This venture is commendable and long overdue. It has credibility by virtue of its very concept.

While not in support of the current power elite, please extend an invitation to some of the major players in the field if you have their e-mail addresses. We need to hear from them, to know how they think or why they do or did the things they did. Most of them I suspect (and I hope I am wrong) would be too busy to engage in such meaningful discussion. But that would also be on record in the archives.

Please tell OBJ I have a few questions for him; Atiku too as well as IBB. Marwa says the military ought to dominate our politics, I wish to debate him, if he does not consider himself too high to debate an ordinary citizen. I would like to juxtapose his theorectical postulation that all our leaders need to have a military background with our Nigerian experience in the context of what the military did to our polity.

I am not solely interested in ventilation. I believe all leaders should to a minimal extent be analytical thinkers. The President of Nigeria would have to engage other Presidents who are lawyers, MBA holders besides their military experiences. If they cannot write for themselves position papers how would they defend their memos? We now know how much trouble OBJ got himself into because he wrote his position on Ngige-Uba Saga himself. Analyst have a field day breaking down his mindset and unwraping him now. We need to restrain the incompetent from hiding under our historical past and representing that they are the best Nigeria has to offer. 

We also want to know the mind of the current set of leaders or Power elite as stated by themselves. When they visit or are guests at functions, they are not doing the poor folk a favor when they read an empty speech signifying nothing. While we intend to change the structure and function of government, we need to re-educate the current practioners that they are not Feudal lords but servants to the people. We need to start now before they think it is their Party that is boss.

From: Kennedy Emetulu <kemetulu@...> Reply-To: TalkNigeria@yahoogroups.com To: TalkNigeria@yahoogroups.com Subject: [TalkNigeria] A WELCOME Date: Thu, 6 Jan 2005 10:24:25 +0000 (GMT) A WELCOME Fellow Compatriots, fellow Africans, fellow citizens of the world and well-wishers of Nigeria, welcome to TalkNigeria, a forum dedicated to positive action. So much waste is going on in our country right now and in the world around us that we just have to acknowledge it and provide solutions, as citizens or friends of the country and citizens of the wider world. TalkNigeria listserv is billed as a phase in the beginning of genuine discussions already going on amongst peoples of the world in various forums. The www.talknigeria.net website is in the pipeline and it is ideas from this listserv that would determine the use to which we put it to. We are not going to make promises or aspire to what we won’t do. Primarily we are exploiting the power of the word; where it takes us in form of action, we will be lawful, democratic and fiercely protective of the inalienable rights of man on the face of the Earth. We are Nigerians, from a particular portion of the earth; we are Africans from a particular portion of the earth and we are also indigenous populations elsewhere around the world. We are everywhere in Diaspora, but at least we can communicate with words, with reason, in true spirit of patriotism and responsible international citizenship and freedom. The listserv is yours to treat as you will treat your own; as the list grows, let us begin to talk. Let us do without the insults and the abuses; let us say what we want, as strongly as we would want to say it, but with decorum, politeness, civility and robustness. Words do not kill - no one here is going to melt away because some faceless monster on the net or elsewhere ‘verbally’ abused him/her; but it would be nice not to get that far. We should all agree that we will not be compromising on decorum and that this is without apology. Welcome. --------------------------------- ALL-NEW Yahoo! Messenger - all new features - even more fun!

 

 

 

 

http://www.number-10.gov.uk/output/Page6873.asp

 

BLAIR AND BROWN ON UK’S AFRICAN AGENDA

 

 

 

Rigbo,

 

How you dey?

 

 

 

akinboyejo akinola <boyejoakinola@...> wrote:

Are you there? Good morning Kenoaba. Just checking my
mails. Will get back to you soonest.
Rigbo


--- Kennedy Emetulu wrote:

>
>
>
>
>
> A WELCOME
>
>
>
> Fellow Compatriots, fellow Africans, fellow citizens
> of the world and well-wishers of Nigeria, welcome to
> TalkNigeria, a forum dedicated to positive action.
> So much waste is going on in our country right now
> and in the world around us that we just have to
> acknowledge it and provide solutions, as citizens or
> friends of the country and citizens of the wider
> world.
>
>
>
> TalkNigeria listserv is billed as a phase in the
> beginning of genuine discussions already going on
> amongst peoples of the world in various forums. The
> www.talknigeria.net website is in the pipeline and
> it is ideas from this listserv that would determine
> the use to which we put it to. We are not going to
> make promises or aspire to what we won’t do.
> Primarily we are exploiting the power of the word;
> where it takes us in form of action, we will be
> lawful, democratic and fiercely protective of the
> inalienable rights of man on the face of the Earth.
> We are Nigerians, from a particular portion of the
> earth; we are Africans from a particular portion of
> the earth and we are also indigenous populations
> elsewhere around the world. We are everywhere in
> Diaspora, but at least we can communicate with
> words, with reason, in true spirit of patriotism and
> responsible international citizenship and freedom.
>
>
>
> The listserv is yours to treat as you will treat
> your own; as the list grows, let us begin to talk.
> Let us do without the insults and the abuses; let us
> say what we want, as strongly as we would want to
> say it, but with decorum, politeness, civility and
> robustness. Words do not kill - no one here is going
> to melt away because some faceless monster on the
> net or elsewhere ‘verbally’ abused him/her; but it
> would be nice not to get that far. We should all
> agree that we will not be compromising on decorum
> and that this is without apology.
>
>
>
> Welcome.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ---------------------------------
> ALL-NEW Yahoo! Messenger - all new features - even
> more fun!




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Umar,

 

>>>Thanks and I hope I will be able to contribute towards the goals which this forum was created for.<<<

 

 

Thank you for expressing the hope and prayer of each and every one of us here.

 

tanimu umar <tanimuu@...> wrote:

Thanks and I hope I will be able to contribute towards the goals which this forum was created for.

---

Do you Yahoo!?
Read only the mail you want - Yahoo! Mail SpamGuard.

 

 

 

 

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&u=/ap/20050106/ap_on_go_co/senate_gonzales

 

Gonzales to Face Senate on Torture Memo

By MARK SHERMAN, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - Attorney General nominee Alberto Gonzales, bracing for tough questions from lawmakers about his role in the Bush administration's decision to allow aggressive interrogations of terrorism detainees, is pledging to abide by treaties that ban torture of prisoners.

Gonzales said that, if confirmed, he would abide by the Geneva Conventions' strict prohibitions against torture and all treaty obligations, according to testimony prepared for his confirmation hearing Thursday by the Senate Judiciary Committee (news - web sites).

As President Bush (news - web sites)'s top lawyer, Gonzales had a hand in much of the White House's post-Sept. 11 terrorism policies.

Gonzales, who would be the first Hispanic attorney general, faces criticism from Democrats at Thursday's confirmation hearing, especially concerning a January 2002 memo he wrote arguing that the war on terrorism "renders obsolete Geneva's strict limitations on questioning of enemy prisoners and renders quaint some of its provisions."

A month later, Bush signed an order declaring he had the authority to bypass the accords "in this or future conflicts." Bush's order also said the Geneva treaty's references to prisoners of war did not apply to al-Qaida or "unlawful combatants" from the Taliban.

Some Gonzales critics say that decision and his memo justifying it helped lead to the torture scandal at Iraq (news - web sites)'s Abu Ghraib prison and prisoner abuses in Afghanistan (news - web sites) and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

In his prepared Senate testimony, Gonzales repeated the argument that terrorists are not soldiers and so are not covered by the Geneva treaty. Nonetheless, he said, "we must be committed to preserving civil rights and civil liberties."

Bush has made clear that the government will defend Americans from terrorists "in a manner consistent with our nation's values and applicable law, including our treaty obligations," Gonzales said in the prepared testimony, obtained Wednesday by The Associated Press. "I pledge that, if I am confirmed as attorney general, I will abide by those commitments."

Last June, the Justice Department (news - web sites) withdrew its 2002 memos arguing that the president's wartime authority supersedes laws and treaties governing treatment of prisoners.

Gonzales has repudiated torture before. "The president has stated that this administration does not condone torture. If anyone engages in such conduct, he or she will be held accountable," Gonzales said in a White House online discussion on July 7.

Democrats aren't satisfied with just those statements and say they plan to question Gonzales extensively about his paper trail in crafting the government's policies on questioning foreign prisoners.

"It is clear he was in the chain receiving this critical documentation relative to changing American standards on the treatment of prisoners, so he was not a bystander, he was part of it," said Sen. Richard Durbin (news, bio, voting record), D-Ill.

John Yoo, who helped write the key memo at Justice's Office of Legal Counsel that critics said appeared to condone torture, said Gonzales and top Justice officials did not attempt to influence or interfere with the content, although they were briefed on drafts.

"The idea that the Office of Legal Counsel was providing advice that was dictated, demanded or influenced by the White House, that's just flatly untrue," said Yoo, now a law professor at the University of California at Berkeley.

Scott McClellan, the White House press secretary, said Bush firmly backs Gonzales' nomination.

"Judge Gonzales is a very trusted adviser to the president (and is) doing an outstanding job," McClellan told reporters traveling Wednesday with the president aboard Air Force One.

Even Democrats say they expect Gonzales to be confirmed. Republicans control a Senate split between 55 Republicans, 44 Democrats and one independent.

Sen. Ken Salazar of Colorado, one of the first Hispanics elected to the Senate in more than 20 years and one of only two newly elected Democrats in November, plans to introduce Gonzales at the hearing. Salazar has said he intends to vote for Gonzales.

Democrats also plan to question Gonzales on other terrorism issues, including the government's detention of Jose Padilla, who has been held for 31 months without being charged as an enemy combatant suspected of plotting to detonate a radioactive "dirty bomb" in the United States.

Other topics that Gonzales probably will have to address include the administration's more restrictive rules on releasing government documents; the proposed constitutional ban on gay marriages; and memos he prepared for then-Gov. Bush about clemency appeals for Texas death row inmates.

___

On the Net:

Senate Judiciary Committee: http://judiciary.senate.gov

 

 

 

 

 

MY COMMENT:

 

What is the value of pledging to abide by the rules or commitments only after you’ve broken them?

 

 

 

 

 

 

A WELCOME

 

Fellow Compatriots, fellow Africans, fellow citizens of the world and well-wishers of Nigeria, welcome to TalkNigeria, a forum dedicated to positive action. So much waste is going on in our country right now and in the world around us that we just have to acknowledge it and provide solutions, as citizens or friends of the country and citizens of the wider world.

 

TalkNigeria listserv is billed as a phase in the beginning of genuine discussions already going on amongst peoples of the world in various forums. The www.talknigeria.net website is in the pipeline and it is ideas from this listserv that would determine the use to which we put it to. We are not going to make promises or aspire to what we won’t do. Primarily we are exploiting the power of the word; where it takes us in form of action, we will be lawful, democratic and fiercely protective of the inalienable rights of man on the face of the Earth. We are Nigerians, from a particular portion of the earth; we are Africans from a particular portion of the earth and we are also indigenous populations elsewhere around the world. We are everywhere in Diaspora, but at least we can communicate with words, with reason, in true spirit of patriotism and responsible international citizenship and freedom.

 

The listserv is yours to treat as you will treat your own; as the list grows, let us begin to talk. Let us do without the insults and the abuses; let us say what we want, as strongly as we would want to say it, but with decorum, politeness, civility and robustness. Words do not kill - no one here is going to melt away because some faceless monster on the net or elsewhere ‘verbally’ abused him/her; but it would be nice not to get that far. We should all agree that we will not be compromising on decorum and that this is without apology.

 

Welcome.

 

 

 

Fika,

 

That’s a refreshing piece, a powerful lament! You see, there is a sense in which people believe that Nigeria is a lost cause; thus it is not uncommon to get people of diverse views, different political persuasions, different degree of knowledge and education agree on the fact that Nigeria is not working, making sound extrapolations in various areas, for instance, as you’ve done in raising the Ogbeh-Obasanjo face-off and as we are likely to do with more examples here as we discuss.

 

Yet, even in dealing with the whys and wherefores, we’ll not fail to notice that solutions have always been on the table right through independence till this day; the only problem truly, as you have also inferred, is that civil society is yet to take hold of Nigeria, their heritage, as they should, and use such powers inherent and acquired to rejuvenate society. Civil society is like the cat that walked away thus giving the rats a seemingly inviolable dominion over all things. Since the grant of flag independence, the rats in military and civilian guise have so far successfully enslaved the cat.

 

I think our duty is to find that spark to ignite civil society in Nigeria to wake up to their civic responsibility. How do we communicate to the ordinary Nigerian the fact that he/she is responsible for taking himself/herself and their loved ones out of morass they’re in, politically, economically and socially?

 

 

 

 

 

hdfika <Hdfika@...> wrote:

Some of us outside Nigeria today, may not have the right to speak
out against this charade of incompetence that permeates our
presidency, the legislature and the judiciary. But, most of us in
Nigeria today (and forgive my presumptions), only have the right to
speak if we are not dependent on the rotten political and civil
organs that control our destiny and hitherto dragging us all in to
the abyss. What an unfortunate commentary for us all. Our situation
today can be likened to that of a child who was whipped by a parent
but prevented from crying out loud!
Nigeria burns deep inside with anger and frustration over the state
of affairs at the highest levels of our government, at the same
time, we all cry with bloody tears over the realization that no one
who is supposed to protect the weak and the poor, especially one
with the means to do so, really cares or even fleetingly considers
the responsibility to do so as binding upon him or her. Our
politicians and most of the current leaders, in their most basic
line of thought and their obtuse and warped understanding, consider
the following as their honourable way of life, achievement, and
right!

They fight tooth and nail to get power wherever they can

They steal, maim, and oft kill to consolidate that power

They promise the heavens and sometimes even earth but in
vain

They are blinded with greed yet plough on - quest to
climb the tower

They always leave us in the dark eternally shrilling in
pain

They will occasionally return to our villages to see us
suffer

They will then promise us and with pennies us they
contain

They will then in our midst and miseries build their
shining tower

They will know we are gullible and continue their
criminal outin'

They will then claim our destiny - in the hands of
higher power

They will always marry and be merry while we wallow in pain

And when we cry they cheer, when we die they declare, when we sicken
they conceal, when we hunger they hoard, when we complain they
castigate, when we protest they kill, when we demand they discount,
but lucky for them, we have never said ENOUGH IS ENUGH!

THAT DAY IS… Nigeria you know.

It goes without saying that the presidency is so corrupt and
arrogant that they have all but forgotten that nobody stays at the
top forever, at least, not in the Nigeria that we know. They have
all but discounted the need to care for the common man, to act with
integrity and inculcate probity in office. The most important issue
of the day is that the chairman of the ruling party wrote a stinging
rebuke to the fraudulently hoisted president and his cronies. What
belies this furor over the letter is the fact that all Nigerians
young and old have written, continue to write, and would have
written the same cogitation as the party chairman did to the
president. The same furor erupted when Col. Umar tried to warn the
president of the impending doom that awaits our dear nation if Mr.
Obasanjo insists on continuing on this old and tired dictatorial
path. Unfortunately, the fate we were, and continue to be condemned
to, isn't the same as that of our messianic leader who does not
listen to anyone under any circumstances, until and unless his
singular power to govern without question is threatened.

It must be noted that the media also carries some blame here. I
have read four accounts of the diatribe between the party chief and
the president, and the only definitive inference I made is that the
news organs in their quest for scoops and headlines have summarily
prostituted their profession and are failing in their duty to
inform. None of the accounts I read followed any logical delineation
of the facts. Only gleeful `he said she said'.

The PDP has become the same as a neighborhood assembly of kids
ready to play a soccer game where they only have 13 players to be
divvied up into two teams. We all know that the kid who will not be
playing is the one who is the non-conformist or out of favor with
the neighborhood bully. Obasanjo is that bully, you pick the
players. Today, this `giant party of Africa' (laughing out loud!)
operates with the same rearward and elementary childish mentality
you can imagine. They threaten, suspend, remove, and destroy with
impunity all in the name of party! The PDP is now the most
destructive force in Nigeria! Its members are beyond reproach. We
have Anambra and Plateau states as proof.

Now comes chief Audu Ogbeh, who spoke some truth about the state of
the Nation and now fear has gripped the party. Those within the
party who agree with him say "we know you are right but you cannot
say something that will upset the PDP god, or threaten our exclusive
untidy harem of lying, stealing and cheating characters."
Conversely, those who disagree with him are saying, "how dare you
speak the truth in public and without our permission?" The true
picture is that the issues raised by Mr Ogbeh are those that blanket
Nigeria. With all that has transpired since this past fraudulent
election was shoved down our throats, the only complain from within
the party was from those who fell out of favor or lost their
personal pipeline to the treasury. I do not know Mr Ogbeh's motive
but I bet he did not come out in the open to save Nigeria! He is
either trying to save himself or his godfathers lying in wait.
However it ends, Nigeria always looses. But mark my words, Nigeria
will win at least once and those who stand in the way will not even
flicker in the memory of a great Nigeria.

The legislative arm of the government whose responsibility for
appropriation and lawmaking includes the power to keep the executive
in check has all but abdicated their sacred oath. The runaway
excesses of this president have put the legislature in such state of
shame that they carry less stature than that of the president's
doormat. We are inclined to assume that they might be the ones today
on international trips so numerous, they have no time to perform the
duties of their offices. The most brilliant argument I read from our
Senate president this past week was his lamentation to Mr Ogbeh
that, "From my estimation, I am of the firm conviction that
something is really amiss as to the untidy fashion you single-
handedly exhumed a long interred case. Were you hoping to replay
Lazarus miracle? You may therefore wish to make a clean breast of
this rather sensitive matter by publicly apologizing to aggrieved
Abia PDP members whom I have continually asked to remain calm and
faithful, as we attempt to roll back this apparent ring of evil that
seems to have enveloped our party."

If he can lucidly plead the case of one Abian, then the case for
Nigeria must be easy for him to plead as well! The Senate president
is surely doing that which he incorrectly perceives to be his
primary duty to protect the members of Abia PDP. He could not
confuse that with the office of the Senate president, and the
expectation that Nigerians as a whole - not just Abia state - are
his constituents. How long does it take for someone in his office to
appreciate this kind of dull-witted thinking? Mr. Wabara, you are
president of the senate for god sake, please plead our case to the
PDP gods as well! Or if you feel like doing your job, then take up
your lawmaking duties and appropriating obligation and make a
difference in our lives. Anything you do for the good of Nigeria is
good for Abia as well, not just Abia PDP lackeys.

As for the failures of the Judiciary, it is probably better to
remind us of Ukraine. They had an election on November 21st, 2004.
Two weeks later, the Supreme Court overturned the election. Just two
weeks!

No clear win yet in Ukraine poll (11.21.2004)
Ukraine's Central Election Commission said early Monday that Prime
Minister Viktor Yanukovych had collected 6 percent more votes in the
country's presidential race than Viktor Yushchenko, while exit polls
put the opposition challenger ahead.

Poll protest at Ukraine parliament (11.23.2004)
Up to 200,000 protesters have marched on Ukraine's parliament
demanding authorities admit they cheated in a presidential poll that
showed the country's Moscow-backed prime minister had won.

Court puts Ukraine result on hold (11.25.2004)
"This is only the beginning," Ukraine's opposition leader told tens
of thousands of cheering supporters after the country's Supreme
Court barred publication of election results...

Ukraine's parliament rejects election results (11.27.2004)
Ukraine's parliament has rejected the results of the country's
presidential election and called for a new vote…

Ukraine court overturns election (12.03.2004)
Ukraine's Supreme Court has nullified the results of the disputed
presidential election...

In our case, even with tons of incontrovertible evidence of fraud
in the 2003 election, we are still awaiting the decision of the
courts. Almost two years of absolute nothing! Justice delayed
surely is justice denied. Our `cowered' masses must also shoulder
some blame here. What will it take for our people to come out like
the Ukrainians did and protest against the kind of illegal and
belligerent leadership that we are saddled with? How long will it
take for our persecuted poor to say "we will not allow anyone
to `pull wool' over eyes while we are still awake? At some point in
the life of a nation, the people must stand up and say we are the
government, the governed and the governors. This action when it
happens, must not be considered the act of last resort but rather
the act of first resort. We must pray that that day is just around
the corner for Nigeria.

Thus, the feud between the two PDP principals does a lot to elevate
the level of discourse for all concerned. Well-done Mr. Ogbeh, the
motive for your letter notwithstanding, you have rekindled our hope
that Nigeria always finds a way to rid (or annoy) the bad in our
midst albeit late and with unending pain. It must have taken a lot
of guts! Nigeria's day for some brave leadership is finally here.
Let us see who steps in line.

H. Dauda
Webmaster www.AmanaOnline.com
hdfika@...







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Note: forwarded message attached.

I shook my head when I read your response. It amounted to trying to
score debating points. It was getting too personal too. It was not very
useful. It is such academic debates that make us, African scholars and
intellectuals, irrelevant to Africa's needs. There was NOTHING,
absolutely nothing, in that write-up of yours that helps us move Africa
forward. You have no solution for the resolution of any of Africa's
crises except for the naïve and vague call for "foreign involvement."
Like I said, if this is your position, good luck. I won't debate you on
this.

If, on the other hand, you are "willing to accept solutions to Africa's
many problems regardless of their source (and whether they are local or
foreign) AS LONG AS THEY WORK and have the potential or proven capacity
to bring some relief to Africa's trouble spots," then what is wrong with
me suggesting that an indigenous African approach to conflict resolution
might work better than the Western approach?

Re: Sudan Crisis and Africa's Crises

You wrote that: "The Sudan crisis is not representative of African
crises. In fact in many ways it is unique in that it is a racial crisis
in which the traditional alliance between Arab and Negroid Africa and
between Africa and the Arab world and their powerful allies in the UN
Security Council, has come under increasing strain. It is thus not
surprising that there is such schism in deliberations on the crises."

Moses, you are wrong on this. Sudan's crisis IS representative of
Africa's crises. It is no different from the crisis in Ivory Coast,
Rwanda or Somalia. The basic cause of most of these crises is the
POLITICS OF EXCLUSION. In country after country in Africa, the story has
been the same: the monopolization of both economic and political power
by a tiny group (racial, ethnic, or professional), which uses its
governing authority to extract resources from the peasantry and spend
them to enrich itself. All others, the majority, are excluded.

Under South Africa's abominable system of apartheid, whites captured
political and economic power while blacks were excluded from
participation in government and the spoils system. But similar systems
of political and economic apartheid pervade the rest of Africa. In Sudan
and Mauritania, Arabs held power and blacks were excluded (Arab
apartheid); in Rwanda and Burundi, the Hutus and Tutsis alternatively
usurped power; in Nigeria the Hausa-Fulani ran the government (tribal
apartheid) until 1999; Togo, Zaire, and Uganda were overtaken by the
military (stratocracy); and Angola, Cote d'Ivoire, Mozambique, Kenya,
and Tanzania were run by one political party (one-party state).

Time and time again, it is always the politically excluded group that
rise up in a rebellion that degenerates into civil war. Sudan's war is
no exception.

Re: Traditional Africa

I disagree with what you, Kissi, and Emetulu wrote. Rather than you
continuously quoting them, let them respond to clarify their positions.
The colonialists signed numerous treaties with traditional African
rulers. If you, Kissi and Emetulu claim that "village government was a
minority among the several political arrangements we had in pre-colonial
Africa," I won't waste time debating this. You must know your own
African heritage. You claim that "different degrees of despotism and
one-man rules were more prevalent." Explain what you mean by different
degrees of despotism and one-man rules? In which African states? Your
ignorance of indigenous African political systems is stultifying.

Re: Foreign Aid

I have NEVER said Africa should spurn foreign aid or help out of "an
emotional need for African pride and honor." But before any such help

can be effective, Africa must put its own house in order. Marshall Aid
to West Germany and Western aid to South Korea, and Japan were effective
because they already had in place what economists call "absorptive
capacity" or the requisite institutions. In Africa, such absorptive
capacity does not exist because we, the elites, have corrupted and
rendered our institutions dysfunctional. The West has poured in more

than $500 billion in foreign aid and credits but all that aid has been
ineffective. If the main issue is that aid monies and logistical
assistance are often embezzled by local politicians, as you claim, why
don't you put a stop to the embezzlement? Why do we constantly have to
call for "foreign involvement" in resolving a LOCAL problem? Are we
cry-babies?

Re: Resources and Logistics

A persistent theme in your response was Africa does not have the
resources nor the logistics to resolve many of its current crises.
Therefore, there is the need for "foreign intervention." This, I am
afraid, reflects "intellectual astigmatism" - the programmatic tendency
to look only one way - outside Africa -- for resources to solve Africa's
problems, which has resulted in hopeless aid dependency. Moses, have you
ever bothered to look WITHIN AFRICA?

Moses, for your information, Africa's begging bowl leaks horribly,
geopolitical realities notwithstanding. Has it occurred to you that
Africa can find MORE resources by plugging the holes in its begging
bowl?

At a workshop organized for the Parliamentary Sub-Committee on Foreign
Affairs at Ho, Ghana, Dr. Yaw Dzobe Gebe, a fellow at the Legon Center
for International Affairs at the University of Ghana, stressed the need
for the African Union to look within the continent for capital formation
to build a viable continental union with less dependency on foreign aid.
AWith an accumulated foreign debt of nearly $350 billion and estimated
capital requirement of more than $50 billion annually for capacity
building, it is time Africa begins to look within for capital formation.
Experience in the last 40 years or more of independence and association
with Europe and America should alert African leaders of the fact that
there are very limited benefits to be derived from benevolence of the
development partners@ (Daily Graphic, July 24, 2004; p.16).

I know that as a historian you are not a "big fan of statistical
discourses or crude empiricism because they are simplistic and
reductive" but economists deal with statistics. Africa's investment
process may be compared to a "leaky bucket@. The level of the water
therein C GNP per capita C is determined by inflows of foreign aid,
investment, and export earnings relative to outflows or leakages of
imports (food, luxury consumer items), corruption, and civil wars.
Africa=s balance of payment situation in 1998 showed a balance of
payment deficit of $17.9 billion. This had to be financed by new
borrowing, which would increase Africa=s foreign debt, or by the use of
reserve, which were nonexistent for most African countries. This number,
however, does not tell the full story. Hidden from view is a much
grimmer story- the other more serious leakages.

According to one UN estimate, A$200 billion or 90 percent of the
sub-Saharan part of the continent's gross domestic product (much of it
illicitly earned), was shipped to foreign banks in 1991 alone" (The New
York Times (Feb 4, 1996; p.A4). Capital flight out of Africa is at least
$20 billion annually. Part of the capital flight out of Africa
represents wealth created legitimately by business owners who have
little faith in keeping it in Africa. The rest represents loot stolen by
corrupt African leaders and politicians. Nigeria's President, Olusegun
Obasanjo, claimed that corrupt African leaders have stolen at least $140
billion (,95 billion) from their people in the decades since
independence (London Independent, June 14, 2002. Web posted at www.
independent.co.uk).

Foreign aid has not been spared, either. Says The Economist (Jan 17,
2004): AFor every dollar that foolish northerners lent Africa between
1970 and 1996, 80 cents flowed out as capital flight in the same year,

typically into Swiss bank accounts or to buy mansions on the Cote
d=Azur@ (Survey; p.12). At the Commonwealth Summit in Abuja, Nigeria on
December 3, 2003, former British secretary of state for international
development, Rt. Hon Lynda Chalker, revealed that 40 per cent of wealth
created in Africa is invested outside the continent. Chalker said
African economies would have fared better if the wealth created on the

continent were retained within. "If you can get your kith and kin to
bring the funds back and have it invested in infrastructure, the
economies of African countries would be much better than what there are
today, she said (This Day [Lagos], Dec 4, 2003). On October 13, 2003,
Laolu Akande, a veteran Nigerian freelance journalist, wrote that:
"Nigeria's foreign debt profile is now in the region of $25-$30 billion,
but the president of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria,
ICAN, Chief Jaiye K. Randle, himself an eminent accountant and social
commentator has now revealed that individual  Nigerians are currently
lodging far more than Nigeria owes in foreign banks. With an estimate he
put at $170 billion it becomes immediately clear why the quest for debt
forgiveness would remain a far fetched dream"
(http://nigeriaworld.com/columnist/laoluakande/articles.html)

In August 2004, an African Union report claimed that Africa loses an
estimated $148 billion annually to corrupt practices, a figure which
represents 25 percent of the continent's Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
"Mr. Babatunde Olugboji, Chairman, Independent Advocacy Project, made
this revelation in Lagos while addressing the press on the survey
scheduled to be embarked upon by the body to determine the level of
corruption in the country even though Transparency International has
rated Nigeria as the second most corrupt nation in the world" (Vanguard,
Lagos, Aug 6, 2004. Web posted at www.allafrica.com).

Back in the late 1980s, Sammy Kum Buo, director of the U.N. Center for
Peace and Disarmament, lamented that "Africa spends about $12 billion a
year on the purchase of arms and the maintenance of the armed forces, an
amount which is equal to what Africa was requesting in financial aid
over the next 5 years" (West Africa, May 11, 1987; p. 912). Since then,
this amount has increased for all of Africa: AExcluding South Africa,
spending on arms in sub-Saharan Africa totaled nearly $11 billion in
1998, if military assistance and funding of opposition groups and
mercenaries are taken into account. This was an annual increase of about
14 percent at a time when the regions economic growth rose by less than
1 percent in real terms@ (The Washington Times, Nov 8, 1999; p.A16).
Total expenditures on arms and militaries exceed $15 billion annually
and are already included in total imports.

Civil wars continue to wreak devastation on African economies. They cost
Africa at least $15 billion annually in lost output, wreckage of
infrastructure, and refugee crises. The crisis in Zimbabwe, for example,
has cost Africa dearly. Foreign investors have fled the region and the
South African rand has lost 25 percent of its value since 2000. Recall
that more than 2 million Zimbabwean refugees have fled to settle in
South Africa, and the South African government is preparing a military
base at Messina to house as many as 70,000 refugees. Since 2000 almost
60,000 physicians and other professionals have left Zimbabwe (The
Washington Post, March 3, 2002; p. A20). According to The Observer
[London] (Sept 30, 2001), Zimbabwe's economic collapse had caused $37
billion worth of damage to South Africa and other neighboring countries.
South Africa has been worst affected, while Botswana, Malawi,
Mozambique, and Zambia have also suffered severely.

As we have seen, neglect of peasant agriculture, the uprooting of
farmers by civil wars, devastated infrastructure, and misguided
agricultural policies have made it difficult for Africa to feed itself.
Therefore, Africa must resort to food imports, spending $15 billion in
1998 (World Ban 2000a; p.107). By 2000, food imports had reached $18.7

billion, slightly more than donor assistance of $18.6 billion to Africa
in 2000 (Africa Recovery, Jan 2004; p.16).

Here is a breakdown of how Africa loses money:

Corruption                                                            $148 billion
Capital Flight                                                 $20 billion
Expenditures on Arms and Military            $15 billion
Civil War Damage                                             $15 billion
Food Imports                                                 $18 billion
Total Other Leakages                              $216 billion

Recall that NEPAD seeks $64 billion from the West in investments.

However, from the table, if Africa could feed itself, if the senseless
wars raging on the continent would cease, if the elites would invest
their wealth -B legitimate or ill-gotten C in Africa, and if
expenditures on arms and the military are reduced, Africa could find
with itself the resources it needs for investment. In fact, more
resources can be found if corrupt leaders would disgorge the loot they
have stashed abroad -B a condition we previously established for debt
relief. This constitutes the new way of looking at the investment issue:
Plugging the leakages and repatriating booty hoarded abroad.

Moses, foreign aid from all sources amount to $19 billion a year.
Foreign investment into Africa totals $5 billion. Total leakages from
Africa's begging bowl amount to $216 billion. Where and how should
Africa get more resources to resolve conflicts and develop?

George Ayittey,

Washington, DC

-- 

---------------------------
Toyin Falola
Department of History
The University of Texas at Austin
1 University Station
Austin, TX 78712-0220
USA
512 475 7224
512 475 7222  (fax)
www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa

 

Note: forwarded message attached.

 

 

Like Dr Kissi, I regard the debate over Ayittey’s Africa’s Crisis: The Tragedy of International Response as worthy and insightful, but no less so for Kissi’s own wise and sober contribution (USA/Africa No 149), which I think we should all look at closely. His analysis of the question of normative essence and his attempt to posit some of the generalities in cultural particularities crucially expose the fallacy and futility of unequal or non-uniform comparisons between disparate African polities on one hand and/or between erroneously homogenized Africa and countries (not continents) outside Africa on the other. This is because no matter how far we drag this debate and no matter the policy recommendations we make, we will, as he implies, find that we cannot make progress until we determine the spatial applicability of those recommendations, including their limitations within Africa. It may be positively desirable, for psychological reasons perhaps, to advocate ‘African solutions for African problems’, but beyond the rhetoric, we will have to determine which problems, which solutions, which Africa or part of Africa these will apply to. To assume that simply labeling a proposed solution ‘African’ makes it workable from village to village, city to city, ethnic group to ethnic group, country to country within Africa wouldn’t take us from point A to B in this discussion.

 

I commend Dr Ochonu for doing an excellent job of expatiating on some of the counterpoints we’ve raised against Prof Ayittey’s proposals and for consistently showing how inadequate some of these proposals are. However, in the light of Prof Ayittey’s latest response, which sounds to me like an insistence on foundations that have already been eroded in this debate, I think it has become imperative to zero in on the issues, determine the truisms, isolate the debatable points and hope that this will encourage a more disciplined discussion, rather than going round and round.

 

However, before I go further, I think it is in order to ask for some clarification from Prof Ayittey and Dr Ochonu with regard to some earlier exchange between them. Ochonu in his first comment accused Prof Ayittey of proposing the re-colonization of Africa; Ayittey responded that this isn’t the case, pointing out that what he’s always advocated is a “second LIBERATION”. However, in apologizing for the mischaracterization of Ayittey’s view, Ochonu said the following:

 

 

I apologize for the semantic slippage that made me substitute "colonization" for "liberation." But I suppose that you only have a problem with my semantics, not my characterization of your idea of “second liberation” as idea which denotes the supplanting of African ruling elites with Western expatriates and institutions of neo-liberal economic and political superintendence (emphasis mine).

 

 

 

Now, if the above is true, it is a very serious matter indeed, because it contradicts the whole point Ayittey is making in proposing “African solutions to African problems”. Indeed, we would then be left to wonder why he criticizes Ochonu for supporting a measure of Western intervention in African conflict resolution processes, because, in truth, nothing is more interventionist, colonial, imperial and slavish all at once than the idea of supplanting the admittedly failed African ruling elite with Western expatriates and institutions of any sort. In fact, all of us should be worried for our future and the future of our children if any African intellectual with access to Western policymakers and institutions with capacity to influence things in Africa thinks this way.

 

 

Of course, I’m further aware that Prof Ayittey has gone on in his responses to Ochonu to extensively berate what he calls the “internationalization” of Africa’s problems, but again, whether his criticism only relates to conflict resolution processes or includes economic, social and political collaborations or engagements, the point remains that the implication inherent in the above quote I extracted from Ochonu’s response, which he is yet to deny, clearly contradicts his latter criticism of internationalization. So, I think it is important they clear this up so that we can make better sense of what each is saying.

 

While we await clarification from both gentlemen, let me take a thematic view of the issues under discussion with a view to isolating what is still worth debating at this point:

 

 

 

A. Thematic view of issues under discussion

 

 

(1) Is Africa the headquarters of world conflicts?

 

Africa does not qualify to be regarded as the world’s most conflict-ridden region. Take a look at the Asia and Pacific region and you’ll be confronted by the Afghan War, the Myanmar Civil War (56 years old), the Kashmir Conflict (13 years old), Nepal Civil War (almost 10 years old), the Muslim Rebellion of Southern Philippines (35 years old), the New People’s Army Rebellion (35 years old), the Sri-Lankan Civil War (21 years old) and Bougainville War of Independence (15 years old). Still there are such ‘minor’ conflicts going on such as the Chittagong Hill Tracts War in Bangladesh, Hmong Insurgency in Laos (29 years old), Aceh Rebellion, Ambon Ethnic Violence, West Papua Rebellion and the newly-declared war by the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan. Minor Wars within India itself include the Naga Rebellion (52 years old), Mizo Rebellion (38 years old), Naxalite Guerrilla War (37 years old), Tipura Rebellion (25 years old), Bodo Rebellion and over half a century of off and on Hindu-Muslim sectarian violence.

 

We then turn to the Middle and Near East, what do we get? The Iraq War, the Israeli-Palestinian-Syrian-Lebanese Conflicts, the Yemeni Tribal Conflict, the Iranian Mujahedin-e-Khalq Guerrilla War (25 years old), the Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict (involving Armenia and Azerbaijan) and the subsisting Korean Conflict.

 

In Europe, we have the Basque Separatist Rebellion in Spain, the Northern Ireland Troubles, Kurdish Rebellion in Turkey, Greek-Turkish face-off over Cyprus, Georgia-Abkhazia Civil War, Chechen-Russian War and the remnant of the Balkan War.

 

In the Americas, you get the 40 years old Colombian Civil War, the Tupac Amaru Movement and Shining Path Rebellion in Peru, the fallout of the US-inspired Slaughters in Guatemala, the Venezuelan Crisis and the tense relations between Cuba and the US.

 

 

What all the above examples prove is that there is nothing unique in African conflicts and whether in their extent or effect, they do not qualify as the world’s worst. Besides, it needs no rocket science to understand that the part of the world with the worst poverty, misrule and deprivation will naturally breed its own conflicts, especially when it is one of the world’s most important sources of raw material. And there is no truth in the claim that it’s sucking most of the world’s resources in aid, if we compare it with other regions. All one has to do to get an idea is to compare the amount of aid the tiny country of Israel receives from the US and EU with how much they give to vast Africa south of the Sahara. In fact, the truth that the world is not doing enough for Africa was recently underlined once again by no lesser person than the British Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown, who was in America a few days ago to campaign for the rich countries to do more for global poverty, advocating a doubling of aid resources (two years after Monterry!) which of course doesn’t sound much like donor fatigue. In fact, if we buy the donor fatigue argument, it would be difficult to explain why aid to such countries that are indeed pursuing reforms are dwindling as well.

 

 

 

If we are serious about proposing solutions to the seemingly endless conflicts in Africa, I do not think we need to waste our time debating whether the West or international community should intervene or not. Whether we like it or not, they will intervene, because they have interests to protect and only them would seem to also have the capacity to intervene decisively, if they so choose. Besides, the prevailing international order grants them such legitimacy as members of the international community who must show concern for any part of the world in crisis. This has been the rule before we were born and will continue long after we’re gone. Even Prof Ayittey’s “African solutions to African problems” will not transform from slogan to action without acquiescence from the West or the international community, again because of the interests they have in Africa, which, of course, they wouldn’t be giving up. To convince them to give up the decision-making capacity likely to affect these interests to some African leaders or leadership organization of any sort in the name of that slogan will not happen. All you have to do to know this is read the publication by Heritage Foundation sent round to us by Dr Falola as USA/Africa Dialogue No 154, which is on US military assistance to Africa. Africa will become of more strategic importance to the West this century; so, I think what we should be talking about is how we want them to intervene and what should be our expectation for realistic and resoluble intervention.

 

I think in talking about Western or international intervention as a tragedy Ayittey avoids the whole essence of responsibility for the state of affairs, even though he admits on one hand that the West is equally complicit for the African condition. It is morally appropriate to call upon all the defilers to clean up the mess. However, the better diplomatic view is to say we all have responsibility to help and protect each other as members of the international community. Western intervention is a tragedy, not because it cannot be helpful, but because so far it is not honest, for reasons Ochonu and I have enumerated amongst others. Rather than talking about “Tragedy of international intervention”, I think Ayittey should be talking of its duplicity or, if that is too condemnatory, its inadequacy. We need honest and visionary intervention by the West, because they more than others have the capacity for such a resolution, bearing in mind the history and dynamics of these conflicts.

 

 

(3) Are African traditional rulers different from the failed political elite?

 

This is a false dichotomy. While it is true that the colonial authorities found the traditional chiefs more useful and malleable for their purpose and used them as such, it is equally true that since the grant of flag independence the nationalist political class actually took power with the traditional rulers. The pervasive influence of African traditional ruler has never waned since that time, whether at the local or national level. In fact, in terms of retention of political power and influence, they have been more incumbent than any of the unstable non-traditional regimes that have come and gone in Africa - regimes that used them, just like the colonialists, to sell their agenda. So while it is okay to yearn for some measure of traditional values in our political, economic and social life in Africa, it would be erroneous to think that traditional rulers represent those values or that they are not part of the political elite that’s failed us.

 

 

(4) How realistic and desirable is the proposal ‘African solutions to African problems’?

 

 

Reality and experience also tell us that the West cannot provide all the resources usually needed; so a degree of improvisation and an encouragement of do-it-yourself culture will not go amiss. But we must recognize that for ingenuity to thrive there must be a level of peace, which should be pursued honestly, and, where necessary, with help from the outside.

 

 

(5)What does modernizing African indigenous practices and institutions entail?

 

Quoting Winnie Mandela’s Part Of My Soul Went With Him, Prof Ayittey dismisses comments made here by Ochonu, Kissi and myself “about traditional Africa or Africa’s heritage” as amounting to “academic nit-picking that serves little purpose”, yet it did not occur to him that Winnie’s claim that pre-colonial Africans “lived peacefully, under the democratic rule of their kings” is a little too tidy to swallow! While we can forgive Winnie for such propagandistic overstretch, being that she was then in the forefront of fighting to liberate her people from the evil of apartheid, to quote such as authority in this discussion is surprising. First, we know from a sober study of history that pre-colonial African life had its tensions and conflicts; life was not as idyllic as Winnie paints it and, for God’s sake, what is the point of that contradictory claim of Africans living under “the democratic rule of their kings”? What is democratic about living under kings, when we are not talking constitutional monarchies? Of course, the point about us questioning Africa’s heritage (presented in different guises in Prof Ayittey’s responses) is a non-point, just as is his continued attempt to question Ochonu’s knowledge of this heritage. No one here questions the African heritage - personally I am very, very proud of my heritage as an African - but I do know when romanticization takes over.

 

For instance, in discussing this issue, Prof Ayittey took us on a wild goose chase of eight “general statements” about Africa, breaking down African economy into three sectors, modern, informal and traditional and proclaiming that virtually all African crises “emanate from the modern sector and spill over to the other two sectors” and then ended up making two “emphatic statements” which he challenged Ochonu to disprove:

 

“a. You CANNOT develop an African country by ignoring the traditional and the informal sectors. I challenge you to dispute this. b.   Nor can you develop the traditional and informal sectors if you do NOT understand how they operate. They do not operate by the same logic and systems as the modern sector does. I challenge you to dispute this also”. 

 

 

But what is there to disprove? Why are we suddenly debating these points? Who disagrees with the fact that we need symmetric or balanced economic development in Africa? Who does not see the indefensible disparity between our cities and the rural areas? But does understanding how the informal or traditional sectors operate mean we have to operate the same way? Isn’t there room for improvement especially when we see that for centuries this mode of production isn’t taking us anywhere? Do we have to copy the white man’s technology hook line and sinker to make the changes we need to progress the economy? Or, do we have to reject it in toto in the name of sticking with our own modes? Of course, we don’t have to do any of these since both are extremes; yet the point must be made that we would have had no Industrial Revolution in Europe if men had accepted as unquestionable the way things were done before then! So, while Prof Ayittey continues to insist on us modernizing indigenous African practices and institutions in order to use them to resolve modern problems, it is perhaps worthwhile to point out that the devil is usually in the detail. We can do this even as we accept his proposal in principle.

 

 

 

 

 

 

(B) Solutions:

 

Some of the solutions proposed by Ayittey such as the sovereign national conferences, power-sharing and politics of inclusion are certainly things some of us agree with, even though we disagree with the attempt to conscript them as some traditional African ideas, including being cautionary in regarding them as all-cures. But if Prof Ayittey’s task is to propose solutions to “Africa’s never-ending cycle of violence and war”, then we must propose more proactive and practical solutions. On my part, all I’m doing next is to break down into separate areas (strictly for convenience) what I consider to be ideas on the solutions, which include military, political, economic and social proposals. In other words, a holistic look at the needs, the limitations and what each party has to do to make practical headway is necessary. In discussing aspects of the solution, I have only divided them into these comfortable areas, just to generate debate, not to make categorical statements and certainly not to claim to be providing all the answers.

 

More importantly, we must note that there are no fit all solutions really; each conflict will usually have its peculiarities, thus specific conflict analysis usually determines what solution(s) will work and the nature of their application.

 

 

(I) Military: African Rapid Response Intervention Force

 

African military conflicts, like others around the world, depend on the acquisition and availability of sophisticated and not-too-sophisticated military hardware and the mobilization and training of men to use them, either in guerrilla situations or face to face military engagements. Once it gets to this point, only a superior military force with clearer responsibilities can silence the guns of the warring parties and save innocent civilians usually caught between them. After the failures of the international community in the Balkans and Rwanda, the United States President, Bill Clinton in June 1999 proclaimed the Clinton Doctrine which mandates Western forces to deploy for humanitarian purposes, especially where genocide or serious human rights abuses are being perpetrated. In December 2001, the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty went further to declare the existence of a “Responsibility to Protect” under international law. The overall effect of all this is that the world increasingly looks up to the international community to intervene in such situations

 

But even where strong political will exists for intervention, there are practical problems to confront in every situation. For instance, in most situations of that nature the main genocide would usually have been committed in a few days or weeks before the international community becomes even aware. In Rwanda, about 250, 000 of the eventual half a million Tutsis were already killed in the first three weeks, which means before the media began to spread the news, most were indeed already dead.

 

Then there are the logistical problems. Africa is not yet of great strategic military importance to the West, so that means we are far away from western military bases. We also have bad military infrastructure in terms of airbases or roads. All this means it is far harder and longer to deploy troops to African conflict regions than elsewhere.

 

 

But the above suggestion is only futuristic; it is not what obtains today and there’s no guarantee that they would think this way tomorrow. Africans for today must begin to use their commonsense, rather than continue to keep themselves open to be exploited by criminal warlords. For instance, it is clear that even where your cause is just, picking up the gun or using your people as bait in a genocidal war with the hope that the international community will intervene on your behalf wouldn’t be the smart thing to do, at least not in the present circumstances. We have just talked about how very difficult it is for the international community to deploy troops in Africa even where the political will is there, which means very grave consequences for the civil populace in any kind of military conflict. Our political leaders therefore must begin that attitudinal change of realizing that the smartest thing to do is to avoid a military situation, no matter the provocation. We must begin to encourage discussions and negotiations rather than war. This means that real effort should be put into other conflict resolution mechanisms, such as political, diplomatic, economic and social mechanisms, before conflicts degenerate to military situations. However, one thing to note is that none of these mechanisms stand alone since they are overlapping, interlocking and mutually reinforcing in their implementation and effect.

 

 

(II) Political: Democracy, democracy and more democracy

 

I personally agree with Prof Ayittey’s political prescriptions, be they SNCs or power-sharing arrangements; even though Ochonu and I have gone on to qualify our expectations from them. One prescription that made a great impression on me is the politics of inclusiveness; but it must be said that this in itself is an end-result, an effect, rather than the action itself. In other words, before we can truly accept that a political system or culture is inclusive it must have operated for sometime and the benefits must be seen and appreciated by those it is meant to serve; in other words, its reality is embedded in its sustainability, not mere proclamation. The real question therefore is what we are to do to get to that stage.

 

The first place to start would be democracy and more democracy. It is unfortunate that the West and international community are more concerned with stability than the human rights and political records of the regimes they approve or deal with in Africa. I am not aware of any reasonable standard being set for what constitutes democracy or good governance in Africa. A Yoweri Museveni bans political parties and runs effectively a one-man show in Uganda and the West proclaims him an exemplary leader; an Obasanjo runs what is effectively a one-man regime in pluralistic Nigeria and he goes in and out of the White House as if it’s his back garden! All over the place in Africa are crooked leaders being laundered abroad as progressive-minded, while we all pretend that only Mugabe, today’s pantomime villain, is the black sheep.

 

 

But there is a limit to what we can expect from outsiders. In fact, the failed African leaders are succeeding in their crooked ways mostly because we the people have abdicated our responsibility as citizens; we have given up our inherent moral and political power to question them and oversee their actions as servants of state. We have buckled under fear, intimidation and the spirit of nonchalance! I personally think it is time for the African intellectual class, the media and those members of the elite unsoiled by criminal political participation in the failed system to stand up and be counted. It is time for us to begin to direct change in Africa by courageously challenging the old paradigms of doing things, including the ideas that sustain them. Yes, we can’t make omelettes without breaking eggs, so it would take more than just writing long essays and jaw-jawing on the net or in the campuses; it is time we take education, real political education, to the man in the streets. It is not enough to berate our leaders for failing; we must also accept we have failed for letting them remain there and run rings around us. Why is it possible for such unproductive and criminal regimes to find a place in Africa, but not outside it?

 

So, while we fight Western policymakers and political leaders for accommodating charlatans as our representatives and for legitimizing them internationally, we must at the same time be finding means to energize the African people to chase out these leeches by true democratic means. Indeed, if the people themselves, with the help of the press and the intellectual class, establish popular democracy and insist on the standards they want - standards they know will work for them and their children - it would be difficult for outsiders to run the show to the detriment of the people.

 

 

(III) Economic: Looking within

 

Since the end of the Cold War, economic reasons have proved highly important in precipitating conflicts. Though the use of economic aid to score political and ideological points or for geo-political reasons became unnecessary in the new post-nineties ‘unipolar’ world, there is still enough of this going round for dependent African political leaders to steal and hide abroad. The complicity of “international institutions” in this state of affairs is better illustrated by the fact that in spite of African countries receiving on the average about 17 percent of GDP in aid, a scandalous fact on its own, the Bretton Woods institutions are still showering them with more aid! And this against the background that this is, as always, only used to increase consumption, unnecessarily expand and corrupt governments, with nothing for the economically disadvantaged or the poor.

 

The gap between the rich and the poor, no doubt, is disgraceful, but using aid in an untargeted and undisciplined manner or using it to blindly attack the symptoms, such as poor education, lack of capital and modern industries, etc can only create bigger problem of world inequity. Just two decades ago, the richest fifth of the world population living in the rich countries produced and consumed 70 percent of world goods and services, while the poorest fifth of our world lived on 2 percent. But the real story is that the little positive change we have seen since then in terms of a modest decline in global inequality is simply as a result of two large poor countries, China and India, outperforming the rich countries economically. In spite of two opposite political cultures, they achieved this because they focussed on the basics. Our problem in Africa is not that we do not have great minds to dissect the most complex questions thrown up by economics or other disciplines, but it is the basics we don’t get right.

 

 

Today, democratization has made it more possible for more and more economically marginalized people to have a political voice, while globalization, on its part, further reduces the power of the state over factors to influence national economic directions. The inability or unwillingness of these aid-dependent political leaderships throughout Africa to wake up and smell the coffee means they were at the mercy of all kinds of experimentation from Bretton Woods institutions to shylock governments, transnational companies, institutions and individuals from abroad eager to make a killing out of Africa’s cheap labour costs and abundant natural resources. Control of economic power therefore becomes the focus of national governments, rogue foreigners masquerading as international businessmen and women and local rebels, becoming a high-risk game of do or die. Of course that means death to the local African economy, even as the criminals live fat from the distortions they institutionalize through wars and conflicts for the control of those resources.

 

The experiences of India and China, though just two countries, but with huge populations should serve us well. African countries individually, on their own, without external interference, must first define what role government has to play; they must consider their own uniqueness, convert this into an economic advantage, create their own distinct economic narratives, use internal resources to generate reforms and sustain this institutionally before looking outside. And when they accept external loans, these must be modest and used only as catalysts for reforms rather than using them as foundations. The successful countries simply chose a starting point, stayed focus and ensured there were identifiable results. China began with giving and strengthening private property rights and India its energy sector, etc. Both are great places to start off from anywhere in Africa. Of course, no one is saying you have to succeed the first time, but there is no substitute for doing your homework first before you begin to experiment.

 

Thus, we must begin to jettison the idea that every kind of reform needs aid from the outside to be successful. For aid to help economic development there must first be a reasonably strong or favourable institutional environment, unlike the weak institutions we have in most of Africa. Depending on NEPAD to do this is like waiting for Godot, because in truth it is far more worthless than the paper its highfalutin aspirations are written on. A framework of partnership between governments (failed African governments on one side and governments of G8 on the other), rather than between institutions and peoples is bound to fail, because of the inherent contradictions, over-bureaucratization and lack of consultation with the ordinary African whose purpose it is supposed to serve. Yes, NEPAD was dead on arrival because the economic agents in Africa that should have championed it were never consulted or mobilized. More negative is the idea that it has to depend on foreign aid (which they’ve euphemistically termed investment) to kick off. I personally don’t know how useful it would be to discuss NEPAD here, since its three and half years of existence has nothing to show except Obasanjo and Wade almost coming to blows over “peer review” and the occasional photo-op that two or three NEPAD Presidents show up for at any G8 meeting.

 

 

They need not look beyond the heavy protectionism and subsidization that governs Western agriculture and the effect this is having on their own economies today. For instance, it is estimated that United States’ subsidies to 10 percent of its cotton farmers (about 2, 500 farmers who got the huge chunk of the $3 billion between 2001 and 2002) had the real effect of impoverishing 10 million cotton farmers in Africa! And, of course, the Rwandan conflict actually began as an economic issue. The collapse of the international coffee market, precipitated by the United States and the Bretton Woods treatment actually brought the tensions to the fore and led inexorably to political collapse and then the massacres.

 

We must begin to ask why it is possible for non-producers to fix the price of cocoa or coffee, for instance, and distort the market when they choose, to the chagrin of powerless African producers. And if the answer is in the fact that the market for the end product is controlled from the outside, what then is needed to establish that market or control it from Africa? I mean, why are we not the ones providing the finished cocoa end-products to the frozen cities of Europe and America? This is where African governments must pull their weight and show vision – rather than falling over themselves for foreign aid and encouraging African producers to do the same, they must instead develop strategic thinking. Cocoa is ours, so if there are a million and one products derivable from it, let’s produce all at home and sell abroad.

 

Also, African governments and businesses must put heads together and begin to exploit the principles of national competitive advantage. In this regard, we can learn a lot from the established economies, including the Asian Tigers. There is nothing wrong in states giving strong backing to firms within the national environment in order to increase those firms’ competitive advantage. The European countries did this by backing GSM and adopted it as a single pan-European network; the Japanese did this with industries dealing in semiconductors and VCRs; the Germans are doing it with the auto and chemical industries; the Swiss in banking and pharmaceuticals, the Americans in commercial aircraft, computer software and motion pictures; the Italians in fabric, footwear and textile, etc. Japan is even known to use its aid programmes to developing countries to stretch this competitive advantage for Japanese industries by imposing such conditions that most of the goods and services not locally available in the recipient countries be purchased from Japanese firms. Further examples include South Korea’s support for Samsung, Malaysian government’s intervention in the sale of Time Engineering, etc. The point I’m making is that our governments in Africa need to be bolder in their economic policies and in using the state as an agent of development and the organized private sector must also be ready to cash in on whatever advantage that they’re given. For instance, it would be no use for government to support indigenous firms that do not have the know-how or cannot deliver. In other words, the key principle here is that production is the beginning of real economic progress.

 

 

With the economy, we don’t need too much theory; let us first get the basics right. Prof Ayittey got the economic argument right, but my only problem is with the institutions he would prefer to use to effect the great changes he proposed and the fact that he couldn’t acknowledge the fact that outside help is inevitable. While the traditional system may prove something different; the right quotient is yet to be worked out. There is even clear evidence that the traditional system of conflict resolution is a victim of the mayhem today. When a marauding army comes to town, the chief is either dead, in prison or collaborating! What would Ama-ala, Ndaba or Kgotla do under the barrel of the gun? And even if we were to say it was possible, the mere size of the conflicts today makes the traditional system with limited authority and jurisdiction otiose and of no practical value.

 

 

(IV) Social: The cows are coming home

 

This is the foundation area, the one that more or less encapsulates all. For instance, something of great socio-political importance is the fact that the failure of the state to hold the social fabric together makes actual conflict possible. There will be no conflict if the social fabric of society still holds, but all these other factors we’ve discussed, such as the politics of malverisation, poor governance, failed economic policy, etc all band together to break social fabric and then real and actual conflict begins. But the real attack is right in our psyche – we make all this possible because, even amongst ourselves as Africans, we practice real discrimination for whatever reasons. Anywhere you turn in Africa ethnic politics is the rule – the majority ethnic groups oppressing the minority under noxious notions of ethnic superiority, age-old rights or inequities, political control, etc. However, whether these inequities or ethnic chauvinism are real or imagined, the effect is the same – conflict.

 

The first instrument to confront this and similar social malaise likely to lead to conflict or more conflict is education, be it tertiary education, education and social rehabilitation programmes for children-combatants, adult education, primary education, training of any sort, etc. Beginning with education will ensure one thing, that you’ve plugged the drain. Once you get the young through education, then you’ve stopped the rot. But education is not only formal or structured only to be imparted in formalized settings. Educating civil society, for instance, will take a whole lot of ingenuity. I believe that the principal goal of civil society education should simply be towards establishing and supporting public awareness networks teaching people the value of free and fair elections and how to get it. If we dedicate adequate resources as members of the international community or Africans to ensuring that every citizen of voting age is knowledgeable enough about the power of the choice he/she makes, whether in a formal school or within the Africans’ own natural environment, then half the problem is solved, because majority of African conflicts arise because those in power have lost legitimacy or do not have it in the first place. It is not necessary for those in armed opposition to be morally better; rather, it is enough that they oppose. And for societies at the centre, social dislocation takes immediate and horrible effect.

 

 

Also, in those and formalized peaceful settings, a continental project to promote African languages as language of transnational communication, international commerce, diplomacy, learning, technology, etc should immediately be undertaken by African governments and their development partners. We do not need to reinvent the wheel; the languages are there, all we need is to internationalize them to serve two basic and immediate purposes. First, in case of conflict, people from different regions of Africa or from within a country can communicate better. Secondly, it would help to open up Africa to Africans. African scholars, no matter what discipline, should begin to intellectually invest in African languages. We have to make the case.

 

 

(V) Conclusion:

 

In conclusion, let me say I would have liked to continue the discussion by looking at the conflict diamonds issue and the inadequacy of the Kimberley Process, the socio-economic aspects of the trade in small arms, the general work of non-state actors and the NGOs and their role as go-betweens in conflict situations, the uses of diplomacy, social cost of globalization, etc. However, this is a discussion; so I expect we will find time to look at them in due course.

 

-- 

---------------------------
Toyin Falola
Department of History
The University of Texas at Austin
1 University Station
Austin, TX 78712-0220
USA
512 475 7224
512 475 7222  (fax)
www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa

 

Note: forwarded message attached.

-- 

---------------------------
Toyin Falola
Department of History
The University of Texas at Austin
1 University Station
Austin, TX 78712-0220
USA
512 475 7224
512 475 7222  (fax)
www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa

 

Note: forwarded message attached.

Thank you for your response. Some debates are useful, others are not. I
am afraid this present debate is in the latter category.

A. The External Solution

I asked you for your own solution to the crises in Africa because people
are dying. With all due respect, what you offered us was "an academic
solution" of little practical utility. It is no different from what
African leaders have been calling for: foreign intervention. It is the
product of what I call the "externalist orthodoxy" that has held sway
for much of the post-colonial period. This orthodoxy, together with its
attendant "slavery/colonialism/imperialism paradigm," maintains that
Africa's woes can be attributed to the unequal, exploitative and
oppressive historical relationships between Africa and the West and
adverse global forces. By implication, the solutions to Africa's woes
must come from "external sources," "foreign intervention" or some
restructuring of its relationship with the rest of the world.

But like I said, we part company here. While we all agree that Africa
has been harmed and exploited by foreign actors and external factors, I
do not subscribe to "external solutions." True, somebody knocked us down
but it our responsibility to get up. There are so many deficiencies with
the "externalist orthodoxy." I pointed out a few in my previous posting
but here are some more:

1. You can't go to the same people, who you claim exploited you,
oppressed you and are constantly meddling in your internal affairs, to
become involved in resolving a problem that you have. It defies logic
and makes no sense - none whatsoever.

2. The call for "foreign intervention" flies in the face of recent
experience. The international community has not shown much appetite for
involvement in Africa's crises.  In 1993 when the going got tough in
Somalia, they cut and ran. The following year, they fled Rwanda. They
were nowhere to be seen when Burundi, Zaire, Sierra Leone, and Liberia
blew up.  In the cases of Sierra Leone, Ivory Coast and Liberia, it was
the former colonial masters who intervened: Britain, France and the U.S.
Africa is the only continent that year after year unloads its problems
onto the world stage. The international community is thoroughly fed up
with Africa.  Since 1960, there have been more than 40 crises in Africa.
Name me just 10 which the United Nations or the international community
successfully resolved in the post-colonial era.

3. In my view, the call for MORE foreign involvement is a dead-end
street. In fact, it is really an alibi for INACTION. Do we seriously
think we can get the U.S., France, Russia, Iran and China to agree on a
united action on Sudan? Each country has its own interest in Sudan to
protect. Witness how difficult it is to apply the term "genocide" to
what is going on in the Sudan. If we call the slaughter of 800,000
Tutsis in Rwanda in 1994 "genocide," how about the deaths of 3 million
Sudanese, mostly black Africans in Sudan's civil wars? U.N.
Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, is often frustrated trying to get member
countries to contribute peace-keeping troops for an African mission.
Moreover, if you, Moses, can't get Nigerian elites to put pressure on
the Obasanjo government to convene a sovereign national conference, how
do you expect to get FOREIGN governments to put pressure on Obasanjo?

No, Moses, foreign intervention is not my bag. You will never hear me
call for one for the resolution of any African crisis. If this is the
road you want to take, I wish you all the best of luck.

Instead of calling for foreign intervention in Ivory Coast and Sudan, I
would rather call for an AFRICAN intervention. Are African governments

not part of the international community? In 1979, the late and former
president Julius Nyerere sent his military across the border to remove
Idi Amin of Uganda from power. Why hasn't Ghana sent its military over
the border to  oust Laurent Gbagbo? Why haven't Nigeria and South Africa

sent their troops to remove Omar el Beshir from power? I am fed up with
the spectacle of seeing African leaders ALWAYS running to the white man
to come and solve our problems for us. It deprecates my dignity and
pride as a black man.

B. Demagoguery, Mischievous Distortions and Literal Interpretations of
My Positions

Moses, I would rather we debated the inherent merits of my positions
instead of you placing ugly labels on them, distorting them or
associating them with discredited figures in order to attack my
positions. I drew your attention to this distortion: "second
colonization" of Africa which you falsely attributed to me. I have
advocated for the "second liberation" of Africa.

I object to your mischievous attempts to place literal interpretations
on my viewpoints and place them in narrow straight jackets in order to
attack them. My call for "self-reliance" and "African solutions for
African problems" are such examples.

"Self-reliance" does not mean complete and total exclusion of all
external influences or factors. No economy in this world today can be
autarkic. Even China had to open up its economy. Nonetheless, if you
want to buy a car, you start from your own savings first. It is basic
common sense. You do not plan on buying a car based upon the help you
EXPECT to receive from others. But look at the African Union (AU). It
drew up NEPAD, expecting to receive $64 billion in investment from the
West. Need I ask if NEPAD will ever get off the ground? The AU is
afflicted with the same "externalist orthodoxy" or mentality that seeks
the solutions to Africa's woes from external sources. This orthodoxy got
us nowhere and will not extricate us from our current quagmire. Again,
if you want to stick with this orthodoxy and seek foreign solutions, all
the best of luck to you.

C. Back to Roots: Africa's Heritage

Moses, here is a quote:


       "Then our people lived peacefully, under the democratic rule of their
kings...Then the country was ours, in our name and right. The land
belonged to the whole tribes. There were no classes, no rich or poor and
no exploitation of man by man. All men were free and equal and this was
the foundation of government. Recognition of this general principle
found expression in the constitution of the council, variously called
Imbizo, or Pitso or Kgotla, which governs the affairs of the tribe. The
council (of elders) was so completely democratic that all members of the
tribe could participate in its deliberations. Chief and subject, warrior
and medicine man, all took part and endeavoured to influence its
decisions. There was much in such a society that was primitive and
insecure, and certainly could never measure up to the demands of the
present epoch. But in such a society are contained the seeds of
revolutionary democracy (Winnie Mandela, Part Of My Soul Went With Him.
New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1985; p.53).
__________________________

Moses, you think Mandela is nuts? The comments you made, as well as
those by Kissi, and Emetulu, about traditional Africa or Africa's
heritage amounted to academic nit-picking that serves little purpose.
Everyone knows that diversity is the hallmark of black Africa's
heritage. Yet, certain commonalities can be discerned and generalities
made. For example, most traditional African societies did not have
standing armies. Less than 20 out of the over 2,000 ethnic groups had
standing armies. Therefore, I can safely say that standing armies were
not a feature of most traditional African societies. You can point to a
few exceptions but the exceptions do not make the rule. Similarly, I can
also make the following statements about traditional Africa:

1.        The basic social unit is the extended family, not the individual as
in the West.
2.       Strong sense of group (ethnic, religious or community) solidarity

pervades traditional Africa, exemplified by these sayings: "I am because
we are," and "It takes a village to raise a child." These resonate with
most Africans.
3. Food production in Africa is a female occupation. It has been for
centuries and remains so today because of sexual division of labor.

About 80 percent of peasant farmers in Africa today are women
4. Free village markets, free trade and free enterprise have been the
rule in traditional Africa for centuries and remain so.
5.     Village market activity is dominated by women.
6.        Bargaining is the rule in Africa's village markets
7.    Village government consists of 3 units: The chief, the Council of
Elders, and the Village Assembly (Meeting). In stateless societies, the
village government is composed of only two: Council of Elders and the
Village Assembly.
8.        Village governance is one of participatory democracy based on
consensus.

These general statements, as well as others, can be made about
traditional Africa BEING FULLY AWARE that there are exceptions. For
example, not all African ethnic groups had chiefs (stateless societies).
Furthermore, these features of traditional Africa have been in existence
for CENTURIES and are still there. So we are not talking about
antiquity. The village markets have not vanished and bargaining is still
the rule. Further, the vast majority of Africa's peasant farmers are
still women. I won't argue about these, not because of stubbornness but
because it is a waste of time.

An African economy can be broken up into 3 sectors: The modern sector
(the abode of the government and the elites), the informal sector and
the traditional sector. Virtually all of Africa's crises emanate from
the modern sector and spill over to the other two sectors, claiming
innocent victims. The vast majority of the African people - peasants --
live in these two sectors: the traditional and the informal sectors. I
will make two bold and emphatic statements:

a.     You CANNOT develop an African country by ignoring the traditional and
the informal sectors. I challenge you to dispute this.
b.   Nor can you develop the traditional and informal sectors if you do
NOT understand how they operate. They do not operate by the same logic
and systems as the modern sector does. I challenge you to dispute this
also. 

But these are precisely the two sectors African governments and elites
ignored and held in contempt after independence. They spurned the
traditional sector as "backward," "primitive" and "eye-sore." Over 70
percent of Ivory Coast development was concentrated in Abidjan, the
modern sector. The elites were for industrialization, not agriculture -
the main occupation of Africa's peasants.

Whether you Moses like it or not, Africa's peasants still go about their
activities using ANCIENT practices, institutions and customs. They still
use the hoe and the cutlass. Some even still practice female
circumcision - an ancient practice. It is preposterous to characterize
this as "glorifying or romanticizing about antiquity" when this is stark
reality staring at you in the face.

Economic development means improving the lot of these peasants - not
developing the pockets of vampire elites. But you cannot improve their
lot if you do not understand THEIR institutions and systems. We are not
talking about those you learned from textbooks in Western universities.
To improve their lot, you must go down to THEIR level and start from the
"bottom-up." That is what "grassroots development" is all about. "Back
to roots" captures the same essence. To get these peasants to produce
MORE food, you must speak the language THEY -- not you -- understand.
You can't be speaking GREEK to them when what they understand is
"profit-sharing", "susu," "esusu," "tontines," and "stokvels." You
probably don't know what these mean. Go back to your roots and learn
about them.

Tragically, we, African elites, did not do this in the post-colonial
period. Our approach was "top-down." We went abroad and copied all sorts
of FOREIGN systems and paraphernalia and transplanted them in Africa.
Name the foreign system and you will find some dysfunctional replica

somewhere in Africa. We even borrowed from Jupiter! Haba! The continent
of Africa is littered with the carcasses of these failed foreign
systems. Black man, have you thought of IMPROVING or CREATING your own?

Moses, as an African, I am proud of my African heritage. Perhaps, you

don't think you have one.  If so, what is it? Like I said, I get
irritated when I feel I have to defend Africa's heritage to an African.
I have never said African heritage is all edifying and honky-dory. Like
American heritage or British heritage, it too comes with its warts and
all. But if it strange how some Africans denigrate their own heritage
while others still revere theirs. The Japanese still have their Emperor,
the Fins their King, and the Brits their Queen. The Americans are still
ruled by a Constitution that is more than 200 years old and constantly
talking about their Founding Fathers. I do not hear you accusing
Americans of romanticizing about their antiquity. And you, Moses, accuse
me of "romanticizing about antiquity"? I am sure you will also dismiss
President Thabo Mbeki's "African Renaissance" as "phantamastic."

BOTSWANA is the only African country that did not spurn its indigenous
institutions. It went back to its roots and build upon them. And it is
doing very well, thank you. Botswana is not starving, it has not
imploded. Nor do you see Botswana, with a bowl in hand, begging foreign
institutions to come and solve its problems. As a matter of fact,
Botswana does not borrow from the World Bank; it rather lends money to
the World Bank.

So why don't you, Moses, crow about Botswana as a truly AFRICAN success
story and a model which Nigeria should emulate?

D. Sovereign National Conference (SNC)

Moses, the national conferences held in Zaire and Togo, for example, did
not succeed because they were not "sovereign", nor "independent." They
were manipulated by the incumbents and, moreover, their decisions were
not binding on the incumbents. Therefore, you CANNOT say the SNC did not
succeed in Zaire and Togo when they were not sovereign nor independent.

It succeeded in Benin and South Africa precisely because they were
sovereign and independent. Now, participants in both cases affirmed that
it was derived from Africa's own indigenous institution: The village
meeting or ndaba, as the Zulus call it. For you to claim that you know
better than the Beninois, the South Africans and even the Afghans takes
intellectual arrogance to new heights of absurdity. I won't argue over
this. I take what the Beninois and South Africans tell me, not what you
Moses tell me.

E. "African Solutions for African Problems"

Moses, your attempt to denigrate this slogan is disingenuous. The fact
that it has been debauched and abused by coconut-heads does not mean it
is devoid of any merit. Neither does the fact that it has been hijacked
by some American conservatives to relieve themselves of any obligation
to help Africa. The slogan encompasses more than "back to roots."

Like I said in an earlier posting, I coined that expression in 1993 when
Somalia blew up - out of frustration and anger. You see, time and again
when a crisis erupts, African governments and leaders do nothing to
resolve it. They will rush to the World Bank, IMF, the West and the
international community and badger them for aid. Then they are the same
governments and leaders who will accuse the World Bank and the IMF of
trying to dictate "neo-colonial and imperialist solutions" to Africa.
They are also the same ones who will criticize "Western solutions" as
ineffectual. So why don't these African governments devise their own
African solutions to Africa's problems? I hope you get the drift.

There is a term called "ownership of solutions." If you devise your own
solution to your problem, there is a "pride of ownership" and you have
every incentive to see it work. Many Western or foreign solutions have
not worked well in Africa because they were imposed on or dictated to
Africa. Africans "did not own those solutions." If African leaders say
Western-style multi-party democracy is unsuitable for Africa, why don't

they devise their own "African-style democracy"? And I am not talking
about the situation where they appoint their cronies as the Electoral
Commissioners to write the electoral rules, pad the voter register, deny
the opposition access to the state-controlled media, lock up the

opposition candidates and hold fraudulent elections to declare
themselves winners - as is too often observed in Africa's coconut
republics. Even illiterate chiefs won't get away with this.
I am pasting below the synopsis of a paper by a graduate student in my
class, Africa's Economies in Crisis. She is from Eritrea and her paper
is entitled, "The Feasibility of African Solutions for African
Problems."

This was a student who frequently argued with me in class "external
factors." When she walked into my office to hand in her paper, she was
profuse with thanks. She said the course had had a tremendous impact on
her and has changed her way of thinking completely. [Aarh, brown-nosing
again. Students will say anything to get an A, I said to myself. In her
case, it was not necessary as I had told my students at the beginning of
the semester that they do not have to agree with me to get an A for the
course.]

Another African graduate student from Nigeria is writing a paper on how
to apply indigenous Igbo conflict resolution mechanisms to modern day
African conflicts. The Igbo mechanisms employ the liberal use of women
in conflict resolution. Note that in my original piece, I called for the
inclusion of CIVIL SOCIETY or those directly and indirectly affected by
the conflict to be involved in its resolution. It takes a village to
resolve a conflict.

Moses, what we need is PEACE. If the indigenous conflict resolution
mechanism will bring peace, why not use it? Who cares whether this
mechanism was used in 1367 or 1973?

George Ayittey,
Washington, DC


Professor George B.N. Ayittey
ECON 658 - Economics of Africa
American University

The Feasibility of
"African Solutions for African Problems"

Milena Bereket
Fall 2004
Introduction:
Black people in general, and Africans in particular, need to wake up!
The terms "consciousness" and "awareness" need to be stripped out of
paperback narratives and applied in our daily lives! We need to dust off
our dignity and march toward our third and final liberation struggle!
The first was against colonization as we struggled for political freedom
in the 1960s. The second was against international financial
institutions when we struggled for economic freedom in the 1980s.
Apparently, neither one was fully successful because we are still
struggling. This final liberation struggle is against ourselves and our
own as we fight to reclaim our place in our present history - denied to
us not by the "white man," but by our own "leaders" who share our own
skin color; "leaders" who suffer from intense cases of colonized minds;
"leaders" who by any means necessary have kept us from realizing our
potential; "leaders" whose time is up!
Blaming the "white man," "the system," "the invisible hand," and "the
west," among other external factors will get us nowhere! In fact,
blaming all these outside sources will only add to our bitterness and
animosity - ironically, toward each other - which in turn will keep us
in perpetual bankruptcy! This does not mean, however, that one needs to
erase history and act as if 400 years of slavery, 100 years of
colonialism, and unimaginable number of deaths never happened. Indeed,
all this and much much more did happen to our ancestors! They were
slaughtered, kidnapped, raped, humiliated, scalped, and lynched. Their
social fabric was torn to pieces. Their voices and melodies silenced.
Their livelihoods burned to the ground. Their religions, languages and
memories erased. Their sacred spaces - physical and symbolic - all
invaded. The history of our ancestors must always remain in the back of
our heads - driving us to strive for better and best - not to sulk and
surrender!
The same ones who destroyed our ancestors, cannot be expected to now
hold the key to our salvation! Therefore, it is time we took things into

our own hands! It is just a matter of centering our souls and
reconnecting with our core being! Indeed, the solutions are inside us
and in our own backyards. The solutions lay in the way things used to be
and the way we are now - a perfect synergy of past traditions and
present routines. All we have to do is create a social, political and

economic system that honors and respects the old sacred ways and at the
same time fits within our new worldly experiences. Then and only then
will we truly be free!

This paper, while recognizing the effects of external factors and past
history, argues that the key to African development - political and
economic - lays in the hands of African peoples - not elites, but

everyday people - themselves.

-- 

---------------------------
Toyin Falola
Department of History
The University of Texas at Austin
1 University Station
Austin, TX 78712-0220
USA
512 475 7224
512 475 7222  (fax)
www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa

 

Note: forwarded message attached.

George: So, Moses, if Igbo villagers can bring the village to a halt and put pressure on the elders to change policy, why can't Nigeria's civil society, and professional bodies (bar association, university lecturers, students), church groups, trade union groups, etc. bring social pressure
to bear on Obasanjo by calling for a "village strike"?

Moses: Hiding behind historians and anthropologists who are merely offering a description of how the Ama-ala operated in SPECIFIC African settings to make sweeping and generalizing statements about how the Ama-ala is an "African" institution is not a substitute for actually proving that this was "Africa's political heritage."  Calling on the Nigerian civil society to act towards making NIGERIAN leaders accountable is one thing; calling this approach a product of some fossilized African practice is quite another, and it is sloppy to say the least. Civil societies are not an African institution; they exist everywhere in different forms and to different degrees. Of course, civil society could act as a catalyst for political change or conflict resolution. But how does that amount to an "African solution" and how is that different from the activist potential of the civil society in other parts of the world? What is new or African about this model of political action?

-- 

---------------------------
Toyin Falola
Department of History
The University of Texas at Austin
1 University Station
Austin, TX 78712-0220
USA
512 475 7224
512 475 7222  (fax)
www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa

 

Note: forwarded message attached.

I agree with many of the points that you made and share some of your concerns regarding Western involvement and the role of Cold War intrigues and global forces in the ruination of Africa. But at the end of the day, SELF-RELIANCE is the imperative. As Reverend Jesse Jackson once said: "It is true somebody knocked you down but it is YOUR RESPONSIBILITY to get up."

We may rail all we want about slavery, Western imperialism, neo-colonialism, hostile global forces, or geo-political intrigues. But at the end of the day, it is OUR  RESPONSIBILITY to get up. Arguing about who knocked Africa down and whose responsibility it is to pull Africa up, in my view, serves no useful purpose. And taking this position does NOT mean a denial of Western culpability. Rather, it constitutes a ruthlessly PRAGMATIC  position.

In the piece that I wrote for the Wall Street Journal, I proposed two "African" solutions to deal with conflict resolution and political crises.

1.   Conflict resolution in Africa has had such abysmal record in Africa.
Peace accords failed in Africa because of the Western approach often
foisted on combatants by Western donors. I suggested that the indigenous
African approach might be better. It requires 4 parties: an arbiter, the
two disputants and CIVIL SOCIETY or those directly and indirectly
affected by the conflict. Africans believe that it takes a village, not
only to raise a child but also to resolve a conflict.

2.      The "sovereign national conference" (SNC) is a vehicle that can be
used to resolve political crises. It was successfully used to dismantle
apartheid in South Africa and to craft a new democratic political
dispensation in Benin, Cape Verde Island, Zambia, Malawi, and other
African countries. SNC is a modernization of an African institution (the
village meeting) and can also be used to chart a new political future
for Nigeria, Sudan, and many other African countries.

I call these "AFRICAN SOLUTIONS", informed by a "back-to-roots" agenda;
that is, modernizing an indigenous African practice or institution and
using it to resolve a modern problem. Now, if you believe these
solutions won't work, then please suggest BETTER SOLUTIONS. You have
not. Please tell us what solutions you would offer for Ivory Coast and
Sudan. Second, if you feel this "back-to-roots" is "phantamastic", then
offer us a BETTER SLOGAN. You have not.

A debate over what is "African", in my view, is not very useful. The people of Benin themselves said their sovereign national conference was modeled after their own traditional village meeting. Inkatha Freedom Party says South Africa's Convention for a Democratic South Africa (CODESA) was derived from "ndaba" - a Zulu word for "village meeting." It is exceedingly arrogant on your part to dismiss these as "phantamastic." I have pasted their own view below.

For your information, Afghanistan convened under the auspices of the United Nations a "loya jirga", which the Washington Post described as " a centuries-old form of grass-roots tribal democracy" to make the transition to democratic rule. I have pasted this reference below.

More relevant to the debate is this question you asked me: "Since you (Ayittey) don't believe in any foreign involvement in African conflict resolution, my question to you would be: how do we ensure that those recalcitrant incumbents who are resistant to either the convening of an
SNC or to the implementation of its outcomes are made to yield their defiance a la De Klerk and the National Party in South Africa?"

Here's my "back-to-roots" solution. It is NOT copied from the West nor Jupiter; it is derived from Africa's own political heritage. If you an Igbo, then consider your own Ama-ala (village meeting). Here is a description:

        "In routine matters the elders ruled by decree and proclamation but where decisions likely to produce disputes were to be taken, the Ama ala could order the town crier to announce a village assembly in the market place or in a ward square.    At the assembly, the elders laid the issues before the people. Every man had a right to speak, the people applauding popular proposals and shouting down unpopular ones. Decisions had to be unanimous...If the Ama

ala acted arbitrarily and refused to call the assembly, people could demand it by completely ignoring them and bringing town life to a halt (a VILLAGE STRIKE!). By ignoring and refusing to speak to an unpopular elder, social pressure often compelled the elder to bend to the popular
will. The village assembly was considered the Igbo man's birthright, the
guarantee of his rights, his shield against oppression, the expression
of his individualism, and the means whereby the young progressive
impressed their views upon the old and the conservative (Boahen and
Webster, 1970:170).

So, Moses, if Igbo villagers can bring the village to a halt and put pressure on the elders to change policy, why can't Nigeria's civil society, and professional bodies (bar association, university lecturers, students), church groups, trade union groups, etc. bring social pressure
to bear on Obasanjo by calling for a "village strike"?

George Ayittey,
Washington, DC

__________________________

Indaba and Codesa

At a joint  Councillors Meeting between Inkatha Freedom Party and the
Democratic Alliance, Tony Leon, leader of the AD, said on March 15, 2002


"Perhaps the most significant interaction, until now, took place during
the eight months of the "Natal KwaZulu Indaba," back in 1986.

The Indaba foreshadowed the negotiations of the 1990's in important
ways. It brought to the same table South Africans from every group and
background; it was premised on a need to overcome the racial divides and
inequalities of Apartheid without resorting to violence; it considered
and adopted a set of proposals that were inspired by many of the same
values and principles now enshrined in our democratic constitution.

Our joint experiences in the Indaba foreshadowed another joinT, and at
its time, pioneering initiative, when our two parties joined together to
launch a national movement for a National Convention. Although this
venture did not achieve its purpose because it was ahead of its time, it
helped show South Africans that the path to democracy lay through a
negotiated settlement, not through protracted violence. Rejected and
scorned thought we perhaps were, it was noteworthy that when we stoop up
together in sometimes lonely places on the political map, South Africans
over time converged around these concepts. And so the Indaba inaugurated
the principles and articles of the Indaba Constitution, which prefigured
many of the details in the Republic of South African Constitution.
Likewise, the National Convention inaugurated the later reality of
Codesa and the Multi-Party Negotiation Process." (IFP website:
www.ifp.org.za)
________________________


From the Washington Post:

"Nur Karkin, a scholar from the ethnic Turkoman minority, is one of 21
Afghan professionals and intellectuals from all major ethnic groups who
have been asked to plan and regulate the loya jirga, a traditional
nationwide conclave that is scheduled to meet in June to choose a
government to serve while a new constitution is written and the nation
prepares for elections.

Across Afghanistan, the poor and mostly illiterate populace of 26
million is focusing enormous hopes on the loya jirga, a centuries-old
form of grass-roots tribal democracy that has been convened from time to
time to resolve national crises. After 23 years of war, civil conflict
and religious repression that ended with the collapse of the Taliban
militia in November, most Afghans yearn for a system that will bring
them peaceful, stable and tolerant rule. But the task of setting up the
conclave will be monumental, and the road to June is mined with an

explosive mix of political and ethnic tensions, logistics obstacles and
potentially violent opposition from regional militia leaders who have
dominated Afghanistan for years and view the fledgling democratic
process as a challenge to their power" (The Washington Post, Feb 23,
2002; p.A1).

___________________

-- 

---------------------------
Toyin Falola
Department of History
The University of Texas at Austin
1 University Station
Austin, TX 78712-0220
USA
512 475 7224
512 475 7222  (fax)

www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa

 

Note: forwarded message attached.

-- 

---------------------------
Toyin Falola
Department of History
The University of Texas at Austin
1 University Station
Austin, TX 78712-0220
USA
512 475 7224
512 475 7222  (fax)
www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa

 

Note: forwarded message attached.

-- 

---------------------------
Toyin Falola
Department of History
The University of Texas at Austin
1 University Station
Austin, TX 78712-0220
USA
512 475 7224
512 475 7222  (fax)
www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa

 

Note: forwarded message attached.

Your apology has been accepted. I would also request your forgiveness
for my tempestuousness. I get irritated when I feel I have to defend
Africa's heritage to an African.

It is obvious from your write-up that you do not subscribe to President
Thabo Mbeki's "African Renaissance," nor the aphorism: "African
solutions for African problems," which, by the way I coined in 1993 when
Somalia imploded.

Regarding the sovereign national conference (SNC), I think you need to
realize that EVERY model or solution has its own limitations. Even the
U.S. electoral college system has its limitations. Fact that a model may
have limitations doesn't mean we should not try it.  More disturbing is
your call for "MORE foreign engagement and involvement in African crisis
resolution efforts and political engineering" because you feel the
indigenous SNC requires immense foreign pressure and involvement to
succeed.

Moses, this is where you and I part ways because this is exactly the
mentality of African leaders. They "internationalize" every African
problem, making its solution require foreign involvement or
international participation and cooperation. This is why they are
constantly appealing, appealing and begging and begging the
international community for assistance. You will never, ever hear or see
me calling for foreign involvement in an African crisis situation. Ever!
It deprecates my dignity and pride as an African, which is why I coined
the expression, "African  solutions for African problems" in 1993.
Besides, this approach is flawed in many ways:

1. "Internationalization" of an African problem allows the leaders to
escape taking full responsibility for the problem. If the problem
remains unsolved, they can blame the international community for not
getting involved.
2. We cannot rail against "foreign meddling in African affairs,"
"Western neo-colonialism and imperialism" and then invite foreigners to
be part of the solution. If colonialists and imperialists caused our
problems, as some claim, what is the point inviting them to be part of
the solution?
3. Common sense should tell us that, if we allow them to be part of the
solution, they will solve the problem to THEIR ADVANTAGE. Have we not
learned anything from our historical relationship with them? Even today,
over 80 percent of U.S. aid is spent on American contractors,
sub-contractors and goods and services. So who is helping who?
4. Foreign solutions do not work well in Africa. Witness Somalia. What
happened when we relied on foreign intervention to save Rwanda? In July
2000 at the OAU Summit in Lome, African leaders demanded $13 billion in
compensation from the U.S. and France for their FAILURE to intervene in
Rwanda. Imagine.
5. Experience should tell us this: Introduce a "foreign element" or
internationalize an African problem and you render the problem
INSOLUBLE. This is because you introduce into the equation an element
over which you have absolutely NO CONTROL. Remember this Fanti proverb:
"If you rely on someone else for food, you will go without breakfast."
6. Has it occurred to us that the international community is thoroughly
FED UP with Africa? They use the more diplomatic term "donor fatigue."
Africa is the only continent that is constantly unloading its problems
onto the international stage. Even Kofi Annan is fed up with African
leaders.

At the July, 2000 OAU Summit in Lome, Togo, Kofi Annan, ripped into
these African leaders. According to Ghana's state-owned newspaper, The
Daily Graphic (July 12, 2000),

"United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan told African leaders that
they are to blame for most of the continent's problems. Mr. Annan said

Africans were suffering because they themselves are not doing enough to
invest in policies that promote development and preserve peace. He told
the OAU Summit that Africa was the only region where the number of
conflicts was increasing and pointed out that 33 of the world's 48 least
developed countries were African.

Mr. Annan said Africans bear much of the responsibility for the
deterioration of the continent's security and the withdrawal of foreign
aid. "This is not something others have done to us. It is something we
have done to ourselves. If African is being bypassed, it is because not
enough of us are investing in policies, which would promote development
and preserve peace. We have mismanaged our affairs for decades and we
are suffering the accumulated effects" (p.5)

There was a reason why United Nations Secretary General Mr. Kofi Annan
lashed out at African leaders. During a brief stop-over in Accra after
the Summit, he disclosed in a Joy FM radio station interview that
"Africa is the region giving him the biggest headache as the security
council spends 60 to 70% of its time on Africa. He admitted sadly and
that the conflicts on the continent embarrasses and pains him as an
African" (The Guide, July 18-24, 2000; p.8). The U.N boss said that as
an African Secretary General, he gets a lot of support from the region.
However, the conflicts in the region impede the full development of the
continent.  "When you mention Africa today to investors outside they,
they think of a continent in crisis, and no one wants to invest in a bad
neighborhood" he noted (The Guide, July 18-24, 2000; p.8). Earlier in
the year at a press conference in London in April, 2000, Kofi Annan,
"lambasted African leaders who he says have subverted democracy and
lined their pockets with public funds, although he stopped short of
naming names" (The African-American Observer, April 25 - May 1, 2000;
p.10).

So, Moses, if you want MORE foreign involvement in the resolution of
African crises, good luck and count me out of it.

RE: AFRICA'S INDIGENOUS INSTITUTIONS

I would rather you did not put labels on them, such as "republicanism",
"neo-liberal values," etc. on them because they can be misleading and
confusing. What may be neo-liberal to you may not be to others. You
wrote that:

____________

In states like the Sokoto Caliphate, Buganda, Bunyoro, Great Zimbabwe,
Benin, Ethiopia, Zanzibar, to name a few, various forms of despotism
held sway-some undergirded by religion, others semi-secular in nature -
but all subject to the unquestionable whim of a sovereign. In these
states and more in
precolonial Africa, the idea of a "republican" village meeting for
crises resolution and/or political decision making was anathema. Other
states possessed a hybrid of the despotism and republicanism. Here
village meetings were occasionally convened but ultimate verdicts
resided with the kings.
_______________________

Peter Bauer wrote that: "Despotism and kleptocracy do not inhere in the
nature of African cultures or in the African character; but they are now
rife in what was once called British colonial Africa, notably West
Africa" (Reality and Rhetoric: Studies in Economics of Development.
Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1984; p.104). Is Bauer distorting
African political heritage? So what kind of "despotism" prevailed in
those states? Most historians would affirm that one notable feature of
African traditional polities was great devolution of authority and great
DECENTRALIZATION of power. Almost all the ancient African empires were
CONFEDERACIES. You can organize a society along 3 basic lines:

1. The Unitary system, with centralization of power at the capital (the
European model)
2. The Federal system, where the center is strong but there is
decentralization of power to the states.
3. The Confederal system, where the center is weak and the constituent
states have more power. The larger traditional African polities, such as
Ghana, Mali, Songhai, Great Zimbabwe were confederacies. Even the Ga and
Ashanti Kingdoms were confederacies of six republics. This explains the

tendency of African empires to splinter.

When Ayittey talks about DECENTRALIZATION OF POWER as an article of
Africa's political heritage he is not romanticizing about Africa's past.
He is suggesting this as a possible SOLUTION to our political problems.
Note that modern-day Switzerland, where bandit African heads of state

keep their loot, is a CONFEDERATION of 9 cantons. The mistake we made
after independence was to retain the European UNITARY system with
centralization of power. Even Nigeria, which was supposed to be
"federal" became centralized.

Of course, we must be careful about  generalizing about traditional
Africa. But despite Africa's immense cultural diversity, certain
commonalities can be isolated. The Village Meeting is one of them. You
are wrong when you say that it was occasionally convened in some states
and that in some "republican" states it was an anathema. Moreover, the
ultimate verdicts resided with the kings. Could you name these
"republican states" where the village meeting was anathema? And where
were the verdicts subject to the ultimate approval of kings.

Fact is, African kings had no political role. Theirs was spiritual and
supernatural. African philosophical belief system divided the universe
into 3 parts: the cosmos, the world, and the earth. Each has a god and
if any of them is "angry" , terrible things would befall the community.
The king's role was to intercede to placate the gods to ensure peace,
harmony, etc. To perform this role well, the king was "fortified" with
supernatural powers and secluded in his palace. The Yoruba oona, for
example, was forbidden to come out of his palace, except under the cover
of darkness. If some calamity were to befall the village or community
(such as poor harvest, drought, for example), it meant the king was not
doing his job and he was BEHEADED (regicide). How I wish regicide would
be brought back! Eyadema, Abacha, Mugabe, and the rest of them never had
it so easy! Just hand them over to the CUTLASS!

Jan Vansina (1987), who extensively studied the kingdoms of Central
Africa, found that, "the king's (political) role is small: he is the
representative or symbol of the chiefdom and may have some religious
duties, but his participation in the political decision making process
is insignificant" (Kingdoms of the Savannah. Madison: University of
Wisconsin Press, 1975; p.29). In fact, the king hardly made policy or
spoke. He had a spokesperson, called a linguist, through whom he
communicated. He hardly decided policy. His advisers and chiefs would
determine policies and present them for royal sanction. His role in
legislation and execution of policy was severely limited.

The Ga people of Ghana took this to the extreme. The Ga mantse (king)
had no role in political affairs or authority except only in times of
war. In many other ethnic societies, however, the king was the physical
symbol of his kingdom, a personification of sacred ancestry and the
religious head of his tribe as well as the link to the universe.  As
such, the vital force of the king must never decline; nor must the king
die, since he embodies the spiritual and therefore material well being
of his people. The consequences would be devastation: droughts would
occur, women would no longer be able to bear children, epidemics would
strike the people. Great care, therefore, must be taken to prevent a
break in the line of transmitted power.

In other words, the African king was not involved in the deliberations
of the Village Assembly; nor were the decisions taken there subject to
his veto.

RE: BACK-TO-ROOTS

Moses, fact that this slogan has been hijacked by some corrupt African
despots does not mean it is devoid of any inherent merit. African unity
is concept that has been bandied about by even Mobutu, Abacha, Doe and
other unsavory characters. But that doesn't mean we should not pursue
it.

Back-to-roots is the result of a brutally frank assessment of African
reality. The majority of the African people are simple illiterate folks
I would call "peasants" - a term not used derogatively. They STILL go
about their daily economic activities using CENTURIES-OLD practices,

traditions, systems and institutions. Agriculture is their primary
occupation and 80 percent of these peasant farmers are WOMEN. About 70
percent of African peasants rely on TRADITIONAL MEDICINE.  They still
have their chiefs and traditional rulers, who command far more respect

and authority from the people than central governments seated hundreds
of miles away in the capital city because the chiefs are closer to the
people and understand them more.

This is not romanticizing about antiquity. This is still a reality in
Africa. In my view, the chiefs are Africa's most important human
resource but African elites saw them as a threat to their power. So they
stripped the chiefs of much of their traditional authority and
marginalized them. But in South Africa, they are fighting back fiercely.
Says Benjamin Makhanaya: "The ANC [government of South Africa] wants to
transplant customs from other countries here, and that will destroy the
Zulu nation and all that we value. We are poor, but do you see any
beggars in the streets like you do in the cities? The inkhosi
(traditional chief) makes sure that we are all provided for. The
municipality will make beggars of us. When I have a problem, I can go
see the inkhosi any time, day or night. I don't need an appointment.
They can have their civilization, brother " (The Washington Post, Dec
18, 2000; p.A1).

More than a third of South Africa's 44 million people live under the
jurisdiction of one or another of the nation's 800 tribal chiefs, or
amakhosi as they are referred to in the Zulu language. "Traditional
leaders here have endured colonialism, war and nearly 50 years of
oppressive white minority rule, only to face extinction at the hands of
the black-majority government that vanquished apartheid six years ago
and installed democracy" (The Washington Post, Dec 18, 2000; p.A1).
"Africans want change because there is so much suffering here", said
Patekile Holomisa, an inkhosi and head of the Congress of Traditional
Leaders in South Africa. "But Africans are above all else devoted to
their ancestors, and they do not want to betray that by becoming
something that they are not". (The Washington Post, Dec 18, 2000; p.A1).

Development means improving the lives of the PEASANTS, not developing
the pockets of the elites. To improve their lives, you must start from
the BOTTOM-UP. You must go down to THEIR level, understand the way THEY
do things, not how they should do it. Like I said, these peasants still
go by activities using ancient practices and systems. You cannot improve
their lot if you do not understand their systems. Dispute this. Going
back to roots is NOT romanticizing about antiquity; it is a PRACTICAL
imperative if you want to improve the lot of the African people. But we,
the elites, NEVER did this.

Take agriculture, for example. Today, Africa cannot feed itself. It
imports food worth $18.9 billion a year. This is about the same amount
of FOREIGN AID Africa receives from all sources in a year. In other
words, we turn around and use the SAME foreign aid we receive to import
food! Back in the 1950s and 1960s, Africa not only fed itself but
exported food. Not anymore. What happened?

So many factors explain the decline in agriculture (collapsed
infrastructure, senseless civil wars, price controls, marketing boards,
etc.) but the elite approach to agriculture was "TOP-DOWN". We read
about or saw how food is produced in say the U.S. and therefore, our
peasant farmers must adopt the same techniques (the tractor mentality).

Take Nigeria. Unable to feed itself, Nigeria gave up and turned to
imports. By 2004, the country was spending $3 billlion a year on food
imports - including rice, chickens, and dairy products (The Washington
Times, July 18, 2004; p.A6).  In July, 2004, President Olusegun Obasanjo
invited about 200 white farmers, whose farmlands have been violently
seized by the Mugabe regime in Zimbabwe, to resettle in in Kwara state.
Bukola Saraki, the governor of the state, said: AWhen we found oil [in
the Niger delta], we didn=t ask people in southern Nigeria to look for
shovels to dig for it. We brought in foreigners with expertise. Our land

is an asset that is not being utilized. The only way to do that is to
bring in people with the necessary skills.@ In Kwara, we don't have oil,
but we have 2.3 million hectares [5.7 million acres] available for
agriculture" (The Washington Times, July 18, 2004; p.A6).

Much of that land along the Niger River is fertile and is seldom farmed
and the governor has been spearheading a national drive to wean Nigeria
off its oil-based revenue and make itself self-sufficient in food. But
the governor's "Back to the Farm" campaign launched in 2003 flopped
miserably. The governor discovered that "Kwara's peasant farmers, most
in their 60s and 70s, were unfamiliar with modern technology and had no
capital to buy tractors" (The Washington Times, July 18, 2004; p.A6).

You see the "tractor mentality"? The governor's approach to peasant
agriculture defies common sense. First, illiterate peasant farmers
cannot be expected to be familiar with modern technology and have the
capital to buy tractors! An agricultural program involving peasant
farmers, based upon such ridiculous premises cannot be expected to
succeed. Second, the governor's solution to the agricultural debacle was
to invite white commercial farmers from Zimbabwe. This meant that he was
ABANDONING his own peasant farmers in his state. He should have asked
why the land was not being utilized. Did he think of giving incentives
to his peasant farmers?
Moses, does this make sense to you: Kwara state governor has given up on
his peasant farmers and brought in white commercial farmers from
Zimbabwe to feed his state. Meanwhile, the peasant farmers will go about
their subsistence agriculture, using ancient practices and primitive
implements. Ayittey says go back there - to your roots - and IMPROVE
upon the peasants' way of doing things. We, the elites, with our
copy-cat mentality never did this. So let us bring in white commercial
farmers from Jupiter to come and feed us.

At a May 2000 conference on medicinal plants and traditional medicine
for the new millennium, conferees issued "The Nairobi Declaration"
demanding full and formal recognition of traditional medicine. [For a
full report of the conference, see
http://www.para55.org/caretreat/trad_med_mine.asp]. Moses, were they out
of their minds romanticizing about ancient medicine?

George Ayittey,

Washington, DC

-- 

---------------------------
Toyin Falola
Department of History
The University of Texas at Austin
1 University Station
Austin, TX 78712-0220
USA
512 475 7224
512 475 7222  (fax)
www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa

 

Note: forwarded message attached.

I have responded to you below to clarify my critique and comments on your

write-up. I have done a point-by-point response. We may not agree on some things but we need to understand each other.

Ayittey:  I have NEVER advocated for the "second colonization"

of Africa. Where did you get this idea? I have always
advocated the "second LIBERATION" of Africa, not
colonization.î


Moses:   apologize for the semantic slippage that made me
substitute "colonization" for "liberation." But I
suppose that you only have a problem with my
semantics, not my characterization of your idea of
ìsecond liberationî as idea which denotes the
supplanting of African ruling elites with Western
expatriates and institutions of neo-liberal economic
and political superintendence. If this is a
misreading, I also apologize.



Ayittey : The sovereign national conference (SNC) succeeded in
Benin and South Africa and elsewhere because it was
SOVEREIGN and there were NO political interferences
with its deliberations. This was not the case in Togo,
Zaire or Nigeria. In Nigeria, Abacha reserved for
himself the
right to accept or reject the decisions of the
Constitutional Conference he convened in 1995. It was

not sovereign.

Moses: Exactly. And that is why I pointed out in my response

that the biggest challenge is not that of
disseminating the SNC model to the trouble spots of
Africa but rather that of clearing a sovereign
operative space for it, which would put it beyond the
meddling hands of political incumbents who insist on
exercising dubious sovereignty on behalf of the
people, the real repository of sovereignty. It is
precisely this obstacle in the form of anti-reform
incumbencies that has thrown up the imperatives of
international pressure and involvement.

Thus, it seems to me that for it to succeed, the SNC
solution would require more, not less, foreign
engagement with and involvement in African crisis
resolution efforts and political reengineering. What
is apparent, then, is that the ìindigenousî SNC
solution requires immense ìforeignî pressure and
involvement to succeed. Not all of Africaís leaders
are as self-reflexive as Matthew Kerekou of Benin or
as contrite as De Klerk of South Africa. In the case
of the latter, international pressure was crucial in
forcing the National Party to yield to the SNC

solution and to accept its outcomes.

Ayittey: The SNC is just a modernized version of the African

village meeting.It is called asetena kese by the
Ashanti, ama-ala by the Igbo, kgotla by the Tswana,
pitso by the Xhosa and ndaba by the Zulu. You do not
seem to be familiar with your own indigenous African
institutions. I wrote a
book with the same name which you can find at
www.amazon.com.
Search for "Indigenous African Institutions" or my
name "Ayittey."


Moses: I am not entirely convinced that ìthe SNC is just a
modernized version of the African village meeting.î
The ideological genealogy of the SNC seems to me to be
in the post-Cold War upsurge in demands for liberal
political and economic reforms, inclusive politics,
and transparent and equitable leadership, principles
that Cold War politics had put in abeyance. Nor do I
believe that the examples that you listed above, which
I am deeply familiar with, are representative of

Africa. The African precolonial past offers us
examples of a wide range of judicial and political
arrangements, the village meeting being only one of
them. In states like the Sokoto Caliphate, Buganda,
Bunyoro, Great Zimbabwe, Benin, Ethiopia, Zanzibar, to
name a few, various forms of despotism held swayósome
undergirded by religion, others semi-secular in
natureóbut all subject to the unquestionable whim of a
sovereign. In these states and more in precolonial
Africa, the idea of a ìrepublicanî village meeting for
crises resolution and/or political decision making was
anathema. Other states possessed a hybrid of the
despotism and republicanism. Here village meetings
were occasionally convened but ultimate verdicts
resided with the kings.

In any case, what I am mostly concerned about is not

the archaeology of the SNC; it is, rather, that you
seem to be leaning on the supposed antiquity of the
model to exaggerate its conflict resolution benefits
and to sidestep its limitations. I believe that even a
traditional system of crises management is neither
foolproof nor necessarily superior to liberal,
Western-derived models. The problem, in other words,
is not so much your slapping of a traditional label on
the SNCóas debatable as that isóas it is your attempt
to normalize that label as a mark of superiority and
efficacy.

It is always good to be aware of the limitations of an
approach and to acknowledge that, perhaps, pressures
and factors extraneous to it might be needed for its
success. It seems to me that you are making the
mistake that fanatical advocates of Enlightenment
values and neo-liberal economic and political reforms
make: conveniently forgetting that the Enlightenment
was not a wholly glorious moment in human history and
that while it brought modernity, rationality, and
other liberal values, it also sowed the seed of
several evils, including fascism and racism. All the
celebrated moments of progress in recent history,
including the current era of the free market and
globalization have also produced new evils. The truth
is that ìtraditional Africaî was a messy, fluid, and
sometimes unstable social formation. The coherence and
order that your discourse gives to it hardly reflects

its true unfolding. As a historian, I know.

Ayittey: These institutions are NOT dead. Read about the

kgotla in today's New
York Times. Here is the link:

www.nytimes.com/2004/12/1...ref=loginî


Moses: Yes, they are not dead. But what obtains in much of
Africa today is hardly a pristine bequest from the
precolonial era. In today's Africa, we have all kinds
of cultural, religious, and ideological syncretisms
and hybrids, which have become as important in the
lives of Africans as their "pristine" precolonial
precursors.

Ayittey: To heal social wounds and restore harmony after the

horrific
genocide, Rwanda is returning to its TRADITIONAL
gacaca court system.
Check this or do a Google search for "gacaca":î


Moses: I know about the gacaca and its successes. But gacaca
has also produced new problems. Many Rwandan victims
of the genocide and other observers are hardly
satisfied with the work of the gacaca courts, which
they see as being too lenient on suspects and accused
people. The result, we know from several reports, are
new forms of social tensions, divisions, animosities,
and anger brought on by the spectacle of freed
genocide perpetrators/suspects being reintegrated by
governmental fiat into communities that regard them as
eternally tainted criminals. Whether these new
problems will cause a new implosion in the future, no
one knows. It is my hope that they donít. But their
existence is not exactly a testament to gacacaís
successes. Furthermore, gacaca has been profoundly
supplemented and made easier by the work of many
foreign NGOs who did PTSD work in the immediate
aftermath of the genocide. I am aware that the work of
these NGOs are now being subjected to critical
scrutiny, but even my friend who is a part of this
revisionism acknowledges that the foreign PTSD
infrastructure helped in bringing about healing,
normalcy and some form of reconciliation before the
gacaca courts were established. Similarly, the gacaca

courts have been supplemented by a system of
international judicial accountability in the form of
the UN special tribunal which sat in Tanzania.

These facts prove that the matter is not an either/or
situation whereby the choice of a traditional model
automatically excludes or discredits the ìforeignî
models, and vice versa.

Ayittey: It is just preposterous to claim that using Africa's

own indigenous systems to resolve conflicts is
"romaticizing" about the past.One reason why things
went so wrong in Africa is we copied and copied a
whole slew of FOREIGN systems, ideologies, and
paraphenalia that did
not fit into our socio-cultural set-up. Rome has a
basilica, so too must we in Yamassoukrou, Ivory Coast.
London has double-decker buses, so too must Lagos. The

African continent is littered with the carcases of all
these FAILED FOREIGN systems.Instead of going to
Jupiter to copy a whole new slate of systems, Ayittey
says go back to your roots. The solutions you seekfor
Africa's problems can be found by building upon your
own INDIGENOUS INSTITUTIONS."


Moses: Yes, there are indeed many sad monuments to ìfailed
foreign systemsî in Africa. But there are just as many
reminders of failed indigenization, back-to-our-roots
projects on the continent. And the funny thing is that
the some of the initiators and architects of these
ìtraditionalî rejuvenation projects were/are the same
rapacious, brutal, and despotic dictators that bear
much of the responsibility for the social upheavals
tearing the continent asunder. Back-to-our-roots
projects are romantically, not to say emotionally,
appealing. But they are sometimes either escapist or
dubious contrivances calculated to distract attention
from official misconduct and recklessness, which are
bound to elicit international outrage. What's more,
puritanical and radical advocacy of traditional
African solutions like yours have unfortunately found
allies in Western political leaders who advise against
Western involvement in African crises not out of
respect for Africa's indigenous crises management
mechanisms but because they do not think that Africa
is strategically important enough to service
financially costly political and economic
attention/interventions.

Ayittey: The problem is not me romanticizing about Africa's

institutions but intellectuals who know nothing about
their African heritage and institutions.î


Moses: You are certainly not talking about this African
intellectual.


Moses Ebe Ochonu

-- 

---------------------------
Toyin Falola
Department of History
The University of Texas at Austin
1 University Station
Austin, TX 78712-0220
USA
512 475 7224
512 475 7222  (fax)
www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa

 

Note: forwarded message attached.

However, there are some gross distortions or misconceptions about my
position.

1. I have NEVER advocated for the "second colonization" of Africa. Where
did you get this idea? I have always championed the "second LIBERATION"
of Africa, not colonization.

2. The sovereign national conference (SNC) succeeded in Benin and South
Africa and elsewhere because it was SOVEREIGN and there were NO
political interferences with its deliberations. This was not the case in
Togo, Zaire or Nigeria. In Nigeria, Abacha reserved for himself the
right to accept or reject the decisions of the Constitutional Conference
he convened in 1995. It was not sovereign. In Zaire, Mobutu created fake
political parties who were allowed to send their delegates to the
national conference, thereby neutralizing any opposition demands.

3. The SNC is just a modernized version of the African village meeting.
It is called asetena kese by the Ashanti, ama-ala by the Igbo, kgotla by
the Tswana, pitso by the Xhosa and ndaba by the Zulu. You do not seem to
be familiar with your own indigenous African institutions. I wrote a
book with the same name which you can find at http://www.amazon.com.
Search for "Indigenous African Institutions" or my name "Ayittey."

5. These institutions are NOT dead. Read about the kgotla in today's New
York Times. Here is the link:

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/11/international/africa/11seboko.html?oref=login

6. To heal social wounds and restore harmony after the horrific
genocide, Rwanda is returning to its TRADITIONAL gacaca court system.
Check this or do a Google search for "gacaca":
_________

Gacaca
... into the rural heart of the African nation of Rwanda to follow the
first steps in
one of the world's boldest experiments in reconciliation: the Gacaca
(Ga-CHA ...
www.frif.com/new2002/gac.html - 31k - Cached - Similar pages
__________

It is just preposterous to claim that using Africa's own indigenous
systems to resolve conflicts is "romaticizing" about the past.

7. One reason why things went so wrong in Africa is we copied and copied
a whole slew of FOREIGN systems, ideologies, and paraphenalia that did
not fit into our socio-cultural set-up. Rome has a basilica, so too must
we in Yamassoukrou, Ivory Coast. London has double-decker buses, so too
must Lagos. The African continent is littered with the carcases of all
these FAILED FOREIGN systems.

Instead of going to Jupiter to copy a whole new slate of systems,
Ayittey says go back to your roots. The solutions you seek for Africa's
problems can be found by building upon your own INDIGENOUS INSTITUTIONS.

The problem is not me romanticizing about Africa's institutions but
intellectuals who know nothing about their African heritage and
institutions.

Japan didn't have to abandon its cultural heritage in order to develop.
Neither did the Koreans and other Asians. Only functionally and
culturally-illiterate African elites would condemn their own as
primitive, backward and archaic.

Democracy was not invented by the West. There are various forms of the
institution of democracy. Before the white man stepped foot on the
continent, Africans were practising their own brand of PARTICIPATORY
DEMOCRACY, based upon consensus.

Democratic decisions can be taken in two ways:

1. By MAJORITY VOTE. All those in favor of a motion, say "yes" and all
those opposed say "no." A quick count yields the decision. The advantage
here is that it is fast and transparent. But the DOWNSIDE is that it
ignores MINORITY positions. If you think minority positions in Africa
can be ignored, think again. President Museveni started his bush war
with only 27 men; Charles Taylor with 150, and Mohamed Farar Aideed with
200.

2. By CONSENSUS. This is the traditional African way of reaching
decisions and it is also the way the Nobel Committee and the WTO reach
their decisions -- by consensus. The advantage with this method is that
it takes minority positions into account. The downside is that it is
takes LOOOONG to reach a consensus, which is why in the villages it may

take the chief and Council of Elders days, if not weeks, to reach a
decision.

In the postcolonial period, we have had several nutty military despots
claim that "democracy is alien" to Africa. Nonsense. So why don't we
build upon our own participatory democracy to give effect to
participatory development?

Botswana is the only African country that went BACK to its roots and
build upon its own indigenous institutions. And it is doing very well
thank you very much. Cabinet ministers are required to attend weekly
kgotla (village meetings) and discuss issues with the PEOPLE.

Why aren't African scholars accusing Botswana of "romanticizing" about
its past?

-- 

---------------------------
Toyin Falola
Department of History
The University of Texas at Austin
1 University Station
Austin, TX 78712-0220
USA
512 475 7224
512 475 7222  (fax)
www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa

 

Note: forwarded message attached.

 

I have read Ayittey's piece as well as yours. I share all your concerns about his prognosis and

recommendations. Like you-- and this is well known, I am a committed advocate of the Sovereign National Conference (SNC) solution. But the leap of logic (or is it illogic) that enables Ayittey to construct a nexus of ideological connection between the institutions of judicial redress in precolonial Africa and the SNC phenomenon eludes me. I am not entirely convinced that the SNC movement has its archaeology in a homogenized set of African conflict resolution
mechanisms.

But I am hardly surprised that he has returned to a personal archive of his: the ideas set out in his first book, in which he advocated a return to a rather romantic African historical imaginary as a solution to Africa's economic crisis. The facade of antiquity has always authorized Ayittey's bold, not to say controversial, prescriptions for overcoming Africa's challenges. In other contexts, the valorization of the African past makes more sense, but in this one, it seems like a stretch. Ayittey's trans-historical leap smacks of a curious manipulation of the SNC imperative to fit a favorite personal prescription--the return to a supposed precolonial socio-economic essence. The SNC imperative can be sustained, it seems to me, on its own merit as a programmatic intervention for socio-political redress and does not need the appeal to antiquity for its utilitarian authority.

And, of course, the invocation of the African past as a blueprint for ameliorative and redemptive action in the present is a slippery slope. The abuse and distortion of the lessons of the African past is unfortunately the fort of African dictators opposed to the liberal political reforms that Ayittey envisages as the outcomes of the SNC. In fact, African autocrats
have proven to be infinitely adroit in their strategic, even if dubiously self-imposed, roles as
purveyors of Africanisms and the glories of the African past. For this group of rulers, a romantic,
perfectly orderly African precolonial past has to be willed into existence as a mask to deflect persistent Western pressure for liberal economic and political reforms.

I think that what ultimately undermines the continuity that Ayittey attempts to construct between the public judicial and remedial performances of the African past
and the SNCs of the present is the fact that a cursory interrogation of the ways in which some of these so-called precolonial judicial sessions were conducted reveals a disturbing web of elite manipulation, rigged outcomes, and intentional miscarriage of justice that were facilitated precisely by the fact that such spectacles were ultimately subject to the overriding judicial proclamations of sovereigns--kings and chiefs who were sometimes invested in the outcomes of the cases being purportedly resolved. And, of course, you 've discussed how one cannot extrapolate the features of interpersonal conflict resolution to the
far more complex terrain of inter-communal conflict.

I also think that even if one were to allow Ayittey's analogy between the past and the present to stand, and if one accepted SNC as a reincarnation of an ancient African tradition, one would still have to account for the actual efficacy of this solution in the present.
In doing that, one must consider its failures and

successes. If the SNC model succeeded in Benin and
South Africa, it failed woefully in the former Zaire and Togo. The question of why it failed in these
locales is as interesting a question and subject as
why it succeeded in the other two settings.

This is why one must not invest the SNC with excessive emancipatory potential. In addition to pushing for the model's adoption all over the troubled swathes of
Africa, one must also ensure that political incumbents
give it a chance to succeed. This can only be done, in
my opinion, through a system of sustained
international pressure, which is often made impotent

by the exigencies of international politics and
capital.

It seems to me also that Ayittey's fixation (or is it obsession) on the culpability of the African ruling elites--a prognosis which no one denies-- has blinded him to the ways in which the cultural economies of some African societies actually foster a mentality of impunity and political excess on the part of the oppressive and rapacious elites. This may be the supreme irony of the African condition: that, as equipped as African rulers tend to be with the apparatuses of coercion and control, they paradoxically derive some proto-legitimate authority from the inertia, surrender, and cultural rationalizations of the very Africans that purportedly suffer the deprivations that come with misrule, autocracy, and state-sponsored violence.

Thus, an ethnical change is also a necessity. And the cornerstone of this ethical reorientation must be secured with increased emphasis on accountability and redistribution of wealth. For cultural surrender is often brought about by economic vulnerability, which itself is ultimately a product of the financial malfeasance of the ruling elite.

Turning to more theoretical issues regarding Ayittey's write-up, I cannot help thinking that Ayittey's elevation of tradition as an antidote to the crisis and wars of the African present is a foil for his more controversial ideas, which some may find irreconcilable with his current reification of African traditional methods of conflict resolution. This reading may sound far-fetched, but Ayittey's oft-expressed preference for a "second colonization" of Africa---a conceptual stand-in for his idea of supplanting African ruling elites with Western expatriates and institutions of neo-liberal economic and political superintendence---coexists uneasily with the proclamations about the efficacy of African traditional solutions. If some have (mis)interpreted this somewhat contradictory intellectual advocacy of Ayittey's to mean a recommendation of Western socio-political and economic tutelage for Africans or their elites and have therefore called it an endorsement of the historical injuries inflicted on Africa by Western forces, it is hardly surprising.

The point that I am making is that Ayittey cannot have it both ways. Ayittey cannot be denigrating the capacity of Africans to manage their affairs, urging members of African ruling elites, including noble ones like Mandela, to step aside for foreign or indigenous
white economic and administrative managers and at the same time claim to be a believer in African or Africa-derived solutions. In Ayittey's episteme, African practices are both the causes and the solutions to social upheavals on the continent. What this does is to write-off foreign causal agency from the crises on the continent and to replace it with a foreign redemptive agency. Suppressed in this process are the various levels of complicity and culpability of foreign forces in the various crises wracking the continent. Furthermore, in this thinking, tradition is

both a culprit through its current absence and a hero through its putative and purported benefit as a guide for conflict resolution. What is left unaccounted for is the why and how of traditionís
exit from African political affairs in the first place. A more complete process of accounting may lead us back to colonialism, which Ayittey would not discuss.

The analytical authenticity that is bestowed on Ayittey's prognosis and recommendations by the appeal to African historical sociology becomes a foil and a powerful one at that for what is actually essentially a Western liberal solution, which, while agreeable to many African and Africanist intellectuals, should be packaged in universal rather than parochial, particularistic terms. Africans need solutions to their seemingly endless experiences of violence and destruction. It really does not matter what the genealogy of such a solution is. The solution must be grounded in universal values underwritten by the imperative of fairness, inclusion, justice, and access. To reach the conclusion, as Ayittey does, that such values and the interventionist approaches founded on them are Western and are thus bound to fail in

bringing resolution to Africaís many crises, is a disturbing specie of cultural and racial relativism,
not to mention a capitulation to the widespread characterization of Africans as exotic subjectivities unsuited to liberal and humanistic values supposedly
original to Europe and its diaspora in America.

This kind of Othering must not constitute the core of a commissioned position piece that may inform American policy on humanitarian and diplomatic engagements with
African social crises. It seems to me that it is an endorsement of an agenda already afoot in certain US diplomatic and think-tank circles, whose ultimate aim
is a near-total disengagement from Africa and the devolution of political, social, and economic
responsibility for Africaís many upheavals to flawed ill-equipped, and conflicted African institutions. 

-- 

---------------------------
Toyin Falola
Department of History
The University of Texas at Austin
1 University Station
Austin, TX 78712-0220
USA
512 475 7224
512 475 7222  (fax)
www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa

 

 

 

As at the time I’m posting this on this site, we are yet to open for ‘business’, so to speak; but I’m posting it nonetheless believing that the issues being dealt with here are live issues at any point in time in Africa. So, I would expect that whenever we begin to use the site or listserv fully for its purpose, contributors will have one or two things to say on this thread.

 

Prof George Ayittey is an American-based Ghanaian professor of Economics. This week, he was named as one of “The Authors of the Week” by the Digital Freedom Network.

 

http://unix.dfn.org/authors_of_week.shtml

 

THE AUTHORS OF THE WEEK

 

 

 

However, the issue in this thread is not Prof Ayittey’s nomination as an Author of the Week, but something else. He expressed it better himself when he posted the following in another listserv:

 

 

********************************************************

 

Folks,

 

The Wall Street Journal yesterday asked me to write a piece, not more than 1,200 words, on resolving Africa's never-ending cycle of violence and war. A draft is pasted below for your critical comments, if you have some.

 

The Wall Street Journal is read by more than 3 million people, including President Bush, US Congresspeople, the United Nations people, etc. I intend to send the unedited version to various African newspapers as well.

 

Thanks.

 

George Ayittey,

 

 Washington, DC

 

__________________

 

 

Africa's Crises: The Tragedy of International Response

 

George B.N. Ayittey, Ph.D.

 

Humanitarian crises have become a constant fixture on the African continent. Year after year, since 1985, one African country after another has imploded with deafening staccato, scattering refugees in all directions: Ethiopia (1985), Sudan (1972), Angola (1975), Mozambique (1975), Ethiopia (1985), Liberia (1992), Somalia (1993), Rwanda (1994), Zaire (1996), Sierra Leone (1997), Congo DRC (1998), Ethiopia/Eritrea (1998), Guinea (1999), Ivory Coast (2001), and Sudan (2003).

 

More than such 40 wars have erupted in Africa. Some wars never end (Algeria, Burundi, Somalia, Sudan, Western Sahara) while others restart after brief lulls. At least 11 African nations are currently wracked by conflict and civil strife. Populations have been decimated, infrastructure destroyed and homes razed. The economic toll has been horrendous: Economies collapse, investors flee and agriculture is devastated, exacerbating poverty and deepening social misery. A massive refugee population of mostly women and children is created. Children are abducted into child soldiery and women fall prey to marauding soldiers, turning refugee camps into vast breeding grounds for the spread of AIDS. Since women constitute about 80 percent of Africa's peasant farmers, Africa's agriculture has been hardest hit -- so severe that Africa, which used to be self-sufficient in food in 1950s, now imports 40 percent of its food needs and spends $18.9 billion on food imports – an amount equal to what Africa receives each year as foreign aid from all sources. And year after year, each crisis triggers the same ineffective response on all sides.

 

African leaders, grumbling about colonial legacies and slavery, appeal for urgent humanitarian assistance. In the West, horrific pictures of victims of war and starvation are paraded on television. The international community is outraged, demanding an end to the slaughter. Calls are made for U.N. sanctions, arms embargo and even U.S. intervention. Refugee camps are set up, high-protein biscuits, tents and other relief supplies are parachuted in. Peace talks between rebels and government forces collapse, leading to resumption of hostilities. A feckless UN dithers while the OAU/AU does the watutsi in Addis Ababa - until another African crisis erupts. Then the same cycle of hand wringing, self-flagellation, and dithering is repeated. Nothing has been learned and the same mistakes are repeated year in year out.

 

Slavery, colonialism, artificial borders, and Western imperialism have little to do with Africa's conflicts. The vast majority of Africa's conflicts are intra state in origin. They are not about driving away colonial infidels; nor redrawing colonial boundaries. The basic cause, in country after country, is the politics of exclusion or the struggle for power by a politically excluded or marginalized group. And the solution for each and every African country should be the same: Power sharing and the politics of inclusion.

 

Only 16 African countries, out of a total of 54, are democratic. In the rest, de facto apartheid reigns. Enormous economic and political power has been captured by some political, religious, professional, or ethnic group, which uses the state machinery to advance its interests, enrich members and cronies, excluding everyone else: Arab apartheid in Mauritania and Sudan  (blacks excluded); political apartheid in Zimbabwe (non-ZANU-PF excluded); Christian apartheid in Ivory Coast (northern Muslims excluded). Elsewhere, the government has been hijacked by a phalanx of brief-case bandits, Swiss bank socialists, and quack revolutionaries. And to achieve their nefarious goals and protect themselves, they subvert every key state institution - the military, the judiciary, the civil service, the media, and the electoral commission - to serve their interests, not those of the population.  The rule of law becomes a farce: crooks are in charge while their victims are in jail. Judges are corrupt and the police are themselves highway robbers with orders to protect the bandits in office. Parliament is rubber-stamp and the state-controlled media sings daily praises of the president. Electoral rules are subverted and laws passed to exclude political opponents - "Ivorite" in Ivory Coast -- while Electoral Commissioner openly predicts by how wide a margin the president will win the next election. Eventually, this coconut republic implodes, as politically excluded groups take up arms and rise up in rebellion, scattering refugees in all directions.

 

International and diplomatic pressure is brought to bear on the combatants to negotiate and reach a peace accord. But peace accords are essentially a blueprint for joint plunder of the state. A "government of national unity" (GNU) is often proposed to "bring the rebels into the government." A certain number of ministerial or government positions are reserved for rebel leaders. But nobody is satisfied with what they get at the peace talks. Inevitably, squabbles erupt over the distribution of posts, leading to the resumption of conflict (Angola in 1992, Congo in 1999, Sierra Leone in 2000, and Ivory Coast in 2003).

 

More than 30 such peace accords have been brokered in Africa since the 1970s with abysmal success record. Only Mozambique's 1991 peace accord has endured, while shaky pacts hold in Chad, Liberia, and Niger. Elsewhere, peace accords were shredded like confetti even before the ink on them was dry, amid mutual recriminations of cease-fire violations. The most spectacular failures were: Angola (1991 Bicesse Accord, 1994 Lusaka Accord), Burundi (1993 Arusha Accord), DR Congo (July 1999 Lusaka Accord), Rwanda (1993 Arusha Accord) and Sierra Leone (1999 Lome Accord). All collapsed because the approach was flawed.

 

The cornerstone of this "Western" approach, often foisted on African combatants by well-intentioned Western donors or the international community, is direct face-to-face negotiation between warring factions. It works if factional leaders want peace or must pay a price for the mayhem they cause -- assumptions, which grotesquely confute reality. Fact is, war is "profitable" to both sides to the conflict. The conflict situation provides warlords with the opportunity to rape women, pillage villages and plunder natural resources, such as gold and diamonds. Both rebel and government soldiers have grown rich by looting and seizing control of diamond fields. The war also gives the government an excuse ("national security") to suspend development projects, provision of social services and keep its defense budget secret, thereby shielding padded contracts to cronies from scrutiny.

 

None of the war combatants pay any price for the destruction they wreak. Rather, they are "rewarded," gaining respectability. Back in 1993, the late Somali warlord, Mohammed Farar Aideed, was transported in U.S. military aircraft to Addis Ababa to take part in peace negotiations. [Aideed forces were subsequently responsible for the deaths of 18 U.S. Rangers in Mogadishu.] The most outrageous appeasement, however, was that of Foday Sankoh, the barbarous warlord of Sierra Leone, whose band of savages (the Revolutionary United Front) chopped off the limbs and breasts of people, including women and children, who stood in their way. The 1999 Lome Accord, brokered by Rev. Jesse Jackson, former President Clinton's Special Envoy to Africa, who outraged Sierra Leonians by comparing Foday Sankoh to Nelson Mandela, rewarded RUF with four cabinet positions and Sankoh himself with the ministry of mines.

 

Africa's own indigenous conflict resolution mechanism provides a better approach. It requires four parties: An arbiter, the combatants and civil society or those directly and indirectly affected by the conflict (the victims). For example, in traditional Africa, when two disputants cannot resolve their differences by themselves, the case is taken to a chief's court for adjudication. The court is open and anyone affected by the dispute can participate. The complainant makes his case; then the defendant. Next, anybody else who has something to say may do so. After all the arguments have been heard, the chief renders a decision. The guilty party may be fined say three goats. In default, his family is held liable.

 

The injured party receives one goat; the chief receives another for his services and the remaining goat is slaughtered for a village feast. The latter social event is derived from the African belief that it takes a village, not only to raise a child but also to heal frayed social relations. Thus, traditional African jurisprudence lays more emphasis on healing and restoring social harmony and peace than punishing the guilty.  Further, the interests of the community supersede those of the disputants. If they adopt intransigent positions, they can be sidelined by the will of the community and fined say two goats each for disturbing social peace. In extreme cases, they can be expelled from the village.  Thus, there is a price to be paid for intransigence and for wreaking social mayhem -- a price exacted by the victims.

 

A similar indigenous African approach has performed exceptionally well in resolving political crisis. When a crisis erupts in an African village, the chief and the village elders would summon a village meeting. There the issue was debated by the people until a consensus was reached. During the debate, the chief usually made no effort to manipulate the outcome or sway public opinion. Nor were there bazooka-wielding rogues, intimidating or instructing people on what they should say. People expressed their ideas openly and freely without fear of arrest. No one was arrested or locked out of the decision-making process. Once a decision had been reached by consensus, all must abide by it, including the chief.

 

In recent years, this indigenous African approach was revived and modernized by pro-democracy forces in the form of "sovereign national conferences" to chart a new political future in Benin, Cape Verde Islands, Congo, Malawi, Mali, South Africa, and Zambia. Benin's nine-day "national conference" began on 19 February 1990, with 488 delegates, representing various political, religious, trade union, and other groups encompassing the broad spectrum of Beninois society. The conference, whose chairman was Father Isidore de Souza, held "sovereign power" and its decisions were binding on all, including the government. It stripped President Matthieu Kerekou of power, scheduled multiparty elections that ended 17 years of autocratic Marxist rule.

 

In South Africa, the vehicle used to make that difficult but peaceful transition to a multiracial democratic society was the Convention for a Democratic South Africa. It began deliberations in July 1991, with 228 delegates drawn from about 25 political parties and various anti-apartheid groups. The de Klerk government made no effort to "control" the composition of CODESA. Political parties were not excluded; not even ultra right-wing political groups, although they
chose to boycott its deliberations. CODESA strove to reach a "working consensus" on an interim constitution and set a date for the March 1994 elections. It established the composition of an interim or transitional government that would rule until the elections were held. More important, CODESA was "sovereign." Its decisions were binding on the de Klerk government. De Klerk could not abrogate any decision made by CODESA -- just as the African chief could not disregard any decision arrived at the village meeting.

 

Clearly, the vehicle, similar to the "loya jirga" that was constituted for Afghasnistan in 2003, exists in Africa itself. If it worked in Afghanistan, Benin, South Africa and Zambia, it should be prescribed for Congo, Nigeria, Ivory Coast, Sudan, Togo, Uganda, Zimbabwe, and elsewhere in Africa. But African leaders aren't interested in giving up or sharing power.

 

At the Organization of African Unity Summit in Lome, Togo (July 2000), Kofi Annan, the U.N. Secretary-General, himself an African, ripped into them, telling them that they are to blame for most of the continent's problems (The Daily Graphic, July 12, 2000; p.1). During a brief stop-over in Accra after the Summit, he disclosed in a Joy FM radio station interview that "Africa is the region giving him the biggest headache as the security council spends 60 to 70% of its time on Africa. He admitted sadly and that the conflicts on the continent embarrasses and pains him as an African" (The Guide, July 18-24, 2000; p.8). Earlier in the year at a press conference in London in April, 2000, Kofi Annan, "lambasted African leaders who he says have subverted democracy and lined their pockets with public funds, although he stopped short of naming names" (The African-American Observer, April 25 - May 1, 2000; p.10). Even the Ghana government-owned paper, The Mirror, became fed up with the crisp OAU resolutions passed each year to be dealt with by special committees that never get established. It is imperative that the UN, the U.S., the AU and the international community insist on the indigenous African model for viable resolution of conflicts and political crises since more African countries stand in line ready to implode.

 

 

_________________

 

 

 

 

The writer is a native of Ghana, Distinguished Economist at American
University and President of the Free Africa Foundation. His new book is
Africa Unchained.

 

 

 

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

 

 

Below is my own take on the issue. I sent this to Prof Ayittey on Wednesday, December 8, 2004. From all indications others have been responding to him as well. Though I don’t know what time frame Prof Ayittey has to submit his piece to the Wall Street Journal, but I think it is an issue worth discussing on its own in this thread.

 

For those still interested in sending Prof Ayittey a response, you can reach him at ayittey@...

 

 

 

------------------------------------------------------

 

 

Dear Prof Ayittey,

 

I just saw your note asking for comments on your proposed article, but I only saw it after reading your response to some comments and criticisms. However, I quickly avoided reading any of the comments by others and instead decided to note down a few points to you as I read your piece. I know I could have been more structured, but I do not know what time frame you have and I want to get my view across to you before you send your piece out for publication. So, I reckon it is better to just send you this draft of a comment first and then return later to look at what others have said and, if possible, continue the discussion with you, etc. So please, forgive its hurried nature.

 

Now, while I commend your proposed article for rightly censuring African leaders for their part in the continuing conflicts in the continent, I must say I view your suggested solution of a return to what you regard as “Africa's own indigenous conflict resolution mechanism” with a little feeling of déjá vu.

 

It is true that a huge number of post-independence anti-colonial narratives by African intellectuals and commentators tend to end up with a recommendation of this sort. Considered deeply though, even you will find that the feeling that our only answer to neocolonialism and some of the problems thrown up by the new world we’ve inherited is to be found in the past or palpably neglected traditions is also what governs the mentality of those who blame all sorts of problems on the West, and, worse still, use these as excuses for the underdevelopment, obvious failure of leadership and gridlock that pervade the place.

 

Thus, I could say, arguably, that your response and the responses of those you oppose (the forever-blame-the-whiteman brigade) are simply two sides of one coin! While you fight colonialism and neocolonialism with African traditional values, they fight it with a mishmash of populist and communist heehaws, bellowing hot air and delivering little in terms of suggestions for moving forward. You, at least, make suggestions, whether we agree with part or all of them or disagree with all is a different matter.

 

Anyway, back to my criticism of your “Africa's own indigenous conflict resolution mechanism”, I think conceptually, you will find it difficult to define for each particular situation what you mean by this. Already, in your proposed article, that problem has become evident in your attempt at providing an example of how this works:

 

 

>>>A similar indigenous African approach has performed exceptionally well in resolving political crisis. When a crisis erupts in an African village, the chief and the village elders would summon a village meeting. There the issue was debated by the people until a consensus was reached. During the debate, the chief usually made no effort to manipulate the outcome or sway public opinion. Nor were there bazooka-wielding rogues, intimidating or instructing people on what they should say. People expressed their ideas openly and freely without fear of arrest. No one was arrested or locked out of the decision-making process. Once a decision had been reached by consensus, all must abide by it, including the chief.<<<

 

 

Naturally, the first question I would want to raise with you is to ask what African community or what African chief you are talking about. The assumption that Africa is this huge homogenous chiefdom where such a process works perfectly is implicit in your article and, of course, we know that this is not exactly the case. The Hausa have/had a different conflict resolution mechanism from the Xhosa, as the Igbo from the Ewe or the Yoruba from the Luo, etc. Africa is made up of different ethnic nations with different cultures, traditional jurisprudences and conflict resolution mechanisms; thus, the idea that we can have one traditional mechanism imposed as solution or pick and choose which one to apply to where when conflict erupts simply would not fly, neither would the idea that we can ‘fine-tune’ or adopt one to serve this general purpose.

 

Frankly, I personally believe that the old or present African traditional conflict resolution mechanism you described is quite inadequate for the kind of political, economic and social conflicts that today pervade Africa, if only in terms of scale. None of the indigenous mechanisms we can come up with from the past or present can actually address inter or intra-state conflicts of the nature we have today. Even your examples are more applicable in person-to-person conflict situations than between nations, between ethnic groups or between economic or political classes within the modern African milieu. Because these classes and groups transcend what was known to old Africa and new impulses have become intertwined with the old, it’s become imperative to conceive of new models for solutions that take these changes into consideration. It is that challenge we all must face, not to go back to old inadequate or failed models.

 

Also crucial is the fact that tradition itself is dynamic and that success does not depend on retaining an old system or returning to a pre-existing model. Societies provide solutions for situations and problems they encounter at a point in time. While they can look back at the past for workable precedence, they cannot think too much for the future and, indeed, the present or the future is not bound to follow the past. The world is constantly changing and even the successful societies we look up to are not that beholden to their past as to constantly seek solutions from it. Their judicial systems are constantly being reviewed; their political structures are constantly being tinkered with and it is safe to say that new ideas more than old ones are dominating popular culture, at least for the past fifty years; so, why should we be pining for old Africa to face our new reality?

 

The idea that face to face conflict resolution mechanism is “Western” or alien to Africa may also have been overstated in your piece. I think the real problem is in the assumption that those who put up these shameful arrangements in Africa where the Sankohs of this world are brought to the table to enjoy the loot of their criminal destructions are indeed seeking genuine resolution or justice. NO! In most cases, they are merely protecting interests. In every side of any conflict in Africa, you’re bound to find Westerners and their agents, whether as private individuals, institutions or governments backing one side against the other or being privy to the origin of one conflict or the other, for example, as we are now witnessing with the revelations from the aborted coup in Equatorial Guinea. The control of Africa’s natural resources and indeed its people is a far bigger consideration than justice or peace. So, when they cover all these shenanigans with the ‘credibility’ of the international system, it still does not hide the cold fact that people like Sankoh, Savimbi and company do have powerful backers outside Africa who can pull strings and impose their own forms of ‘settlements’. We keep returning to this paradigm because Africa’s string is indeed still being pulled from the outside.

 

Your suggestion for the Sovereign National Conference as a way forward is an inspired one, but not your attempt to define it as representing an African traditional approach. I think Western readers would be weary of such a description, because the unproductive and criminal African leaders come up with these “African” ideas all the time. From Mobutu to Abacha, Marcias Nguema to Jean-Bedel Bokassa, it’s been their excuse. When they’re asked to practice democracy and the rule of law, they respond that “Western democracy” does not address Africa’s ‘peculiar’ situations and that all we need is an African-centered democracy, whatever that means. This ‘Africanization’ of all concepts then becomes the bogus vehicle used to explain all kinds of bound-to-fail policies and also a dangerously effective rebuff to every well-intentioned intervention from the outside.

 

I think it is safer to explain the need for the SNC under a more universal principle of democracy being an _expression of the people’s power. The impulses that led to the Magna Carta, the Provisions of Oxford, the American Declaration of Independence, the United States Constitution, the Declaration of the Rights of Man – all primary documents for Western politics and jurisprudence – are the same impulses that today drive the need for SNCs in Africa. So, rather than say we would be following African traditional models by the SNC approach, I think it is safer to say we are only demanding what has been universally acknowledged as true and workable. The demand and yearning for an accountable government is universal; even President Bush himself admitted that people everywhere instinctively want to be free.

 

Still on the SNC proposal, I’m surprised you did not find a place in your proposed article to discuss, even if briefly, the need for this in Nigeria. You know for more than ten years now, civil society in Nigeria has been calling for this; you know that under the pretext of listening to the people, the Abacha regime foisted the so-called Constitutional Conference on Nigerians in 1994, which actually was billed to be a transmutation vehicle for him; you know the Obasanjo government has dillydallied on this, giving conflicting signals and, most importantly, we all know that failure to yield to the call may very well spell doom for Africa’s most populated country and its largest democracy. We certainly cannot wait until Nigeria blows up in smithereens before we begin to accept it as the way forward! I thought a word to the readers of the Wall Street Journal about this would go a long way to show that there is need to protect the investment in democracy in Nigeria, which should be a very important plank for any genuine Western agenda in the continent. If we are talking suggestions to avoid conflict in Africa, overlooking Nigerians’ call for a National Conference now to address the national question may equate to the world burying its head in the sand or to Nero fiddling and croaking away while Rome blazes. Please, be the prophet and let them know this fact now.

 

 

 

 

 

·        I found some statements a little controversial, even though I personally know the impression you want to convey:

 

 

(1) Title:

 

“Africa's Crises: The Tragedy of International Response”

 

What exactly are you trying to say with this title? Are you saying Africa’s crises are self-imposed and as such need no international responses, but rather internal reforms to change things? Are you saying international response itself is tragic because it addresses the symptoms rather than the causes? Or, as I suspect, are you saying “Western” interventionist principles are tragic because they fail to understand that the African traditional model holds the answers? Whatever the idea you’re trying to pass across with that title, it would seem that a description of Western intervention as tragic is an invitation to isolationism and, to those who like bashing you, another attempt to absolve the West of their international responsibility to Africa. It could also be seen as a get-out clause by those who erroneously believe the West have done enough for Africa and should therefore leave it to rot, if it can’t get its act together on its own.

 

 

 

 

(2) >>>A feckless UN dithers while the OAU/AU does the watutsi in Addis Ababa -until another African crisis erupts<<<

 

 

Saying the above now that the UN is under the cosh from the Bush administration over Iraq and the Oil-For-Food programme gives an impression that you’re taking sides, even though you’re really just making an innocent comment about UN failures in Africa. Of course, if this statement was being made pre-invasion of Iraq, it would have elicited no controversy; but now, it could give ammunition to those who consider you a Western or American intellectual stooge. Rather than applying your comment strictly to the UN response to Africa, they will simply say it is an indirect way of supporting the Bush administration’s desire to see Annan out, because of his principled opposition to the invasion of Iraq. In other words, Africa seen as one more Annan failure is a good case for ousting him. Of course, I know this is not your thinking, but you know how our people are.

 

I would rather posit UN’s failure in Africa in the context of the powers that control the UN. Annan is a mere civil servant; he’s not the permanent members of the Security Council, who are in charge of the organization de facto. UN is failing because the US, France, United Kingdom, China and Russia are too steeped in politics of self-interest to think of the world outside them. That is why consensus cannot be reached on some actions that should go a long way in addressing the African problem. So, if you insist on talking about the “feckless UN” in your article, point out the reasons for this fecklessness and where responsibility lies. Even Tony Blair has admitted that Annan is doing a yeoman’s job.

 

 

 

 

(3) >>>Slavery, colonialism, artificial borders, and Western imperialism have little to do with Africa's conflicts. The vast majority of Africa's conflicts are intra state in origin. They are not about driving away colonial infidels; nor redrawing colonial boundaries. The basic cause, in country after country, is the politics of exclusion or the struggle for power by a politically excluded or marginalized group. And the solution for each and every African country should be the same: Power sharing and the politics of inclusion.<<<

 

 

Believe me when I tell you that I am one person who is sick and tired of the old blame-the-white-man-for-everything mentality of some Africans. But then, let’s be real - the answer also is not in discountenancing the role of neocolonialism in perpetuating today’s problems in the continent. The answer is to find a realistic balance in apportioning the blame. African conflicts are not usually between the African combatants at home or on the ground, but between Western power blocs interested in access to natural resources and in perpetuating political puppetry to keep that access open. Name that coup or conflict in Africa and ultimately you will have to trace the money trail abroad to see who dictates the tune. For the roguish African leader, it is bliss that he does not need to be legitimized by his people, but by those who have the power to provide him with guns and tanks to keep him in power and open doors to him internationally to present himself as a credible leader in the comity of nations. The kind of ‘settlement’ the West or the ‘international community’ imposes on Africa, which you rail against, is ‘successful’ and consistently pursued only because it protects shady and questionable interests. Let’s face it, even on the question of looting public money; how many African banks keep the looted African funds? Why is it so difficult for Western political and economic leaders to make their bases unwelcome for the loot considering the tragic consequences of this grand thievery for the long-suffering African people?

 

Whether we like it or not, slavery and colonialism are still huge scars borne by black people all over the world, including in America. For instance, when about a week ago Alabama, a US state voted to keep ‘separate schools for white and coloured children’ in its constitution, they were not only sending a message to the African-American community in the US, but to Africans in the homeland as well. The colonial legacy is everywhere – in our civil service, in our political relationships, in our economy, everywhere. Yes, I know it would be hypocritical to blame the white man for striving, as he does, to sustain this in the form of neocolonialism without putting some perspectives to it. Indeed, I frankly do not expect him to look out for Africa against the interest of his own people in the way his government and political leaders interpret such interest at any point in time in history. I know it is futile blaming him for following the first rule of international relations which is self-interest. So, while we wail and cry, I know deep down that until we begin to breed leadership that can confront these problems intellectually and physically on the national and international planes, nothing will change in Africa. But such leaderships and supporting followers must not forget where the rain started beating us. That is the only way we can move from step one to two successfully – full knowledge is vital!

 

So, yes, slavery and colonialism have a lot to do with African conflicts, because these are legacies that have not been addressed properly; however it is also clear that they alone are not enough to explain the African condition. There is a lot of mileage in the fact that there’s a distinct lack of responsibility on the part of today’s African leaders, as you’ve pointed out; even if for every one of them there is a powerful Western collaborator in the background - be they individuals, governments or institutions. After all, the whole idea of leadership is to free your people from this slavery or neocolonialism, not perpetuate them with an eye on personal material gains. Thus, recognizing the role of slavery, colonialism and neocolonialism is not diametrically opposed to recognizing that today the larger responsibility for change lies with African leaders.

 

Again, you are right to see the solution in power sharing and the politics of inclusion, but I would want to point out that power sharing in the face of African realpolitik may connote even the undesirable, except we have well-defined standards. At every point in time power is shared, someone or group loses and another gains, be it in Africa, America, Asia or Europe – it’s a universal reality. However, the key is in the kind of convention in place and the safety net provided for losers. If today’s losers know that losing does not mean economic and political annihilation; that it does not mean being witch-hunted and driven out of property legitimately belonging to them; if they can trust that process that declares them losers and believe that the same process can make them winners tomorrow; if they can believe that progress and development is not compromised by whoever sits in government house; that they can look across the political divide and vouch that their opponents in charge are really thinking about the good of the nation rather than self, then power sharing will be meaningful. It will also be meaningful if power sharing does not connote the discarding of merit for mediocrity in the name of ‘fair’ ethnic representation (as it does in Nigeria).

 

I think of the two, the politics of inclusion holds a greater promise as solution, because it is simply about delivery. Many a time, power sharing arrangements are only beneficial to the elites who claim this power in the name of their people without delivering anything. African politicians have mastered the art of divide and rule, which includes targeting sectional or ethnic leaders for ‘settlement’, while leaving the bulk of the people who look up to these leaders in limbo. In other words, it becomes a case of erstwhile credible leaders or representatives joining the criminal cliques in power to perpetuate the thievery in the name of power-sharing. But the politics of inclusion goes deeper; it is about delivery. If people continue to feel excluded and marginalized by government policies, no matter how many sectional leaders or representatives are ‘settled’, the fact will still be obvious that the policies are not helping those it should. A government that takes the principled road of engaging in the politics of inclusion will certainly deliver development, which really is all that is needed to turn people away from the gun and chaos and deprive recruiters of erstwhile disgruntled recruits from getting people for their accursed cause.

 

But, as I said, these are just preliminary comments from me. I would be interested in discussing further, if you are interested in pursuing this as well. But let me use this opportunity in the meantime to congratulate you on being named as one of “The Authors of the Week” a few days ago. I urge you to remain strong and true to the cause; ignore meaningless and mischievous criticisms while engaging those you consider as genuine seekers of knowledge and true partners of progress, even where their ideas differ from yours. Continue to make us proud, because God knows we need many of your kind if our continent is to move ahead.

 

 

 

STAY BLESSED!

 

 

Yours sincerely,

 

Kennedy Emetulu

 

 

 

Prof Igietseme,

 

I am particularly pleased to note that you are the one who opened this listserv with the first message. For some who’ve known the history between us, they will find it unthinkable that this could happen - that Kenn and Prof Igietseme can actually think along the same lines to the extent of coming together to operate a listserv to serve Nigerians. Well, we are Nigerians, aren’t we? Ultimately, our love for our country and our vision for progress must take precedence over any other thing.

 

I note that you talk about “stark Naija liberals”; perhaps it is worthwhile to restate that you do not mean this in an ideological sense. As you’ve stated, these are Nigerians who really do not stand for anything, who float in the wind, left, right and left again, without any regard for principles. I say this so that members and contributors to this forum can understand that all ideological shades of opinion are welcome, as far as they do not pose a danger to Nigeria, Nigerians and the world at large.

 

This is a modest beginning, but the hope is that this forum and whatever grows from it shall serve the principal purpose of creating a strong national and international community of Nigerians and lovers of Nigeria. As facilitators, we do not claim to have the answers, but we know with the contributions of the wise and the foolish, the old and the young, the sighted and the blind, the villain and the saint, rays of light will pierce many a consciousness and Nigeria and our world shall be the better for it. Yes, it is my hope that those of us who drink from the Giant Mug that is TalkNigeria and who dance energetically and truthfully to the beat of its talking drum shall be the better for it!

 

So, now that we’ve hoisted this flag, let’s sacrifice to keep it flying!

 

 

STAY BLESSED!

 

 

 

 

"Dr. Joseph U. Igietseme" <jigietseme@...> wrote:

Congratulations to TalkNigeria. I am especially elated to see a forum
with a clearly defined purpose: to roforofo for the ultimate good of
Naija. I invite all patriots to subscribe and let the great ideas,
surplus intellects, massive support for the homefront and TRUE Naija
spirit flow like the magma.

The stark Naija liberals who don't stand for ANYTHING, who go for
ANYTHING, and who don't end up with ANYTHING will be baffled by the
huge success of TalkNigeria. Folks, now let's get it on!!! Again,
congrats. Joe Igietseme





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