Preliminary Remarks: A note on politics
The last article I published titled: The
Power of Transformative Ideas: Let’s Get to Work:
http://www.nigerian-newspaper.com/worlds-cheapest-car.htm
signaled a temporary break from my long
running x-rays of the Nigerian political leadership, in particular that of
presidential leadership deficits in the current dispensation. The current
political leadership deficits have quickly unraveled and laid bare the startling
weaknesses of the newly recruited captain of our national ship who seems to have
left his navigation compass in Katsina and found himself groping in the dark,
fumbling and muddling his way through our uncharted sea of self-inflicted
wounds.
President Musa Yar’Adua’s honeymoon with the
Nigerian people and the press is definitively over and the gloves are off. The
President has received quite a heavy dose of media bashing lately on a wide
variety of issues but more noticeably on two key issues—his evidently and
demonstrably lukewarm attitude to the war on corruption, which has become the
National Anthem of sorts, (courtesy of OBJ/Ribadu), and the lethargic (go-slow)
pace of governance for a country in a hurry to move forward. On both scores the
President is at the receiving end and his media minders, like Mr. Olusegun
Adeniyi, for instance, have been spending all their time in office defending
their boss and fending off charges from inpatient but flabbergasted Nigerians
than promoting the so-called seven-point program of the Yar’Adua administration,
which so far, only exists in the realm of imagination.
Political pundits educate us to the effect
that trust is the currency of leadership which binds the leader to the citizens.
When that currency is compromised in any way shape or form it can never be
restored. Thereafter any action of the leader is subjected to microscopic
examination and his word is taken with a pinch of salt. Cynicism, and sometimes,
outright hostility towards the leader becomes the order of the day. That is the
fate that awaits Yar’Adua now going forward as he has chosen to break faith with
the Nigerian people with his shenanigans with the war on corruption and lack of
direction and progress in the prosecution of the reform programs. It’s
unfortunate and rather too early in the day for Nigerians to be compelled to
give up on this administration. The last thing a government that is short on
legitimacy but long on promises would do is break faith with the electorate.
Yet if anyone deserved credit for correctly
predicting the complexion and trajectory of the Yar’Adua administration, it’s no
other than yours truly. I take no personal pride in the fulfillment of this
prediction because I had wished and prayed for it not to come to pass in the
interest of our nation. But here we are four months after the prediction and we
are no nearer the promised land than we were eight months ago; if anything, we
are farther away from it eight months later. Back in August, 2007, when most
Nigerians were still honeymooning with the Yar’Adua administration and
sadistically relishing the exit of OBJ, I raised an alarm over Yar’Adua’s anemic
and debilitating pace of governance in an article titled:
Yar’Adua: Ramping Up the Pace of Governance.
It was barely
three months into his administration when it took our newly minted President
forever to form his cabinet. I’m told the cabinet is still not fully formed
eight months after and ambassadorial postings are yet to be effected. Now, even
our national budget has been mired in needless controversies as is the war on
corruption, and indeed, the much trumpeted Niger Delta peace plan that has hit
the rocks and dead on arrival. When the plan was not forthcoming and Nigerians
were asking questions, Mr. Adeniyi told the world that his master wanted to
convene a peace conference that would finally put the problems in Niger Delta to
rest and not just another conference like the previous ones that failed to fix
the problems. Now we know better. It’s pure hogwash! The so-called peace plan
was bungled from the beginning as with every other thing Yar’Aduan. The
militants have since gone back to work and the results can’t be any clearer than
what the nation has witnessed in Port-Harcourt and in the creeks of Niger Delta
lately.
There is much going on at the
political/judicial front to occupy any public commentator for the entire year.
But politics is not the be all and end all. While career politicians are busy
positioning themselves into various political configurations in the wake of
judicial pronouncements on certain gubernatorial elections and the upcoming
verdict on the presidential election, ordinary Nigerians are facing worsening
socio-economic conditions. Electricity generation has plummeted to an all time
low since OBJ left office and construction work at the new power plant projects
that were supposed to be commissioned at the end of last year have reportedly
been halted by presidential order not to fund the plants from the excess crude
oil funds. Meanwhile President Yar’Adua himself has come out publicly to declare
that he would not commit further funds to the power sector because the funds
invested in that sector by his predecessor allegedly have not yielded the
desired results. So, his answer is: do nothing, sit back and watch our power
problems melt away like butter!
But I have one question for our Do-Nothing
President. If you invested a trillion dollars in the construction of power
plants and the plants have not been completed, how in the world would such huge
investments make any difference on the ground? Would uncompleted power projects
generate electricity to make a difference? Would they add a single megawatt to
our national power grid in their uncompleted state? How would the stoppage of
construction work of the power plants improve the power supply situation?
I don’t get it, folks! It’s all cheap talk
designed to please the AC party and the opposition who are baying for Obasanjo’s
blood without a shred of evidence of corruption against him. They want President
Yar’Adua to go on fishing expedition for evidence to nail the man who installed
him in power, while IBB who could not account for $12 billion dollars in oil
windfall as disclosed in the Okigbo Panel Report, and aborted our democratic
march on top of that, is walking free in Nigeria. They want to humiliate the man
that gave Nigeria democracy and set her on the path to sustainable economic
development as epitomized in the revolutionary reform programs that Yar’Adua is
fiddling with like a school child. They want to disgrace a courageous leader who
made a difference in fundamental ways in our nation and left unprecedented
foreign reserves for the nation which other leaders before him would simply have
misappropriated and/or frittered away.
What kind of a people are we really? I’m not
holding brief here for the former President, but suffice it to say that if the
AC and the opposition have any hard evidence of corruption against the former
President President what is stopping them from presenting the same to the EFCC
or ICPC? And what stopped them from presenting such evidence before the
vindictive Senate Panel that probed the Petroleum Development Trust Fund when
Obasanjo enemies where looking for his blood before the elections? Where was the
AC then? Why are they goading Yar’Adua to manufacture evidence from nowhere to
nail the former President for them? I think Mr. Adeniyi was right to have put
down the AC for calling for OBJ’s probe when their master and sponsor, Abubakar
Atiku, who was indicted thrice, including that of the Senate, is walking the
street as a free man and busy cutting deals with Yar’Adua.
Yar’Adua’s fledging presidency cannot be
grounded and stabilized on the pillars of victimization and political witch
hunt. He is listening too much to the opposition and has allowed himself to be
tossed about by the opposition. He is not even defending his mandate with the
vigor and rigor that one would have expected. Rather, he is seeking to
ingratiate himself with the opposition by condemning the very elections that
brought him to power in the naïve hope that it would get the opposition off his
back! That is not my idea of a strong and effective leader that Nigeria needs at
all times. If that is what his servant/leader postulation is all about, sorry,
it won’t get him anywhere. And we have seen that already: the opposition would
not get off his back even if he splits his cabinet with them as he must have
realized by now.
I don’t get it, folks! Yar’Adua is cutting
an image of a confused toddler who suddenly found himself wearing oversized
shoes that have demobilized rather than mobilized him. He has two options:
either let go the oversized shoes or hold on to the shoes and hurt his feet
while struggling to attain some measure of locomotion. But Nigerians are already
inpatient with him and would not wait for Mr. President to grow his feet in the
Presidency to fit his oversized shoes snugly. The reason is because the country
is in a hurry to make up for lost ground, and God knows Mr. President knows it!
Why he would choose to run a go-slow administration that has nothing to show but
meaningless slogans about rule of law for eight odd months in power is left for
political pundits to chew on. President Yar’Adua is already a broken promise!
Culture & Development
And I must confess though that I’m not a
political pundit and would therefore not venture to even hazard a guess as to
why that is so. All I would venture to do in this article, however, is to
attempt to draw some correlation between our chronic socio-economic state of
underdevelopment and our cultural prescriptions while Mr. President fiddles with
our national destiny. In other words, I will attempt to highlight certain
aspects of Africa’s cultural heritage that tend to promote development (which
deserve to be encouraged and promoted), and others that tend to impede
development (which should be discouraged and jettisoned). Respectively, both
categories are identified in this article as cultural assets and
cultural liabilities.
A cultural asset is herein defined as a
valuable component of the African cultural menu the development of which confers
definite socio-economic benefits on the peoples of the continents or otherwise
adds to the quantum of wealth on the continent at either material or spiritual
level. Conversely a cultural liability is drag on the continent’s development
goals and aspirations at both national and continental levels. However, this
presentation does not pretend to exhaust all of such assets and liabilities but
would endeavor to isolate certain key features as representative samples for our
purpose.
The reader might ask: why has the author
chosen to link culture with development? Or put differently, what has culture
got to do with development? To that question, I would answer: Everything!
Culture has everything to do with development. In fact, culture is the very
foundation or basis of the socio-economic and technological development that the
world has witnessed since recorded history. When development is anchored on a
people’s culture, it flowers and blossoms quite naturally into a huge economic
tree. Conversely, when development is anchored on a foreign culture it flounders
and withers with time, rejected as it were, as a foreign body by the soil of its
host nation.
I will give just one example to buttress
this: Have you ever imagined why democracy (a western political transplant) has
refused to take root in the Arab world, Africa, and the Middle East? It’s
because it is not founded on the cultures of those regions. The tree of
democracy is being uprooted from the West and forcibly planted on hostile soils
in those parts and the results is what is happening in Nigeria, Kenya, Pakistan,
Georgia, Ukraine, Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon, all the way to Russia and China.
It is total anarchy, turmoil, and bloodshed all the way! These countries are
paying a huge price for forcing the tree of western style democracy on their
soil. Kenyan has known no peace and so is Pakistan, Ukraine, Georgia, Nigeria,
Afghanistan, you name it! Even South Africa is now threatened with political
instability.
As it is in the political sphere so it is
also in the economic and technological fields. This author posits that for
Nigeria to have sustainable and enduring development in the fields of economics,
politics and science, it must draw inspiration and be guided by her own cultural
heritage rather than copying sheepishly from other nations. Development is
authentic and sustainable only when it is anchored on a people’s culture and not
the other way around. Nigeria will continue to struggle and wobble around
democracy and economic development no matter the number of electoral panels set
up by the government unless and until we find a way to domestic democracy the
same way we domesticated Christianity. That Christianity has survived in African
is because Africans have succeeded in domesticating or indigenizing it. African
Christianity is different from European or American Christianity; although
Christians in Nigeria may delude themselves that they belong to the same “Body
of Christ.” No, there are several bodies of Christ in Africa, Europe, Asia, and
America; all indigenized or acculturated.
Now, we must turn to Africa’s cultural
assets followed by her cultural liabilities in that order.
Cultural Assets
Without mincing words, I make bold to
declare that Africa is a cultural powerhouse, and I dare anyone to challenge
that declaration! Hardly any other continent rivals Africa on the cultural
front. The breadth and depth of the African cultural experience is simply mind
boggling. Our cultural expressions are second to none in the world. Yet very few
of it is being currently exploited to uplift the continent from her economic
woes. The following are some of the visible and ready areas that can and should
be converted to gold if we put our minds to it. We start with African fashion.
Heritage of Fashion:
Africa is the land of fashion and her
fashion profile is as sunny as the tropical sun itself that bathes her
landscape. Dazzling array of African fashion that could easily rival anything in
Europe, America, or Asia, could readily birth major industries in Africa, if
properly developed. Unfortunately, not much has been done by way of globalizing
African fashion as the Arabs, Europeans, and the Americans, for instance, have
done. Until recently fashion shows were a rarity in Africa, and the fashion
industry itself remained underdeveloped and largely peasantry in character. Even
till today there is no significant presence of fashion industries in Africa
except perhaps foreign owned that are denominated by manufacturing plants and
whole sale enterprises, aside from imports. As in other areas, a whole tribe of
clothing importers have dominated the scene to the detriment of the development
and promotion of African fashion. While some private individuals and
organizations such as the Thisday Newspaper sponsored African Fashion Show,
have made significant contributions to the development and promotion of African
fashion much is still to be done.
It’s
gratifying to note however that the development of the African movie genre has
afforded African fashion a window to the world as beautiful African attires are
showcased in those movies. It’s only a matter of time therefore that this
projection of African fashion would catch up with the world especially among
Africans in the Diaspora who are doing their level best to project the African
movie into the mainstream of the entertainment profile in their host countries.
There is, at least potentially, a huge
market for African fashion in the Diaspora as it has been for the African movie.
It’s therefore of utmost necessity for African entrepreneurs to catch in on the
visibility of the African attires in African movies and exploit this cultural
capital to the hilt. There is no reason why Africans cannot establish Garment
Manufacturing Plants in all parts of Africa to mass produce African clothing for
export and thereby provide jobs for the masses of jobless African youths who are
fleeing the continents in droves to escape the harrowing economic conditions
there. What does it take to establish a Garment Manufacturing Plant, by the
way? Perhaps only a few thousands of dollars is all it takes to establish such
a plant on a small scale. And that is less than what some continental Africans
spend vacationing and/or shopping in Europe and America! Talk about misguided
priorities!
Heritage of Festivals:
What about African festivals? There is
perhaps no other forum or avenue for showcasing the rich African heritage than
during festivals. It all comes together at the festivals! An African festival is
a confluence of African cultural milieu, in all its variegation and dazzling
panoramic assemblage. Take Nigeria for example: Of the over 250 ethnic groups
each and every one of them has more than one major cultural festival; in fact
most of them have series of such festivals celebrated either annually,
bi-annually or otherwise.
Unfortunately, these festivals have yet to
be fully developed and commercialized to attract tourists from abroad. The
nation is now coming to grips with the reality that tourism is bigger than crude
oil that has caused the nation much heartache, and whole economies such as
Kenyan, depend wholly on tourism. The Argugun Fishing Festival in Nigeria is a
notable exception. The Itsekiri and Opobo Boat Regattas and the Egungun
Masquerade in Lagos, not to mention the highly popular Igbo Yam Festival, have
the potentials for attracting huge numbers of foreign tourists who are looking
for where to spend their money in retirements or vacations every year.
The point I’m trying to put across is that
our people and the government should not see these festivals as ordinary
cultural events but as extra-ordinary economic super shows very much like the
trade shows. These cultural festivals are potential money spinners that could
rival oil revenues. These cultural events afford creative artistes the
opportunity to design t-shirts, caps, mugs, and other memorabilia for the events
apart from its huge potential in developing the hospitality industry; with the
provision of first class hotels, transportation, communication, and what have
you. The socio-economic economic benefits are indeed limitless. The capacity of
festival induced tourism to provide jobs is boundless.
These festivals can and should be packaged
as commercial products and marketed to the world as Africa’s cultural products
the same way that the African Safaris South of Africa have done to the economies
of Kenya, Zimbabwe, and South Africa. There is no question that the culture
hungry Americans and the Europeans for instance, would fall over themselves to
partake in the African cultural diet. All roads would be leading to Africa and
Nigeria if these events are well packaged and aggressively marketed to the world
through our trade missions abroad. Rich African American families would lead
the way. I guarantee that! How many African-Americans, for instance, have
approached me to take them to Africa and show them what Africa is made of?
Countless! A huge economic opportunity has been lying in waste over the
decades. It’s time to get smart and get rich from our cultural festivals. They
should be seen as national assets and not mere local festivals.
It’s amazing why our government in Nigeria
had, until recently during the OBJ administration, not crafted a tourism
development plan that incorporates our national cultural festivals into the mix.
OBJ instituted one that held its third edition in Abuja recently and would
hopefully continue to grow from strength to strength as an important cultural
capital of national and international significance. It’s one of the reasons why
I hold OBJ in high esteem as an original thinker and leader who instituted new
concepts and themes into governance such as National Parks and Satellite
Communication, Private/Public Partnership, Private universities, not to talk
about GSM, Due Process, and the War on Corruption and banking reforms; just to
mention but a few innovative programs that he introduced. The National
Transport, Housing and Tourism Policies are all brain children of the Obasanjo
administration. And the National Cultural Festival he instituted is the crowing
glory of those initiatives with a full fledged Ministry of Culture headed by a
noted cultural icon. We must never forget that it was the same OBJ who brought
FESTAC in 1977 as the epitome of Africa’s cultural expression. There has been
nothing like FESTAC after OBJ’ exit until he came back to institute the National
Cultural Festival. Such a leader of ideas deserves respect and adulation but
some misguided Nigerians who know no better and have contributed little or
nothing to the development of the nation are out there vilifying him because
they lost elections.
I am excited though that the National
Cultural festival has come to stay despite the objections of religious bigots.
There should be more of such festivals that that the private sector itself can
help to develop. They are no jamborees as some ill-informed religious puritans
would have us believe but huge economic events. As it is in Nigeria, so it is in
every African country. Festivals of the likes mentioned above abound everywhere
in Africa and remain local events with no branding and no marketing. In other
words the transition from pure culture to cultural economics has
not been effected. You heard the expression, cultural economics, here
first! The huge economic potentials of our cultural festivals must be explored
and exploited for the benefit of the continent.
Culinary Heritage:
If there is any other peoples or continents
on earth that rival the continent and peoples of Africa in culinary arts, its
Africa and Africans! Yep, only Africa rivals Africa and only Africans rival
Africans in culinary arts! Folks, no kidding! You can take that to the bank.
And I’m not talking about some psychedelic junk foods dished out by Fast food
behemoths. I’m talking about rich, healthy, nutritious old fashioned African
culinary delights developed by our great, great grandmothers that would blow
your culinary tops off, without giving you diabetes, asthma, cancer and obesity
because Africans would never serve you genetically modified dishes! No! That
crass commercial impulse is not in their hallowed genes!
I have sponsored several African American
friends and colleagues in New York area to African Restaurants to have a taste
of African culinary delicacies and their reaction is nothing short of ecstatic,
time and time again! And I am quite sure other Africans in the Diaspora have
similar experiences too. Dishes at African restaurants might be a little more
expensive than the regular American dishes, but they are well worth their price
tags especially when compared with the prices of organic foods in the United
States that only the rich can afford.
African dishes are products of pure nature.
The ingredients would come from pure mother earth, fresh, organic and healthy,
rather than from some commercial laboratory tucked away from public view to
engineer artificial crops. It’s reason why Africans in the villages live to
very ripe age. I just lost a grand mother in-law who lived in the village all
her life for over 90 years! Her eldest son (not the eldest child) is in his
early 70s. My own father lived in the village all his life and died at a ripe
age of 84 years. And my own mother made 82. Everywhere in African villages there
are old men and women in their mid to late 80s, 90s, and even early 100s, who
would tell you stories of the 1ST and 2nd World Wars, which they
witnessed as teenagers.
Therefore, when I read of some so-called UN
reports putting the average lifespan of Africans South of the Sahara at below
50, I don’t know the heck where they are getting their outlandish figures from;
certainly not from African villages which carry the largest population of
Africans, urbanization notwithstanding. But who am I, an unknown quantity in the
world of demographics to challenge the high priests of the discipline who tell
us that Africans have short lifespan. They may be right, but all I see around me
are septuagenarians and octogenarians whether it’s Mandela in South Africa who
was brutalized in jail or OBJ who survived Abacha gulag. I see octogenarians in
late Imoudu, Anthony Enahoro, Chief Awolowo, the great Zik of Africa, Mugabe,
among the princes and priestesses of Africa down to the ordinary folks in the
village barely eking out a living on the land. These are not Europeans, Asians,
or Americans, but earthy Africans nourished by healthy African dishes that
should be sold to the world in short supply of healthy diets.
The point here is that Africans who live off
the land in rural areas with no hospitals, no potable water, and with little or
no formal education, but with plenty of healthy nutritious foods, live to very
ripe ages with highly developed immune systems that withstand the ravages of
pathogens. African culinary arts were developed by these villagers over the
millennia. As the birthplace of mankind, this author believes that these
culinary arts ought to have become a world heritage by now not just African
heritage.
But what have Africans done with their
unequalled culinary arts? Nothing! African culinary arts have yet to leave the
African kitchen to provide economic opportunities for her starving children who
are fleeing her shores to other continents in search of the very same things she
should have produced right there on the continent. When I see well educated
Africans going to Europe and America to become security guards, home health
aides, taxi drivers, and other menial labors in slave-like conditions, my heart
bleeds because they don’t deserve it. The highly educated sons and daughters of
the one of the most, if not the most naturally endowed continents, on earth do
not deserve to be condemned to lives of economic slavery in foreign lands where
they are spat at and verbally abused by less educated citizens of their
countries of domain; all because we have refused to put our intellect to work
and improve our economic conditions at home.
Musical Heritage:
Unlike the latter day movie industry,
African music has made its mark all over the world. African performing music
artistes are household names in parts of the world. Such African music giants as
Fela Anikulapo Kuti, Manu Debango, Victor Uwaifo, Miriam Makeba, Shaka Shaka,
Lucky Dube, Sony Okosun, and Highlife giants like Stephen Osita Osadebe, Victor
Olaiya, Bobby Benson, Rex Lawson, and of course the Juju music maestros like
Ebenezer Obey and Sunny Ade, just to mention but a few, have left indelible
marks on the international music front not just on the local music scene. And
their music heirs are no less remarkable. That said save for a few artistes
African music has yet to achieve the international standing that it deserves.
With its rich repertoire, African music should be commanding the airwaves in
American and Europeans cities rather than the other way around.
I stand to be corrected but I don’t know of
any African musician whose album sold millions of copies in the international
market like their American and Europeans counterparts. Worse still African
artistes do not enjoy the airwaves on radio and television in European and
American cities as their artistes do our airwaves. This is a troubling sign that
African youths hanker after foreign music at the expense of their own, oblivious
of the economic consequence of their appetite for foreign music. Patronizing
foreign music and products carry a heavy price for the Nigerian youth and the
nation’s economy. When our youths and other citizens virtually boycott Nigerian
and African music and products and patronize foreign ones instead, our economy
is much poorer and our youths that much more jobless. There is a consequence for
the choices we make. The more we patronize foreign goods the more jobless
Nigerians youths would become. We are only shooting ourselves in our feet only
to turn around and blame the government for unemployment forgetting that our
individual micro choices have telling consequences at the macro economic levels.
Economic illiteracy is at the root of most of our choices and the government
needs to do a better job educating our people. I see adds here in New York
posted by labor unions admonishing their citizens to patronize American goods
instead of foreign ones as Americans have developed unusual appetites for
foreign goods especially Chinese, just like Nigerians, to the detriment of the
American economy. The result is the paltry almost scandalous 1.5 % or so
economic growth rate recorded by the US economy compared to the over 11% by the
Chinese economy. While the Chinese economy is headed into the stratosphere, the
US economy is sinking more and more into the depths and into recession; thanks
in part to the huge American appetites for foreign goods. It should serve as a
lesson for Nigeria and Nigerians.
Handicrafts Heritage:
Go to Maryland in Lagos at the swamps under
the bridge; go to Airport Road in Benin City and check out the army of artisans
using their fingers to fashion out cane chairs, baskets, and other craft
products, and you will marvel at the craftsmanship of the Africans. Streets
in Benin City are adorned with stores filled with woodcrafts of every
description. I am sure the reader has heard above the world famous Igun Street
Bronze casting artisans. Go to Calabar and indeed other parts of Nigeria and the
wonders of African arts would hit the first time tourist with awe and
admiration. In all of Africa these artistic expressions abound in every nook and
cranny whether it’s pottery, sculpture or woodcraft.
Unfortunately, these craftsmen and women
barely eke out a living. The development of the tourist industry must go in
tandem with the development of these crafts. These men and women who labor at
their crafts are professionals and deserve a better life. Someone who has given
his or her life to a trade must live, not merely exist, by that trade.
Therefore, their products need to be commercially packaged and graded just like
cocoa and oil for exports. Mechanics in the US and other developed countries
drive big cars and own homes. And so are tailors, dry cleaners, shoe repairers,
electricians, welders, carpenters, and craftsmen and women. Why are our artisans
in Nigeria and elsewhere in Africa living in poverty? This author demands
answers. Every artisan is worth his/her hire and they too deserve the good life
just like the lawyers, doctors, engineers, journalists, ex-cetera. These
so-called professionals are not doing any more for the economy than the
mechanics, welders, electricians, and other artisans. If you asked me, I would
say they are doing less than the artisans yet enjoy the good life at the expense
of those who actually drive the economy. This must change.
Story Telling Heritage (The Movie):
Africans are great story tellers and that’s
why Chinua Achebe excelled in his ground breaking prose fiction: Things Fall
Apart that has sold millions of copies world wide and translated into
several international languages. Story telling is a veritable African pastime.
It is the quintessential African way of entertainment. However, until very
recently no one explored and exploited its economic value as is indeed many
other areas of the African experience. Up until recently, story telling was a
gratuitous freebie dolled out to the impressionable kids in the village by the
elders with no financial gratification expected or given in return. Subsequent
efforts to translate this experience into cinematic experienced collapsed in our
faces all of a sudden.
However, from the ashes of previous failed
efforts a whole new industry has risen up to project Africa and her rich story
to the world. The African movie is Africa’s face and voice to an indifferent
world. Now, we are telling our stories ourselves to ourselves and to the world
and no one else is telling them for us. Leading the charge of African story
tellers is my country Nigeria. A whole new generation of movie actors and
actresses, directors, and financiers has emerged from nowhere to storm the world
with the African story line. The African creative genius is unleashed and
abroad. And they have inspired other African countries like Ghana to follow
suit. With competition the sky is the limit as more themes are explored and
developed.
If, as the ratings show, Nigeria is now
number three in the global charts of movie production in the world and may well
be on the way to becoming the number two, displacing India, and eventually
becoming number one, displacing the United States, there is hope for Africa.
This genius is a product of the African culture. The entire movie industry is
built on the celebration of the African culture in a way that it has never been
done before on such a global scale in sustainable manner.
This cultural capital must therefore become
the springboard to re-launch Africa, the birth place of civilization into
international reckoning. The genie has left the bottle and there is no holding
Africa in her present drive led by Nigeria to take over the movie world. With
slim budgets and governmental indifference the private sector has admirably
seized the gauntlet and forged ahead with remarkable tenacity and dogged
determination to place Africa on the world map in the home movie industry. If
only Africans would recognize the power and reach of the cultural tool in their
hands, they would deploy it to the hilt and change their world for the better
while making a stand in the world. Culture is a powerful tool to reinvigorate
the moribund African economy.
Dancing Heritage:
The entire world recognizes Africans as
great dancers. Their wild gyrations and acrobatic stunts provide the backdrop to
the modern day break dance that black Americans have perfected. Break
dance is an offshoot of an essential African dance form found all over Africa
from the Yorubas to the Igbos and to the Urhobos in the dense Niger area. Watch
an average Urhobo or Isoko dancer dancing to traditional Urhobo music; or for
that matter watch the juju or fuji
music dancer in Nigeria, and you’ll understand that break dance
is an African dance form imported by the African Americans from their roots in
Africa. But that’s alright; they are Africans too and have every right like
continental Africans to dip into Africa’s cultural soup and drink of it. The
problem though, is that they are not investing the proceeds in Africa but in
America further impoverishing the continent. African Americans should be at the
forefront in reviving Africa in their own interests because their destiny is
inextricably linked to or yoked with African destiny, whether they believe it or
not. Their newly acquired racial identification “African American” tells it all!
It’s perhaps not out place to state that the
African cultural experience finds one of its most robust expressions in the wide
variety of its dance forms. Much of the world has seen it on television when
foreign dignitaries are entertained by cultural troupes at airport ceremonies
and other places. African cultural troupes have also staged command performances
in parts of the world leaving their audiences gasping for breaths! That is
economic power right there in their hands awaiting fuller development and
exploitation to lift up the continent.
Heritage of Beverages:
Beverages constitute the soul of every
social function. And Africans as a gregarious people, love drinks. To cater to
this need therefore, Africans have developed, purely from nature, a wide array
of beverages to suit every occasion; from liquor to wine and everything else
between. The sheer number and variety of these beverages would not permit us to
even attempt to itemize them here in this piece as every ethnic group (and there
are literally thousands of ethnic groups in Africa), has developed one type of
beverage or another.
Taking Nigeria as representative sample
however, one could easily loose count of the number of local beverages consumed
by Nigerians. In all their variety however, a few popular ones stand out of the
crowd. These are the popular palm-wine and the local gin nicknamed Ogogoro.
There is also the Burukutu and Pito in the North.
The matter with local beverages is that if
well packaged commercially they could easily become huge foreign exchange
earners for the country. If the Scots have their Whisky, the Russians their
Vodka, and French their Champagne, why not Nigerians, and why not Africans? The
French champagne, Scotch Whisky, the Russian vodka, an indeed, many other
international brands that Nigerians die for, started as local beverages that
were refined to their present standards to become the international brands they
are today.
What have we done with our local brews?
Characteristically, we have turned our backs on our local beverages and
developed huge appetites for foreign ones. Bluntly put, we have refused and/or
neglected to develop our cultural beverage assets. Think of the thousands of
jobs that could have been created had our local brews been developed to the
point of being produced commercially in brewing plants and wineries. Think of
the multiplier effects and the skills that would have grown out from such
industries. When I examine the African condition critically, I have no choice
but to arrive at the inevitable conclusion that the fault is in us and not in
our stars. We have failed the mother continent that has provided so much for us
to explore and exploit to live better lives, but we just refused to think and
use those resources to improve our lives. Rather, we wait on foreigners who have
nothing by way of natural resources, to come and exploit our resources for us
and give us some handouts as royalties and taxes. How shameless we can be as a
people!
Cultural Liabilities
It’s not possible to itemize all the areas
that could fall under the purview of cultural capitals. The areas indicated
above are only a tip of the iceberg. But they are good starting points. However,
as there are cultural capitals so are there cultural liabilities. A cultural
liability is defined as a culturally defined social practice that acts as an
impediment to our socio-economic growth and development. In other words, it is a
non-legal normative order that has a tendency to impede individual or communal
growth and development.
These cultural prescriptions have a telling
effects on the overall development of the not only the individual concerned but
the entire nation and continent as a whole. The African culture, though
exceptionally rich, manifests certain unsavory characteristics that are
antithetical to individual and national development, which if not addressed,
would further sink the continent deeper into economic quagmire. Top on the list
is early marriages. Following closely is the extended family system and the
third is excessive tribalism. I will only treat the first two here as tribalism
is not necessarily only and African problem. It’s everywhere but we should
endeavor to minimize its harmful effects on the body politic especially when it
is deployed to frustrate our national aspiration for a corruption free society.
Early
Marriages Conundrum:
“Go ye and multiply,” God commanded Adam and
Eve, so says the Holy Book. Marriage is the legitimate avenue through which this
commandment is consummated. The African culture places a very high premium on
marriage. Under our culture sons and daughters of marriageable age are expected
to marry promptly and the family is on hand to lend a helping hand. When in
default they would be pressured by their families and friends alike to tie the
nuptial knot or else face public opprobrium. Eyebrows would be raised; questions
would be asked and tongues would be wagging. The current Speaker of the House of
Representatives in Nigeria, Mr. Bankole, who is said to be a chronic bachelor,
is currently facing such pressure to marry. Marriage completes a man or woman as
the case may be. Therefore, a marriageable man or woman who refuses to marry
would be courting societal trouble and disapproval, and even open hostility in
some cases.
However, save for the Igbo ethnic group in
Nigeria, this pressure to marry comes rather too early in the lives in young men
and women in Africa. Young men and women who have barely attained the age of
majority (21 years) find themselves becoming fathers and mothers in marriage
when they are not prepared for fatherhood and motherhood. There are huge
economic implications for early marriages. A couple who is forced into early
marriage in the absence of any sustainable economic foundation is doomed to live
a marriage life of poverty and misery and even possible failure in life in the
long run.
Early marriage without a viable economic
foundation is a sentence to a life of endless struggles and chronic poverty,
which translates into the larger society. The more of such couples a society
harbors the poorer the society. And the reasons are not far fetched. As parents
know only to well, it costs a lot to raise children and that would be money that
could be invested in education and/or economic activities to build a foundation
for life before marriage. Here in the US it costs tens of thousands of dollars
to raise just one child. Even in Africa where the cost is significantly less to
raise a child the economic resources are not available as they are in the US and
other developed worlds. Therefore, lower cost of raising a child carries little
or no economic advantage to the average African family.
When we add to that the legendary
procreative propensity of the average African couple, the problem is infinitely
compounded. While an average European and American couple could do with just one
child or even go without a child in some cases, having just one child is almost
a curse in Africa and it’s a taboo not to reproduce. Early marriage is enough
economic draw-back, but raising a large family on top of that is like a death
sentence as the parents would have no breathing space at all in their lives.
Most of those child hawkers we see on
Nigerian highways are children from such families who are forced by sheer
economic circumstances of their families to engage in child labor rather than
being in schools with attendant risks. And many of them end up as armed robbers
who terrorize society. There are huge economic and social costs to early
marriages. Our economy, nay society, is much poorer for it as such marriages end
up as breeding grounds or incubatory for future criminals who terrorize society
and cause the government to divert huge economic resources to crime control,
resources that could be used to develop our social infrastructure like roads,
schools, hospitals and others.
Viewed from this perspective therefore, it
is clear that early marriages constitute one of the root causes of our economic
underdevelopment and social malaise. Poverty and crime are some of the direct
consequences of the cultural mandate of early marriages in African society. And
until this root cause is dealt with merely treating the symptoms of the disease
would not fix the problems of poverty, crime and underdevelopment. China saw the
problem early enough and promptly slammed its one-man-one child policy. No one
is advocating the Chinese model for Africa or Nigeria, for that matter, but the
cultural practice of early marriages should be stamped out if we are to make any
head way at all in the fight against poverty, crime and underdevelopment.
Otherwise we will be condemned forever to living this vicious cycle of simply
reproducing poverty instead of wealth in our societies.
Extended Family System Encumbrance:
The African social society is built on three
concentric circles with the nuclear family at the core, the extended family at
the center, and the community as the outermost ring. However, this theoretical
construct is blurred in the actual life experiences of African families. There
is hardly any distinction between the nuclear family at the core and the
extended family at the center in real life. In Africa, there are no cousins,
aunts, cousins, nephews as such but “brothers” and “sisters” in practical terms.
Every family member, whether in the nuclear family or the extended family is
either a “brother” or a “sister” in real terms. Thus, the nuclear family is
tightly interwoven into the extended family, and both are in turn, intertwined
with the larger community.
This structural configuration imposes severe
economic burdens on couples. Woe betides the African man who happens to be the
only bread winner in his family. He would be made to bear the burdens of not
only his immediate family but that of the entire extended family as well. He, as
it were, becomes the social security department for the entire family members
causing him to divert huge resources that could otherwise be invested in
economic activities of education to cater to the financial needs of his extended
family members.
Now, that is a burden that people in West do
not have to bear as they cater to their immediate families alone. This state of
affair promotes a culture of dependency on the part of relatives. It’s not
uncommon to see African youths migrating from one extended family to another to
seek financial assistance. In many cases, they end up living with such relatives
with the attendant economic consequences as the relatives are forced to bear the
cost of their accommodation, feeding, clothing, healthcare, and of course,
education, sometimes up to the university level; with absolutely no returns on
their investments!
While Europeans and Americans are investing
their resources in economic activities and education, as the case may be,
Africans are forced to invest their resources in catering to the financial needs
of unappreciative extended family members who constantly make financial demands
on them as culturally mandated. Africans in the Diaspora have remitted
trillions of dollars to Africa over the years through Western Union, Moneygram,
Virgo and other money transfer outlets. I can almost guarantee the reader that a
huge chunk of these remittances did not go for economic activities but to pesky
extended family members who pester their relatives abroad with incessant
financial demands. The African immigrant reading this article knows too well
what the author is getting at here. He or she knows first hand how relatives
back home have made life miserable for him or her in his or her country of
abode.
I’m not advocating individualism as a social
paradigm as exists in the West because that is fundamentally un-African.
Africans are their brothers’ and sisters’ keepers and we should keep it that way
because it’s a crucial social safety net. However, we must find a way to reduce
the burdens on those at the receiving ends and minimize the dependency syndrome.
No one should be made to bear the financial burdens of entire extended family in
addition to those of his immediate family which should and must come first and
last. It’s about time every single member of every family is made to face life
squarely and learn to stand up on his/her feet through education or trade rather
than dumping his/her financial burdens on other members of the family.
And please do not ask me where they would
obtain the financial resources to go to school or learn a trade. Where there is
a will there is always a way, short of becoming a burden on families. People in
Africa, especially Nigerians, cry about joblessness, but they would not accept
to do the kind of menial jobs African immigrants are forced to do abroad to
maintain their extended families back home. The average Nigerian high school
graduate would not accept a security job or taxi driving, for instance, in
Nigeria. Even in their state of joblessness, they are so notoriously choosy,
picky and discriminatory in job titles. They would not accept to be trash
collectors and home health aides in Nigeria mainly because they know their
brothers, sisters, uncles, and aunts, out there in some big city, would come to
their aid financially.
But these are the kinds of jobs many African
university graduates come to do in Europe, America, and Asia from which they
remit those trillions of dollars home while living in poverty themselves
abroad. The bottom line is that we should not be looking for excuses not to
forge ahead in life through our own mental and physical exertions rather than
relying on others. That is the dependency syndrome I’m referring to here that
must be broken.
This author remembers vividly having to farm
potatoes in the rocky hills of Jos to make ends meet during several crunch times
he experienced while at the Jos University reading law, without hopping on the
bus back home to pester some relatives. He still carries the scars of those farm
work done mostly during vacation periods. How many Nigerian university students
even high school students in Nigeria would do that today to complete their
university education? And because I did that I was able to complete my
university education to become the bread winner in the family today. How I
wished every family member did what I did and become bread winners themselves.
It’s all about cultivating the spirit of independence. Individual independence
and sense of responsibility is key to reviving our economy. People should take
responsibility for their own lives rather than relying on the government to
provide jobs for them.
This could be taken harshly in certain
quarters that sees government as their uncle or aunt that owes them a meal
ticket. This could be taken as blaming the victims of our economic woes. But
it’s not about that. No, brother or sister, the government does not owe any
citizen a meal ticket. Take charge of your own life and get ahead in life; not
through crime but through a productive activity that would benefit you, your
family, and your community. Become Africa’s cultural asset not Africa’s cultural
liability. Folks, I know the truth is bitter to swallow but our culture and
religions enjoin us to state it anyway, because as the Holy Book states: “the
truth shall set you free.” If you are a brother or sister looking for a job look
into yourself first and see what you can do to get yourself a job for yourself
and by yourself.
Therefore, if you are a university graduate
trained at public expense in a Federal or state university, and you are crying
about not having a job after graduation, shame on you. You have made yourself a
liability to your country rather than an asset. You have no business being
jobless after acquiring higher education at public expense. The truth is that
the country cannot provide you with a higher education and then provide you with
a job on top of that. You should be capable of asking yourself this inevitable
question: If the country has done so much for you what have you done in return
for your country? Americans pay through their noses to acquire higher education.
They obtain student loans running into hundreds of thousands of dollars in most
cases; to acquire higher education.
We are talking of tens of millions of naira
equivalents in student loans just to acquire higher education that would take
them a lifetime to repay to the banks through the student loan board. That is
what Nigerian university students get almost for free in Nigerian public
universities and still want the government to provide them with jobs after
graduation. The author is a proud beneficiary of this tuition-free university
education in Nigeria and there was even an era when university students were
getting free meals in Nigeria. Getting a tuition free education and still
demanding that the government should provide you a job on graduation is immoral
and unacceptable. That Oliver Twist attitude must give way. It’s tantamount to
a father marrying a wife for his son and being asked to provide the son with the
means to consummate the marriage. It’s up to the son to consummate his marriage
with his wife all by himself and not through the father. If the son is impotent,
then why go into marriage in the first place? You don’t go to the university or
polytechnic to acquire higher education and superior skill sets only to ask
others to provide job you with a job. On the contrary, society expects you to
provide jobs not only for yourself but for others who are less educated than you
are. What are you doing with your education and skills then if you can’t help
yourself with a job? This state of affairs that promotes a culture of dependency
must stop, and stop now!
Our politicians must stop playing to the
gallery and giving our youths false hopes that they cannot meet. It’s not the
responsibility of government but that of the private sector to provide jobs for
the citizens. The role of the government is to create the opportunities for job
creation. There is big difference in the roles. Promising jobless youths jobs is
tantamount to deceitful politicking and our youths are well advised not to look
up to Yar’Adua and our governors to provide them jobs. Rather, they should get
creative and entrepreneurial; taking advantage of whatever government loan
programs such as the SMEES scheme of the OBJ administration and Yar’Adua’s new
micro finance program to provide loans for small scale businesses.
It was once reported that Nigerians have
failed to fully utilize the funds earmarked for the SMEES. A Central Bank report
available to this author buttressed this fact that the SMEES fund is grossly
underutilized by Nigerians across the states. This completely negatives the
claim that Nigerian entrepreneurs have no access to funds. If there are funds
lying idle, un-accessed and unutilized by those who need them the most, there is
something wrong somewhere. It’s either that Nigerians are ignorant of where to
source for funds or their availability thereof.
The bottom line, however, is that the
problem of unemployment is caused not so much by lack of financial capital as it
is by lack of entrepreneurial spirit. If I might ask: how much does it take to
raise a small sized poultry farm, for instance? The last time I checked it does
not require a million naira to do it. On the contrary a few thousands of naira
could do in a backyard farm. The idea is to think big long term but start small.
How many unemployed graduates would “condescend” to raise a poultry farm from
their backyards? I would leave the answer to the reader. But I would leave the
reader with something else that no one seems to appreciate: Nigeria and the
entire African continent are brimming with economic opportunities. I have only
touched on the potential cultural economy in this presentation. What we lack is
the entrepreneurial skills to translate these opportunities to real jobs and
real incomes for our people to improve the lives of our peoples.
Would you take up the challenge or you’re
still pounding the pavements and corridors of government ministries and
departments in search of non-existent jobs? Place your destiny in your own hands
and hire yourself. Believe it or not, salaried employment is not the answer but
the beginning of the problem.
You’ll soon find out!
Wake up Nigeria!!
Franklin Otorofani, Esq. (USA)
Contact:
mudiagaone@yahoo.com
