Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Thought For Today

"a new political formation to put their faith in a totally new dispensation of a new party of government in waiting with which they will work to redeem their shattered hopes." OA, your words here are to me golden.

" a new political formation"  

totally, totally agree with the idea. Its newness must be determinative and dominate over all the old negativities, unruliness, rustiness, and incapability in structure, culture, agency, and goals. all that we are saddled with now are old jadded structures ang agents that are backward looking and have proved incapable of bringing the country out the the ruts we are in to hopeful change. . many in these structures are happy with their retrogage individual visions, ambitions and achievements. they are old and lack the motivation to change.

"to put their faith in a totally new dispensation"

– I agree that faith requires hope to grow on; a new political formation with a bold well-thought-out people/evidence-based governing and development plan which rests on equitable consideration of all major sections of the country could fire up such hope and faith.

"a new party of government in waiting"

 – I love this idea of "new party of government IN WAITING". deliberate. purposeful. knowledgeable and ready to step  in in a moments' notice. It would be great that such new parties or /a new party/ to lead Nigeria into rebirth be already engaged in radical, critical democratic practice among its memberaship and be already engaged in what i would call "semi-parallel" or "practice governing" even while it is yet a contestant for power, experimenting and boldly establishing a culture of transparency and equity in all aspects of its dealings. 

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From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> on behalf of OLAYINKA AGBETUYI <yagbetuyi@hotmail.com>
Sent: Sunday, June 27, 2021 8:28 AM
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Subject: RE: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Thought For Today

 

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FJ:

Poverty has taken this new turn because the Social Contract - the tacit basis of all  societies- is broken in Nigeria leading to social injustice which they epitomize.

Unemployed youths especially the 'Alhaji Baakudi' (Educated poor) are well aware via the new digital technologies you referenced (- social media- those which I have said, often, were provided by the Primal Equalizer -Èşù from the womb of time), they are well aware that the public officials are willfully breaking the Social Contract they were elected to- and which they took oaths to- uphold, with the connivance of crooked judicial officers who have bastardized the goals of justice.

 That they are willfully standing social justice on its head and carting away the colossal amounts of funds meant to create jobs for them into private accounts, and thereby the victims sought to square the circle by their retributive violence.

But retributive violence can never be equated with redistributive justice and is thus messy in its targets.

They need to be re-÷educated by a new political formation to put their faith in a totally new dispensation of a new party of government in waiting with which they will work to redeem their shattered hopes.

OAA

Sent from my Galaxy

-------- Original message --------

From: FJ Kolapo <fj.kolapo@gmail.com>

Date: 27/06/2021 05:35 (GMT+00:00)

To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com

Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Thought For Today

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agreed, prof. but worryingly, it seems that it is increasingly associated with crime in Nigeria. It is usually said that poverty is beastly. But poverty in Nigeria seems to be a new type of beast, with new fearsome features. Its nature seems to have changed in the last 30 -40 years and the morality and philosophy associated with it in the minds of youthful Nigerians with how to understand and manage it have changed or are changing faST. For one, much of poverty used to be communal, a fact that ameliorated the material and psycho-social devastation that individuated poverty would otherwise have caused. This sense of communally shared experience and management of poverty is evaporating fast. Also, poverty used to be associated with rurality and illiteracy and was defined in terms of the experience of the subsistence agriculturalist, the unskilled urban laborer, the unskilled unemployed or of the informal sector vendor in shanty towns and city margins. With their tenuous access to cash and run-down housing, poverty manifested in their generally limited access to the national and international markets and to imported use goods, and in limited but not totally absent food and dietary choices. It is now worse. Today poverty is also experienced by mobile, literate or rather Western-educated youth; it is foregrounded by their frustrated and thwarted hopes and ambitions; hopes and ambitions born of the knowledge via modern communication technologies of the boundless and seemingly readily available possibilities of individual flourishing and happiness out there in the wider world. to these people, poverty seems to have acquired a new horrible visage and many of them are handling it without bothering with religious or philosophical reflection. Unfortunately, crime has emerged to be one major way that an increasing segment of Nigerians see themselves escaping the stultifying hand of poverty - blue-collar and now "red"-collar and blood-colored crime. Sad. Terrifying.

On Sat, Jun 26, 2021 at 10:19 AM Toyin Falola <toyinfalola@austin.utexas.edu> wrote:

Chidi:

Poverty, with due respect, does not necessarily lead to crime. Indeed, it is one of the strongest motivation to succeed in life. It carries a body of dignity and hope.

See a current movie, White Tiger

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_yNZsomWa7U

 

 

From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Chidi Anthony Opara, FIIM <chidi.opara@gmail.com>
Date: Saturday, June 26, 2021 at 8:00 AM
To: USA African Dialogue Series <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Thought For Today

If you are from a very poor home like me and you did not go to prison at the age of 21, you are lucky.

 

You struggle for things your mates take for granted. 

 

Almost everyone takes advantage of you, nobody respects you. You don't have dignity and you hate society for these.

 

I however have to sincerely thank the (Roman Catholic Church) Sunday school teachers, who kept drumming it into our ears then that any slight moral and legal infractions would land us in "hellfire".

 

I also must sincerely thank my late mother for that singsong of hers even in the midst of poverty, that "Chidi, any day you commit any criminal act, you will cease to be my son".

 

Society should for the sake of its safety, work towards reducing extreme poverty.

 

-Chidi Anthony Opara (CAO)

--
Chidi Anthony Opara is a Poet and Founder/Publisher of; PublicInformationProjects (www.publicinformationprojects.org)

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