Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Nigeria as a Perverse Anarchist Paradise

You are not wrong, Farooq. Nigeria is sinking. Sorry for some
Nigerians who pretend everything is OK.
Nigeria's future is already here -- at the doorsteps!

-- Obododimma.

On 8/6/16, Farooq A. Kperogi <farooqkperogi@gmail.com> wrote:
> *By Farooq A. Kperogi. Ph.D.*
>
> *Twitter:@farooqkperogi <https://twitter.com/farooqkperogi>*
>
>
> I was in Nigeria with my family for a month between late June and late
> July. In my one-month stay there, I developed a heightened awareness of two
> uncomfortable truths about Nigeria that I had always known but hadn't quite
> come to terms with.
>
>
> The first uncomfortable truth is that government is practically
> non-existent in the quotidian lives of everyday Nigerians, and we might as
> well formalize anarchism—or some notion of libertarianism— as our system of
> government. The second uncomfortable truth is that the Nigerian middle
> class will, through its newfound troubling insouciance and smug
> self-satisfaction, dig our country's grave.
>
> <https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFk-CLv2iOi2cFExKSOPhen6K4QSh8QIQaxoT3URyzhwSHoA0CNq2JFZq5iCoAQ5_smiXYhU6O_Std0ocLiWru-Rjbs0HzfkwhmVFg35M9QGMi4J4Hs6HzCp6M6KVfUQ1pzYMrkQNc8BI/s1600/Anarchy-Nigeria.jpg>
>
>
> Anarchists and libertarians are often thought of as representing two
> extreme ends on the ideological spectrum, at least in American political
> discourse, but they are nonetheless united in their common hatred for
> government. While anarchism advocates the total extirpation of even the
> vaguest vestiges of government, American notions of libertarianism advocate
> the least possible presence of government in the affairs of individuals.
>
>
> Well, in a perverse way, Nigeria is at once an anarchist and libertarian
> paradise, but it is one that neither Western anarchists nor American
> libertarians would want to live in and that would explode the philosophical
> foundations of their theories.
>
>
> On issues that really matter to the survival and progress of individuals,
> the Nigerian government is noticeably absent. For instance, in the three
> weeks I stayed in my hometown, I provided my own electricity. The entire
> Baruten Local Government Area in Kwara State where my hometown is located
> has not had even a watt of electricity for more than a year, and there is
> no hope they ever would any time soon.
>
>
> Their experience mirrors the fate of several rural and urban communities in
> Nigeria. On several occasions, Nigerian newspapers have reported that
> electricity generation fell to exactly zero megawatts. I stayed for a week
> in two different hotels in the federal capital, and both hotels generated
> their own electricity. No one depends on the government for electricity
> now. This is a wretched new low even by Nigeria's sordid standards.
>
>
> Government also barely provides water. People who can't afford to build
> their own boreholes (like I did for my parents) are condemned to drink
> water from unsanitary wells and streams in rural communities— and from
> bedraggled hawkers selling water in unkempt cans in urban areas. This isn't
> a new problem, but it seems to be exacerbating.
>
>
> Except in Abuja, the federal capital territory, and a few state capitals,
> governments at all levels have abandoned their responsibility to build
> roads or to maintain existing ones. We wanted to visit New Bussa in Niger
> State, my wife's place of birth, which also used to be my local government
> headquarters until 1988, but we couldn't because all the roads that lead to
> the town from my part of Borgu (now called Baruten in Kwara State) are
> practically impassable to motorists. (The roads in Benin Republic Borgu,
> which we visited, were as good as any road in America!)
>
>
> But the lowest watermark of governmental absence in the life of Nigerians,
> for me, is the total collapse of primary education in Nigeria. When I grew
> up in Nigeria in the 1970s and 1980s, private primary schools were few and
> far between, and the existing ones at the time had a need to boldly
> inscribe on their signposts that they were "government approved" to
> legitimize their existence. Even so, private primary schools were almost
> completely absent in rural Nigeria.
>
>
> During my last visit to Nigeria, the only primary schools that were in
> session in the whole of Kwara State (and this is true of most other states)
> were private primary schools. Government primary schools were closed
> because teachers were on strike to protest months of unpaid salaries.
> Several people told me even if teachers weren't on strike people with even
> a little means have learned not to send their children to government
> primary schools because government schools have become the graveyards of
> learning and creativity.
>
>
> This made me shed a tear. This is precisely where the intergenerational
> perpetuation of social and economic inequality starts. Only the children of
> the desperately poor go to government schools, which are hardly in session
> because teachers aren't paid salaries. This ensures that children of the
> poor stand no earthly chance of breaking from the cycle of poverty and
> social oppression into which they are born. This is replicated at all
> levels of education.
>
>
> I can go on, but the stark, unsettling truth is that ordinary Nigerians
> have no need for government, and government has no reason to exist. The
> only reason government exists in Nigeria now, it would seem, is to
> supervise the dispensation of our national patrimony to the ruling elite
> and to pauperize an already traumatized and dispossessed citizenry.
>
> <https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8jgxzF65Ds7S6mtLFSSsNW9p_IzjkTGTrjAwdkDsUHOKjAp9CXbVCvkjYubh77iSnNgorfkQmBm1VRlSaAGS1Kg4gAFKrHidG99NNNhpH4wd0Jm9bUO2o5wPrfut3BRIBa_GJOypd_Rk/s1600/Nigeria+as+Anarchist+paradise.jpg>
>
>
> That is why a government that is incapable of providing basic necessities
> for its citizens to justify its existence is quick to remove subsidies from
> everything except the sybaritic lavishness of the ruling elites and their
> cronies. When French philosopher Voltaire said, "In general, the art of
> government consists of taking as much money as possible from one class of
> citizens to give to another," he could well be describing governance in
> Nigeria.
>
>
> But what is even more tragic than the incompetence and uselessness of
> government in Nigeria is the indolence and complacency of Nigeria's
> hitherto vibrant and critical middle class. All that the Nigerian middle
> class does now is chatter idly on social media, engage in conspicuous
> consumption, and watch listlessly as the government abdicates its most
> basic responsibilities and robs the poor to enrich the rich.
>
>
> In all my life, I had never seen the depth and ferocity of suffering that I
> saw in Nigeria. Vast swathes of people are writhing in excruciating
> existential pains as a direct result of the insensitive and intellectually
> lazy increase in the price of petrol, which has ignited an unprecedented
> hyperinflationary conflagration.
>
>
> Most middle-class Nigerians I met during my visit appeared to be relieved
> that they have access to petrol irrespective of the price. They don't pause
> to ponder that the next round of scarcity-first-and-price-increase-later is
> on the way, and that this might ultimately strip many of them of their
> current comfort and make them indistinguishable from the hordes of people
> who are struggling to stay alive in Nigeria.
>
>
> When you combine a witless, ill-prepared, incompetent, and irresponsible
> government with a docile, self-satisfied middle class, you not only have a
> perverse anarchist paradise, you also have a perfect World Bank/IMF
> nirvana. If this trend continues, by the time Buhari is done, there would
> probably be no Nigeria to speak of. I hope and pray that I am wrong.
>
>
>
> Farooq A. Kperogi, Ph.D.
> Associate Professor
> Journalism & Emerging Media
> School of Communication & Media
> Social Science Building
> Room 5092 MD 2207
> 402 Bartow Avenue
> Kennesaw State University
> Kennesaw, Georgia, USA 30144
> Personal website: www.farooqkperogi.com
> <http://www.farooqkperogi.blogspot.com>
> Twitter: @farooqkperog <https://twitter.com/#%21/farooqkperogi>
> Author of *Glocal English: The Changing Face and Forms of Nigerian English
> in a Global World
> <http://www.amazon.com/Glocal-English-Changing-Linguistics-Semiotics/dp/1433129264/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1436569864&sr=1-1>*
>
> "The nice thing about pessimism is that you are constantly being either
> proven right or pleasantly surprised." G. F. Will
>
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--
--
B.A.,First Class Honours (English & Literary Studies);
M.A., Ph.D. (English Language);
M.Sc. (Legal, Criminological & Security Psychology);
Professor of Cultural Semiotics & Stylistics,
Department of English,
University of Ibadan.

Fellow,
Centre for Peace & Conflict Studies,
University of Ibadan.

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