistent improvements in the wellbeing of the people. But while the steady and consistent growth of the economy, improvements in lifestyle, educational standards and technology are quantifiable and measurable, intangible things such as emotional well-being, cannot be quantified. Hence, development is relative, contextual and non-linear.

    What is of immediate importance is the relationship between the two. Informed opinion holds that culture and development are interwoven. According to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO):

    Development interventions that are responsive to the cultural context and the peculiarities of a place and community, and advance a human-centred approach to development are most effective, and likely to yield sustainable, inclusive and equitable outcomes. (UNESCO, 2012: 5)

    Hence, since January 2012, culture has been included in 70 per cent of the UN Development Assistance Frameworks. (UNESCO, 2012: 3, note 2)

    In general, culture may be said to be key to development in the following areas. First, as a contributor to the global economy, tourism is one of the fastest growing business sectors. Cultural tourism accounts for 40 per cent of total world tourism revenues. Second, investment in culture-related activities has revitalised the economies of major cities, which utilize cultural heritage and cultural events to improve their image, attract investment and visitors amd stimulate urban development. Third, culture-led development has also facilitated greater social inclusiveness and rootedness, innovation, creativity and small-scale business enterprises. Fourth, culture has also been critical to sustainable development. Indeed, it has been described as the fourth pillar of sustainable development. (Nurse, 2006) Fifth, sound knowledge and application of local culture has built trust between development agencies and local end users, and ensured a proper insertion of new technologies and ideas into local contexts. Sixth, culture aids development by the acknowledgement of the virtues of cultural diversity and respect for individual human rights, and the promotion of sustainable environmental management practices. Finally, inter-cultural dialogue has also prevented or/and mitigated conflicts, and protected the rights of marginal and minority groups. (Akinyele, 2013)

    Culture and Development: Diversity as Recipe for Disaster?

    “Diversity” as a rubric covers disparities in cultural values, gender, ethnicity, age and religious beliefs, among others. A dominant narrative in scholarly and popular discourse is that diversity is necessarily conflict-ridden, that it is in/of itself a recipe for friction and disharmony. History is replete with struggles by various nation-states to manage their problematic cultural or ethnic pluralism, which has generally hobbled national development. A notable exception has been Penang, the most ethnically (that is, racially) diverse State in Malaysia, where “ethnic solidarities and inter-ethnic connections rather than conflict, have created stability over long periods of time.” (Evers, 2012) “High and increasing diversity,” with the arrival of more immigrants to Penang, it has been noted, “poses a challenge for good governance, but also provides the basis for the upcoming innovative knowledge-based economy and society.” (Evers, 2012)

    The negative valuation of diversity in politics contrasts sharply with its utility in management theory, which makes it a positive force in business. Hence, “diversity management” serves a positive role as an attribute in business. Big organizations deliberately create diverse teams to harness the potential of their pool of multi-national or multi-racial operatives for innovation and creativity. Such practices have generally engendered competitiveness and improved performance. (Evers, 2012)

    Returning to the political scene, the general consensus is that ethnic diversity is problematic and constitutes a drag on development. “There seems to be a general consensus, based on both cross-country regressions and individual country studies,” notes the leading economist Gustav Ranis, “that ethnic diversity, especially in the Sub-Saharan African context, is one of the causal factors behind relatively poor economic performance.” (Ranis, 2011:3)

    This is buttressed by numerous studies on the connection between diversity on the one hand, and conflict and economic crises on the other.(Goren, 2013) However, there is a debate over which of ethnic polarisation or ethnolinguistic fractionalisation (ELF) inflicts greater damage on economic development. In a well-cited article (Collier and Gunning, 1999), it was claimed that ELF alone accounts for 35% of growth deficit in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) and for 45% when taken together with some policy issues. However, Montalvo and Renal-Querol (2005), in another well-cited article, also established the connection between ethnic diversity and economic underdevelopment but attributed this to ethnic polarisation instead of ELF. Their argument was that: “Where there are social cleavages, there are frictions among social groups. When the society is divided by religious, ethnolinguistic, or race differences, tensions emerge along these divisions.” (Montalvo and Renal-Querol, 2005: 308) They pointed out that resources that should have been invested in generating economic growth were diverted into nonproductive inter-group competition. Where tension between competing groups bred instability and uncertainty, these would reduce investment. Their extensive statistically-backed analysis led them to the conclusion that: “an increase in social polarization has a negative effect on growth because it reduces the rate of investment and increases public consumption and the incidence of civil wars.” (Montalvo and Renal-Querol, 2005: 318) Other authors, such as Easterly and Levine (1997), also contend that ethno-linguistic polarisation delays or prevents quick resolutions leading to positive public policies and that it promotes rent-seeking activities, undermines trust, raises transaction costs and has an adverse effect on development. (Ranis, 2011)

    In terms of nation-building and governance, a popular solution to diversity (where ethnic groups live together in a defined geographical space, such as a nation-state) has been the adoption of the federal system of government, which has many variants. However, federalism or unity in diversity, has never been universally popular. Indeed, it has been debunked as aggravating, rather than ameliorating, the knotty situation. There is the school of thought that parlays the myth of Africa’s precolonial cultural unity and peaceful co-existence, and advances a narrative that it was colonialism that made diversity a veritable avenue to political instability, so pronounced in most post-independence African countries. Colonialism or, more generally, imperialism has been fingered as the critical culprit in the underdevelopment of Africa, exploiting the fault-lines of ethnic diversity.

    • Professor Olukoju, FNAL delivered this paper at the Nigerian Academy of Letters 2013 Convocation Lecture