Mr. Oluwatoyin Adepoju, Nigeria's Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) are manned by Nigerians who claim to have been educated in their respective special field in social, physical, and engineering science. The employed are given salaries and fringe benefits to encourage maximum productions. Besides, they are given money and materials needed to produce the needs of Nigerians. I don't understand what you mean by enabling environment.
You have clamoured severally on this forum for lack of electricty in your home but your complaints have never been directed at your academic colleagues in the power sector for failing to generate and distribute electricity in Nigeria. In 1998, before the death of Abacha, there was a Nigerian Professor of robotics who had worked with the General Electrics in the U.S., and returned to Nigeria to help the Nation overcome the problems of epileptic power supply. During Jonathan era he was Minister of Power and the infighting over privatisation of the power sector led to his removal from office and replaced by another Professor of electrical Engineering, with the name Chinedu Ositadinma Ndubuisi Nebo. During the Senate hearing to confirm his appointment on Wednesday, January 23, 2013, this is what he said when he was asked what he would do to put a stop to the power sector's constant generation and distribution of darkness to Nigerians, "If the President deploys me in the power sector, I believe that given my performance at the University of Nigeria Nsukka (UNN), where as a Chancellor, I drove out witches and demons, God will also give me power to drive out demons in the Power Sector." Not many countries are lucky to have a professor of electrical engineering as Minister of power but unfortunately Nigeria's professors of power supply possess knowledge of chasing away witches and demons that have nothing to do with power supply. The Latin people say, 'Nemo dat, non habet,' meaning, you cannot give what you don't have. I just pick the power sector as an example out of how Nigeria's MDAs function.
S. Kadiri
From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Oluwatoyin Adepoju <ovdepoju@gmail.com>
Sent: 17 January 2022 03:43
To: usaafricadialogue <USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - pretty damning report
Sent: 17 January 2022 03:43
To: usaafricadialogue <USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - pretty damning report
That is the education required to create and manage those technogical enablements you describe.
It's the education used by the West in developing itself.
Nigerians have gained that eduction in Nigeria as well as in the Western countries where it originates.
Even if we argue the Nigerian version of Western education is not as good as that in the West, is it not essentially the same education and are Nigerians not known for heavily patronising Western universities?
Is it not the essentially the same scientific and technogicaleducation all over the world?
Is it not working in Asia? Is their scientific and technological education different from.that of the West? Are technology graduates from India not at the center of action in US technology?
Is the fault then with the education, the individual Nigerian or the determining attitudes and political and social systems within which he is working?
Thanks
Toyin
On Sun, Jan 16, 2022, 20:36 Salimonu Kadiri <ogunlakaiye@hotmail.com> wrote:
Any education that cannot generate and distribute electric power to Nigerians is useless; any education that cannot drill crude oil and refine it for the domestic consumption of Nigerians is useless; any education that cannot mine Nigeria's iron ore and work it into steels at Ajaokuta is useless; any education that cannot liberate Nigerian pastoralists from nomadic grazing of cattle in the 21st century, through ranching, is a useless education; and any education that cannot pump and supply Nigerians with potable water is useless, etc. All Minitries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) created and financed to provide necessary commodities that will make life comfortable for Nigerians are manned by educated Nigerians but with negative results.
It is a self-humiliating assertion to say that we were nothing before colonialism and would have been nothing without colonialism. Dogs are not educated because they are trained to perform certain functions for their owners (controllers). Nigerians are not educated because they speak and write good English in the self-managed economic enslavement. Western education was not designed to serve the interest of Nigerians (Africans) but the interest of the colonialists, covert or overt. Niyi Osundare's views on ignorant educated Nigerians, illustrate what Nigeria has achieved economically and industrially. Follow the link below.S. Kadiri
From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Cornelius Hamelberg <corneliushamelberg@gmail.com>
Sent: 13 January 2022 01:21
To: USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - pretty damning reportThis opinion piece in today's Vanguard addresses one of your questions:
On Wednesday, 12 January 2022 at 05:24:24 UTC+1 ovdepoju wrote:
If Africans were not colonised, what would have been the implications for scribal literacy, which was low on the continent?
If Africans were not colonised, what would have been the implications for the unquestioned dominance of classical African religions, as opposed to the greater pluralism, the range of choices, opened up by the current co-existence of these religions and Christianity?
Without passing through the colonial experience, would we be using an international language, English and chatting on the Internet?
All contemporary Africans are shaped by colonialism, particularly poignantly so those deeply invested in the globally dominant educational system, which has its origins in Europe and has little input in its methods and understanding of reality from learning systems from other cultures.
Would any such person prefer a classical African education to the Western one? Under what circumstances, outside the forceful coercion of colonialism, would an informed choice between them or to integrate them have been possible?
Colonisation birthed the Universities of Ibadan and Makere, for example, pioneers in post-classical African scholarship, more critically oriented, more international in range of reference and communicative scope, than the earlier classical African systems of Ifa, among others.
Is the current challenge not one of synergy between these systems?
The creative possibilities represented by these developments are possible without colonisation but colonisation is the historical trajectory through which they emerged.
Ursula le Guin's The Left Hand of Darkness and Marion Zimmer Bradley's Darkover novels visualise encounters between a space faring Terran civilisation and non-technological cultures, in which the Terrans are scrupulous about not interfering in the local culture on the planets they find themselves.
Its also true, I think, that Africans were visiting Europe before colonisation.
How best could we have benefited from what Europe had to offer, without having to pass through the still reverberating agonies of colonisation?
Perhaps I need to understand the colonial experience better. While not justifying the self serving so called civilising missions of the colonisers, I think colonialism in Africa and perhaps Asia needs to be appreciated in more complex terms than that of binary good and evil.
A painful journey but one whose every segment is vital, in my view.
Abiola Irele seems to develop a similar view in ''In Praise of Alienation.'' Biodun Jeyifo correlates Irele's perspective with what he describes as Louise Althusser's concept of an epistemological break, a rupture in a society's modes of existence that enables a higher level of development, an approach to the disruptions and creativities of colonialism which seems the best way to make the most of what has happened to us.
thanks
toyin
On Tue, 11 Jan 2022 at 07:54, <segun...@gmail.com> wrote:
Ken,Colonialism anywhere and everywhere in Africa was exploitation of human and natural resources of Africans. If this proposition is true, which l believe to be true, therefore the experience is the same.Beyond this fact Ken, colonialism is a moral evil. There is no reason to subtly justify colonialism. It does not command any moral warrant, in my opinion.Ogungbemi.
Sent from my iPhone
On Jan 10, 2022, at 11:11 AM, Ibukunolu A Babajide <ibk...@gmail.com> wrote:
Ken,
You agree with Ogungbemi in principle All colonialism is physical and mental conquest. Leave it at that. The degree of evil is not the issue at stake. All carnivores kill and eat their prey. Whether they swallow them, eat them raw, or boil, cook or roast the meat, the baseline is the killing. That is the bottom line. There are many ways to skin a cat.
Cheers.
IBK
_________________________Ibukunolu Alao Babajide (IBK)
AN ENGLISH NURSERY RHYME
The law locks up the man or woman
Who steals the goose from off the common
But leaves the greater villain loose
Who steals the common from off the goose
The law demands that we atone
When we take things that we do not own
But leaves the lords and ladies fine
Who take things that are yours and mine
The poor and wretched don't escape
If they conspire the law to break
This must be so but they endure
Those who conspire to make the law
The law locks up the man or woman
Who steals the goose from off the common
And geese will still a common lack
Till they go and steal it back
- Anonymous (circa 1764)
On Sat, 8 Jan 2022 at 07:36, Harrow, Kenneth <har...@msu.edu> wrote:
ogungbemi,well, i suppose en principe you are right. however, not all experiences of colonialism were the same. what was the same, i believe, is that colonialism was mislabeled. it was a conquest, that rationalized itself in the late 19th century as a missionary act of bringing civilization.the work of african authors, i know, was to expose the lie.but that is different from blatantly ordering the murder of opposition political figures. i don't think a good historian would say every experience of colonialism was the same. the brutality of the belgians in the congo was pretty bad; was it worse under the french in congo brazzaville? depends on when we are talking about. same in all case: the regimes changed, the practices of some were worse than others.
in any event, this was pretty ugly. the belgians changed tactics in 1959 in rwanda, turning in favor of hutus (the hutu revolution) against their former allies, tutsis. but after independence, or even on the threshold as they were turning over power, an assassination would have been particularly repugnant.ken
kenneth harrow
professor emeritus
dept of english
michigan state university
From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of segun...@gmail.com <segun...@gmail.com>
Sent: Friday, January 7, 2022 10:34 AM
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - pretty damning reportKen, is there any amongst them that is not "truly ugly colonialists"? Please read, "CIA Dirty Works in Africa".Ogungbemi.
Sent from my iPhone
On Jan 7, 2022, at 5:50 AM, Harrow, Kenneth <har...@msu.edu> wrote:
if true, the belgians are revealed as truly ugly colonialists:ken
kenneth harrow
professor emeritus
dept of english
michigan state university
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