IN PRAISE OF SELF-RELIANCE
Obama's America...not a friend in need, hence not a friend indeed, say Nigerian authorities.
GEJ...Nigeria's clueless President
Much prayers have gone forth, Mr President, but what is that in your palm? ACTION, please!
Africa which pioneered civilization as the modern man knows it today has continued in modern times to provide a study in paradox - a resource-rich continent, yet pitifully very, very poor, whereas, countries in the Northern hemisphere that are non-resource rich are not only materially and stupendously rich, I dare say, at the expense of Africa, but have attained all-round wealth such that they flagrantly hold Africa/Africans in an unspeakable scorn and derision. What is more, they have entered their scientific and anthropological laboratories to concoct all lies, hypotheses and dubious theories to buttress their fradulent and deceptive views about Africa/Africans, thus putting Africa/Africans at perpetual disadvantage which make them to continue to consciously plunder the resources of Africa to feed their legendary gluttony resulting in the current endemic obesity in all West!
As far back as the 7th Century, the continent was invaded by the Wild Donkeys of the desert from the East leading to forceful conversion of Africans to their gambit faith and enslavement; then followed in later centuries by the hawks from the West, first looking for foods, who in their characteristic greed expropriated kingdoms and took over the rulership of such kingdoms, thus introducing their strange ways including the commodification of the natives, and whilst the two plunderers stepped aside, the dragons from Asia, contending with attempted invasion of their land by, especially the hawks, were constantly 'giraffing' and waiting for their own turn to invade Africa, and that opportunity it had been waiting for came only when the West and the Arabs had concluded their condemnation of Africa as the Dark Continent and a wasteland with nothing more left to plunder, did the dragons initiate a spurious alliance with Africa - and the two former invaders having realised their mistake are putting undue pressures on the reigning plunderers and the continent which has come in form of globalization and jihadism being carried out currently on behalf of the Arabs by stupid mujahideens from Africa, who having abandoned their ways and embraced Arabism have brought such African States as Somalia, Sudan, Southern Sudan, Egypt, Nigeria, Libya, Mali, Central African Republic to their knees, courtesey of Arabs' petro-dollar wealth and internal colaborators - politicians, traditional rulers, technocrats, military and police officers, both serving and retired including Muslim clerics, mullars, so-called scholars, Alfas, Imams, etc, etc.
The resultant effects of these chance/premidated encounters are that they have left all persons of African ancestry with a highly battered and in most cases, eternally battered psyche making them walk the earth in which if they have a sense of history should walk tall as the pioneers and inaugurators of civilization and all of its values, as inferior human beings, victims and a people thoroughly uncreative, without innovative faculty, ever helpless and ever dependent on the rest of the world to help solve all of their myriads of challenges including putting foods on the table and clothing themselves.
In my years of deep philosophical reflection dating back to secondary school in the 70s, I have come to the inevitable conclusion that the damaged African psyche had been caused by the truncation of its civilization by those forces metaphorically alluded to above which included Arabism, slavery, colonialism, neocolonialism, militarism and lately, globalization. It should be noted that although, communism attempted to infiltrate the continent, it failed woefully, but remained on the intellectuall plane amongst African intelligentsia who studied in the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republic (USSR), particularly at the Patrice Lumumba Friendship University, other wise known as the People's Friendship University, and other Universities in the then Soviet Union, but jettisoned it as soon as communism collapsed in 1991. Apart from those Africans who actually studied in the then Soviet Union, you had those who became Communists after reading Karl Marx's and Friedrich Engels' The Communist Manifesto and such other literature that found their ways into the campuses of African universities and the African markets.
I have been lamenting for decades over what I call Monkey Education in which the colonialists using the Bible introduced Africans to in Christian-dominated African States, and the Donkey Education as left Africans by the Arabs using Koran in the Muslim-dominated African States. Whilst the former was meant to turn the recipients/receivers into unthinking, uncreative apes and morons, the latter was meant to convert the receivers/recipients into unproductive grass-eating beasts of burdens and locusts. The colonial education system was meant to produce administrators, whilst the robbotic/parrot-like Arabic education was meant to produce zombies ever cramming the Koran unquestioningly. If you then wondered why with all its resources, the African conditions, I mean all persons of African ancestry from Continental Africans to Africans in the Diaspora, be they in the Caribbean, Haiti or America, and wherever you find African's on the surface of the Earth have ever remained so piteous, then know such conditions are not in any way anthropological, but due to such devious, destructive and satanic educational 'pills' Africans were left with coupled with the daily propaganda mounted against Africans and their children aimed at distorting and rubbishing Africans' pioneering feats in all spheres of civilization and its values. Without a counter-narrative from Africans themselves, especially from African scholars, who sometimes are even more robbotic in their thinking than the uneducated ones, coupled with the absence of a continental broadcaster such as Aljazeera to counter such untruth by the Western media, scholars, politicians, technocrats and the likes, Africans and their young ones imbibe these lies as the truth about their race - it should be stressed that whilst some do that out of ignorance, others swallow wholesomely such prejudices against their race in order to survive.
Apart from writing copiously on this dehumanising and robbotic education which at best makes the receivers/recipients a mere artificial intelligence, I had taken it up at the highest level in the land, especially during my courtesy call on former President Olusegun Obasanjo at Aso Rock on October 14, 2002, and later followed it up with a blueprint to him in addition to the lecture I had delivered in Aso Rock with the President himself in attendance, then entitled: WHAT TIME IS IT NIGERIA? In summary, what I did say to the then President and his aides was that the nation and the entire continent needed a new philosophy of education - the 3H system in which the HEAD, HEART AND HAND must be trained. I dare say not just in Nigeria/Africa, but globally that the era of Administration-orientated education whose receiver is on top of the world carrying files and putting rope called tie on their neck like an unthinking stupid dog that needs to be guided by its owner for fear of the dog going missing. This explains why engineers, doctors and agriculture graduates in Nigeria/Africa want to stay in the office putting on that rope earlier referred to. During a motivational talk I had given before a students audience at City University, London, where I am currently involved in its Post Graduate Professional Mentoring strand, I had told that audience that Governments all over the world are deceiving young people in their nations promising them non-existent jobs, adding modern nations need to come up with a new global philosophy of education which is skills-based/orientated.
Some cultural ethnocentrists have ludicrously said skin colour is the primary determinant of intelligence. Some had gone to a ludicrous extent of saying that Ham to whom they adduced African ancestry was cursed by Noah, hence that curse has continued into the 21st Century and they have given this as the reason for their so-called Africa's backwardness! But the intellectual fraud inherent in this thinking is laid bare when one discovers that Jesus actually came of the lineage of Ham! Need I stress here that the world as we know it today is a photocopy of the one God intended, having been re-arranged by the West and in some cases, the Arabs, using religion, education, international systems, such as international finance, economic institutions and their policies which no African had an input, the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Paris Club cum their policies in which Africa had no inputs from their founding; International Court of Justice which try ONLY the so-called corrupt African leaders and violators of the so-called human rights, whilst they deliberately ignore all the BLACK SITES/ABUSES and the equally CORRUPTION and all the systemic robberies of the West; the highly biased Transparency International and all the other highly prejudiced institutions in the West doing all such spurious rankings in global education, aviation, cities, health and well-being indexes, to mention, but a few.
If my philosophical instinct is still intact, a few simple tests will knock off all these unwarranted/pharisaical prejudices aimed at placing a part of the world perpetually above the rest in order for that particular part of the world to take competitive edge over the rest of the world - in this case, the derisively so-called Third World nations. And those simple test are: If I don't destroy your values, your God-given-precious and most adaptable skin colour, naturally not subject to the wear and tear occasioned by extreme weather conditions, be it tropical or temperate, how then do I keep you down perpetually, how do I perpetually keep you off the ladder of global competition; if I don't daily mount pressure on your currency saying it is too strong, and then urging you constantly to devalue it and tying it to your borrowing from me, how will I ever take competitive advantage over you and destroy your export potentials, as my cajoling you to devalue your currency in which Mr Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida fell into such that Nigeria's currency, the Naira is now of less worth than a bramble leaf, will bring me export advantage and in all other global transactions? More, if I don't tell you your skin is inferior to mine, how will I grow my cosmetics industry to churn out bleaching creams and soaps which often do leave such African idiots who bleach with Fanta Faces, Coca Cola bodies and mucour-ridden legs? In doing this I know it will land your thoroughly bleached First Ladies in our elite Western Hospitals built to target such crooks and their families; if I don't ask you to remove history and other humanities courses from your educational curriculum, how will I keep your children and the coming generations from knowing about their past, and lie to them during the so-called Black History Month that their history began from slavery, the ONLY thing they have to call their history/story?
If I don't tell you, you are a monkey, how will I get you to help me grow my plastic surgery industry including other such stupid beauty enhancement industries; if I don't remind you, you have flat nose, how will you patronise my surgery lab or studio and help me grow it to enable me go on expensive holidays; if I don't sing my ding-dong and lullaby about FAIR TRADE, how will you embrace boderless trade which often is tariff-free when goods are coming from the West to Africa, whilst I scream out tariffs when any African nation dare talks about exporting its agricultural and natural resources produce? If I don't use such willing African robbots like Ngozi-Okonjo Iweala to mouth removal of oil subsidy, how do I get more from the refined crude oil which even though you produce in your country, you do not have the intellectual capacity to refine it before selling it to me, but I, as a member of the 'superior' race had to buy it from you in crude form, refine it and afterwards, sell it to your foolish Government(s) and their equally foolish oil merchants who are mostly their fronts and cronies? Ha! Ha! Ha! I also know by the time your Bread and Butter Activists (BaBAs) lead their compatriots to the streets to protest against such removal, it would have pushed your country back 100 years!
More, this monkey game will also bring money into the coffers of my fellow Western Human 'Beans' campaigners which will automatically bring you image problem and which I know you will dole out billions of pounds to Western PR Agencies, thus growing our economy at a geometrical rate...these things are in chain you know and they have positive multiplier effects on our collective Western economy. Mr Blockhead, I am not done yet, if I don't tell you every manufacturing effort of yours are inferior to our pain-staking manufactured goods, how will I flood your markets with goods from our shores and eternally destroy all your local initiatives. My dear 'Tokunbo', don't stand there and look at me like that, I don't use magic - just take a trip to your erstwhile industrial estates, they are either now warehouses for goods from the West, Asia and common/ordinary Dubai and other Arab nations. I'm laughing at your crass folly Lagbaja or should I just call you Jalagba, shew...make you park kia, kia...lest I forget, go back to your industrial estates, I know you did not observe properly, because you do not have the capacity for a high observation - where on your erstwhile industrial estates that you do not have manufactured goods from the West and the East, churches had been built on them, these are what I call Extortioners' Cathedrals...the New Cathedrals of Hope for your hapless compatriots, but more conspiratorial and deadlier than the Rock of offence and the Dome of Vultures in the City of Locusts!
Despite the fact I told you your garri contains cyanides; your yam, 'jagbanjatis', your pomo, otapiapia poison, you are still eating them, but very soon, I will make you hate all your foods in order to make you eat ours which are a symbol of a great civilization and civility...at least, I have taken you off your palmy, apatashi, brukutu, zobo and given you our juices in return...diabetes arising from these will encourage our health tourism sector...cancer is already on the ground kakaraka with Government's reponse nil, or at best, only at policy level and on papers...you have left your ancestral inheritances and cultivated unparalleled habit for our junk foods which ignorantly you have taken as elitism or status conferral...obesity is on the way, but Africans, what really do you produce with all your endowed natural resources? Please feel free to take a sip of our Champagne or Scottish Whisky or Russian Vodka, if you don't mind, before you answer me, but what exactly do you produce, Africa?
Nothing! Nothing! Again, I say nothing! No wonder I looked up at the word SELF-RELIANCE in the legendary African Dictionary, I couldn't find it, nor could I find such words as MANUFACTURING, INNOVATIONS, CREATIVITY and INVENTIONS therein! Shame! Shame! Shame!
But when I was a boy in Elementary School at Christ the King's School Okpoma in Yala Local Government Council of Cross River State, Moma told me to be SELF-RELIANT and practically and demonstrably made me to be so...Papa on his part inculcated in me his sterling virtues of being his own man, a very hardworking and tireless man, of a superlative honour, integrity and famed principles, in his own right, a very famous farmer, hence he wanted me to be greater than my great grand father Ogri Ekawu who single-handedly chased the Fulanis away from our village, mysteriously causing the deaths of their cattle by standing at vantage positions in their rugas, which were not wanted by the community because of their menace of destroying the crops of the local farmers, and pointing his right fore finger at them randomly with one cow/sheep after another dying, thereby forcing the relocation of the Fulanis and whatever remained of their cattle....my readers from this short story about Grandfather will know that the clashes between the Fulanis from the North and local farmers in the South date back to time immemorial. Perhaps, the ever helpless-ever dependent Government officials of that country are waiting for foreign help to stop this age-long problems resulting in avoidable deaths on both sides...and maybe they think this perpetual struggle between Cain and Abel is merely theatrical or a sort of video game?
Again, the message of SELF-RELIANCE was to feature prominently at Aladura Comprehensive High School, Anthony Village, Lagos having been stuffed with it from home during the College's Mid-Week Meditation and during Moral Instruction which was also a subject of study at the College, personally taught by our School Principal, Mrs O.A. Alabi - THE TEACHERS' TEACHER and a great mentor of mine in whom there's no other teacher in the firmament - in your country such souls don't merit your so-called National Merit Awards! She would buttress every lessson with copious examples, beginning from doing our Home Work/Assignments by ourselves, stresing that it was good to do them by ourselves and fail rather than relying on our parents or copying from our friends and scoring high marks, but without a modicum knowledge of the subject under examination, reminding us always that "FAILURE TEACHES SUCCESS." But what had obtained amongst the Ibrahim Babangida generation of Nigerian students, up to the Jonathan generation which now rely on goodluck and miracles extending world wide including Britain? Parents now do Home Work for their children/wards, some copy from their friends who either had copied from the internet or had their Home Work done for them by their parents or by persons their parents had paid to do for them. In the West, there even are companies who specialise in doing research works for students including research students charging very high fees.
FOR PARENT WHO DO HOME WORK FOR THEIR CHILDREN/WARDS WORLD WIDE, here's what Abraham Lincoln thinks in his letter to his son's teacher:
Lincoln’s Letter to his Son’s Teacher
He will have to learn, I know,
that all men are not just,
all men are not true.
But teach him also that
for every scoundrel there is a hero;
that for every selfish Politician,
there is a dedicated leader…
Teach him for every enemy there is a friend,
Steer him away from envy,
if you can,
teach him the secret of
quiet laughter.
Let him learn early that
the bullies are the easiest to lick…
Teach him, if you can,
the wonder of books…
But also give him quiet time
to ponder the eternal mystery of birds in the sky,
bees in the sun,
and the flowers on a green hillside.
In the school teach him
it is far honourable to fail
than to cheat…
Teach him to have faith
in his own ideas,
even if everyone tells him
they are wrong…
Teach him to be gentle
with gentle people,
and tough with the tough.
Try to give my son
the strength not to follow the crowd
when everyone is getting on the band wagon…
Teach him to listen to all men…
but teach him also to filter
all he hears on a screen of truth,
and take only the good
that comes through.
Teach him if you can,
how to laugh when he is sad…
Teach him there is no shame in tears,
Teach him to scoff at cynics
and to beware of too much sweetness…
Teach him to sell his brawn
and brain to the highest bidders
but never to put a price-tag
on his heart and soul.
Teach him to close his ears
to a howling mob
and to stand and fight
if he thinks he’s right.
Treat him gently,
but do not cuddle him,
because only the test
of fire makes fine steel.
Let him have the courage
to be impatient…
let him have the patience to be brave.
Teach him always
to have sublime faith in himself,
because then he will have
sublime faith in mankind.
This is a big order,
but see what you can do…
He is such a fine little fellow,
my son!
Also, during our School's Mid-Week Meditation, Mrs Alabi would tell us: "Do a little at a time (2) Take a step at a time (3) Do your home work by yourself (6) Your Classroom is your office."
While at Aladura Comprehensive High School, Anthony Village, Lagos, three of us were selected to represent the College in an Essay Competition organised by the Lagos State Ministry of Education entitled: A GOOD CHILD IS A GOOD CITIZEN, the other two young Nigerians gave theirs to their parents to write for them, but I did mine myself without having to depend on anybody. Once the essays were read by the Co-ordinator of the Essay, she noticed immediately the two essays were above the level and ages of the students, but mine was praised for its originality. When the Essays were fowarded to the State Ministry of Education, those two essays won, but mine only received praise. But today, as I write, I'm glad I did not ask for help from anybody or approach anybody to donate ideas to me before putting my pen to paper writing that essay. While I am a writer today, none of those young Nigerians are. In fact, one of them drank poison and died immediately after our G.C.E Ordinary Level because she did not like her skin colour being very, very dark, darker than me...she had in fact, begun bleaching whilst we were in school, even though our school did not permit it. Reminiscing today, I very much would want to believe the Co-ordinator did not discuss them with our Principal, lest she would have stopped their essays, but was the Co-ordinator pressed for time? I just would not know, being just then (13+) in Form 1.
How do all these relate to the very noised-abroad anger of the Nigerian authorities and some of its concerned citizens that the West and America in particular, has refused to help their country defeat Boko Haram? Also, how do they relate to Africa as a whole and the rest of the world, you would ask?
Jonathan and some of his country men and women are blaming their inability to defeat Boko Haram on America and the West, generally. Other such people included members of his GOOD-FOR - NOTHING CABINET, General Yakubu Gowon who was reputed as saying Nigeria had so much money that her problem was how to spend it; Nigeria's Ambassador to the US suckling Adebowale Adefuye and a host of other Nigerians - journalists, essayists, columnists, former ministers, other concerned Nigerians including Wole Soyinka who literarily pleaded for international help on behalf of his country.
For example, Baby Adefuye doodooed-daahed-daahed-bla-bla-bla: "Nigerian leaders were "not satisfied with the scope, nature and content of the United States` support for us in our struggle against terrorists," he said. Baby Adebowale wanted his boss on the Rock to know he's a tough Diplomat who could take on Americans in their very own soil, so in his attempt to do eye-service, this thorough man-pleaser and two-pence Ambassador resorted to gangsterism of the highest order, a sort of Area Boy Diplomacy (ABD), you would say!
A Nigerian newspaper said he accused Washington of not providing the "lethal" weapons needed to deliver "a killer punch" to the militants. This suckling has forgotten Nigeria became an independent country since October 1 of 1960! Had he a sense of history, he should have asked how was Biafra able to hold on for 30-months in their secession bid, Obenigbe and what have you?
Earlier in Beijing in May of 2014: Senate President of Nigeria Alechenu Mark, clutching his feeding bottle teted taah-taahed - daah-daahed-prrrrrrrrred to Chinese Government: ".....We cannot defeat this scourge alone. Nigeria needs your support. We are, therefore, soliciting your help in the quest to crush the present terror and insurgency we are facing.”
Whilst Mark was yet on his knees, headlines in Nigerian newspapers screamed out: Help us crush Boko Haram, Mark begs China May 14, 2014.
Worse, the nation's worthless and highly treacherous so-called Security Chiefs do not possess simple intelligence to ask the basic security questions of who is financing Boko Haram; supplying them weapons; types of weapons and their analyses; chemicals being used and their analyses, from which countries; where do they procure their foods from; other military accoutrements; methods and venues of recruiting new Mujahideens including conscription methods, who and who do the recruitments; overall strategies of BoKo Haram; types of strategies they are borrowing from their fellow monsters accross the globe, although Professor Bolaji Akinyemi had said they are not - I'm disappointed here, yet Akinyemi is a super intellectual who knows his onions inside out and gave an excellent account of himself as Minister of Foreign Affairs whom I had followed as a reporter whilst he was the Director-General of the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs, Victoria Island in Lagos through to when I was at the Daily Times; what is the quality of their intelligence gathering knowing this is no conventional war, so relies on 99pc intelligence gathering which can be found amongst almajiris; mai-ruwa; mechanics; vulcanizers; lawanis; mai-suya; mai-kasuwa; alfas; clerics; imams; sheikhs; cyclists; bus drivers; bus conductors; prostitutes; herdsmen; mai-nunu; beggars crawling on streets with pairs of slippers pushed onto their palms; trailer drivers who of course; are helping them conveying weapons and buying foods; truck pushers; food vendors; cattle rearers/sellers; electricians, dongaris; pepper grinders; mai-magani (magani kerfi); kifi sellers; pure water sellers; sugar cane sellers; ex-service men and women (who if someone in that country is thinking should be used as informants); petty traders; ordinary Nigerians at beer palours, pepper soup joints, hotels, motels, mosques, etc, etc...and to these Security Chiefs, no deadline as their corrupt Commander-in-Chief did not give them one, hence in order to use the national tragedy to swell their bank accounts at home and overseas with their wives going shopping in Dubai, their children and relations sent abroad to attend very expensive foreign institutions, buy palatial mansions abroad have concluded: IT IS A WAR WITHOUT END!
These your so-called Security Chiefs lack the needed proactiveness to predict next attacks - when, where and how...they are just a bunch of ostriches hiding in hotels and in the comfort of their homes, whilst their officers and men jump all over the place over nothing and aimlessly, with some of them scurrying off to hide once they hear the word BH, but how come they don't ever intercept BH's communications?
Were I to be asked about my over all assessment of the nation's intelligence system, I would simply say: IT'S ZERO!
But do all these well-meaning compatriots realize Nigeria is a SOVEREIGN NATION just like America?
***To be continued.