Thanks for this intervention, Basil. I have been planning to do a piece about the Ikeja Police College since 2006 when I had the misfortune of attending a program there. Three years ago, while doing a research on corruption in Nigeria, I also visited the Police College in Kaduna. These two institutions provide a window in to why the Nigeria Police FORCE is ineffective. But as you rightly noted, this is just emblematic of the general decay in the country.
Our problems are much deeper that we really think.
I just spoke with a friend of mine at Georgetown University in Washington, DC, who is organizing a conference in the universty. He said he went to the Nigerian Embassy to inform them about his program and was dispirited at the sight of the tattered Nigerian flag at the embassy flying at half-mast. To think we have an ambassador who goes into the embassy every morning and leaves at the close of work. How much does a flag cost?
Could we give foreigners a better idea of how dysfunctional the motherland is?
Regards,
Chido Onumah
Coordinator, African Centre for Media & Information Literacy,
P.O.Box 6856, Wuse 11, Abuja, Nigeria
www.africmil.org
+234-7043202605
Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2013 10:22:27 -0800
From: tadeakinaina@yahoo.com
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Fw: Lottery of Life
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
Thank you Basil .
From: basil ugochukwu <ugochukwubc@yahoo.com>
To: "usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com" <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Thursday, January 17, 2013 9:14 AM
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Fw: Lottery of Life
From: Tade Akin Aina <tadeakinaina@yahoo.com>
To: "usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com" <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Cc: "usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com" <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Thursday, January 17, 2013 8:40:55 AM
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Fw: Lottery of Life
Thank you Professor Iweriebor,
It is not about a search for approval but the larger political and governance issues that are within our own control. The first reaction to the news came from younger Nigerians living in Africa and I do not disagree with your position about collective self confidence. I am in many parts of Africa regularly and collective self confidence comes from the provision of cultural, social and economic infrastructures that give the next generations a hope that their societies and countries matter. This should be the point of attention not the questioning of any one's authentic African or progressive credentials. Those often speak for themselves and will be judged by posterity in terms of where we have been, our conduct and unceasing engagements with our continent.
Millions of ordinary young people are demoralized in Lagos, Enugu, Kaduna and other cities daily.
They do not need The Economist to tell them that we live in tough times, tough places and that we can solve our own problems if we care to.
That is my point and I rest my case.
-taa.
Sent from my iPad
On Jan 16, 2013, at 6:39 PM, <eiwerieb@hunter.cuny.edu> wrote:
> Thank you Professor Oyekanmi for reaffirmation of unbending faith in Nigeria.
>
> You are with the majority of Nigerians who have no complexes about their homeland and need no external agency to tell them how to feel about it.
>
> It is not clear to me my why any African at this stage of African history and encounter with the West should be "demoralized" by what the Western media and intelligentsia have been saying about Nigeria, Africa and Africans since colonial times. These colonialist views are not new.
>
> Are we so in need of the approval of our conquerors that we cannot live or be happy unless they say something nice about us?.
> It seems that the colonizers' application software of self-doubt, uncertainty, self-hatred, self-abuse and the need for the masters approval that was programmed into colonized and dominated Africans is so deeply entrenched and successful that decades after independence some African intelligentisa are run by what the master says about them and not what they or their society is actually doing.
>
> I think it should just be reiterated that from colonial times to the present virtually all representations of Nigeria, Africa and African has been part of a cultural-psychological warfare against Africa and Africans.
>
> The Economist is merely one in long line traducers of Africa and her fellow travelers including Africans who are incapable of complex self-assessment.
>
> Fortunately majority of Africans continue to press ahead with making their history while the Economist and other naysayers continue their established and disreputable tradition of putting down Nigeria and Nigerians.
>
> Ehiedu Iweriebor
>
> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the "USA-Africa Dialogue Series" moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin.
> For current archives, visit http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
> For previous archives, visit http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
> To post to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com
> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue-
> unsubscribe@googlegroups.com
>
>
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the "USA-Africa Dialogue Series" moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin.
For current archives, visit http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
For previous archives, visit http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com
To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue-
unsubscribe@googlegroups.com
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the "USA-Africa Dialogue Series" moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin.
For current archives, visit http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
For previous archives, visit http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com
To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue-
unsubscribe@googlegroups.com
From: basil ugochukwu <ugochukwubc@yahoo.com>
To: "usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com" <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Thursday, January 17, 2013 9:14 AM
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Fw: Lottery of Life
What should demoralize us most? Western opinion about us or what we do to ourselves? Take a close look at the attached photos. They show the current conditions of living at the Nigerian Police College Ikeja. That's Nigeria's premier police training institution. There have been a lot of interest in this institution in the last couple of days especially since John Momoh, the CEO of Channels Television decided to make its rehabilitation his priority goal for 2013. Things didn't have to get to this state. And we can't blame the western media for such glaring evidence of government callousness. Yet this is just an insignificant representation of a pervasive malaise of government institutions across the length and breadth of Nigeria and even at its embassies abroad. A couple of days ago a Nigerian who was at the country's embassy in Washington DC to get a new passport literally wept over its careworn state. We have to face the reality of the ignorance and foolishness parading as government in Nigeria than seek to put the blame on others pursuing what they consider to be their best interests. Or react always angrily to what they do, say and write about us.
Basil
From: Tade Akin Aina <tadeakinaina@yahoo.com>
To: "usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com" <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Cc: "usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com" <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Thursday, January 17, 2013 8:40:55 AM
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Fw: Lottery of Life
Thank you Professor Iweriebor,
It is not about a search for approval but the larger political and governance issues that are within our own control. The first reaction to the news came from younger Nigerians living in Africa and I do not disagree with your position about collective self confidence. I am in many parts of Africa regularly and collective self confidence comes from the provision of cultural, social and economic infrastructures that give the next generations a hope that their societies and countries matter. This should be the point of attention not the questioning of any one's authentic African or progressive credentials. Those often speak for themselves and will be judged by posterity in terms of where we have been, our conduct and unceasing engagements with our continent.
Millions of ordinary young people are demoralized in Lagos, Enugu, Kaduna and other cities daily.
They do not need The Economist to tell them that we live in tough times, tough places and that we can solve our own problems if we care to.
That is my point and I rest my case.
-taa.
Sent from my iPad
On Jan 16, 2013, at 6:39 PM, <eiwerieb@hunter.cuny.edu> wrote:
> Thank you Professor Oyekanmi for reaffirmation of unbending faith in Nigeria.
>
> You are with the majority of Nigerians who have no complexes about their homeland and need no external agency to tell them how to feel about it.
>
> It is not clear to me my why any African at this stage of African history and encounter with the West should be "demoralized" by what the Western media and intelligentsia have been saying about Nigeria, Africa and Africans since colonial times. These colonialist views are not new.
>
> Are we so in need of the approval of our conquerors that we cannot live or be happy unless they say something nice about us?.
> It seems that the colonizers' application software of self-doubt, uncertainty, self-hatred, self-abuse and the need for the masters approval that was programmed into colonized and dominated Africans is so deeply entrenched and successful that decades after independence some African intelligentisa are run by what the master says about them and not what they or their society is actually doing.
>
> I think it should just be reiterated that from colonial times to the present virtually all representations of Nigeria, Africa and African has been part of a cultural-psychological warfare against Africa and Africans.
>
> The Economist is merely one in long line traducers of Africa and her fellow travelers including Africans who are incapable of complex self-assessment.
>
> Fortunately majority of Africans continue to press ahead with making their history while the Economist and other naysayers continue their established and disreputable tradition of putting down Nigeria and Nigerians.
>
> Ehiedu Iweriebor
>
> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the "USA-Africa Dialogue Series" moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin.
> For current archives, visit http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
> For previous archives, visit http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
> To post to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com
> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue-
> unsubscribe@googlegroups.com
>
>
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the "USA-Africa Dialogue Series" moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin.
For current archives, visit http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
For previous archives, visit http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com
To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue-
unsubscribe@googlegroups.com
You received this message because you are subscribed to the "USA-Africa Dialogue Series" moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin.
For current archives, visit http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
For previous archives, visit http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com
To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue-
unsubscribe@googlegroups.com
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the "USA-Africa Dialogue Series" moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin.
For current archives, visit http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
For previous archives, visit http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com
To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue-
unsubscribe@googlegroups.com
No comments:
Post a Comment