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 Nigeria is in the news once again. This time, the country’s political train seems to be speeding out of control, and it is likely to run of the cliff into a social and political abyss if Nigerian political intellectuals fail to act collectively in the national interest.
The shroud of secrecy that has enveloped the ailing President Umaru Yar’Adua for the past few months seems to have created fire and brimstone within the political establishment. Umaru Yar’Adua went to Saudi Arabia in December 2009 for medical treatment for heart illness. He left in secrecy without a constitutional transfer of power, thus causing a political power vacuum and struggle among power hungry cabinet ministers. The absence of the president and the lack of public information about his condition have made many Nigerians very anxious about the future of the country. Yar’Adua returned home on February 24 in the dark of night, almost like a thief. The secrecy of his return and the lack of public information about his condition have escalated speculation about his fitness to rule. This type of information control in a democracy has a tendency to become radioactive, especially in a country like Nigeria that is prone to military takeover.
The Nigerian political crisis perplexes me for several reasons. First and foremost, Nigeria, the most populous state in Africa, by all accounts is the intellectual powerhouse on the continent. It is surprising that a country with such intellectual capacity has failed to exercise the principles of democracy and to govern itself democratically. A few years ago, Nigeria was being heralded as the model of democracy that other African countries might want to emulate. With the current political debacle, I think no country would attempt to do so now. The current political episode clearly demonstrates that the exercise of Western democracy in Nigeria and, for that matter, in black Africa is laden with complex cultural ethos and tribal customs.
The Nigerian political question has raised a larger question, in my opinion, for us black Africans on the continent and in the diaspora – a question that is toxic and considered taboo. It concerns the capacity of black Africans to govern their individual countries according to Western style democracy. In 1957, the year Ghana became independent, Kwame Nkrumah set the stage for colonial Africa’s struggle for independence. By the late 1970s, the political map of Africa had changed radically from white rule to black rule. The shackles of colonialism have disappeared from the continent, but the evil of colonialism still is evident throughout.
During the decades of the 60s and 70s, Asia, Latin America, and Africa were fraught with similar political and social problems – colonialism, the struggle for independence, military coups, and social unrest. Today, Asia is the center of consumer electronic production and Latin America is fast becoming an economic powerhouse, with Brazil a member of the BRICs (Brazil, Russia, India, and China), the twenty-first century economic centers of power. Africa, on the other hand, still suffers abject poverty, disease, and systemic corruption. Moreover, most ordinary Africans cannot get their agricultural crops to the market due to lack of road infrastructure.
Black Africa’s endemic problems are numerous. But, there are two systemic problems: tribalism (rather than nationalism) and corruption. Until black Africa accepts the fact that tribalism and corruption are the worst enemies and works assiduously for its remedy, the abject conditions (inept political institutions, poverty, and disease) will not change. Of the two systemic problems, corruption in government bewilders me profoundly when I take into account that the people in government with strategic responsibility were educated in the West. Most have worked in the West as administrators and businessmen, and saw how corruption is controlled. Yet, back in their respective countries, they are far more corrupt than the people who had not studied or worked in the West. I wonder why this is so?
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