The Nation Newspaper

Category: Jide Osuntokun

  • Politics, race, ethnicity and tribe

    Politics, race, ethnicity and tribe

    Broadly speaking, there are four major races in the world namely: white/Caucasian, Mongoloid/ Asian, Negroid/ Black and Australoid according to Carleton Putnam who acquired some measure of fame and notoriety for writing a book with the title of Race And Reason in which he argued that blacks are inferior to whites and that they need not live together or attend same schools in the USA. This book was published in 1961. He of course was not the only author who wrote on the place of race in politics. This issue has a long historical gestation since the 19th century.

    The issue of race and politics reached its apogee with Adolf Hitler who industrially murdered six million Jews during the Second World War between 1939 and 1945. But the issue will just not go away. There are politicians today who built their careers on race baiting. These characters are found predominantly in the Western world of Europe and the Americas both North and South.

    In Britain in 1963, we had Enoch Powell, a retired Brigadier in the British Army intelligence and later a professor of Classics in one of the British universities and a minister in the Conservative government of Harold MacMillan and later as shadow minister of defence in the Conservative Party of Edward Heath from 1965 to 1968 who raised the scare of war between English people and Indians in his Wolverhampton constituency if the government did not stop Asian immigrants coming to Britain. Nigel Farrage is building on this legacy and he adroitly used the fear of immigrants in forcing Great Britain out of Europe, a policy which may affect Britain negatively in years to come. The recent rioting in England is a variant of the racial reaction against non-white peoples in England which does not augur well for racial harmony and understanding in modern Great Britain’s society.

    Variants of refusal to accept immigrants into European society are found in the Netherlands where the party of Geert Wilders   has become probably the largest party in the country on the account of its championing anti-immigrant proclivities and on wider canvas in France in the National Rally of Marine Le Pen which is perhaps the party of the future of France. This kind of tendency is seen in Hungary under Viktor Orban who has been prime minister for almost a decade and an avid supporter of Donald Trump’s nationalist (MAGA) Republican Party in the USA. The Rightist racism is in saddle in Italy only moderated by the feminist apparel of Georgia Meloni is of the same variety only masquerading as a Conservative Party while celebrating the ideas of Benito Mussolini.  The “Alternative” openly racist anti-immigrant party in Germany because of the history of the country poses a much more fundamental challenge to peace in the country. The Alternative party of Germany is destined to be the second national party in Germany eclipsing the Social Democratic Party, SDP which has become very unpopular since coming into power with the GREENS and the LIBERALS after the 16-year rule of Angela Merkel. If this party were to come to power in Germany, the political history of Europe will take a different trajectory from what it has been since 1945 which may take Western Europe into direct potential conflicts with aggressive Russia. We might see a resurgence of the kind of the 19th century struggle between pan-German feelings and pan Slavic struggles for domination of Europe based on some spurious racial competition.

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    The racial feelings of superiority of the whites over the rest of mankind is assuming dangerous proportions  as manifested in Trump’s Republican Party in American domestic politics and dangerously in its foreign policy. Were Trump to become president again after the November 4 election, his politics and politics may pose serious threat to the stability of the world. His refusal to accept the rise of China and, the general refusal of America to accept the inevitability of Union of Taiwan with Mainland China and its threat to defend Taiwan in a war with the mainland is a sure recipe for the liquidation of the world. Even though this policy is not that of Trump alone but that of the two parties, the Democratic and Republican parties and are basically a variant of inability to accept the equality of the Chinese and white American race in what Professor Samuel P. Huntington called “clash of civilizations”.

     Race has always been a dominant theme in American domestic and foreign politics. George Wallace’s third party attempt in the 1960s and 1970s to capture power was rooted in white racism. Nothing really has changed since then. The only difference is that overt racism is now not generally tolerated but the feelings are still the same. This is why Trump would say he prefers immigrants from the Scandinavian countries rather than from “shit-hole countries” in Africa. Donald Trump’s statement that Haitian immigrants are capturing and eating people’s dogs and cats in Springfield Ohio is coded words aimed at the black racial background of his opponent Kamala Harris. Using racism to demean opponents is as American as apple pie.

    Racism has risen sky high in America since what we all thought was progress as manifested by the Obama presidency. But according to President Jimmy Carter, it has only exacerbated racism in America. It has now risen exponentially since Donald Trump entered into presidential politics in America and no one knows how it will end but it is only likely to end in tragedy.

    It is of course not the western world alone that is afflicted by racism and indeed it is all over the world in one form or the other. The feeling of white superiority is a product of western colonial and political dominance over the world in the 19th and 20th centuries. That feeling is also the product of European white slavery and the slave trade in which whites saw Africans as property to be sold used and discarded and dispensed with when no longer needed. The white mentality continues to hark back to this sad period of history. This was what largely influenced the policy of apartheid in Southern Africa and the aftermath of it can still be seen in race relations between blacks and whites in South Africa. Racial arrogance is at the root of relations between Arabs and Africans in the Sudan and Egypt and between groups in Ethiopia where the lighter you are, the more preferred you are for political appointments unless you belong to the group in power.

    Even though Palestinians are Semites like the Jews, the Israelis do not consider them as equal. If they did, they would not be slaughtering them like they are doing in Gaza and the West Bank with America weapons of war despite the protestation of the whole world. In this case, race has become defined as religious differences rather than the usual biological differences because it will be difficult to find any biological differences between the Palestinians and the Israelis.

    In Asia generally, religious differences are the underlying racial or tribal differentiation.  The current prime minister of India, Narendra Modi, built his movement on the primacy of Hinduism over Islam as well Hindu India’s supremacy over Muslim Pakistan. The Pakistanis, Indians and Bangladeshis and allied groups like the Nepalese and Sri Lankans are basically the same but separated by religions of Hinduism and Islam. Relations between Indians and Pakistanis are as strained as if they belonged to different races and at a time it seemed probable that two countries could fight using nuclear weapons against each other to the horror of the whole world.

    Sometimes tribal differences replace in Asia and Africa racial differences in the western world. Tribal politics in Africa are as condemnable as racial differences in other parts of the world. The injury this does to economic and political development are huge and sometimes incalculable. If this problem is not tackled on the African continent, the place is doomed to political instability and economic underdevelopment and possibly to collapse.

    What it is to be done?  With increasing knowledge of the common threat to mankind presented by global climate change and environmental degradation and need to protect a common heritage, man may be forced to realise a common humanity. This has to be based on research of human biology archaeology and interconnected history of human evolution and development away from social and political demagoguery. The United Nations should be strengthened to defend the humanity of all men. A development based on shared prosperity should be embraced and not the current unity of the horse and its rider. It is obvious that we all seek the best for ourselves and our children. We all want to live in decent buildings and move around without difficulty and be in positions to take care of ourselves when we are ill. A world of shared prosperity is attainable if we work at it. Peace is the basic desiderata of development and mankind that wants to explore the space should first conquer our habitat earth.

    Unfortunately feelings about racial, tribal, religious differences will never disappear but they need not be a burden to us. Let us recognize our differences and try to live with them, after all, the differences between us and animals is that we are endowed with reason and we are in a position to know that why we are different. The subject of race is complex and it is not easily defined.  Many people nowadays prefer to talk about the human race despite external mostly skin pigmentation and or physiognomy. All people of whatever race or colour or religion are currently classified by anthropologists as belonging to one species, Homo sapiens. Because they are common species, they can intermarry and interbreed and they share as much as 99+% in common genetic materials which mean division of mankind into different races is subjective.  We may be black, brown, yellow or white outside but we are all red inside.

  • Latest China-Africa summit

    Latest China-Africa summit

    Recently 52 or so African heads of state and government assembled as they do annually in Beijing to meet with President Xi Jinping in a one-way dialogue in which the Chinese are presented with a list of requests on developmental projects spanning civil and military spheres of life. Most of the African countries are already indebted to China and they are not really in positions of serious binary negotiations. Sometimes the African countries are just like Oliver Twist asking for more and more without understanding Chinese oriental mentality of asking for their last pint of blood from them and their children when their loans mature.

    Orientals are generally not in the habit of forgiving creditors their debts. It is not just in their character and I am afraid that Africans will in future learn to their own detriment that the Chinese like other Orientals are incredible task masters not because they are wicked but because it is in their blood. There is no free lunch anywhere in the world! Whatever loans the Chinese are giving out now will be collected with interest in future or assets will be seized when the debtors are not able to pay. The experience of Sri Lanka which took generous Chinese loans for the development and modernisation of their ports and when they could not pay, the Chinese simply seized the ports in lieu of the money owed.

    I hope the African states will open their eyes when taking Chinese loans or any loans at all because they are not grants. Many of the projects the Chinese funded like the TANZAM railways running from  Zambia to Tanzania  built  between 1970 and 1975 like the “UHURU RAILWAY “ is now not running  and is virtually out of commission and has gone into a state of almost total disrepair and is being repaired with another loan of $1 billion provided by the Chinese. In our own case in Nigeria, the Kaduna- Abuja railway has been rendered hors de combat because of terrorists attack and bureaucratic thefts and it thus cannot pay its way. The Lagos-Ibadan railway is hardly a tale of success and the Azikiwe airport to Abuja runs fitfully and not always and only God knows the fate of the Kano- Katsina- Zinder railway all built with Chinese money. The intercity railway in Lagos stands to succeed if the bureaucratic shenanigans and corruption are minimised.

    The problem of these railways is that only sections are complete. For example the Lagos-Ibadan railway is the southern portion of the line going to Kano. Without its completion, it can hardly be expected to pay its way. We also have the problem of Nigerians not willing to pay for infrastructural modernisation because they think government owes them a living! Toll roads and bridges are objects of protest and damage in Nigeria whereas in the civilised parts of the world, people are made to pay for new roads, railways and other means of modern transportation and communication. There is a need for civic education to inculcate into our people the primary responsibility of citizens to pay tax. 

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    Bill Gates on a recent visit to Nigeria pointed out that Nigerians do not pay taxes. Of course it is generally known that only salary earners pay taxes while business people hardly pay taxes no matter how wealthy they are. They simply bribe their ways through. The complaint is that taxes are routinely stolen. I am afraid we have come to a point  in our country when we have to put our feet down and say no more stealing and police the state to prevent arrant looting after all thieves are people not spirits. If we are serious we can do it. China that we run with begging hats and plates in hand to was one of the most corrupt societies in the world. China and India used to struggle with each other about which country was worse than the other until China of Mao Tsetung decided to deal brutally with any rogue pilfering from state coffers .Anyone pilfering was met by bullets. People sat up and this severe retribution continues till today. Until we do this, corruption will continue until it destroys this country. The China we all run to borrow money was within my lifetime abjectly poor until the Chinese revolution in 1949. The country continued to engage in life and death struggle with poverty until Deng XIAOPING took power and ruled the country between 1978 and 1989 and completely transformed the country from being in the backwoods of development in the world into what it is today the second most powerful country in the world, second to the United States and on the cusp of overtaking it in the next decade or two, all things being equal. The phenomenal development of China within a living memory should be what our people should try to emulate. Borrowing money and opening our markets to all kind of junks was not the Chinese way to development. The way the Chinese mobilised its huge population for development should be an example which a country like Nigeria should follow rather than importing all kinds of Chinese goods into our country. Instead of wasting our time and the little money we have on constitutional debates and writing and rewriting our constitution, we should take our ploughs, hoes and cutlasses and go to farms with the aim of not only feeding ourselves but the rest of the world as Americans do.

    I am opposed to all the presidents of Africa queuing up in foreign countries to beg for assistance when we are endowed with available land, sunshine, water, air, minerals underneath the earth, flowing water that can be harnessed for hydroelectricity. It is not just the perennial trip in Beijing that I am opposed to; I am also opposed to all African presidents going to Paris as begging children every year for France. The same goes for the similar phenomenon in London, Washington, Tokyo, New Delhi, Berlin and Madrid and who knows when even puny Lisbon will follow. These African rulers will fly in their executive jets costing millions of dollars to purchase to beg for money which is sometimes not up to the cost of their planes.  We are told that the Chinese is sharing $50 billion among the 52 African states assembled in Beijing. This means some of these presidents would go home with less than $1 billion when prorated. It just doesn’t make sense when the monarch of Britain, heads of state and government in Germany, France, Spain, and Italy rents planes from their national airlines when they want to fly and make an impression. No one can begrudge the United States, Russia and even France for using executive personalised aircraft’s for  their trips abroad, after all, they make them and can afford them without borrowing or breaking the backs of their people to buy them.

    If there is need for all African countries to meet with these powerful countries for assistance, let the AU decide that as from now onwards. African ambassadors would represent their countries in bilateral relations one-on-one and if they have to be met as a collective, there should be no problem and for the countries that have no ambassadors in these major capitals, they should be represented by neighbouring countries ’ambassadors or those of regional organisations like Economic Community of West Africa- ECOWAS or SADC or such regional bodies. This annual jamborees reminds me of what the late President George Walker Bush said about such international jamborees. He said the smaller countries speak longer than the bigger and more important participants representing important countries and that their long speeches are simply ignored. I hope this is not the case with these African jamborees simply providing comic relief for the government leaders of busy and serious countries!

  • Stop messing up with education of our children

    Stop messing up with education of our children

    Between the Federal Ministry of Education and some states, we are hearing pronouncements on educational policies that give us citizens some concern especially parents and those who are seized with the question of the education of our children and grandchildren and about the educational trajectory of the country. The Federal Ministry of Education shocked the whole country, by issuing a decree, as if we were in a military regime, that children under 18 should not be allowed to take JAMB university entrance examination and those below certain age should not be allowed to take the Senior School examination. Also Lagos State suddenly announced it was converting the College of Medicine in its university into a University of Medicine. These two developments gave me worry and if some of us don’t speak out, these two authorities will think they are doing the right thing.

    The federal minister of education who made one of these announcements is totally wrong. First of all, education is still on the concurrent constitutional list on which both the federal and the state governments have jurisdiction. I am waiting for any state government to challenge this federal announcement because it is wrong. No government should be able to tell parents whether their fast learning children should be arbitrarily restrained from entering a university because a minister says so, or should a minister be able to restrain a child from taking senior school leaving examination which is a prerequisite for sitting for JAMB examination. If this policy holds, parents would be forced to asking their children to take Ordinary and Advanced level examinations of external examination bodies in order to give their children opportunity to enter universities. In this way, the minister would have found a market for external examination bodies to the detriment of the local ones.

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    In places like Canada and the United States, children enter universities with different state qualifications not a unified homogenized qualification like in Nigeria. There are smart children who get first degrees in Harvard and Oxford universities in their teenage years because they are gifted children and it doesn’t seem as if our own regimes make allowance for such gifted children because everyone is brought down to the lowest pedestal of the average and dullest people in the country.

    I pray that this action of the federal minister of education would be challenged in the courts for clarification and also in order to protect the interest of smart and precocious children who have no voice in what amounts to abridgment of their educational progress.

    The idea of University of Medicine began in Ondo State where a so-called university of medicine domiciled in a rented section of the Adeyemi College of Education in Ondo State for years before apparently having its own campus. When this unique institution was established, I asked then in this paper what this university of medicine was all about. Can medical students be trained without knowledge of basic sciences like Physics, Biology and Chemistry? Certainly these medical students would  be expected to go through basic sciences in which case the university of medicine would have to have departments of basic sciences and also Biochemistry, Physiology and Anatomy, knowledge of which are critical to the study of medicine. In modern medical schools, students are expected to have knowledge of the sociology of the country within which their knowledge will be practiced. Education nowadays tries to widen the knowledge of students outside the narrow confines of the specialized fields of study. This is why a university of medicine should be part of a developed comprehensive university, not an isolated university of medicine. Even if there are universities of medicine in the developed countries, must we blindly copy them without their level of development and the resources available in such countries? Since the Ondo example, the federal government has in the last few years established such universities of medicine in Oturpo, in Benue State and another one in Ila-Orangun , Osun State presumably to honour Brigadier-Gen. David Mark and Chief  Bisi Akande  who are political bigwigs in the country without counting the cost of such establishment even when other old dilapidating federal institutions are collapsing.

    One also wonders where medical teachers are going to be found for these universities of medicine. There is no surplus of such teachers in Nigeria or anywhere as far as I know. In the case of Ondo State, it is not even able to fund its universities of technology in Okitipupa, Owo and its premier university in Akungba. The technical equipment and structure for such a highly specialized university of medicine can only be purchased in forex-denominated currency. Is it with the billions of naira that will fetch a mere million dollars that they would use to fund this so-called university of medicine?

    A poorly trained doctor armed with the scalpel to perform surgery will be a licensed murderer. By the way, what happened to Muhammadu Buhari’s University of Transportation in Daura? Recently the Customs Director-General announced his department was about to announce a university of Customs and the Department of Immigration is ready to roll! Not to talk about different arms of the military! The university idea has become a joke in Nigeria.

    When Lagos State announced that it was setting up a university of medicine this October, I said to myself here we go again. The reasons adduced for it were shortage of doctors in state hospitals because of resignation of their doctors for foreign appointments. The state did not say people went elsewhere because of poor remuneration but we the people know this is what happened. We all know the reason why doctors are fleeing the country is poor wages and emoluments. The announcement by the Lagos State governor went further to state that the new university of medicine would graduate 1500 doctors per year.

    I asked myself whether the institution would just be told to go and graduate 1500 doctors as if it were a factory. What will be the size of 1500 graduating medical university? Where are the teachers that would graduate 1500 doctors? This is simply impossible and if it is possible, these brand new doctors would be poorly trained physicians. None of the old medical schools in the country can graduate a third of such figures annually. This is not a solution to the problem of resignation.

    For the sake of argument, would the new doctors be tied down by shackles to the hospitals? I have not heard of universities being set up like this before. Was there any study done about the feasibility of this enterprise? Even with the acclaimed resource endowment of Lagos State, it will not be able to fund adequately its new university of medicine along with recently established universities of technology, of education and the old LASU which is not adequately funded.

    State governments should not just jump into the running stream of establishing universities on the whim of the chief executive. States concerned with the health of their people should provide potable clean water and embark on programs of preventive medicine rather than poorly conceived establishments of universities of medicine. Universities that are universities are serious enterprises. The federal and state governments should have deep thoughts about  establishing new universities when it can hardly fund the current ones. It is indeed time for the federal and state governments to roll back some of the mushroom universities that they have established in recent times.

  • Sitting with Osuntokun – 2

    Sitting with Osuntokun – 2

    By Samuel Akinnuga

    One of the characteristics of great leaders is the ability to produce (mentor) even greater leaders. I should expect that applies to those who become professors. And for those who earn the honour of emeritus professor, it must be a given. Osuntokun has a bragging right in this respect. Let me put it this way: he’s had a bountiful harvest from his sowing in this field – distinguished academics of note in the fields of history and political science that he taught at one point or the other. Again, I beg the reader’s pardon for sticking purely to academic fruits and leaving out those who are active in the field of politics. To be fair, one of the professors I mention below ended up in politics but it’s his credentials as a professor that earned him a place on the list.

    From his time at the University of Ibadan (Jos Campus): professors Ehiedu Iweriebor and Sonni Tyoden; University of Lagos: professors Abayomi Akinyeye, Hakeem Tijani, Taiwo Akinyele, Femi Adegbulu, David Aworawo, Abolade Adeniji, Victor Ukaogo and late Armstrong Adejo; University of Maiduguri: professors Kyari Mohammed and Ademola Adeleke. Some of them became vice chancellors, for example, Tyoden (University of Jos). Others like Akinyele (Maranatha University) and Mohammed (Nigerian Army University) are currently serving. Talk about impact!

    Prof and I then discussed leadership for a while. When I asked which leader made the greatest impression on him as a young man, he started by making comments about the triumvirate of Zik, Sardauna and Awo. To him, Zik was “a very impressive man.” He continued: “I admired Zik’s intellect…he was thoroughly educated in the Western sense. He was a nationalist to the core. He was well-read and would often add spice to his speeches by quoting some obscure author. He was loved all over the country, even in the major cities and towns in the old Western region.” He admired Sardauna for his practicality and far-sightedness. “Sardauna was a practical and far-seeing man. He was one of the people who appreciated Awo’s viewpoint on federalism, not on principles per se, but to protect the interests of the north.” And then Awo. Of the three, “Awo made the greatest impression on me. I admire his steadfastness, discipline, commitment and hard work. He was honest enough to admit at the time that Nigeria was a geographical expression, realistic enough to appreciate our differences and understood that the best way to harmonise these differences was to have a proper federal government.” With respect to discipline, “he was able to discipline himself and his followers. He made it impossible for any of the ministers in his government to own more than a plot of land in the government reserved areas.” Osuntokun should know this. His elder brother was Awo’s minister in charge of the Ministry of Lands and Housing.

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    Speaking on the impact of his leadership, he continued: “Awo was a visionary. His foresight gave his people a head-start with the free education policy. I was a beneficiary in Class 6; benefitted for one year before leaving for secondary school.”

    While this part is really about looking forward, I guess an emeritus professor of history cannot resist the itch to look back. In his reflections on the country’s mistakes of the past, he holds the view that “The coup of 1966 destroyed the basis of a federal union in Nigeria. And it has worsened. There is so much bitterness in Nigeria. By creating more and more states, we have made things worse. Politics should be domiciled in the federating units. What we have now is a situation where development plans and other important matters are centralised, leaving no room for individual initiative.” Osuntokun was quite effusive at this point. He believes that the right system in place can be effective in curbing the excesses of public (and even private) officials. As he put it, “The corruption in this country is because no one is ever punished. If punishment is swift, corruption would be minimised and bad behaviour would be reduced.”

    In his message to the young generation, Osuntokun harps on impact and making a difference: “Wherever you are, try to make a difference. Whatever assignments you have been given – in public or private – try to lay a good example. Let people see that you have something to offer. Do whatever you have to do to make sure you have an impact.” From this point, the teacher in him took over: “If you are a lecturer, do not be absent in your classes, prepare well for your lectures. Students will be happy to come to your class if they know that they’ll learn something new. As a teacher, assess dispassionately; do not have favourites and do not collect money from your students. Let people remember you for being fair.”

    He then touched on the point of uprightness and courage: “Be upright, if we all are upright in this country, even the economy will pick up. Young people should be upright. And they should also speak up when things are going wrong. This can come at a price but it is worth it. Some of us were incarcerated for speaking up without any trial. Whoever finds himself in a position of leadership should always speak truth to power.”

    Osuntokun also had a message or two for those in public life, or those who are preparing for a role in public life. His view is that “they should read biographies of successful leaders around the world. Whoever gets to the top would have paid the cost. If you are a leader, look at what others have done in other countries. The sad thing is our leaders don’t read. Even the memos that are written for them, they don’t read them.” He goes on in his charge: “Please familiarise yourself with what is happening in the world. The world is a global village. Align yourself with positive developments around the world.”

    When he spoke at this point, I could tell that the comments came from a deep place, almost as though he was suddenly reminded of the cost of leadership failures and found himself comparing the disparateness of what used to be and what is. Hear him, “In my youth, we used to have public water in our houses but all that is now history.”

    I end this with his own words:

     “As a historian, I’d like to suggest a few things like it is done in the US. You cannot become a citizen of the USA without knowing the history of the country. You have to know about the history of the country before you can be a leader. Many of our leaders are absolutely ignorant about our own history. I recommend that citizenship training should be introduced in our curriculum. We are in a situation where our young people know more about the histories of other developed countries and cities than the history of their country.”

    I am 100% with Osuntokun on that. If our own leaders don’t know about their own country, what then can they really give? Please think about that for a moment.

     And that’s it! What more can I say? Thank you, Emeritus Professor Akinjide Osuntokun, OON, FNAL, FHSN, Baapitan Oyo.

    •Concluded!

    •Akinnuga is executive director, The Adeyinka Adesope Foundation.

  • Sitting with Osuntokun

    Sitting with Osuntokun

    • By Samuel Akinnuga

    I have written about “Osuntokun” twice in the last two years. The first was a tribute in 2022 when he turned 80. The second was another tribute some four months ago when he was acknowledged with an award for his contribution to education in Nigeria. It’s different this time.

    I got to know Prof as a final-year student. I mean, to know him closely enough to be welcomed in his office whenever he was around. I’d often stop by during breaks between classes and we’d talk for hours (many times) on end about literally everything. At the time, I had the privilege of serving as president of the students’ association and his counsel on a number of issues pertaining to leadership and my experience was instructive. To listen to him share from his experience was a great honour. George Clason frames this inclination best when he points out that “when youth comes to age for advice, he receives the wisdom of years.” The “wisdom of years” and his kind remarks have been the biggest gift I have received.

    Between Prof and I is an age difference of more than five decades. For older readers to get the picture, let me put it this way: Prof had already served out his tenure as ambassador before I was born. He was already in his fifties at the time. In spite of this age difference and his fatherly stature in my life, I still relate with him as a friend. I see Providence at work in our relationship. 

    Many people would do almost anything to get their youth back, mostly out of a desire to go back to do a few things better. While that is impossible, I believe that if one had lived a life of meaning then the privilege of growing old is a gift. I find myself leaning towards this view by Viktor E. Frankl in his best-selling classic – Man’s Search for Meaning: “There is no reason to pity old people. Instead, young people should envy them. It is true that the old have no opportunities, no possibilities in the future. But they have more than that. Instead of possibilities in the future, they have realities in the past – the potentialities they have actualised, the meanings they have fulfilled, the values they have realised – and nothing and nobody can ever remove these assets from the past.”

     Let’s begin.

    We talked about his upbringing, education, successes, regrets, faith, friendships, mentors, family, love and so on. I asked most of the questions in such a way that he would be required to give a list of three things. Of course, some questions were much easier, for example, when I asked for the three people (he actually named four people) who had made the most significant impact in his life; other questions, not so much. He had to dig deeper to find the answers, for example when I asked him to mention his three best friends through life.

     The conversation began on a jovial note:

    For the longest time, I’ve been curious about why his nephews and nieces call him “Uncle Johnson” – a name he dropped many years ago. I know this because I hear it every time I’m invited to a family function. For the first time, I asked him why this was so. He laughed, and for a moment tried to explain the situation using the ‘Baba Oko’ concept, which is common among the Yorubas. What typically obtains is that a wife would not call her husband’s brothers (or very close male family members) by their names without the prefix – ‘Broda’ – mostly as a sign of respect even if she is much older. And so, despite the considerable age difference between him and his brothers, their wives – in the typical Yoruba style – would call him “Broda Johnson.” Since he had been called that since he was about eight years or so, the implication is that their children – his nephews and nieces – called him “Uncle Johnson.” Decades after dropping the name and keeping only his Yoruba names, “Uncle Johnson” stuck.

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     As we spoke about his relationships, it became clear that his best friends were people he met in his formative years. When I asked him about his three best friends through life, I wasn’t expecting that to be a particularly difficult question, but there was some struggle. After a little while, he mentioned Goke Adeniji (whom he met as a young student in Ibadan Grammar School); Gboyega Okusanya (whom he met in Christ School) and Ike Nwachukwu (whom he admitted he is “quite fond of”). I remember General Nwachukwu saying about Osuntokun at his 82nd birthday reception in April that he is “someone we can trust.” He went on to say: “I can say that I trust you…and you’ve never failed me.”

    Our decisions define our lives. He could have very well been a lawyer. In fact, he was offered admission to study law at the University of Lagos in 1963, but opted to study History at the University of Ibadan. More than 20 years later, he would join the University of Lagos as a faculty member in the Department of History. He had a good run there. In 2014, he was honoured as an Emeritus Professor of History in 2014 and was similarly honoured by the Redeemer’s University (where he retired) in 2016.

    When I asked him about the people who had the most significant impact on his life, a part of me was expecting that he would mention some prominent people of his time who were in public life, but no, they were all academics. His teachers made the greatest impression on him, viz: Professor J.F Ade-Ajayi; Professor John Flint (from his time as a doctoral student at Dalhousie University); Professor R.J Gavin (who tutored him and his peers for his “Special Paper” as it was then known at the University of Ibadan) and Professor Jibril Aminu. He specially acknowledged Professor Aminu’s role in his first public service appointment. He was privileged to serve as Overseas Director of the National Universities Commission (NUC) in Ottawa, Canada, and later in Washington DC, from 1978 – 1982. Other opportunities to serve would come after. He would go on to serve as Special Adviser to the Minister of External Affairs, 1988 – 1990; first Nigerian Ambassador to a reunited Federal Republic of Germany, 1991 – 1995; 10-time member of the Nigerian delegation to the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA); member of the five-man presidential advisory council on international relations, 1999 – 2015; amongst other opportunities to serve the nation. As he reflected during our chat, he believes he gave a good account of himself. The records are there.

    I believe every man has some regrets. That’s why I asked him about his regrets. Prof was honest. He wished the only woman he ever had a relationship with was the woman he married. That was not the case. Upon giving his life to Christ, he restituted.

    We talked about the high points of his life. I asked him to mention three things he is most proud of. The conversation happened over the phone. I wish I could have seen the look on his face. He shared: “I am most proud I became a professor. I wanted to be like my professors.” I am happy to have married the girl that I loved. I am also very proud of my children who are doing well in their different careers.” Some of his students have gone on to lead distinguished careers. He mentioned some names, but I’ve chosen to withhold the names of the most prominent ones who ended up in politics. Anyone can tell that Redeemer’s University (RUN) enjoys a special place in his heart. He happily shares: “I am most delighted by my RUN friends. They are shining everywhere they go.”

    I end the first part of this series with another personal admission. For many years, he had to deal with a perception some of his contemporaries had of him as an arrogant person, particularly when he ran for the vice chancellorship of the University of Lagos, but he explains, “I’m just shy. Introverted. Unless I know you very well, I don’t socialise.”

    • Akinnuga is executive director, The Adeyinka Adesope Foundation (TAAF).
  • Social and political rebellion in Nigeria and UK

    Social and political rebellion in Nigeria and UK

    Almost around the same time at the end of July till August 10, there were demonstrations going on contemporaneously in Nigeria and the UK particularly in England and Northern Ireland but not in Wales and Scotland. The demonstrations against tough economic situations in Nigeria were concentrated in the northern parts of Nigeria while there were scattered eruptions in the south. This is because the poverty in Northern Nigeria is more severe than in the south not because the present government wanted or caused it but because of historic reasons of aversion to western education and resultant opportunities and consequent greater impact of unemployment and poverty.

    In the UK, the protests were concentrated in more economically deprived and depressed areas like Liverpool and the Midlands while the urban areas like Manchester, Birmingham and London were spared. The protests in England began after the killing of three young white children in a school by a deranged 17-year old boy whose parents came from Rwanda. News went round that he was a Muslim boy presumably from Pakistan or an Islamic country. This was the signal for general uprising in several pockets of land in England and Northern Ireland with the rising war cry of “Pakistan go home” directed at the large Asian communities in the Midland and South East England. Happily the urban centres were spared. The people doing this were mostly the small shop keepers, rural poor and the unemployed who have been left behind by the fiscal measures of 15 years of conservative governments. They found the immigrants as scapegoats because they are visible minorities and as targets, they were easily identifiable and were physically attacked.

    Hotels harbouring asylum seekers were targeted and some were burnt. Their places of worship like mosques were torched. Once mobs became mobilized against foreigners, everyone was vulnerable including students from foreign countries. The new prime minister, Sir Keir Starmer who had had prosecutorial background took on those after the immigrants. He empowered the police and the courts to do their jobs and put rioters and vandals behind bars. The rioting went much longer than anybody would have expected but gradually the work of the police and the courts worked and the attacks on the immigrants began to simmer down.

    The reason for this social and political revolt was due mostly to misinformation spread by people using the internet to peddle rumours about the coming of Islam to their homesteads. This led the prime minister to say that proper legislations will come before parliament on how to control incendiary propaganda using the internet. Secondly the new Labour government has promised to put measures in place that would take care of social and economic deprivation that had festered during the years of Tory rule. Finally, the new government is ready to tighten the screw on the loophole on immigration to ensure that immigrants do not constitute a nuisance to society. 

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    To rub it in, Senator JD Vance, the vice presidential running mate to Donald Trump, the Republican presidential candidate recently on a visit to England disparaged the government’s efforts on immigration by saying Britain is going to be the “first  Islamic  country with nuclear bombs”, forgetting that Pakistan already has the bomb. His comments were not helpful because it casts Britain as a helpless country overrun by Muslim fanatics. This is of course far from the truth but this is the kind of statement that people like Nigel Farage and his UK Reform Party would twist and run with, thus firing up anti-immigrant hatred. This has had direct impact on immigrants coming to the UK particularly students in large numbers from India and China and some from the Middle East and Africa with consequent reduction in resources available to British universities which benefit from international fees paid by foreign students.

    Many doctors, nurses and other workers in the care sector of the National Health Service are staying away from the UK which people see as an unfriendly place prone to violence. The riots have therefore damaged British reputation at home and abroad and destroyed Anglophile sentiments among students who are future leaders of countries which found British education useful.

    The demonstration in Nigeria was against grinding poverty, insensitivity of the politicians who, while calling on the people to tighten their belts because of the serious economic problems facing the country, are not ready to make any financial sacrifices. They give themselves humongous salaries and allowances and financial perks that make them look as if they were in a different country. Many of them have conditions of appointment that make the mouth water.

    Knowledgeable people of course know the country is almost bankrupt but the lavish consumption by the political elite make them bitter opponents of government policies to the extent of wanting to want to bring the edifice down on their heads. Unfortunately, many of the demonstrators have been edged on by failed politicians who might have been cheated and manipulated out of the greasy financial benefits of political and public appointments. The rest of the crowd of protesters were disillusioned patriots, regional and religious bigots who seemed to feel they and nobody else must be at the helm of government. These people were those who were shouting in Sokoto at the palace of the Sultan calling on the military to seize power as if the military has a magic wand to solve the serious economic problems facing and destroying Nigeria.

    One of the things I do not understand was the fact that even before the commencement of the protests, the government showed defeatist and helpless posture which was unlike what happened in England. It is after the whole thing died down that we are beginning to hear in muffled voices about investigation of the rioting that accompanied what was said to be a peaceful protest.  The waving of Russian flags calling on Russia to take over their country was most concerning. It is however remarkable that throughout the protest, the army was not deployed in large numbers on the streets except as means of deterrence in one or two places. Casualties were also kept low and it seems food prices are beginning to come down not necessarily because of government measures but because harvests are gradually coming to the markets to drive down the cost of food. Throughout the period of demonstrations, very little was said about the role of subnational governments of the state in tackling some of the problems facing the ordinary Nigerian. What we kept hearing is what the president has done or not done as if there are not 36 state governors in the country.

    As far as I know, Nigeria remains a federation of coequal governments each with its own area of jurisdiction and economic status and responsibility. This has led to the subnational governments having a free for all kind of corruption and squandermania with little or no control or oversight by the puny state legislatures that are mere structures rather than serious organs of government.

    The emphasis this government is placing on local government administration (LGAs) will even compound the problem with replication of what is going on at state levels at the local government level. If this happens, perhaps the next protest will not be national but state and local in concentration.

    I have heard all kinds of panaceas being suggested by armchair economists who say instead of grandiose capital projects like Lagos-Calabar express road and Badagry-Sokoto express road, government should concentrate on feeding the people. The question one would ask is after eating what next? Has it occurred to people saying this that the projects would employ hundreds of thousands of people and would open up the country for development and production thus leading to an increase in national wealth? It is not the duty of government to feed the citizens; rather what government should do is to provide security and inputs for agricultural production and transportation facilities to move goods around. Our governments in the last decade have not been able to do this and the government can be charged with dereliction of its duties and responsibility. This is a legitimate charge and government should work hard to fulfil its duty to the people. It is very unpopular to say that we need to be patient and allow government policies to work towards their end goals. Of course, government must not expect the people to wait for ever.

    The demonstrations in England and Nigeria at the same time have clearly shown how interconnected the global economy is. The people in England are protesting against higher costs of food and accommodation and are pointing wrongly to immigrants as the people causing the problem. Generally in Nigeria, the people are pointing accusing fingers to the government and people in power while forgetting their roles in bringing their country down. We are all guilty in differentiated degrees whether in England or Nigeria. The solutions to our problems must be well thought out and application of the preferred solution must be gradual and not abrupt. Calling for revolution is cheap and unintelligent and some lawyers and members of the intelligentsia playing revolutionaries may find out that revolutions tend to consume their own children.

  • Sports as important part of cultural Diplomacy

    Sports as important part of cultural Diplomacy

    Sports have replaced the old fashioned way of spreading influence but not power as was the case with force of arms in the past. Everyone knows the traditional way of state relations by diplomacy and war can be very expensive. It is so expensive that not all states have diplomatic representation in many parts of the world. Poor states and not-so-poor states have to rationalize their diplomatic representations according to their means. This is why states with little financial muscles restrict their representation either to their key economic and trade partners and in some cases to the United Nations itself and countries where its special agencies are located like New York and in the case of specialized agencies like Geneva where the World Health Organisation, WHO is located or Vienna where the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) or Washington DC where the International Monetary Fund (IMF) are located to mention a few.

    The idea is to rationale resources so that personnel of a regular embassy can also liaise with agencies of international organizations. Diplomatic representation is meant to represent government-to-government views on bilateral relations and happenings in the global arena for the purpose of coming to the same approach on issues of global peace and understanding among nations.

    Countries have found ways of promoting international understanding outside the normal protocols-ridden diplomatic relations. One of this instruments of promoting global relations and understanding is cultural diplomacy in which sports, literature, drama, music, art, museums, fashion and the whole gamut of cultural displays play significant role in fostering human relations and understanding even if sometimes imperceptibly.

    The ongoing Olympic Games in Paris and its winter variant just as the World Cup in soccer provide nations opportunities to show their accomplishments in relation to one another. Looking at the competitors, the way of their dresses, and their patriotic representation of their countries and their defence of their national flags, it shows the strength of their nations.  Politics is divorced from the games whether it is the Olympics or World Cup officially but we all know that politics is present in any international celebrations that bring the world together. It is therefore a pity when some countries are noticeably not adequately represented.

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    The Arab countries are noticeably not adequately represented and when they are represented at all, it is by what I will call hired athletes mostly from sub Saharan Africa. Women from these countries except Morocco are also absent and so is India vastly underrepresented. With a population of 1.4 billion people, one would want to see India take more robust part in the Olympics and global soccer competition. The reason for this near absence of these countries may be cultural when it concerns particularly their women folk. The role of religion, particularly Islamic countries, may be responsible for the low presence of most of these countries including countries with majority or substantial Muslim population like India, Pakistan, Indonesia, Afghanistan, the Arab countries and Nigeria too. One noticeable poor performance at the current Paris Olympics is Germany which in the past commanded noticeable attention in previous Olympic Games.

    The eastern part of Germany, the former GDR, used to command much attention by the number of the gold medals it won before its merger with Western Germany after unification in 1994. The number of gold medals the GDR used to win was only second to the USSR in communist Eastern Europe. It seems German sports including its soccer team is in downward spiral these days. The situation in Nigeria, the most populous country, is simply deplorable. One wonders why the Ivory Coast and even the Gambia are prominently represented in the sprints than Nigeria. Unlike the poor show of Nigeria, Kenya, Uganda Botswana and Republic of South Africa are massively represented. The few athletes representing Nigeria are poorly clad and from a layman’s observation, poorly trained and poorly coordinated. They are also too few compared with our population. It seems some of the Nigerians who show up for international sporting representation are those from Nigeria’s diaspora. This is not totally wrong because other countries do it but the dragnet is not wide enough to reach all the good ones who might want to carry the national flag as proud Jamaican athletes resident in the United States do.  I am sure if we have a programme targeted at them they will respond.

    We also need to brush up our governance system to make Nigerians resident abroad proud enough to want to carry our flag inside or outside the field of play. This is very important because people who are not at home yearn to see their sportsmen and women showing class and beautiful performance that they all can be proud of. Nigerians in the current Olympic Games are by their name recognition are representing Great Britain, the United States, Canada, the USA, Italy, even the Philippines and several Arab countries. This means that people are being attracted by either money, better training facilities or promise of future if not present employment opportunities.

    One of the noticeable things in these games is the universal presence of black and people of mixed race in countries that had no colonial contacts with Sub Saharan Africa. There are such people representing not only American, Canadian and European countries but countries in Asia like the Philippines, Japan  and Australia which gives the impression that despite the rise of racism in the world, the global population is increasingly being mixed and in a hundred years’ time, people will become more mixed than they are now.

    What should Nigeria do to recognize the importance of cultural diplomacy like sports for the future? Sports are not the only relevant thing in cultural diplomacy. There is a wide spectrum of cultural achievements like cultural artefacts, literature, drama, films and all aspects of cinematography, music and dancing and all the intangible manifestations of cultural achievements that we should share with the world to show the indigenous level of our civilization before contact with the outside world. Our government should, like other countries, encourage our authors to write about Nigeria and we should subsidize the publications so that they can be sold outside our country. Promotion of sports and supporting sports men and women can be expensive. We need to put in place the source of revenue for sports which will not be affected by the vagaries of rise and fall of annual budgets. Tax deductible funding of sports by the business sector of the economy can be a way of getting adequate resources.

    Other countries have monthly lotteries which yield large sums of money if well and honestly managed. Sports are huge sources of funds for domestic income and for generating massive employments for young people. It’s a win-win situation. We can use sports to promote the interests of the country cheaply which the traditional way of doing it expensively cannot attain or achieve. The kind of positive publicity countries gain through active participation in global sports meeting is too much to be underestimated. Investment in sports by all countries including the poor ones yields inestimable dividends at the end of the day. Nigeria should pay more attention to this aspect of cultural diplomacy now and in the future.

  • Season of regional development commissions

    Season of regional development commissions

    In recent times, it has become fashionable for the Nigerian parliament to witness motions demanding the passage of bills about regional development commissions purporting to facilitate and accelerate regional development in Nigeria. First it was the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) that justly attracted notice because of the role of oil and gas in Nigeria’s development and the corrosive effect of their exploration and exploitation on the Niger Delta environment. So it definitely made sense in view of the cry for development in the Niger Delta and the political pressure put on the government that it must put something back in the region that holds the wealth from which the whole of Nigeria benefits from.

    Unfortunately, the history of the NNDC has not justified the targeted development focus on the Niger Delta. This is because the operation of the NDDC has been marred by rampant corruption and outright looting worse than in the country generally. Those in control of the management of the funds meant for the NDDC seem to feel they have the license to do whatever they want to do without any sense of accountability. This is the feeling of the general public outside the Niger Delta who watch the display of the various shenanigans and bad faith and outright roguery during various investigations and commissions of enquiry into the sordid operations in the Niger Delta now and in the past.

    No one is sure if other Nigerians advocating for special development outfits for their zones feel it is their turn to follow the sordid example of the Niger Delta by getting or forcing government to set up special vehicles for the development of their region so that they too as “sons” or “daughters” of the region can have a go at the funds supposedly set aside for the development of their region. It is a general mania in Nigeria for people to feel that public funds belong to nobody but to those lucky enough to be charged with the responsibility of managing it. Nigerians are generally interested in sharing the so-called “national cake” but not in baking it.

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    After the destruction and rampage of the Boko Haram terrorists and the other copy cats terrorists in the Northeast and Nigeria generally, it was easy to come to the conclusion that terrorism was the result of poverty and underdevelopment in the region.  This is despite studies that the phenomenon of terrorism is not directly linked to poverty because very rich young people from Saudi Arabia and Arab oil producing countries got involved in terrorism particularly in the USA and the West and in the recent caliphate of Abubakar Al -Baghdadi in Iraq and Syria in recent times.

    Our parliament and the government felt compelled to set up a North Eastern Development Commission (NEDC) to facilitate and accelerate development in the area presumably to show concern for the poor people in the region and to prevent them from following the terrorists in feeling that joining the apparently misguided rebels into the terrorist groups was the way of solving their problems of economic and social deprivation. Since setting up the NEDC, it was felt necessary to set up one for the equally challenged north-western part of the country.

    Members from other zones of the country are gearing up to table motions for special focus on their zones since it has been rightly conjectured that there is money to be shared! One such legislative effort going through parliament at the moment is about the Southeast. One of the reasons for this as argued by one of its proponents is the need to obliterate memories and signs of the civil war in the area. After almost half a century, if a new commission is necessary to wipe out the memory of the civil war, one wonders what the various states and the federal government have been doing since then.

    What is driving this movement to set up development commissions in all the zones is because the various state governments have shirked their responsibilities as agents of development. This failure is evidenced by the rural urban migrations into state capitals and into massive migrations to Lagos and Abuja by young people with reportedly 60% of new graduates coming to Lagos every year in search of jobs and thus aggravating housing and general urban problems.

    The question to ask is where the funds for these commissions would come from. If they are to come from the states in the zone, there will be no debate. But if the funds are to come from the federal exchequer, then there will be a problem of constitutionality.  If every zone gets a development commission funded by the federal government, the amount of money left in the federal purse for allocation for its own services and money left in  the distributable pool will be reduced while those regions now having development commissions would have had economic advantage in terms of available resources for development.  This may eventually lead to the challenge of constitutionality by the ever litigious horde of lawyers looking for cases of adjudication. This probably would not matter if the commissions’ funds are used for development and not for bureaucratic purposes and infrastructural outfit, logistical support for the work of administration with the people for which commissions are set up not seeing any benefit.

    If the states are not performing as they should do and there is need for another administrative structure to do the work of development, is this not a justifiable reason to look at the structure of the country and have zonal administration with the present states serving as units of administration with reduced bureaucratic outfit of bureaucrats and commissioners and permanent secretaries and so on and so forth? Our parliament passing all these laws establishing the regional development commissions should be bold enough to challenge the federal government to restructure the country along existing zones of six zones and if there is need for more zones call attention to it. The funding of the zonal governments should be stated in detail instead of the welter of commissions being set up without clear statements about funding them except the impression that federal funds are inexhaustible.

    The question of setting the economy of Nigeria far away from over dependence on oil and gas should be at the forefront of every discussion of creating new departments, ministries and commissions. This should be the time of merging departments and ministries to save costs. The question of cost of governance has become an urgent issue. The 774 local government administrations and 36 states and Abuja constituting a financial drain pipe should attract attention before our parliament’s penchant for establishing new institutions and departments. 

    Nigeria, if one must state the fact, is over administered! This  should lead us to begin to merge existing outfits because of prudence and cutting cost of management and administration and this should  include the universities and higher education institutions set up in the last one or so decades. Merging them would not only save costs but would strengthen their overall performance. The task of government at all levels  should be  moving Nigeria away from being mere commission agents of international oil and gas companies to a country of industrial production and manufacturing and export. This should be the government’s priority rather than duplication of administrative agencies and departments and running them from ever diminishing oil and gas receipts in a world moving away from dependence on hydrocarbons. More so in a world overwhelmingly challenged by problems of global warming and environmental degradation.

    This should be the credo of this government and all other governments coming after it rather than setting up administrative units and asking them to generate funds for their own running. We must put Nigeria on the pedestal of rational governance and orderly development. Passing bills and assenting to them by the president is easy, but developing the country and putting Nigeria where it should be as a shining star on the African firmament should be the aim of our government and those given the opportunity to contribute to the process of governance.

  • U.S. presidential election and the rest of us

    U.S. presidential election and the rest of us

    One has always wondered why the whole world is seized with the question of who becomes president of the United States after their coming presidential election in November. Those of us from the peripheral parts of the world in the so-called third world are particularly concerned for several reasons.

    Let me begin from the pedestrian level that everyone can understand. There is a large Nigerian diaspora in the United States on which some families depend. These are children or grandchildren with strong family ties in Nigeria who fear what Donald Trump may do to them if he becomes president once again. He had described African countries and Haiti as “shit hole” countries whose nationals should be banned from the United States or deported back to their “huts” from beautiful American cities. Unlike Trump, President Joe Biden actually appointed Nigerian-Americans into the second tier of ministerial positions in his government. It is clear that people who know the difference between the Republican and the Democratic parties know where their bread is buttered. This is not to say the Nigerian diaspora in the USA is a monolith going only in one direction because there are some Nigerians who believe that Trump is God-sent to save them from Islamic fundamentalism threatening to run them and their religion down. While this group is very few, but it appears they genuinely believe in their position. In other words we in Nigeria and perhaps in Africa are interested in American politics for apparently selfish reasons.

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    From this rather domestic platform, we can now interrogate reasons while the whole world is concerned about American politics. From the First World War between 1914 and 1918 and its aftermath, America has remained pivotal in global politics. Indeed the League of Nations, the forerunner of the United States arose out of the fertile brain of the then American president, Woodrow Wilson. Although America did not remain in the League for long because of domestic American politics, the League nevertheless remained the first attempt at international government. America actually came to global prominence and dominance after the Second World War in 1945. It was the only nuclear power with the ability to deliver it on enemy territory anywhere in the world up to 1949 when the Soviet Union joined it in the nuclear club.  This military dominance is also reflected in the primacy of the American dollar as a reserve currency. The American dollar has remained the reserve currency of the world since 1945.  For a long time, one could talk about “dollar imperialism”. Until recently, the whole world works to earn dollars, the printing of which only America controls while most of the other currencies are only legal tenders in domestic and in restricted colonial empires of certain European countries.

    Even now after the disappearance of the European empires, neo-colonial economic ties still remain binding the former empires to their erstwhile metropoles. The so-called third world remains the satraps of their former colonial masters where for a while they kept their foreign reserves but even though this has been superseded by the desire to trade with the rest of the world using the dollar rather than the pound sterling for example. Most of the commodities, whether minerals like coal, copper, petroleum, silver, gold,  diamonds, bauxite (aluminium), iron, cobalt etc. and agricultural commodities like cocoa, maize, timber, wheat, rubber, alfalfa, coffee, tea, coconut, soya beans and so on are all priced in dollars. The use of dollars as reserve currency has gone on for so long that efforts to have other currencies like the Euro and recently the Chinese Yuan have not really gathered the same kind of force behind it. The reason for this apart from the productive capacity behind the dollar is the military, financial and scientific force America controls. The dollar as reserve currency has been in use for such a long time and it has become convenient that even though people would want a global currency that the global community controls, this would take a long time to fashion out.

    Despite the fact that China, the second biggest economy and military power in the world has emerged, they also take keen interest in American politics because Chinese prosperity in the past at least, partly depended on access to the huge American market to the extent that the two economies prosperity are curiously intertwined. The other players in the field like Russia since the collapse of the USSR are not at the same global level with the United States. Japan’s big economy which like that of Germany and the whole of Western European economy was built from the ashes and rubbles of destruction following the Second World War largely from American money and technology and the ingenuity of their people. Many of these countries still feel beholden to America and follow keenly the ups and down of American politics. They all seem to believe that the American nuclear umbrella covers them.

    For a considerable time, the entire Middle East just coming out from under British imperialism quickly replaced this with the overwhelming domination of American giant oil companies in Saudi Arabia, Iran and strategically, Egypt because of its control of the Suez Canal. American investors are critical in the rise of India too and even though India appears close to Russia, this is just to appear as a non-aligned state in the old ideological 1960s non-aligned movement because of American military closeness with Pakistan.

    The point I have been making is American tentacles are all over the world built since the end of the Second World War and through the Cold War and even up to now to a situation in which you either love or hate America but you cannot ignore it. This is why American politics is global politics because whoever controls the country and the policies he or she enunciates have global implications and consequences for us all.

    This is why the whole world was worried about the feeble performance of President Joe Biden in the presidential debate with his opponent former president, Donald Trump, a performance that appears to have handed the future presidency to President Trump with dire consequences for the rest of the world. Trump before even being elected has said he would expel all illegal immigrants back to their countries. Nobody knows the meaning of the “illegal immigrants”. This could mean all those turning American society into a racially plural country and not necessarily recent arrivals in the country. Trump also has embraced an isolationist foreign policy in which a fortress America would be built and would follow a strictly conservative policy of trade restrictions with other countries especially China and even the European Union. He would follow a transactional foreign policy in which American protection would be based on financial payments. South Korea, Japan, Taiwan and possibly the oil rich Middle East and even Europe would have to pay for American Defence. Immigration to America would be strictly controlled to favour people from the Nordic countries and other Lilly white countries in Europe. This kind of foreign relations will obviously not augur well for world peace because it will follow strictly American interests with no ideological or moral underpinning.

    This fear was what made Americans with different views of the future of their country to pile pressure on President Joe Biden to step down in the presidential contest since it had become obvious that he was too old to offer Trump a serious challenge. The failed assassination attempt on Trump by a deranged 20-year old nut who was quickly neutralized by the Secret Service operatives, drew more sympathetic support for Trump and elicited the urgency of the Democratic Party to find a new candidate to face Trump in the November presidential election. It therefore came as a relief when President Joe Biden finally acceded to demands of critical elements in his party by stepping down just a few weeks before the Democratic Party convention in Chicago.

    The question now is who the Democratic Party would pick to replace Biden.  President Biden has suggested his vice president, Kamala Harris. This has gathered political momentum, but her candidacy comes with considerable weakness of being seen as a continuation of the Biden administration which many Americans see as  weak and subordinating American interest to that of Israel particularly in the Middle East and causing inflation at home because of its throwing money at many problems without factoring in their inflationary consequences. Whether this view is correct or not seems to be generally held by critical sections of the American intelligentsia. Whatever the case may be, the Democratic Party by not fielding Biden in the forthcoming coming election has a fighting chance of winning the presidency or not totally being wiped out as it would have been if Joe Biden had stubbornly held to the ticket to run.

    The candidacy of Kamala Harris, I am afraid  to say, may still cause the party to lose because, I am not sure the United States is ready for a woman president whether white or black. Since President Barack Obama’s presidency or because of it as stated by President Jimmy Carter, the United States has become more racially conscious than before and fielding a black candidate and a woman at that may be assuming too much liberalism of the American electorate.

  • On recent elections in parts of Western Europe

    On recent elections in parts of Western Europe

    It was that 18th century  judge and philosopher, Charles Louis de secondat Baron de la Brede et de Montesquieu who once said system of government is climatically determined and that people in the tropics are more or less doomed to experience autocratic governments while those in the temperate zones are more democratically disposed. He was better known for his writings about separation of powers into the legislature, executive and judiciary as the secret of democratic stability. His theory he claimed was arrived at from the study of history and therefore empirically determined.

    We course know that all societies, depending on their size and historical experience can enjoy any form of democratic governance as long as they are not driven by any ideological determinism. Democracy can also be defined in such a broad way that many current systems of government would pass some of the democratic tests. Nowadays, the western monopolistic definition of democracy seems to be what is universally acceptable especially in the Lincolnian form of a government of the people by the people for the people. The Athenian roots of this definition derived from the government of the city of Athens which seems limited in the sense that direct democracy is today not practicable. Even in Athens, participation was limited to free citizens while foreigners and slaves and women were excluded.

    After a long time of trial and error, democracy is now defined as representative democracy based on periodic elections. To function properly, the roles of political parties are fundamental. Political parties help to bring together people of the same ideas about how states should be run sometimes based on certain ideologies. These ideologies usually embrace certain economic ideas ranging from free enterprise  or what is usually called laissez faire economics  first enunciated by Adam Smith in his book the “Wealth of Nations” which embraces the freedom for individuals to make as much money as his or her talents permit  within an organised polity. But many definition of democracy now embraces social and economic responsibility of the state to its individual members.

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    The extreme form of this is based on the Marxian praxis in which contribution to the economy is based on one’s ability while society’s responsibility is based on one’s need. This ideological utopia has not really worked anywhere, certainly not in the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, Cuba, Vietnam, nor is it likely to work in China where lip service continues to be paid to the communist ideology of what is called the “people’s republic” while in practice, they are operating some kind of gerontocratic state capitalism. In other words, democracy of government of the people by the true representative of the people meaning the communist party and for the people is seen as people’s democracy.

    Who is going to judge which one is correct between the free for all in the United States and the “guided democracy” of China? There is much to say for what is derisively called guided democracy because the concept of the Plato’s philosopher king is not alien to western philosophy. For after all, governance is about people. A governance system as in China that can lift hundreds of millions of people from poverty to the middle class within a generation cannot be far from government of the people for the people. What is now clear is that for democracy to work, there must be a system of fair and credible election in a society where the rule of law prevails and where there is a civil service or bureaucracy recruited on merit embracing the French revolutionary idea of “careers open to talents” or what its enemies derisively call “the deep state”. This civil service provides continuity in government and offers advice impartially to whatever new government that emerges after a fresh election.

    The role of career civil service is so fundamental to the proper working of any modern democratic state that with government coming and going like revolving doors, the state always remains.

    Of course, not all democratic states like the idea of a permanent bureaucracy. Sometimes, some democratic states want to bring into government new hands rather than relying on old civil servants who have loyalty to no one but the state. It is usual for the “deep state” in this regard to be criticised by neo conservatives who look at it as unelected apparatchiks wielding power to the detriment of those elected by the people through the electoral process.

    Whatever criticism that may be levied against states permanent bureaucracy, they have become critical in continuity of governance and not only in democratic states but even in non-democratic states. It must be clearly stated that the civil service role cannot be underestimated.

    Peaceful transfer of power as happened in Great Britain could never have happened if there were no fair and credible elections organised by knowledgeable bureaucrats. The seamless and credible conduct of elections in both France and Great Britain this week has demonstrated the reason for peaceful transfer of power in democracies that not only have ancient traditions of political fairness and civic behaviour.

    Imagine what could have happened in France if the Rassemblement Nationale of Marine Le Pen was not satisfied with the French parliamentary election of Saturday July 7 in which there was the fear that France was about to abandon its tradition of equality of people (egalitarianism)) for some woolly racism in which one was judged not by the quality of one’s character but by the pigmentation of one’s colour? At the last moment, the French electorate that a few weeks ago had voted for the parties of the Right  in European-wide elections now swung to the Left and Centre when France’s political shift was beginning to be interpreted as rejection not only of other European countries and the EU but also of La Francophone idea. What the Right now regard as a gang up by the Centre and the Left to deny them the premiership of France would not have been acceptable but for the non-partisanship of the strong civil service or the “deep state”.

    The democratic tradition was better and dramatically displayed in the recent British election of July 4. The results of the election the following day gave the opposition Labour Party a majority of 412 seats to the Conservative Party’s 121 seats. In the first pass, the post system of elections rather than perhaps the fairer proportional representative system in the continent of Europe, this was a massive electoral victory. Once the results came in, there was no dispute whatsoever, no running to challenge the results. The results were accepted with resignation and equanimity. The then sitting prime minister, Rishi Sunak, the first prime minister in Britain of Indian descent, addressed the press in front of 10 Downing Street and told members of the press that he had phoned earlier to congratulate Keir Starmer, the leader of the Labour Party and the coming prime minister. He praised the British people for their generosity of spirit and racial tolerance which allowed a man of Indian ancestry to become their prime minister and ended by describing his successor as a decent man who is his worthy successor and that he was in the British tradition going to Buckingham palace to tender his resignation to King Charles 111 who technically and constitutionally appointed him. As soon as he said this, he drove to the palace accompanied by his wife in the prime minister’s car led by despatch riders. The king received him in the privacy of his office in the palace and apparently wished him well. Whatever the two said traditionally remained private.

    The new prime minister to be drove in by another gate to the palace to “kiss” the hand of the king who appointed him as prime minister. Once this was done, he drove to the official residence and office of the prime minister at 10 Downing Street where he addressed the press and went in to assume the office of prime minister and gradually began to appoint members of his government. Within 24 hours, the previous prime minister had left the official residence without any fuss about being allowed to disengage in a leisurely fashion. This is the most beautiful thing about the British political tradition. There was no hiatus of months and days characteristic of American and African or pointedly Nigerian system. There is no question of writing “hand over notes” because the civil service is up to date about government business. The whole world can learn a lesson from the British about democratic transition and continuity of governance and government.  If we in Africa are to develop, we must remove rancour from our electoral system and inculcate fairness and transparency into our electoral system and have a civil service that is neutral but committed to public good. Elections must not be opportune moments for members of the legal profession to use their technical skills to make huge and humongous amount of money and make judges rather than the electorate choose who rules them. It is important to note what Marquis de Montesquieu said about judges arrogating to themselves the role of the electorate when he said “There is no greater tyranny than that which is perpetrated under the shield of the law and in the name of justice” Above all, those elected by the people must see themselves as being given opportunities to serve and not to steal in such a way that there is total disconnect between the electorate and the elected as has been the situation in Africa.