"Nigeria and her leadership may bury their head ostrich-like in the sand all they want, but the rest of the world have their own opinion of the country and her leaders; an opinion that is unflattering and sad to say the least. And until and unless we get our act together, kick out mediocre leaders, collectively abjure corruption, and embark on rigorous reconstruction of the country, the snub has just begun!"--Tunde Fagbenle
America's snubbing of Nigeria: BY TUNDE FAGBENLE
Tunde Fagbenle
As I read our own Ayo Olukotun (PUNCHcolumnist)'s column of last Friday with the above title, I chuckled. In it Ayo, a political science professor, was lamenting Nigeria's exclusion from America's President Obama's forthcoming African tour, with his wife Michelle, of countries including Senegal, South Africa, and Tanzania between June 26 and July 3. The snub, Ayo infers, is America's "way of delivering a strong message to (Nigeria's) rulers on their slack anti-corruption policy and poor human rights record."
For me, what's new? This will not be Obama's first snub of Nigeria. In July 2009, Obama threw it more "in our face" by visiting next-door Ghana on his first visit to sub-Saharan Africa without casting as much as a glance in our direction. "Part of the reason that we're travelling to Ghana," Obama had said before leaving for Ghana, "is because you've got there a functioning democracy, a president who's serious about reducing corruption, and you've seen significant economic growth."
Translated, Nigeria then (in 2009) did not score highly on any of those criteria, and now (in 2013) has faired no better – so much for our President Jonathan's chest-beating, "marking-scheme," scorecard! What is happening to Governor Rotimi Amaechi in Rivers State is not exactly reflective of a "functioning democracy;" the presidential pardon granted ex-convict and former Bayelsa State Governor, Diepreye Alamieyeseigha, is hardly the stuff serious anti-corruption governance is made of; worsening unemployment, heightened insecurity, and mass poverty snigger at any vaunted economic growth.
Nigeria and her leadership may bury their head ostrich-like in the sand all they want, but the rest of the world have their own opinion of the country and her leaders; an opinion that is unflattering and sad to say the least. And until and unless we get our act together, kick out mediocre leaders, collectively abjure corruption, and embark on rigorous reconstruction of the country, the snub has just begun!
If we need reminding of how Nigeria is perceived, below is an excerpt of this column of 10/01/2010.
America: Punishing Nigerians to get at our government
But America, to say the least, is pissed off with Nigeria. And no one demonstrates, even appropriate, this disgust more than Obama himself. Obama is angry with Nigeria. But it is an anger borne of love and disappointment. Way back in Obama's pre-presidency book, "Dreams From My Father," he lampooned Nigeria as a country that has disappointed the black race. "Look what tribalism has done to places like Nigeria and Liberia," he remarked to his aunts, Jane and Zeituni, in the book. He cannot get over how a land of such intellectual and moral giants like Achebe and Soyinka could be so hopelessly run and incessantly dominated by evil and visionless leaders.
I hazard a guess, America's hostile response to Nigeria is a direct consequence of what Obama feels about Nigeria and her long catalogue of unbelievable nonsense, from inept and roguish leadership, to senseless ethno-religious massacres of unimaginable proportions.
For those who could read "between the lines," Obama's shunning of Nigeria on his maiden presidential visit to Africa was a big statement of his administration's intention to put Nigeria in "her place" – a disappointing country of reducing international relevance.
And no one has put this in stronger perspective than Mr. Lyman, a former US Ambassador to Nigeria and South Africa, in his speech at the Achebe Colloquium at Brown University, USA, on December 11, 2009, now in wide circulation.
Mr. Lyman shocked the audience when he spoke about the need to consign Nigeria to her self-chosen place of irrelevance in global account. But Lyman prefaced his speech with an "allocutus" that he speaks from hurt for a country he loves: "I have a long connection to Nigeria," Lyman says. "Not only was I ambassador there, I have travelled to and from Nigeria for a number of years and have a deep and abiding vital emotional attachment to the Nigerian people, their magnificence, their courage, artistic brilliance, their irony, sense of humour in the face of challenges, etc."
Lyman believes that Nigeria is not being helped by any continued notion that she still holds some meaningful strategic relevance and goes on to deconstruct, one after another, factors that had given rise to such vaunted notion in the past, namely: that "it is a major oil producer, it is the most populous country in Africa, it has made major contributions to Africa in peacekeeping, and, of course, negatively, if Nigeria were to fall apart, the ripple effects would be tremendous, etc."
Then he goes on: "But I wonder if all this emphasis on Nigeria's importance creates a tendency to inflate Nigeria's opinion of its own invulnerability" even when she is bedeviled by "disgraceful lack of infrastructure, the growing problems of unemployment, the failure to deal with the underlying problems in the Niger Delta, (and) the failure to consolidate democracy."
And deconstruct Lyman did of each of those elements. Nigeria's size and population is meaningless unless she can harness entrepreneurial talent and economic capacity to make her a major economic and political force. Nigeria's oil would mean less to America and the rest of the world as more and more countries discover oil and make better use of it, and, more importantly, as the world 'moves on to alternative sources of energy.' According to him, Nigeria's contribution to the continent is becoming nothing but "history," especially with her presence or influence discounted in troubled places like Guinea, Dafur or even Somalia! There is nothing to say for Nigeria economically with an all but collapsed infrastructure in a country that does not generate more power than a mere district of South Africa does.
Then the punch was Lyman's quote of an Assistant Secretary of State that he had worked for who once retorted to charges against America on Nigeria: "You know, the biggest danger for your (Nigeria's) relationship with the United States is not our opposition but that we will find you irrelevant."
America, in taking the stand it took against Nigeria, is seeking ways to punish Nigeria's leadership, not her people. But, unfortunately, the people will suffer as much, if not more, than the leadership who though, worried about the security of their personal loot stashed abroad, has withdrawn their threat of an "ultimatum" and now begged for "dialogue" with America. (Note: On account of the attempt to blow off an American Delta Airline by a 23-year old Nigerian, America had hurriedly placed Nigeria on its watch list of 'countries harbouring terrorists or with sympathy, tendency or inclination for terrorism.' Our National Assembly responded by giving America a laughable "7-day ultimatum" to reverse herself and take Nigeria off the list.)
As a nation – were we one – our pride would be hurt – had we one. But we are a country in confusion and disarray, a country in the throes of unravelling, unable to locate her identity and finding herself incapable of undertaking the simple task of fashioning a way forward from the rot. Rather, choosing to leave "everything in the hands of God" who is "all-knowing and good" and who will "see Nigeria through."
I shake my head!
Funmi Tofowomo Okelola
-The Art of Living and Impermanence
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