Friday, October 1, 2010

USA Africa Dialogue Series - Nigeria @50


Nigeria at 50 and the Resurrection of Balewa

In the name of Allah, the beneficent, the merciful

"And Allah puts forward the example of a village  that dwelt in security; its provision was coming to it in abundance from every place, but its people denied the Favours of Allah So Allah enveloped it with hunger and fear, because of that which its people used to do.  (Qur'an 16: 113)

"A nation's place and influence in the world depends first upon what it makes of its own resources. The correct use of our resources, human and material, is a great challenge which confronts us today. The economists have invented a new expression: they speak of 'economic distance' and often tell us that the economic distance between the advanced and the non-developed countries is widening. Worse still, we are told that this widening springs mainly from the intensified development of education, science and technology in advanced countries and that even if we run three times as fast as we do today we might still not be able even to maintain the distance, much less reduce it".

-Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, Mr. Prime Minister

The above quote is an excerpt from the speech delivered by Sir Abubakr Tafawa Balewa as the first Chancellor of the University of Ibadan in 1963. Three years before then, he had had the privilege in history of delivering the independence anniversary speech as the first Prime Minister of Nigeria at the Tinubu Square in Lagos. Today our village marks the fiftieth year after it gained its independence from Britain. In our sermon today, I would want us to begin by asking a simple question: did we really gain an independence from Britain, from the West, or we were given independence? Are we not, on the contrary, in need of the independence? Is the possibility not there that, with reference to Nigeria, a "child" at fifty could still be found strapped to the back of its mother?

Celebrating the golden jubilee anniversary of a nation is like the celebration of birthdays by humans. When you mark your birthday, you are actually marking your death day. The more the day we spend on earth the lesser the day that remains for us to spend. But unlike humans, however, the death of a nation, like the decadence of a civilization, usually sets in surreptitiously. Like sleep, humans never pay attention to it until it has occurred. An evidence for this trajectory in the reading of independence anniversaries occurs of recent. Mexico marked its 200th independence anniversary last week. To underscore the "importance" of the occasion, the Mexican government spent around 200 million dollars! But Mexico is presently at war with itself over drugs. On a daily basis, Mexicans are also exiting their country in search of the golden but often mythical fleece in the United States of America!   

Thus a pertinent question we must confront while we are "celebrating" is this: exactly what is the essence of this golden jubilee anniversary? Are we celebrating our flag independence from those who were destined to leave us to us our destiny ab initio?. In other words, colonialism is a human contraption which had, embedded in itself, mechanisms for its own liquidation. Like the human body, it was destined to self-destruct, to implode without external stimuli. Thus if our celebration is a function of the departure of the foreigner, not that of the forces or mechanism which led to his departure, would this celebration then not be misplaced? Should we not, rather, seek to celebrate, the union of the Hausas with the Ibos, the fraternity between the Itsekiris and the Ijaws, the bond between the Igalas and the Kanuris, and the spiritual coadunation between the Muslims, the Christians and other "religious" subjectivities in the Nigerian nation?  

Brethren, are we celebrating just one day in the history of this nation or the concatenation of events which preceded that day? Is that one single day more important than the many historical, moral, cultural and social cues deposited in the museum of history by days which had gone before 1st of October, 1960? Are we sufficiently aware of those cues at all and are we capable of deriving lessons from them? Could the woman forget the pain of pregnancy just because the baby has been separated from the womb?

But we must celebrate! While celebrating, let us imagine that Alhaji Abu Bakr Tafawa Balewa, the first Prime Minister of Nigeria, has, today, been raised up by Allah from his grave the same way Allah resurrected the "sleepers in the Cave" in line with chapter 18 of the Qur'an. Let us imagine the resurrection of Balewa this time around has taken place not in Lagos or Bauchi but in Asokoro, Abuja; or, better still, inside Aso Rock, right there in the sitting room where the most "lucky" Nigerian now lives! What do you think would be his comments on the Nigeria of today? It is my assumption that the Nigeria Television Authority (NTA) would be happy to show the image and voice of an ecstatic former Prime Minister. Balewa would most likely punch the air and shout "hurray!" He would likely exclaim: "This is Nigeria? I can't believe this! Such a beauty and an infectious ambience! See these beautifully constructed road networks; high rising buildings, beautiful boulevards, luscious gardens and recreation parks". If Alhaji Balewa were to be resurrected in Abuja today, particularly in Asokoro, he would probably mistake Nigeria for America; he might think he was in another country.

Again if Alhaji Balewa were to return to Nigeria today, he would likely be happy that this country has produced men and women who can "think". Remember his speech of 1963 in the one and only University of Ibadan. He had said in part as follows: "We, therefore, need the kind of education which will enable us to produce men and women who know how to think…" That Nigeria has produced men and women of intellection is evidenced in the achievements of Nigerian scholars all over the world. Just some days ago, one John Dabiri was declared the winner of The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Fellowship worth $500,000 for his epochal work in fisheries in Caltech's Biological Propulsion Laboratory, California, United States. Alhaji Balewa would likely be happy to be resurrected in a Nigeria which has produced citizens who usually win all available awards in universities where they are schooling particularly in some Asian countries; Alhaj Balewa would likely be proud to be honoured as the first Minister of a country that has produced Nnamdi Azikiwe, Sardauna of Sokoto, and Obafemi Awolowo. He would likely gallivant in the spatial realm of the otherworldly and pride himself among his peers for being the first minister of a country that has produced Yusuf Maitama Sule, Tam David West, Wole Soyinka, John Pepper Clark, and Gani Fawehinmi among others.      

But if Alhaji Balewa were to rise from the dead today, and were that resurrection to take place on the rigid terrain of Aran or in the backwater of my village where my people still live as if the independence (was it dependence?) only took place yesterday, where children still fetch water in infected dreams, where women go into labour all by themselves, where learning takes place under the tree, where young, precocious and innocent school children are kidnapped by their elders for a fee, where Christians anathemise Muslims and Muslim abominate Christians, where contracts are awarded for roads which would never be constructed, where cables abound as mementoes and evidences for lack of electricity, where water pipes "yearn" and "cry" out of "thirst",  where politicians have skins made of leather and souls made of wool, Alhaji Balewa would likely request the British to return to Nigeria. Alhaji Balewa would likely wonder what kind of a minister of education would send his daughter to Ghana to read medicine even as he presides over the education industry of this country. Alhaji Balewa would likely wonder how the Almajiri system could still survive in the north fifty years after he declared Nigeria's independence from her majesty and in the structure and manner it is surviving among the Muslims today; he would likely wonder what has become of Islam he practiced as a politician fifty years ago and the Islam of Nigerian Muslim politicians of today - politicians who say Allahu Akbar inside the mosque everyday but say money Akbar outside the mosque; politicians who build castles and mansions like the people of Ad and Thamud. A man asked Prophet Muhammad, May Allah's mercies be on his soul: "what is the mark whereby he might know the reality of his faith? The prophet said: "If thou derive pleasure from the good which thou hast performed and thou be grieved for the evil which thou hast committed, thou art a true believer." The man said. "In what doth a fault really consist?" the prophet said, "when action pricketh thy conscience, forsake it". I keep wondering whether those who superintend the affairs of my country have any!
Oladosu A. Afis Ph.D

(this originally appeared in the Guardian)


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