Nkolika:

Accept my apology if my piece came across as blaming Nigerians. That was not my intention. I know better and would not do that. I won't belabor the problems facing Nigeria. What I would stress is that Ghana and Nigeria are in the same Petri-dish of underdevelopment and mismanagement. Ghanaians decry their poor educational systems. Corruption and graft are the order of the day. Nepotistic brokerage of national resources and "tribalism" in government are rife. Power outages and water shortages have become perennial problems in Ghana. In our typical normalization of problems, not solutions, power outages are derisively called dumso dumso (crudely framed: put on your light and the government puts off the light). Healthcare centers have become fertile provinces of death. Our crater-like roads are death traps; we drive as if there are no driving regulations. Police officials are dishonest. Self-appointed Ghanaian prophets are perverts and crooks. The thievery politicians are agents of a cargo-cult ideology with expensive cars as signifiers of membership. Our educated elites, professors, researchers, etc., with their manicured tongues of the English language, are agencies of neocolonialism and cultural benightedness. The educated elites accept without questions non-African values and practices, but are overzealous in condemning and marginalizing, if not murdering, African values and practices.

Given the larger size of Nigeria's population, the problems facing Nigerians may be worse than what Ghanaians go through. However defined, the fact of the matter is that you don't hear Ghanaians demonizing Ghana at every opportunity. Years ago, when I attacked the tin-god, JJ Rawlings, on this forum, I received an avalanche of private emails from Ghanaians calling me to order. The spate of emails admonished me to the effect that we don't point our left hand at our parents' abode. The outcome of the 2012 presidential election is being contested in court. One paramount meta-narrative that informs public opinion regarding this case is that Ghanaians should carefully go about the case so that the world would not develop negative perspectives on Ghanaians. May be it is a Ghanaian thing: we like to sweep our dirt under the national mat. This is not a scientific fact; it is my considered opinion.

I like your Igbo proverb that states "if you do not indicate the exact spot of your injury, you will receive treatment on the wrong spot." This is exactly my point. In fact, there is a complementary Akan proverb to the effect that if you have a headache and tell a healer that you are suffering from madness, he/she would give you medicine for the madness, not your headache. This Akan proverb illustrates that instead of telling the world that Nigeria has a headache, scholars like Professor May Akabogu-Collins, are pontificating that Nigeria is a "mad" entity. As a result, the world sees Nigeria as a place of cruel and unmitigated lunacies.

Another Akan proverb says that if the crocodile comes out of the pond to tell chirping birds that the ever-roaring frog is dead, the chirping birds would believe the crocodile. Per this proverb, Professor Akabogu-Collins' students went away with the knowledge that Nigeria was dead: after all, that was the message of the Professor! Is Nigeria only about problems? The answer is a resounding no! But that is what the world has come to believe because Nigerians, such as Professor Akabogu-Collins, overstress the problems facing Nigeria. Simply put, those who demonize Nigeria do so without any redemptive grace or extenuating circumstances.

And so the globe has come to accept what Nigerians and non-Nigerians tell the world about Nigeria. For example, years ago my friend, Femi Kolapo and I, as well as other graduate students holding different nationality passports, traveled to Costa Rica to attend a conference on slavery and abolition. During the immigration check-in none of us had any difficulty except Femi whose majestic "evergreen" passport was vigorously scrutinized by the Costa Rican immigration officials as if he was from Mars. There was absolutely nothing wrong with Femi's passport. It just happened to be a Nigerian passport, and the cultivated mindset of the immigration officers was ops behold a 419-passport! A few months ago, Femi told me that he visited Nigeria with his family. Good news and good reminiscing, but because of what I read daily on USA Africa Dialogue, etc., thanks to my in-law Ikhide and others, I said to myself, "Eh! Femi is brave - in spite of the endemic violence and all he took his family to Nigeria. You get my drift!

My point is that Nigeria has been demonized by both Nigerians and non-Nigerians alike to the extent that we accept wholeheartedly that Nigeria is the only hell-hole on earth. Let us acknowledge and vigorously sell the good things about our countries. And let us also customize and retail the bad things about our countries. The former may require overemphasis and even cosmetic exaggerations, while the latter absolutely calls for nuance.

Kwabena

From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com [usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com] on behalf of Nkolika Ebele [nkolikae@yahoo.com]
Sent: Sunday, February 03, 2013 5:40 PM
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - FW: A Nigerian Spring — Long Overdue

Kwabena,

Good recognition, but do not blame us for being open with the way things are in Nigeria. Many Nigerians have relocated to Ghana to find sanity. You may not believe it, Nigerians presently form half of the population of students in Ghanaian Universities. Nigerians presently go to Ghana for summer holidays. Ghanaian textiles are highly priced in Nigeria. Reference is made all the time by Nigerians about the stability of power supply in Ghana. We have no doubt the Ghana has overtaken Nigeria in many fronts. We do not criticize Nigeria because we love our country less, it is because of love of country that we feel pained to point out the ills. There is an Igbo proverb, that states that if you do not indicate the exact spot of your injury, you will receive treatment on the wrong spot. So we need to state how badly thing have become in Nigeria so we do not live in the delusion that we are doing well. Before the Xmas holidays, ASUU Unizik held an interactive forum with the Security Chieftains in Anambra state -Police ,SSS etc to discuss the menace of kidnapping and find solutions. What the Police representatives advised is that we go low profile, if you have a jeep park it and find a low profile vehicle, no flamboyant dressing,etc. I kept wondering how that can be a solution. So u can see that we are in a mess. We cannot pretend to be okay when we are not,otherwise we become like the King who went on a parade naked but pretended that he was in the best dress. I live here, and have no intention of running away to any where but I must confess, that life here is mini hell. For one good week, there has been no electricity, and this happens often, even when you see it at all, it comes on alternate days, (called low shedding) The day you hope to get , it is given to you for about 5hrs till the next alternate day and so on. We live virtually on generator generated electricity. Even our University runs on Generator, every dept, and faculty owns a gen set.Workers come to work in the morning and stay idle till the genset comes on, because that is when the computers can be turned on(Except those that do not need it to start working). Which Country in the world runs like this?

Nkolika

From: Kwabena Akurang-Parry <kaparry@hotmail.com>
To: "usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com" <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Sunday, February 3, 2013 1:46 AM
Subject: RE: USA Africa Dialogue Series - FW: A Nigerian Spring — Long Overdue

In my opinion, Professor May Akabogu-Collins missed an auspicious teaching moment that would have allowed him/her to educate his/her students. We should never be ashamed of our African countries to the extent of excluding ourselves as citizens of African states, or denying our citizeship! I always tell people that I come from the best country in the world: Ghana. On occasion, this statement had surprised and even ferry uneasiness to my audience, including students.

I am frightened by the way Nigerians write about Nigeria as if it is the only hell-hole on earth. Give it up: 419 in the Internet Age and we Nigerianize it! Go to Ghana and see. We call it sakawa, that is, we silently call it sakawa. Read about similar if not the same phenomenon in Russia, India, USA, China, etc. It is called scam, rip-off, swindle, con, racket, fraud, etc. When it happens in France, America, Russia, etc., it is sanitized. Only some individuals do it in France, America, etc. In Nigeria, it is an epidemic: all Nigerians are involved is what the media and even Nigerian scholars, such as Professor Akabogu-Collins, who should distill such hegemonic thrash, tell the world.

As noted, Professor Akabogu-Collins missed a teaching moment. S/he could have put the state of Nigeria into historical perspectives, for example, that Nigeria was barely fifty years old suffering from the cumulative depredations of slavery, colonialism, neocolonialism, unidirectional globalization, globalized vampire capitalism, and that with time Nigeria would come into her own. Furthermore, in spite of all the problems that Nigeria is facing today, she has produced exceptional men and women who have continued to make stellar contributions to the world.

Thanks to my Ghanaian gods: Papa Valentine Ojo is no longer here to terrorize me for daring to comment on Nigerian issues; and Papa Quansy Salako is not here to question my perspectives on colonialism and its lingering effects.

Kwabena

From: aassenso@indiana.edu
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
CC: nana_garba@yahoo.com; dejigiri@yahoo.com; uosili@iupui.edu; ovaughan@bowdoin.edu; anthonyakinola@yahoo.co.uk; nnaemeka@iupui.edu; osafoaku@indiana.edu
Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - FW: A Nigerian Spring — Long Overdue
Date: Sat, 2 Feb 2013 13:38:25 +0000

Sent: Saturday, 2 February 2013, 7:27
Subject: A Nigerian Spring — Long Overdue

February 1, 2013

A Nigerian Spring — Long Overdue

By MAY AKABOGU-COLLINS, Paris

I was a visiting professor in Paris last fall, and it was the first day of class. I was making copies for my 10:30 a.m. class at the faculty lounge, where two female professors were kibitzing by the coffee machine.

"Oh, yeah," one said. "Soon as I learned he's Nigerian, I discounted everything he'd said as fraud."

"Smart move," agreed the other, nodding, "nothing good's ever come out of that country. ..."

I cringed, held my breath and skedaddled on to my classroom, where my students wanted to know my nationality. I'm American. "Bot Professa," an African student's hand flew up, "ware you from originally? I hear the voice of Africa."

I inhaled deeply, chuckled but ignored that question.

When I left Nigeria for the United States in 1980, the plan was to earn an M.B.A., a doctorate in economics, and then return. It was my moral obligation to help develop my country, whose oil wealth financed my education. An M.B.A., a Ph.D. and 32 years later, I'm still here, abroad. In 1992, when I applied for a position at my alma mater, the University of Ibadan, the dean replied, "Why on earth would you want to return when everybody's trying to escape?" No one's been paid for over three months, he explained, and universities are on strike half the time.

Twenty years later, Nigeria can still bring the crazy.

In 1980, the naira had a very favorable exchange rate against the dollar. En route to the United States, I stopped over in London. All along King's Road, the shopkeepers beckoned: "Nigerian? Welcome. Come inside." I was proud to be from Nigeria and was offended when the country was confused with Niger. But, today, if I can pass for someone from Niger — sadly, I would be glad.

Is there a person on the planet who remains unfamiliar with the Nigerian e-mail scam? As a Nigerian living abroad, I've become embarrassed — indeed scared — after learning that in February 2003 a Czech victim of an Internet fraud murdered an innocent Nigerian in Prague.

That isn't the scariest narrative — not by a long shot. In recent years, Nigerians abroad have been warned: "Don't come home. Just send money." But if one must, say, attend a wedding, a funeral or take a chieftaincy title, it is necessary to hire prearranged police protection from the moment you land at the airport until the moment you depart.

Last summer, my ailing 87-year-old mother, worried that her days are numbered, called a family reunion for Christmas. My three U.S.-based siblings and I made plans to return home with all our kids. At the last minute, my brother sent an e-mail canceling the reunion. "What?" my daughter said, her glass of iced tea slipping out of her hands and shattering on the tile floor. Uncle Tony can't guarantee our safety in Nigeria, I explained.

"What about hired armed security like the last time?" she inquired. I showed her the link to the news report my brother had sent headlined, "Gunmen Kill U.S. Returnee in Enugu," his hometown in Nigeria.

Ogbo Edoga had returned from the United States to attend the meeting of an organization of Nigerian professionals in the United States to raise funds for an ultramodern medical diagnostic center in his ancestral village. On his way, he was robbed and shot and killed with an AK-47. He had hired police protection, as had many Nigerians who visited our motherland only to be robbed and murdered. The lucky ones got kidnapped and released after their families paid a huge ransom. And now, Mom's joined the choir: "Don't come home."

Here's what is shameful: This is the Nigeria that has been one of the world's top 10 oil exporters for decades; the presumed "Giant of Africa" when I was leaving in 1980. But three decades later, despite a half-century of billions of petrodollar inflow, in March 2011, at a World Bank-O.E.C.D. conference in Paris, I found myself sliding down my chair to hide my face behind my laptop as a fellow economist explained why Nigeria was excluded in a comparative study thusly: Since Nigeria (with South Africa) dominates the Sub-Saharan African economy and since Nigeria does so poorly at wealth creation, if included, it would render Sub-Saharan Africa's genuine savings dwarfish vis-à-vis East Asia and Latin America.

Here's the thing: One doesn't need a Ph.D. in economics to understand the correlation between poverty and today's high crime rate in Nigeria. When corrupt politicians persistently embezzle public funds rather than produce proper policies, the result is a stagnant economy and its attendant human misery — high unemployment and massive poverty. Marginalized youths resort to Internet scams, kidnapping, or join Boko Haram . When the police go unpaid for months, the citizens become the logical prey.

That's where Nigeria is today. It will not change until we, the people, join in a mass outrage against corruption, demand transparent accounting of our oil revenues and economic justice. Only then will an honest leadership emerge to invest a fair share of the oil revenues in capital in such a way as to permanently raise the consumption level of the masses. Otherwise we Nigerian expatriates — the most educated immigrant group in the United States — will remain in exile, and Nigeria will remain a breeding ground for terrorism.

Is there an Honest Ernest among Nigerians who is able to galvanize us? Can something that good come out of Nigeria? That's a palm reader's guess.

May Akabogu-Collins is a visiting professor of economics at the American Business School in Paris.

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Monday, February 4, 2013

RE: USA Africa Dialogue Series - FW: A Nigerian Spring — Long Overdue

A Nigerian Spring — Long Overdue

By MAY AKABOGU-COLLINS, Paris

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