Friday, May 10, 2019

Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Nigeria is Doomed and Her Academics are Culpable

Dear Moses:

Thank you very much for trying, against all odds, to redirect our attention to the implications of my earlier intervention on Prof. Nwolise's strange "theory of spiritual intelligence." To be honest with you, I'm disappointed with the direction the debate has gone so far. Prof. Falola may be "enjoying" himself by deliberately playing the devil's advocate and claiming that individual hallucinations are fact. Perhaps, he's goading you to write "the book", per Prof. Nimi Wariboko's suggestion. However, I beg to differ that cleverly muddying the waters will get us anywhere near comprehending the consequences of a good example of a pseudo-scientific culture that has become pervasive in our higher ed institutions as the "demand for God" becomes more institutionalized. In any case, I've provided below additional information so that folks can contemplate (and hopefully directly debate) the damage that may have already been done to our country as the policy elite and intelligentsia are socialized and graduate from and play in this mind-stifling environment. 

1. First, here's Professor OBC Nwolise's e-mail address: osynwolise50@yahoo.com. I've copied him in this post, and I hope he'd make time out of his exceedingly busy schedule to join this forum and help us understand why we shouldn't be lampooning his so-called "theory of spiritual intelligence."

2. I may be wrong, but I hate to burst all our egos and venture to state that Prof. Nwolise (BSc Political Science, 2nd-Upper, UNN, 1977; PhD Political Science, Ibadan, 1987) has probably had--and will continue to have--more enduring influence/impact in academic and policy circles (at least, in terms of the capacity to be a force for good or a malevolent force) in Nigeria than ALL members of the USA-Africa Forum combined. He's been doing this since 1989!

3. The National Defense College, Abuja sends its top students--about half of each cohort of 130-135 students who scored C+ overall to the University of Ibadan for a 6-month top-up course leading to the award of Master of Strategic Studies (MSS), a professional degree. No more than a total of five Participants have scored a B overall grade since the College started in 1992. Who born you to have a better grade than your teachers most of whom graduated the previous year and were posted to the College as Directing Staff upon attaining One-Star General rank? I digress.  NDC is a tri-service institution; so the Chief of Defense Staff sends a check of at least N25 million per year to University of Ibadan for this top-up course where the students get additional servings of "spiritual intelligence" training. Guess who teaches and supervises the master's degree dissertations in this program? It's Prof. Nwolise who is also the current Head of Political Science Department. In 2015-2016 alone, he supervised 10 of these MSS students (military officer-scholars), in addition to his regular 5 PhD students at UI, but not counting his advisees in other institutions.

4. From 2012-2013, I was a member of an National Defense College Committee charged with developing a blue-print to transform the institution into a free-standing postgraduate military university so as to extricate it from the witches and wizards at UI. Along with a returnee diaspora from Bowie State University in Maryland and the Deputy Commandant & Director of Studies at the time, Mohammed Inuwa Idris (an Intel Corps Major-General and graduate of US Army War College and National Defense University, Washington, DC), we were able to transform the curriculum into a Course System (with credit hours) and created a system of transcripts for graduates--for the first time, ever! Our efforts to transform NDC into a PG university were shut down at the Ministry of Defense where UI and other vested interests held sway. They allegedly had the ear of the Minister of State at the time who was Acting Minister of Defense and who happened to come from that neck of the Nigerian woods! 

5. In addition to NDC, Abuja, Prof. Nwolise also lectures at the Armed Forces Command and Staff College, Jaji from which over 90 percent of military officers must graduate in order to advance to the ranks of Captain and Major, the real operational combat leaders. AFCSC, Jaji also offers a Master of Science in International Security and Diplomacy degree. Guess whose name features prominently in the bibliographic references in most of the students' Projects and/or Master's degree dissertations? Prof. Nwolise is also a favorite lecturer at the National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies (NIPSS), Kuru, Jos (the Alma mater of most the Who Is Who of policy and economic and political elite of Nigeria); and as far away as at the Ministry of Defense and the University of Namibia where he teaches "Strategic [Spiritual] Management" to the personnel of the Namibian Armed Forces on Strategic Studies Program. This indefatigable academic is also External Examiner at about nine other universities, including Uniben, Unilorin, Covenant University, and OAU-Ile Ife. He was also Dean, College of Arts and Social Sciences, Igbinedion University, Okada, Edo State from December 2008 – November 2009 and has produced/supervised at least ten (10) PhDs from that university.

6. Why is the above detail important? Almost all of these very Senior Officers (military and civilian; national and sub-regional) have at one time or the other come under the tutorship of Prof. Nwolise. Moreover, he has been an External Examiner at NDC, Abuja since 1989, and will be examining the current class, Course 27, who will be graduating this August.  

During my two years at NDC, the College graduated about 270 Participants. A pass at NDC in early August is almost a guarantee for promotion to one-star general (Brigadier-General, Air Commodore or Navy Commodore) by December of the given year. This promotion comes with deployment as Brigade Commanders, Directors, or systems-level appointment at headquarters and around the country and in international organizations and foreign missions. Many of these former students of mine have since become two-star generals (Major-General, Air Vice Marshall, or Rear Admiral) and, hence, Division Commanders or equivalent systems-level appointments and combat theater commanders. Some are/have been Commandants of several other military academies; or Managing Directors of military businesses (The Nigerian Army is one of the richest real estate and land owners in Nigeria!). The current Chief of Defense Staff, Republic of Ghana, Rear Admiral Seth Amoamah was the best student in Course 21, and subsequently drank from Prof. Nwolise's "spiritual intelligence" brew for his Master of Strategic Studies (MSS) degree at Ibadan in 2013. Current military leaders of Sierra Leone, Mali, Niger and Benin were in Course 20 and Course 21--all now part of a regional military/security policy and management network. Again, I digress. Additionally, all commanders of 7 Division (Maiduguri) and Operation Lafiya Dole in Monguno, and the Multinational Joint Task Force (MJTF) devoted exclusively to fighting Boko Haram; and several Directors in the Chief of Defense Staff's and other Service Chiefs' "kitchen cabinets" and combat planning and execution commands since 2014 have been my former Directing Staff/faculty colleagues of mine or former students at NDA. 

As you know, Nigerian newspapers are replete with accounts of the role of "spiritual" dimension in both the theaters and combat experience and decisions of some Nigerian officers and field commanders in both the Niger Delta insurgency and Boko Haram counter-terrorism operations. Of course, they're not the first Nigerian troops to engage the aid of seances in war-fighting: late Gen. Muritala Mohammed infamously relied on "spiritual intelligence" in his ill-fated River Niger crossings that almost decimated the entire 2 Div of the Nigerian Army during the Nigerian civil war in 1968. However, one wonders whether learning from an "erudite professor" like Nwolise might not have institutionalized this delusional war fighting "strategy" among some in the rank and file of the Nigerian military? In a lecture he delivered at the National Mirror (newspapers) 4th Anniversary Lecture, Prof. Nwolise claimed that lack of "strategic spiritual intelligence" by the Nigerian military (the hierarchy of which have been mostly his former students) is largely responsible for its inability to win the current war against the Boko Haram sect (National MirrorWednesday, 17th December 2014; http://www.naijaheadlines.com/agency/national-mirror/20141217/673859/insurgency-why-military-cant-win-the-war-don). 

7. Prof. Nwolise is also a consequential "Public Intellectual." In addition to his teaching and scholarship, he is one of the most highly sought-after "resource persons" in the Nigerian strategic and defense policy process. He was not only a member of the Presidential Committee to Review Nigeria's National Defense Policy of 2016; that document has his intellectual DNA and imprint all over it! He had been the pioneer Director, Department of Conflict Prevention, Management and Resolution, Institute for Peace and Conflict Resolution, Abuja, 2000, an outfit now domiciled in The Presidency. He was also a Senior Research Fellow in the Center for Strategic Research and Studies at the National Defense College from November 1997 to March 1999His lecture circuits have taken him from the National Orientation AgencyAbuja to the Nigeria Customs Service;  Institute of Chattered Accountants of Nigeria, Lagos; the Nigeria Police (Force); the National Institute For Social and Economic Research (NISER), Ibadan; and Certified Institute of Nigerian Economists, Lagos, etc. 

8. Religious organizations and their academic institutions seem not to have been spared the enduring influence of Prof. Nwolise's punditry about witches and wizards in national security and crime-fighting. He occasionally lectures on these ideas at the famous Major Seminary of Saints Peter and Paul, Ibadan and a number of apostolic and Pentecostal-charismatic church conferences and synods, even though some of his critics allege that he is "occultic." Although he did not originate the concept of "spiritual intelligence," one is puzzled and wonders whether there is a link between the singing of "spiritual warfare songs" (also called "deliverance songs") during a Mountain of Fire and Miracles Ministries (MFM) revival service? The singers intentionally dressed in a military color/styled uniform to denote the spiritual warfare nature of the songs is a sight to behold! 

A recent publication in a so-called "global journal" (see below) hosted by Madonna University, Okija (whose founder, Rev. Fr. Edeh is a Church-certified Exorcist and often accused by his traducers as "occultic") and which quoted Nwolise's "theory of spiritual intelligence" copiously and deployed it as its "analytical framework" seems to suggest or point to the deepening influence of Nwolise's ideas, even among church-affiliated higher ed institutions.  

Destiny E. Agwanwo (Ph.D), Rowland Olumati (Ph.D), "Spiritual Intelligence as An Aspect of Crime Control Strategy: Evidence From Some Selected Law Enforcement Agents," The Global Journal of Arts, Management and Social Sciences, Vol 16 (2019). Available at:

Abstract

The focus of this paper was on spiritual intelligence as an aspect of crime control: evidence from some selected law enforcement agents. The researchers adopted the socio-metry method of qualitative research. The study utilized both the primary and secondary method of data collection. Key informants interviews (KII) were conducted with some of the law enforcement agents identified to be spiritually intelligent so as to get the much needed information from them on spiritual intelligence and how it has helped them in carrying out their crime control responsibility. The findings of the paper showed that crime rate has become a huge social problem and government efforts to avert the problems have proven abortive as some of the criminals adopt spiritual means in perpetrating some of these crimes. Hence, the recourse to spiritual intelligence as a policing strategy to curb or control some of these crimes by some law enforcement agents. The findings also revealed that spiritual intelligence is helpful in the control of crime. The paper recommends a mix of physical and spiritual intelligence as panacea to crime problems in Nigeria (my emphasis).

Keywords

Spiritual Intelligence, Strategy, Crime Control, Law Enforcement, Agents, Cosmos

The Global Journal of Arts, Management and Social Sciences (GOJAMSS) is domiciled in Madonna University, Okija in Anambra State of Nigeria.

The journal is particularly domiciled in the Sociology/Anthropology Department of the institution.



Contrary to the vexatious attempts by Prof. Falola to befuddle the issues in this debate by raising hallucinations and babalawo's claims to the level of "fact", these superstitious, pseudo-scientific beliefs and claims and their policy implications can--and must--be studied (with the requisite scientific distance) by anyone who is serious about public policy in Nigeria. I've copied and pasted below the citation and abstract of one such study that I came upon recently. Of course, there are many others by social anthropologists and other social scientists, many of whom Prof. Falola knows or has mentored.

Oludayo Tade, "A Spiritual Dimension to Cybercrime in Nigeria: The 'Yahoo Plus' Phenomenon," Human Affairs: Postdisciplinary Humanities & Social Sciences, vol. 23, no. 2013.

Published Online: 2013-09-28 | DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/s13374-013-0158-9 
 

Abstract

Cybercrime in Nigeria is largely perpetrated by young people and students in tertiary institutions, and are socially tagged yahoo yahoo or yahoo boys. Yahoo boys rely on their computer dexterity to victimise unsuspecting persons in cyberspace. A new phenomenon in cybercrime is mixing spiritual elements with internet surfing to boost cybercrime success rates. This paper examines the factors underlying this spiritual dimension (cyber spiritualism) to cybercrime, and discusses some of the strategies employed in perpetuating cyber crime. Using Space Transition Theory of cybercrime, data were generated on yahoo boys and those involved in yahoo plus. The clampdown on Internet fraudsters by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), in-group conflict among yahoo boys over social recognition, reduced victimisation and delayed success, and mass media enlightenment were reported factors influencing the fusion of spiritual elements in cyber crime. The methods used include ase or mayehun (incontrovertible order), charmed or magical rings (oruka-ere) and incisions made around the wrist, which are used to surf the net, while ijapa (tortoise) is used to navigate profitable sites. Unsuspecting victims fall under the spell of the ase via phone conversation where spiritual orders are made to the victims without their objecting.

Keywords: yahoo plusfraudritualsNigeriayouthsEFCC


In conclusion, I hope we can return to the crux of Prof. Nwolise's "spiritual intelligence" thesis and its real and potential impact/dangers on the development of new knowledge and its implications for the good order of society. I beg to disagree that the Professor should not be taken seriously. If anything, I've tried to demonstrate how far-reaching his influence has been--and will continue to be--in academic and strategic policy and military combat circles. I also hope that Prof. Nwolise would somehow find time out of his clearly busy schedule to engage with the USA-Africa Dialogue forum on this matter. He may also find us a pleasant, but sometimes garrulous bunch!

Regards,

Okey Iheduru

 

On Tue, May 7, 2019 at 4:43 PM Toyin Falola <toyinfalola@austin.utexas.edu> wrote:

I hope that many of you have also heard, in some Christian circles, that Obama practiced occultism in the White House!

The occult is a reality in many societies, most especially in Africa.

As Toyin Adepoju does, there is the academic side, but there is also the practical side.

The Marabout, the Pastor and the Babalawo are using different media.

TF

 

Toyin Falola

Department of History

The University of Texas at Austin

104 Inner Campus Drive

Austin, TX 78712-0220

USA

512 475 7224

512 475 7222 (fax)

http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue   

 

From: dialogue <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> on behalf of "Emeagwali, Gloria (History)" <emeagwali@ccsu.edu>
Reply-To: dialogue <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Date: Tuesday, May 7, 2019 at 6:38 PM
To: dialogue <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Nigeria is Doomed and Her Academics are Culpable

 

You are just as bad as the professor. He cannot stand back and  engage in  a cool headed analysis-  but  neither can you, apparently.. How about engaging in some serious research into the U.S Stargate project and letting us know the outcome of such an  investigation? Are scholars not supposed to

have an open investigative mind in their research? 

 

The issue here is this: 

 

Have the US  FBI and CIA etc ever used psychics? Yes or no?

Whether the outcomes  were successful or not is not the issue.

 

I have no vested interest in this discussion but I remember shaking my head years ago

when the Chanda Levy case surfaced. The issue about the FBI use of psychics was

openly discussed then. 

 

 Now as for your man at the NDA, well that is another story for another day.

He does not have much credibility,  given the way he approached the subject.

 I never said that he did - so don't put words in my mouth, so to speak.

 

 

Professor Gloria Emeagwali
History Department, Central Connecticut State University
www.africahistory.net

Gloria Emeagwali's Documentaries

2014 Distinguished Research Excellence Award in African Studies

 University of Texas at Austin

2019   Distinguished Africanist Award                   

New York African Studies Association

 

 

 


From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Moses Ebe Ochonu <meochonu@gmail.com>
Sent: Tuesday, May 7, 2019 5:29 PM
To: USAAfricaDialogue
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Nigeria is Doomed and Her Academics are Culpable

 

Gloria,

 

The CIA investigated ESP and other mind control technics and claims and even experimented with using psychedelic drugs to induce that effect. They were acting on claims that those techniques work to extract information from prisoners of war, make people do things they would not normally do, and that the Soviets were using them. The CIA poured millions of dollars into the investigation over several years, found the claims to be bogus, and abandoned the entire research/investigation. They never actually used it since they couldn't prove its veracity. ESP and claims about mind control and mind altering with or without drugs are not the same as using "ghosts and spirits" but even if they were, why are we dignifying something that was investigated with millions of dollars and found to be useless and bogus? Why is the Nigerian military inviting someone who peddles that kind of discredited crap to lecture our generals, to urge them to use the discredited nonsense of using ghosts and spirits for military intelligence gathering?

 

As I stated, I know of no police case in the US that has ever been solved with psychic consultation. Your own story that you posted says as much.

 

Let's not dignify tragic academic nonsense. I see a case of pandering here. I abhor pandering. I don't even want people to pander to me. If you catch me peddling BS, call me out directly on it. Especially if the BS is a dangerous one that may harm the vital work of the military in a country beset by several threats to her sovereignty.

 

 

 

On Tue, May 7, 2019 at 2:13 PM Emeagwali, Gloria (History) <emeagwali@ccsu.edu> wrote:

I have heard of  the   FBI using psychics but not the military.

 

The first time I heard of psychics and the FBI was in terms of the death of a Washington

intern  named Chandra Levy. CNN alluded to this matter  in a Dec. 2007 article

 entitled "Visions of death. Can psychics see what detectives cannot."

In that article they point to  Kathlyn Rhea a psychic investigator in California

with some successes. One critic points to numerous dead end cases.

 

But this is not to endorse the professor. He can't even spell.

 

What about the CIA and psychics?  I did a quick check and found out about  the Stargate project that built on a secret US army unit established   a 20 million dollar project in the 1970s to investigate potential psychic phenomena including extrasensory perception.

 

 

 

GE

 

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Okey C. Iheduru

Just published "The African Corporation, 'Africapitalism' and Regional Integration in Africa" (September 2018). DOI: https://doi.org/10.4337/9781785362538.

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