The question is a bit difficult especially within the context of Nigeria where the requisite will for governance has been lacking for how long. It is indeed the absence of political will and sincerity-or, in democratic parlance, the responsibility and responsiveness-of government that necessitated the exit option represented by informality.
Even now, what we have as the current situation is the government imposing its will even on the informal organisation of life, rather than enabling it and insinuating its good will on the informal process. The keyword is enabling.
This is my hypothesis: As it is, given our socio-economic situation, the informal sector is irreversible. The government would have to do its best-if it's able to-to draw the people themselves into the process of governance through the enablement of their initiatives. In other words, the government must see informality as the test of its responsiveness. It must therefore attempt to build a civic bridge of trust across the chasm of alienation and disinterestedness that characterise informality.
Let me also hazard a guess: the local government is the most immediate inroad into informality; the first signpost to an imminent grassroots awakening around which the national carpenters can commence the task of integration.
If informality is enabled, in what sense would ethnicity still function as a site of socio-economic meaning?
Adeshina Afolayan
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From: OLUWATOYIN ADEPOJU <tvade3@gmail.com>
Sender: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
Date: Wed, 2 Jan 2013 19:47:06 +0000
To: <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
ReplyTo: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - First, There Was A Country; Then There Wasn't: Reflections On Achebe's New Book (2)
Deep food for thinking. You have really given flesh to your theory in a way that one can recognise in various contexts, including the various Nigreian centred listserves.
Could you suggest how this could be done?
"The informal sector, I repeat, was constructed from the deadwoods of nation-building.For proper national integration to commence, it must commence at this level of informality, paradoxically. It is paradoxical because informality is meant to operate beyond the scope of government and in opposition. "
thanks
toyin
On Wed, Jan 2, 2013 at 3:24 PM, <shina73_1999@yahoo.com> wrote:
The informal sector, I repeat, was constructed from the deadwoods of nation-building.
For proper national integration to commence, it must commence at this level of informality, paradoxically. It is paradoxical because informality is meant to operate beyond the scope of government and in opposition.
--
Compcros
Comparative Cognitive Processes and Systems
"Exploring Every Corner of the Cosmos in Search of Knowledge"
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