Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Fw: Will Nigeria Survive?

Dear Prof ,
Nigeria will survive because the level of integration among the masses
is so intense and capillary , yet unknown to many researchers and the
so called elite . This integration is economic and also influenced by
demographics . The current gloomy situation is worrisome . Some people
know more about Nigeria and are even expecting more storms beyond 2015
and yet sanity will eventually prevail . The Ekiti gov election result
is not a surprise to me as an Ekiti man and Yoruba man but many
analysts went haywire to justify their theoretical assumptions .
Nothing peculiar in that .
The conspiracy against the citizens by politicians , traditional
rulers and religious leaders is at the root of the Nigeria crisis .
Sad enough , the leading members of this trio have some fake
intellectuals / hustlers as fronts .
How can a country excel by just sharing unearned oil money which is
looted . How can you tackle unemployment without real economic sector
. Mass employment with shortage of agricultural labour .
Survival of Nigeria depend on fair and credible elections . Just bear
in mind that democracy is a slow and sure process for progress and
that no democracy is perfect .


Dr Olatunji Omowumi

On 7/11/14, ayo_olukotun via USA Africa Dialogue Series
<usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> wrote:
>
> Sent from my BlackBerry(R) wireless handheld from Glo Mobile.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Ajibola Olaitan <olakitan02@yahoo.com>
> Date: Wed, 9 Jul 2014 03:14:13
> To: ayo_olukotun@yahoo.com<ayo_olukotun@yahoo.com>
> Reply-To: Ajibola Olaitan <olakitan02@yahoo.com>
> Subject: Will Nigeria Survive?
>
> Will Nigeria
> Survive? Insights from a Roundtable
> Ayo
> Olukotun
>
> One
> of the conspicuous setbacks of Nigerian democracy is that politics
> continually
> pushes governance to the back burner-
> Hafsat
> Abiola, July 5, 2014
>
> 'Nigeria
> go survive' is the guardedly optimistic refrain of a song composed by one
> of
> our musicians. But as several eminent scholars, mainly political scientists
> dissected Nigeria's future at a roundtable in Ibadan last Sunday, the
> lyrics
> that best express their mood is a rendition by another Nigerian musician
> entitled
> 'Who knows Tomorrow'?
>
> The
> event was a roundtable convened at the instance of Professor Richard
> Joseph,
> the John Evans Professor of International History and Politics,
> Northwestern
> University, Evanston in the United States and was hosted by Lead City
> University, Ibadan. Joseph, who is best known to Nigerians by his
> magnificent
> study of 'Prebendal politics' (re-issued by Cambridge, 2014), is currently
> working on another project entitled 'State, Governance and Development in
> Nigeria: Pathways from Predicament', and was in Nigeria in that connection.
>
>
> Joseph
> set the ball rolling by referring to the current distressing situation of
> Nigeria in which 'Boko Haram' has become an international signifier for the
> country. That is to say almost as soon as Nigeria is mentioned around the
> globe
> what comes to mind is not its economic potential but the raging insurgency
> at
> its Northeast border with its daily toll of atrocity killings and the
> Chibok
> kidnap saga. It is unlikely that the recent hiring of a United States
> public
> relations firm for 1.2 million dollars will produce a reversal of this
> negative
> image in the absence of a major victory in the anti-terrorism war such as
> the
> rescue of the kidnapped girls.
>
> Emeritus
> Professor Bayo Adekanye observed that, to quote him, 'the times are out of
> joint'. He went on to cite as buttressing evidence the massive youth
> unemployment and a social crisis which produce discontent and anger in the
> land. Added to this is the 'do or die' character of Nigerian politics in
> which
> elections are viewed as internal wars among rival elite groups. The sense
> of
> flux or uncertainty as Professor Eghosa Osaghae, Vice Chancellor of
> Igbinedion
> University, described it gives the impression that just anything is possible
> in
> Nigeria.
>
> One
> of the themes that ran through the discussion is that of the character of
> the
> citizens, a point introduced by Professor Gabriel Ogunmola, former President
> of
> the Nigerian Academy of Science and Chancellor of Lead City University.
> Alluding
> to the recent Ekiti election with its triumph of what is now popularly
> called 'stomach
> infrastructure', several speakers argued that the Nigerian moral conundrum
> cannot be resolved outside of the character and psyche of Nigerian citizens.
> Of
> course here we have a catch-22 situation in which morally bankrupt
> leadership
> skews the attitude and behaviour of the citizens in morally deficient ways.
> To
> illustrate the point by the Ekiti election, there must be a connection
> between a political leadership
> that saw nothing in recycling a politician facing corruption and murder
> charges
> and the victory in Ekiti of 'stomach infrastructure' by which is meant the
> wooing of voters by the distribution of amenities such as bags of rice.
>
> Pungent
> views were expressed about the authoritarian nature of Nigerian federalism
> which it is argued is acting as a brake on the development of the
> constituent
> parts of what Professor Alaba Ogunsanwo, Nigeria's former Ambassador to
> Belgium, called a 'multinational state'. Arguing the case for a Confederal
> union or alternatively a proper federation, Professor Jide Owoeye,
> chairman,
> Governing Council of Lead City university made the point that the Nigerian
> crisis cannot be resolved outside of a true re-compacting of the Nigerian
> state
> along the lines of thriving federations such as Canada and India. It was
> assumed that the national conference, now winding down, would come up with
> fundamental panaceas that would re-draw the political map of Nigeria.
> Regrettably,
> however, after initial noises about regional autonomy all such hopes
> varnished
> and gave way to business-as-usual. In fact, the conference, in spite of the
> pedigree of some of its members, added the comical touch when it
> recommended
> the creation of 19 additional states, a proposal which is bound to further
> strengthen the centre at the expense of unviable mini-states.
>
> Interrogating
> the character of the political elite, Chief Operating Officer of the
> Broadcasting Corporation of Oyo State, Yomi Layinka, pinpointed the mystery
> that the political class does not act often in accordance with its
> enlightened
> self interest. In other words, different sections of the elite not only
> beat
> the drums of wars in the bid to accumulate or retain power but show a
> willingness to bring the roof top crashing down on everyone in order to
> protect
> sectional or personal interests. If truth be told, the current Nigerian
> crisis
> could have been avoided if the political class had not employed
> self-destructive
> tactics that increase violence and bloodletting along religious or ethnic
> lines. Amplifying this point, Ogunsanwo opined that Boko Haram was a tiger
> employed by a section of the ruling class in the search for political
> advantage. The tiger has now run wild
> and unmanageable turning upon even its creators. In other words, this is
> the
> politics of brinkmanship or 'dancing on the brink' at its murderous
> limits.
>
> Reflecting
> on this theme of the failure of elite cohesion Joseph referred to a
> conversation he had with a prominent northern politician some years ago.
> The
> politician kept saying that some of the emergent breed of leaders does not
> have
> a sense of how Nigeria works. This is to say that a federation so diverse
> can
> only be held together by compromises and relentless bargaining and
> conversely
> can be easily ruined by the truculent advocacy of sectional or religious
> advantage.
>
> Attention
> too was given to both the 2015 election as a watershed as well as the
> abiding
> albatross of massive public sector corruption. Professor Kunle Amuwo
> currently of Covenant University Ota, pointed out
> that the political tight rope arises partly from the challenging prospects
> of
> either a Jonathan presidential victory which in the absence of negotiation
> could escalate the running insurgency or the equally delicate prospect of a
> presidential candidate of Northern origin which could lead to a resurgence
> of
> militancy in the south-south. Obviously, statesmanship which is currently
> in
> short supply is urgently needed to steer Nigeria away from self-decimation
> by
> its intemperate political class.
>
> On
> corruption, and the commercialization of political offices Joseph quoted
> Hafsat
> Abiola, referred to at the beginning of this essay, to the effect that the
> upsurge of political contratctocracy continually
> pushes governance to the backwaters. The result is that Nigeria in spite of
> the
> plentitude of its natural resources continues to stay at the bottom league
> in
> terms of the quality of life of its citizens thus giving a picture that
> democracy
> does not work. In short, democracy is profitable, indeed extremely so for a
> tiny stratum of the political elite and their cronies but immensely
> improvising
> for the majority of Nigerians.
>
> One
> of the key issues that we chewed over as the roundtable retreated to dinner
> is
> how Nigeria can survive its current almost existential challenges as well
> as
> insert developmental governance into a democracy that more often than not
> is
> not about the people.
>
>
> · Olukotun is
> Professor of Political Science and Dean, Faculty of the Social Sciences,
> Lead
> City University, Ibadan
>
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