Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - National Conference, Self-determination, and the Tyranny of the Nation-State

We have had the talk about a Sovereign National Constitutional Conference,
National Conference, Sovereign National Conference and so on in the
past--intended to "deconstruct" the fragile state and restructure the
state-system so that every group, nationality, and individual is a stakeholder
in the polity." As I noted elsewhere, this vision and conference led nowhere.
Indeed, in my conversation on this matter with a Nigerian political science
academic--a student of Nigerian military, he simply laughed noting that in his
view it was a ploy to keep the intelligentsia and activists busy and distracted
from the political problems on the ground. He even suggested that our military
leaders were adept and clever at the game. You know, keep the soldiers
especially "hotheaded and ambitious" ones busy by sending them to Liberia and
elsewhere as a strategy for avoiding or at least reducing the chances for
another coup.

Nigerian intellectuals--especially those to the left ideologically have been too
politically "noisy." This noisiness is irritating to the administration. Perhaps
a national conference may serve as a "lollipop in their mouths" to calm them
down--while politicians continued business as usual. If we forget the sad
lessons from our political history, we are likely to make the same mistakes
again. Unfortunately, the current group of politicians, with a few exceptions,
have refused to learn and are leading Nigeria into political abyss and crash.
May the good Lord help us!

Ike Udogu

----- Original Message -----
From: Moses Ebe Ochonu <meochonu@gmail.com>
Date: Saturday, October 12, 2013 11:15 am
Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - National Conference, Self-determination,
and the Tyranny of the Nation-State
To: USAAfricaDialogue <USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com>

> The communique issued by the Obafemi Awolowo Foundation talkshop on
> theproposed national conference is spot on, and its points dovetail
> with what
> I've always argued. Folks are right to be skeptical about the
> timing of the
> national conference. They may be vindicated if as they suspect
> Jonathantakes the country through another wasteful, inconsequential
> farce--if he
> mimics Mr. Obasanjo. The truth, even those of us who have a long
> record of
> advocating for a national conference, have to admit is that,
> without a
> commitment from Jonathan and other "elected" principal officials of
> thisrepublic to put the key outcomes of the conference to a
> national referendum
> that would inform the inauguration of a new constitutional order, the
> conference's failure is almost guaranteed. The dismal implementation
> records of previous conferences do not inspire confidence.
>
> Nonetheless, a national dialogue is timely in the present
> circumstance of
> multiple threats to Nigeria's very existence. Not only that, the
> structuraldefects that undergird corruption, electoral malfeasance,
> and unhealthy
> political quarrels need to be addressed. The conference should
> obviouslynot usurp the sovereignty entrusted in the current elected
> officials,however problematic this process of sovereignty transfer
> was. The idea of a
> *sovereign* national conference is a fanciful overreach for those
> desiringa forum for perfecting or, failing that, dissolving the
> house of Lord Lugard
> .
>
> I love the communique for rejecting the no-go-area canard. What are
> thepowers that be and some respected intellectuals afraid of when
> they argue
> that the break up of Nigeria should be off the table? You can't
> inauguratea political conversation on the many existential
> questions plaguing the
> Nigerian state and refuse to entertain the broaching or discussion of
> break-up. You can't corral political conversations into preferred
> boxes or
> outcomes, avoiding uncomfortable questions and proposals that
> depart from
> predetermined trajectories. What if the discussions return with or
> congealto a verdict that the Nigerian union is irretrievably broken
> and needs to
> be destroyed in the interest of everyone? What then? Do you
> regiment the
> discourse away from its logical, considered conclusion in an arbitrary
> effort to preserve a union that representative interlocutors have
> declaredunviable? It would be the analytical equivalent of a coitus
> interruptus,not to mention a waste of money, time, and opportunity.
> Let those who want
> to pursue their political aspirations outside of the Nigerian
> framework and
> those who simply see Nigeria as a an insufferable drag on all her
> constituents be given a chance to convince the rest of their
> compatriots.It is the civilized, democratic thing to do. A national
> conference that is
> not about advancing compelling arguments and counterarguments, about
> dueling proposals and counterproposals, and about consensus
> building and
> persuasion is not worthy of the name.
>
> I do believe that the secessionists are vastly outnumbered by those
> whowant Nigeria preserved in one form or another---ranging from the
> brokenstatus quo to a confederacy of autonomous jurisdictions. I
> believe that if
> given a chance, most Nigerians would vote to retain at least some
> of the
> organic connections binding Nigeria's various constituencies
> together. But
> I realize that unions that do not work and are widely perceived as
> tyrannical and dysfunctional impositions can cause even ardent
> believers to
> imagine their political futures elsewhere. I also realise there are
> manywho are invested in the structural status quo and have
> dubiously and
> self-interestedly demonized secession while valorizing the present
> union as
> a way of preserving their privileges, which a different structural
> configuration would undermine. I also realize, as a historian, that
> centrifugal pressures are regenerative, creative ingredients in nation
> building, for they help to shake stakeholders from their
> complacency and to
> prevent citizens from taking the nation as a settled, sacrosanct,
> finalproduct. Besides, providing a platform for those who desire
> separate states
> will afford us an opportunity to understand the depth and breadth
> of the
> current disenchantment with how Nigeria is presently structured and
> run.Additionally, it is a way to channel the more virulent forms of
> theseseparatist political imaginations into a democratic and
> deliberative medium
> that would tame and mainstream them before they morph into something
> threatening and violent.
>
> The more I think about this national conference idea, the more I am
> reminded that:
>
> 1. There are several unfinished/truncated nationalisms and
> decolonizations all
> over Africa.
>
> 2. There is a fetishization of the nation-state as a final, linear
> end-point of political organization and state formation, which in turn
> forecloses on the possibility of revisiting, revising and, when
> necessary,undoing the territorial-political bequests of colonizers.
>
>
> On the first point, one of the most enlightening papers I heard at the
> recent Toyin FalolaInternational Conference in Ibadan, is the
> presentationof Professor Fonkem Achankeng, who presented an
> incisive paper on the
> uncompleted but ongoing struggle of the Southern Cameroons to be
> allowed to
> determine their political future outside the colonial creation called
> Cameroon. Professor Achankeng has several
> articles<http://www.apcj.upeace.org/issues/APCJ_Vol_5_2_Final_Web.pdf>
> in
>
journals<http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00358533.2012.656025#.Ulinc9KsjTo>that
> articulate the self-determination aspirations of the Southern Cameroon
> peoples.
>
> In Western Sahara, the people's struggle for a separate state or at
> leastfor substantial autonomy from Moroccan rule is all but
> forgotten. In
> several other theaters, the work of colonial state-building is
> unraveling,with regions and peoples thrown into strange national
> cauldronsincreasingly voting with their feet against such colonial
> contraptions.
> Perhaps we need a continental discussion and debate on this unfinished
> business of nationhood and self-determination that is increasingly
> bubblingto the surface to trouble colonial states previously
> considered fairly
> settled.
>
> As I told Dr. Achankeng, the nation-state as a form of disciplined
> territorial political space is a relatively recent idea, having its
> originsin the so-called treaty of Westphalia in the mid 18th
> century. In Africa
> it's even more recent, dating only to the late 19th century and early
> twentieth century. Yet Africans have become so wedded to that state
> formdespite the fact that, being a jealous and domineering entity
> that brooks
> little or no challenge to its sovereignty, the nation-state frowns
> uponalternative expressions of African nationhood and group political
> solidarity. Given the recency of the nation-state, and the non-linear
> trajectory of human political evolution (forget Fukuyama and his
> nonsensical end-of-history neoconservative fantasy) the notion that
> theAfrican postcolonial nation state is beyond negotiation or
> reconstitutionand is a sacred baseline of political organization,
> debate, and governance
> is untenable.
>
> My feeling is that in addition to having this debate on the whether
> thenational houses that colonizers built can still accommodate the
> varying,divergent aspirations of their occupants, a parallel debate
> on how best to
> reeducate Africans on the artificiality, newness, and awkwardness
> of their
> nation-states needs to continue apace. Perhaps the best way to win
> supportfor simmering--and legitimate-- nationalist, separatist,
> centrifugal, and
> self-determination struggles across the continent is to first
> deconstructthe nation-state and wean Africans from its mysterious
> hold on them. Once
> this task of deconstruction and historicizing is complete, Africans
> may be
> more receptive to legitimate political and territorial challenges
> to the
> existing nation-states of Africa.
>
> The only conceptual snag in this business of deconstruction right
> now is
> that putative African nations and groups who aspire to international
> recognition have to use the idiom of the nation state to shape their
> struggle because that is unfortunately the only entity that commands
> international recognition--the only territorial vocabulary with the
> forceof legality in international affairs. This sad reality limits
> the appeal of
> deconstruction, because folks involved in struggles of self-
> determinationsimply want what others have--a nation-state to call
> their own--even if in
> principle they are not sold on the paradigmatic political stature
> of the
> nation-state form or its superiority to alternative local or supra-
> nationalterritorial entities.
>
> --
> There is enough in the world for everyone's need but not for
> everyone'sgreed.
>
> ---Mohandas Gandhi
>
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