Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - First, There Was A Country; Then There Wasn’t: Reflections On Achebe’s New Book (2)

This is an exaggeration:

'You are only a citizen within your locality. Move beyond that locality and you face the permanent possibility of persecution and possible death. If it has not happened where you are, then you may be lucky to be living within the circumscribed portion of the restricted civic area where the eyes of government still roam. And your luck may soon turn for the worse. Your friend, like Cornelius Hamelberg's Malian 'friend', may just be waiting for the Prophet to give an order for a beheading!'

toyin

On Thu, Jan 3, 2013 at 8:31 PM, <shina73_1999@yahoo.com> wrote:

Ibrahim,
Another good point:

"Why cant Nigerians have a single right that applies in Sokoto, Taraba,
and Yobe as it would apply to my 'home' state of Kogi. This is the
issue. Why would an american pack up from Michigan and settle in

Dakota without questions being asked? Why should this not happen in

'our dear own fatherland'?"

And I will add a point too to the idea of a 'restricted civic sphere'. Take a question: What has happened to citizenship in Nigeria? An honest answer? Nothing. It remains a stunted idea, a mere stilt on which a wobbly and 'nervous state' (apology to Bhabha) is erected.

You are only a citizen within your locality. Move beyond that locality and you face the permanent possibility of persecution and possible death. If it has not happened where you are, then you may be lucky to be living within the circumscribed portion of the restricted civic area where the eyes of government still roam. And your luck may soon turn for the worse. Your friend, like Cornelius Hamelberg's Malian 'friend', may just be waiting for the Prophet to give an order for a beheading!

Citizenship is, for the few, only a status ennobled by the force of political power. It's a restricted marketplace for those who have the capacity to press into it (like the kingdom of God, if you permit that analogy). For others, we are 'Nigerians' by circumstance alone. We inhabit a space devoid of any normative and democratic content that confers citizenship. The government has consistently failed to achieve what someone called 'empeoplement'.

Adeshina Afolayan

Sent from my BlackBerry wireless device from MTN

-----Original Message-----
From: Ibrahim Abdullah <ibdullah@gmail.com>
Sender: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com

Date: Wed, 2 Jan 2013 22:16:05
To: <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Reply-To: 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)

Shina:
E se gan! Thanks for this intervention. Ken's point about chronology
is neither here nor there! I did not set out to map any chronology;
what I did was simply to plot the trajectory of the withering away of
the Nigerian state: from the creation of the mid-west region to the
proleration of states/local government to underline my point about
truncated ethncity. And this has nothing to do with seccurity in West
Africa or with Achille. The issue here is the hisoricity of the
colonial post-colonial state; what Crawford Young dubbed 'bula matari'
in the context of Zaire/Congo. Once more thanks Shina for making this
clear to Ken.

The piont of departure for this investigation is what Basil Davidson,
that tireless africanist, once christined the curse of the
nation-state: how different polities and different peoples were
stitched together by the colonialists through violence. Peter Ekeh
dubbed it the two publics: the civic and the ethnic. And Mahmood in
his trilogy--from citizens to subject, when victims become killers,
and Saviour vs Survivor--it appears as the bifurcated state. This is
what is at issue here!

Why cant Nigerians have a single right that applies in Sokoto, Taraba,
and Yobe as it would apply to my 'home' state of Kogi. This is the
issue. Why would an american pack up from Michigan and settle in
Dakota without questios being asked? Why should this not happen in
'our dear own fatherland'?

To understand why it wont happen is to go back to the original sin:
the stitching of different peoples and the invention of ethnicity and
the restricted civic sphere! Is it any wonder that Cabral recommended
the dismantling of the colonial/post-colonial state?

IB
=========================================

On Wed, Jan 2, 2013 at 7:47 PM, OLUWATOYIN ADEPOJU <tvade3@gmail.com> wrote:
> Shina,
>
> 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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Comparative Cognitive Processes and Systems

"Exploring Every Corner of the Cosmos in Search of Knowledge"

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