Tuesday, November 28, 2017

USA Africa Dialogue Series - FW: [Naijanet] MATTHEW KUKAH : TRIBE AND TONGUE IN NIGERIA- FROM DEBRIBALISATION TO RETRIBALISATION

 

 

Dr. Bitrus Paul Gwamna

 

From: 'femi ojo' via Naijanet [mailto:naijanet@googlegroups.com]
Sent: Tuesday, November 28, 2017 1:11 PM
To: Naijanet Google <naijanet@googlegroups.com>
Subject: [Naijanet] MATTHEW KUKAH : TRIBE AND TONGUE IN NIGERIA- FROM DEBRIBALISATION TO RETRIBALISATION

 

Tribe and tongue in Nigeria: From detribalisation to retribalisation

 

On February 24, this year, I delivered the convocation lecture for the University of Abuja, titled, Though Tribe and Tongue May Differ: Managing Diversity in Nigeria. Drawing from Frost's poem, The Road Not Taken, I came to the very sad conclusion that coming to the critical point where two roads diverged, our leaders have always avoided the road less travelled. The result is that rather than make a difference, many of the leaders have continued to make the same mistakes.

 

The cumulative effect litters the landscape and goes by different names: corruption, underdevelopment, stagnation, decay, etc. In the Lecture, I argued that: We have lacked the courage to take some of the tough decisions that would have changed our country today. We found the discipline and demands of equality enshrined in our democracy difficult to uphold and therefore we opted to cohabit with feudalism. The result is that we have constructed a rickety double decker identity vehicle whereby we inhabit one section as citizens and another as subjects. Government has been unable to secure the loyalty of its citizens who prefer to preserve their reverence and loyalties to their local communities.

 

The consequences of our lack of clear choices now stare us in the face. We are unable to submit to a single loyalty code. The elites steal from government and return home to feather the local nest presided over by the local hegemon before whom they prostrate as favourite sons and daughters adorned with feathers of recognition and appreciation.

 

No Nigerian leader has found the way to deal constructively with both feudalism and religion and break from these strangulating hegemons which have delayed our national integration. Both these hegemons of feudalism and religion have become totems which people claim to identify with when it is convenient for them to do so. Unless and until a Nigerian leader confronts these twin institutions and defines and clarifies their roles in society, common citizenship in Nigeria will remain an illusion.  This is a summary of the dilemma that we are in.

 

My intention in this presentation is to continue the exploration of themes that have been at the centre of my research and reflections for the last thirty or more years as a public intellectual. The questions are varied and complex, they are vertical, horizontal, intersecting and counter penetrating. They seem interconnected, yet dispersed, they both attract and repel. Look at a few of them: Are we a country, a nation or a people and what is the significance of and the difference between each of these nouns? Is national cohesion an illusion?

 

How do we fix Nigeria? How can this country work for us? Why do we love to hate our country with equal passion? What needs to be done and who needs to do what? What and where are the tools? Who will design or manufacture them? How do we end inequalities? How do we find a balance between religion and politics? Can both ever serve the common good? Can they do so together? The questions are legion.

 

The theme for today's Conference according to the convener, Professor Epiphany Azinge, is, Nigeria: In Search of a Detribalized Race. It seems that Professor Azinge seeks to address some of the issues that are also captured in the questions I have posed above. However, I imagine he thinks that if we could produce a detribalised race, then we would have found answers to all our complex problems and would safely be on our way to El Dorado where we would all live happily ever after! I am not here to dispute this assumption, but to add my voice and to raise some even more serious questions.

 

Those who have read my articles or have heard me speak will be familiar with the fact that I prefer to ask more questions than provide answers. I believe that a chance to address an audience at any time is a rare privilege and no one should take it lightly. It would be dangerous to assume that one is on the podium because he or she is the most informed about the issues. So, I see these events as opportunities to further our collective search for meaning.

 

So, going forward, my questions are: What does a detribalised race look like? What are the causes of detribalisation and how do people get detribalised? What are the ingredients of detribalisation? In fact, can there be such a thing as a totally 'detribalised' race or person? Who writes the prescription and who administers the dosage? What are the obstacles to detribalisation? Again the questions are many and finding answers to them will now occupy our attention.

 

I am neither an Anthropologist nor a Sociologist and might not have the precise definition of the concept of tribe. However, as a social category, I see Tribe as a unit of organization that holds together a community that shares a sense of common ancestry, history, mythology, language and culture. These go on to produce feelings and bonds of affinity. Tribalism on the other hand, is the operational instrumentalisation, and unfortunately even manipulation, of that identity as a platform for organisation and negotiation, or the application of that identity to secure advantage for the group. Tribalism appropriates that identity, draws boundaries and excludes other members from the privileges. When employed, it can become the rallying cry, an ideology for war for the protection of the tribe or the appropriation of resources to maintain the supremacy of the group.

 

Detribalisation, therefore, does not mean the negation of tribal identity per se, but it means the negation of tribalism, the abandonment of tribal loyalties and their substitution with what may be perceived as higher goals of modernity. This last note stems from the premise that tribalism is often associated with traditionalism which is often perceived to be something static, established and unchangeable, and therefore in conflict with modernity. The discussion on the relationship, oft times seen to be conflictual, of African traditional cultures and modernity is one I will not go into here but it is one on which there is a lot of research already done and on which much more is needed.

 

However, for the purpose of today's conversation and our understanding of 'detribalisation' as the negation of tribalism, the question is, what are the aggregate units of bad things that would need to be abandoned for an aggregate of good things that can enable a people to embrace the alternative as an appealing concept? We cannot answer the question in isolation because the title of my paper suggests a second leg, namely, what I refer to as Retribalisation which in effect would be the alternative offered as the identity factor of the people (tribe).

 

I have introduced the notion of Retribalisation so as to create a balance in the concepts. By my lose definition, it is an abandonment of the tent of detribalization and a return to a new tribalisation. What it means therefore is the feeling that the promises that were offered to make us abandon tribalism have not paid off and now the individuals or groups realise that they were sold a counterfeit; thus we see the quest for a return to the womb of tribalism. The interplay of these forces is what we are confronted with today. I am not in a position to provide answers, but my concern is to offer a few items on the menu and hope that all of us can begin a process of debating these challenges, looking at the merit or demerits of each of the issues.

 

The first question to ask is, what are the factors that would lead to detribalisation? What are the incentives? In other words, why would people trade one identity for the other? To attempt to answer these questions, we need to look elsewhere, and here, game theories can help illustrate what we mean.

 

Let us first take the economic and philosophical concepts of what is called, incentive compatibility or utility maximisation. The issue here is to enable us examine what set of rules guide human behaviour. Given that the human person is a utility maximizer, that is, we all prefer to play by the set of rules that confer maximal benefit to us, how do we ensure that all participants achieve benefits in any given situation where people seek advantage over one another? Let us take some examples: Imagine that an airline tells passengers that non-smokers and teetotalers will get the best seats and discounts, how will smokers and drinkers react?

 

Or, a bank advertises that men who do not abuse their wives will be more liable to access loans, what will happen? Or, if the Road Safety Corps decides that at the end of the year, any motorist who has not had any driving accident will receive 50 liters of fuel for free, what impact will this have on drivers? We can all respond to these issues differently, but the truth is that each and every one of us will most likely be persuaded by self-interest to act well. So, in the end, the Airlines and Banks will make good business and will have helped people live healthier lives and have less violent marriages,  while the Road Safety Corps will all smile as their jobs become easier and they see that human lives are being saved. In all, both parties are happy. In the situations, no one has lost out; both sides feel a sense of benefit.

 

These may be poor images, but I think they speak to the issues that we are addressing. We must pose the central question which will naturally be on the lips of all of us who are asked to detribalize: What is in it for me? What do I gain? Who will reap the greater benefit? What will the nation or the one asking me to detribalize offer me in return? When I compare where I am with where I hope to be, I must have good reason to take the leap.

 

The conclusion here is that first, the tribal tent is my comfort zone because, in it, I am safe and secure. Members of my tribe will fight to protect me and my family, they will offer me food and shelter, among many other things. So, naturally, anyone who wants my loyalty or wants me to abandon my tribal tent must offer me something better than what my tribal tent is already offering me. It is a tradeoff.

 

Look at our situation in Africa today. Why are our people emigrating and why are young people facing death on the Atlantic Ocean rather than staying in their home tents? Clearly, the home tent has proven to be rather treacherously hostile to their quest for fulfillment.

 

I do not wish to put words into the mouths of Nigerians who have emigrated abroad and made a new life there. However, I know that many of our people who live abroad, and indeed many who live in cities far from their native village, make very little reference to their 'tribe', and if they do refer to it, it is only in a superfluous way. We cannot call them 'detribalised' but their reality and existence poses questions on the importance of 'tribe' on their identity and way of life. For example, how does one recognize many of our Nigerians who live abroad today? It is not by their dress or even language. One who lives abroad, or indeed even in our large cities here in Nigeria, might tell you one of the following:

 

The people here where I have settled have accepted me and welcomed me with open arms.
I have found a spouse among them and built a family.
I have settled, my business is thriving, I feel safe and I am prospering
I have learnt the language and the culture of the people here.
The opportunities are huge and I do not feel discriminated against.
I am one of them and feel a sense of belonging.
I can see the result of my sweat.
I have named one of my children Kaduna or Ogoja.
I have made here my home
I eat their food, have adopted their culture
I cannot remember when last I went to my birthplace.

 

But, there are more questions than answers. For example, when can we say a person or a people is 'detribalized'? Can we ever say such a thing? If not, what are the limits of being 'tribalised' and what are the implications of being detribalized and retribalised? What circumstances lead people to retrace their steps or consider sacrifices made toward detribalization a mistake? What makes them withdraw their investment?  There are many answers but we could hazard as many guesses as possible and you are free to add your own. Basically, all of this brings to the fore the way in which identity claims of tribe and tribalism are to a very great extent determined by self-interest.

 

Perhaps one of the primary factors leading to retribalisation is the perception of poor return on investment, inability to find compatible incentives, a feeling of vulnerability, insecurity or even betrayal. When a detribalised person realises that the environment they thought was detribalised has betrayed them, they begin a process of retracing their steps back home, back to the tribe that they had abandoned. They begin to feel a sense of shame, resentment and betrayal and they embark on a conscious effort of self-discovery.

 

They realise the need to recover the identity they had been lost or traded off. They develop a sense of urgency to return home. They may suddenly become conscious of their traditional food, history, cultural norms and forms which they had abandoned.

They begin to recover their identity by dress, learning the language they had forgotten or abandoned. They could engage in a newfound micro nationalism. Let us take a few examples:

 

Indeed, these may be poor images, but I think they speak to the issues that we are addressing. We must pose the central question which will naturally be on the lips of all of us who are asked to detribalise: What is in it for me? What do I gain? Who will reap the greater benefit? What will the nation or the one asking me to detribalise offer me in return?

 

When I compare where I am with where I hope to be, I must have good reason to take the leap.

The conclusion here is that first, the tribal tent is my comfort zone because, in it, I am safe and secure. Members of my tribe will fight to protect me and my family, they will offer me food and shelter, among many other things. So, naturally, anyone who wants my loyalty or wants me to abandon my tribal tent must offer me something better than what my tribal tent is already offering me. It is a tradeoff.

 

Look at our situation in Africa today. Why are our people emigrating and why are young people facing death on the Atlantic Ocean rather than staying in their home tents? Clearly, the home tent has proven to be rather treacherously hostile to their quest for fulfillment.

 

I do not wish to put words into the mouths of Nigerians who have emigrated abroad and made a new life there. However, I know that many of our people who live abroad, and indeed many who live in cities far from their native village, make very little reference to their 'tribe', and if they do refer to it, it is only in a superfluous way. We cannot call them 'detribalised' but their reality and existence poses questions on the importance of 'tribe' on their identity and way of life. For example, how does one recognize many of our Nigerians who live abroad today? It is not by their dress or even language. One who lives abroad, or indeed even in our large cities here in Nigeria, might tell you one of the following:


·The people here where I have settled have accepted me and welcomed me with open arms.
·I have found a spouse among them and built a family.
· I have settled, my business is thriving, I feel safe and I am prospering
· I have learnt the language and the culture of the people here.
· The opportunities are huge and I do not feel discriminated against.
· I am one of them and feel a sense of belonging.
· I can see the result of my sweat.
· I have named one of my children Kaduna or Ogoja.
· I have made here my home
· I eat their food, have adopted their culture
· I cannot remember when last I went to my birthplace.


 But, there are more questions than answers. For example, when can we say a person or a people is 'detribalised'? Can we ever say such a thing? If not, what are the limits of being 'tribalised' and what are the implications of being detribalised and retribalised? What circumstances lead people to retrace their steps or consider sacrifices made toward detribalisation a mistake?

 

What makes them withdraw their investment?  There are many answers but we could hazard as many guesses as possible and you are free to add your own. Basically, all of this brings to the fore the way in which identity claims of tribe and tribalism are to a very great extent determined by self-interest.

 

Perhaps one of the primary factors leading to retribalisation is the perception of poor return on investment, inability to find compatible incentives, a feeling of vulnerability, insecurity or even betrayal. When a detribalised person realises that the environment they thought was detribalised has betrayed them, they begin a process of retracing their steps back home, back to the tribe that they had abandoned. They begin to feel a sense of shame, resentment and betrayal and they embark on a conscious effort of self-discovery.

 

They realise the need to recover the identity they had been lost or traded off. They develop a sense of urgency to return home. They may suddenly become conscious of their traditional food, history, cultural norms and forms which they had abandoned. They begin to recover their identity by dress, learning the language they had forgotten or abandoned. They could engage in a newfound micro nationalism. Let us take a few examples:

 

· A Nigerian man comes to America, and marries a native (preferably white) woman (visa marriage) believing this will enhance his opportunities for getting a piece of the American dream. He memorises the American Constitution, speaks with the American twang. His American dream turns into a nightmare when he realises his American wife one way or the other has betrayed him. He now abandons his American wife and returns home to marry a woman from home, to show, as Fela would say, that he is an original black man!

 

· A man has fought for his country as a soldier and believes that the army has become his family. Suddenly, he realises that his friends have been promoted ahead of him because the new Commander is from a different tribe that is hostile to his own. His sense of nationalism and the feeling that the military was family suddenly is badly shaken.

 

· A man believes that state X has accepted him, he names his son after the town and suddenly, his son is denied a scholarship because he is told he is not an indigene of the state.

 

· A woman who has surrendered her identity to ensure family stability, marries into a new tribe, learns the language and culture and believes she has been fully integrated. Suddenly, she is to be appointed a Minister or to a job she eminently qualifies for and suddenly, she realizes she is denied a promotion or an appointment because she is not a member of the tribe. She has been cast out as a stranger!

 

In the final analysis, people who flaunt their so-called detribalized toga do so merely to maximise their opportunities or investment whether it is in the boardroom or on the political field. We can argue therefore that there is something contractual, something tentative about identity tradeoffs. Their salience is only to the extent that the so-called detribalised person profits from this identity trade off. Now, let us see if we can draw some lessons from the notion of tribalism and 'detribalisation'.

 

First, the search for a Detribalised race has a ring of an anthropological excursion. The so-called detribalised races are not tucked away somewhere in the amazon or rain forest, or the hills of Koma. In fact, is there such a race?

 

Let us remember that cultures, which are central to any tribal identity, are not static. They are not beyond time and unchangeable. They change and adapt as we, human beings, change and adapt to our changing social circumstances.

Identity mutations are part and parcel of modernisation and how we cope or negotiate these identities is the story of our survival. In this age of globalisation, it might be tempting to argue that only the Detribalised will succeed. However, detribalisation will remain a contested concept open to negotiation on the trade floor or power, whether in the boardroom, shopping floor, political space or wherever we turn.

 

For the purpose of our reflection, there are those who might be tempted to argue that Nigeria is where she is today because she has allowed ethnicity or tribal differences to get in the way. Those who make this point believe that if only we can get rid of tribalism, that is, become detribalised, all will be well.

But, as I have said elsewhere, the real challenge in addressing this question is to understand and accept that differences in tribe and tongue are not the reason for our monumental failure to build consensus around development, common citizenship and fairness. There are, however, many reasons for this failure, to which we shall now turn.

 

I have argued that, in the words of Frost, one of our greatest tragedies lies in the consequences of 'road not taken'. We inherited a regional arrangement that had its pitfalls but if we had the patience we could have finally worked out a system to accommodate us all. Undoubtedly we can still do that. However, a combination of factors took us continuously back to the bottom of the hill where we have remained like frogs in a bucket, unable to either climb out individually or collectively. The greatest tragedy of the nation is that we have not been able to create a common vision of an egalitarian society. In almost every department, the infrastructure that the British created has since fallen into absolute and total decay. A few examples will do:

 

Take the universities, those prestigious citadels of learning from where the dreams and visions of a new society were to be conceived and delivered.  The first three came into being immediately after independence so as to provide a platform for the development of a succeeding elite whose duty was to transform or lead our nation to modernity. But look at what they have become today: rather than offer the society light, these onetime great Universities have turned into dark theatres of ethnic nationalisms. These so-called federal institutions are today largely shells, incubators of the most tragic, dangerous and narrowest expressions of ethnic, religious or regional bigotry and prejudices.

 

The academic elites in these institutions have become trapped in the cesspool of the same distortions of corruption, inefficiency, and bigotry that have come to characterise the larger society. A Vice Chancellor told me that to be a Vice Chancellor was not so much a question of being a man or woman of letters, but it depends on if you have a strong and powerful traditional ruler behind you. Today, neither by research nor prestige can our Universities offer a model of our society because they are caught in a web of the same politics ravaging the larger society.

 

Or, take the Military as another example. Ordinarily, everywhere in the world, by virtue of their calling, the military represents the finest values and the vision of a classless society that rises beyond ethnic, regional or religious considerations. It is a moulder of men and women. That was then. Today, everyone knows that the military has lost its allure and gravitas. Like the rest of Nigeria, years of coups and counter coups sponsored largely by powerful civilian elite have seen the military gradually become trapped and ravaged by ethnic, regional, religious and class considerations. Promotion, demotion or postings are now a function of connections and thus, today, the military is merely one of the fingers of a leprous nation.

 

Shall we mention the Bureaucracy? Nigerians are nostalgic about the Civil service of post-independence Nigeria when they were both civil and servants. We continue to marvel at the Asian Tigers, India or China. Yet, in these countries, the Civil service takes only the brightest and the best. Lee Kwan Yew tells of how he recruited only the best intellectuals into the civil service. Today, the Nigerian civil service is the province of patronage where powerful people who have risen to the top turn it into a land of green pastures to graze only their family and clan members. Our Bureaucracy too has been ravaged by the ill wind of the maladministration that has been inflicted on our nation by years of military oppression and the corrosive effect of a capricious political elite.

 

Or look at the Religious institutions. Today, the kingdom of God has been taken over by men and women of the underworld. Before our very eyes, its members are daily standing trial for the same crimes that afflict the larger society such as, armed robbery, kidnapping, extortion, failed business deals, murder/assassinations, and many more.

 

Today, rather than being called by God, it is people who design and build their own structures and then literally force God to call them, often both husband and wife, to become prophets and prophetesses. Little wonder, some of these people refer to their institutions not as Churches but as Ministries where they focus on amassing wealth and power and becoming slippery gateways to dubious prosperity, calling people to focus on the so-called pastor rather than on Christ. I imagine that there are also today many people who call themselves Islamic scholars and Imam and preachers who seek for people to focus on them rather than on Allah.

 

A combination of these distorted narratives has turned Nigeria into a forest of frustration and hopelessness where everyone simply tries to survive as best as they can. The youth have become like the young people caught up in the novel, Lord of the Flies where, after a period of time in the forest, they began to show signs of inhumanity.

 

A few things must happen if we are to build a new Nigeria. We have to focus on a new generation of Nigerians unencumbered by all the distortions that have weighed us down.  This country will not survive if we continue the wild goose chase of looking for leaders, or messiahs. There are no messiahs anywhere in the world. The right people must come from the sweat of our brow and not be ferried into public life through coups and manipulated elections.

The British Empire was the result of the vision of an elite, so also apartheid, even slavery.

 

There is no single leader anywhere in the world who has succeeded or left a legacy who did not first prepare themselves for public office and who did not have a vision to which they were committed to implement. Perhaps the best-prepared politicians in the history of our country remain the late Chief Obafemi Awolowo and to some extent Mallam Aminu Kano. In many ways, it is to our eternal regret that none of them had the chance to implement their egalitarian philosophies at a national level. By way of conclusion, let us look closely at some lessons we can derive from the past for a better Nigeria.

 

First, there must be a deliberate admission that the persistence of claims to so-called tribal identity is tied to the pre-modern and semi feudal state that Nigeria is in. Government has not developed a clear vision of society where other categories of identity can both embrace and surpass ethnic or tribal identity. Here, we can borrow examples from elsewhere such as from Europe, the United States of America, and even from developing countries such as Singapore where greater emphasis has been placed on transparent processes of leadership recruitment.

 

For the United States of America, the notion of the military industrial complex today, which is a combination of the collaborative interplay between the private sector, intellectual elite and government whose interests converge and are driven by a capitalist class in a liberal, free market economy. So, whether in war or in peacetime, the fruits of intellectual research provide the skeleton on which the system ensures that American interests are protected.

 

Secondly, Leadership should not happen by accident, as is too often the case with us here. No one simply drops from the sky to become a President, Governor of Congressman. Our leadership recruitment processes are bereft of goals and processes and are instead wrapped in the myth of secret and conspiratorial manipulations. To make progress, Nigeria must erect signposts for excellence and transparency. It is not an accident that there is a linkage between getting to the White House and not only a record in public service but association with prestigious University institutions, known as Ivy League Universities. Nor is getting to Number 10 Downing Street outside the Oxford-Cambridge network. It is affiliation with these prestigious institutions that have replaced racial or gender categories, the equivalent of tribalism, regionalism and religion in our case.

Thirdly, it is infrastructure that changes the way a society sees itself. For example, the struggle against corruption will remain a mirage as long as this fight focuses only on threats, punishment and moral exhortation. It is technology that ends impunity, not the threat of punishment, which the corrupt can always circumvent by frustrating the bureaucracy and the justice system. By not providing adequate and modern services and infrastructure throughout the country, the government has left our people at the mercy of villains, thieves and criminals who, ironically are their heroes, heroines and modern day Robin Hoods!

 

Fourthly, the crisis of lack of transparency in admissions to University, job placements, allocation of resources: open and despicable nepotism has created a sense of anomie. Since the government has allowed men and women of influence to determine who is admitted or employed, whether in the universities, security agencies, or the civil service, it lacks the ability to claim the loyalty of her citizens. People will remain loyal not to the nation but only to those who helped them climb the ladder.

 

Fifthly, there is the issue of inter-marriages. Marriage is at the heart of human civilisation. More than any other institution, it is the glue that has held people together and ensured the perpetuation of humanity. After years of war, it was marriages that sealed the bond of warring empires, emperors and society. Every civilization had to contend with the prejudices of one tribe over another. These prejudices were captured in proverbs, songs and other cultural expressions. Often, these prejudices persisted until intermarriages broke the deadlock and myths. New generations then emerged from these unions unencumbered by the prejudices of their parents.

 

For us in Nigeria, the National Youth Service Corps has done extremely well as a strategy for intermarriages. I watched a programme on NTA last night about socialization processes and the harmony that had grown out of the years of intermarriages between the Hausa settlers and the Yoruba in Abeokuta. It was really inspiring listening to these Hausa people speaking fluent Yoruba! All those who spoke on the programme said that conflict was alien to them.

In Northern Nigeria the issue of interreligious and intercultural marriage presents a serious problem and unless attitudes change to this issue, and to the mentality it represents, there is little doubt that the long drawn violence and suspicion between Christians and Muslims will persist. Muslims in northern Nigeria believe that their sons can marry Christian women, but consider it haram for Christian men to marry their daughters!

 

These are the kinds of prejudices that produce the superiority complex and its resultant extremist attitudes such as that manifested by Boko Haram.  Sadly, the region will never get away from war and violence until young men and women begin to build families together. The idea that Christian men cannot marry Muslim women unless they convert is a distorted cultural myth. It is based on the fear bred by ignorance, not on faithful adherence to Islam.

 

Sixthly, we require a high level of judicial activism to sustain the vision of a united and peaceful multi-ethnic and multi-religious Nigeria, which is contemplated in our Constitution. Our society will never be entirely free of people who hold deep prejudices and hate and hide these under religious, ethnic or regional bigotry to demean the other who is not like them.

 

However, if we have a transparent and active judicial system we can ensure that these people are called to justice for any criminal actions arising from their prejudices and hate. The world has seen prejudice and its violent expression crumble in South Africa and the United States. We saw the end of slavery, racism and apartheid. We either have change willingly or we will drown in the cesspool of ignorance, as we have seen from Boko Haram.

 

The landmark Supreme Court case of Brown vs. Board of Education in 1952 in the United States of America is an illustration of how the Judiciary, here the Supreme Court, can bend the arc of justice and help to create a harmonious society. By that ruling, the Supreme Court declared the setting up of separate and inferior schools for blacks to be unconstitutional. In the process, education became available and accessible to all American children. In 1963, President John F Kennedy proposed the most comprehensive draft of the Civil Rights Act, arguing that the United States will not be fully free until all its citizens are free! As we know, he did not live long enough to see it through. However, his successor, Lyndon Johnson signed it into Law in 1964. To show his enthusiasm and the historic nature of this epoch changing assignment, President Johnson used 75 different pens to sign the Act into Law. The country looks to the Supreme Court to develop a sense of urgency about human rights, citizenship rights and Constitutionalism.

 

Nigeria must understand that there is nothing in our society that is new. Most societies in the world went through various stages of development and growth, but each nation had to produce men and women of great imagination, men and women of courage and sacrifice, men and women prepared to commit all their energies to developing a vision society. We have not been so lucky here.


 Nigerians must not be deceived. The Fulani or Ikulu cause is not served by how many of its sons or daughters become Presidents, Governors, Ministers or even Bishops in Nigeria. As long as millions of Fulanis and Hausa are still roaming the treacherous landscape and the streets of Nigeria, whether as Almajiri or herdsmen, mired in poverty, none of us is free. As long as the Ijaw or Ogoni person is still drinking or fishing in poisoned waters from the lagoons, none of us is free. It does not matter how many Yorubas, Tiv or any of our ethnic groups become President, Governor or Minister. As long as poverty and deprivation still stalk our land, none of us is free.

 

We are all inhabitants of the treacherous swamps and lagoons of death in Nigeria. Poverty remains a tragic scar that reminds the world of the injury done to us by our leaders. However, we must drain these swamps before we all drown in them. I know the job has been made more difficult by the fact that ours are no ordinary swamps. They are, as the British writer Michael Peel titled his book, Swamps full of dollars. Draining the swamps is our national dilemma, but it is also our promise. Let us start now. Thank you for your attention.

 

Bishop Matthew Hassan KUKAH delivered this paper at the Conference, organised by Professor Epiphany Azinge Foundation in Yar'Adua Centre, Abuja.

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