Re: FW: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Please Leave Gbagbo Alone

Pius,
    "You left out the third option implied by Ikhide ie bring back the military -
even though he has no proposal as to how anyone will  ever get the military boys
back to the barracks again once they strike... Is Egypt Ikhide's role model?"

- Dr. Gloria Emeagwali

I have learnt to respect and appreciate the power of words and how they shape and influence our perception and perspective on things. Western imperialism deploys words to denigrate and dispossess the other in subtle and not-so-subtle ways. Take the term "dictatorship" for instance. It has become pejorative in the sense that the West tends to dismiss systems of government that threaten their notion of what should be, especially those systems that are not aligned with their agenda, Is Libya worse off because of Ghadafi? Who makes these determinations?

 

Nigeria is not Vietnam, let me hasten to say that before a well meaning historian gives me that lecture, but it is interesting reading the history of Vietnam, how Ho Chi Ming and General Giap withstood decades of imperial invasion from all sorts of Western powers, the last being America. When you compare the steely will and vision of Ho Chi Ming compared to the puppet-leaders of the South you almost pine for something purposeful (definitely less deadly) like that for Nigeria.

 

I should be forgiven for not having any solutions other than to perpetually whine about our circumstances. I thought we had fought for a solution, I really did. The solution is NOT working because those that said they were going to do the work are simply helping themselves. We may be stuck, who knows. There are so many things working against Nigeria and by extension Black Africa. Globalization and technology now make it easy for her best and brightest to simply ignore the place and live well elsewhere (in many instances even as they are living in Africa, they are not there. Go figure).

 

Like most Nigerians that I know, I pine for a purposeful leadership that would like to do the work. What we have now is mimicry of the worst sort. If that purposeful leadership requires some imposed discipline, I am open to it. There is absolutely nothing free in what we have endured the past 10 years. I was in Nigeria a year ago, The loss of communal safety and security is heart-wrenching. Our leaders should be shot.

 

- Ikhide