The State of the Future

The Enugu State Government’s recent full page advert congratulating Chiwetel Ejiofor, the British actor of Nigerian descent, for his BAFTA award was a waste of public funds but it calls for reflection. As with Sade, Seal, or David Alaba, we often try to appropriate the successes of foreigners of Nigerian ancestry in a bid to achieve some vicarious proprietary pride. If Barack Obama’s dad had been Nigerian, the world would never have heard the end of it. Consider another high achiever, Jelani Aliyu, lead designer of General Motors’ first electric car. Could Ejiofor and Aliyu have succeeded in their chosen endeavours if they lived here instead?  It is a pertinent question.

Since the 1980s, we have lamented brain drain without interrogating it seriously.

Talent flows from regions with natural resource-based economies to regions with knowledge economies. Countries with value-added economic activities offer greater scope for self-actualization and upward mobility. Extractive economies end up watching their young literally follow their oil or diamonds to foreign lands. Countries that build their economies around people clearly outperform those that base their economies on natural resources.

The world can be divided into countries oriented towards the past and those oriented towards the future. Talent flows from the former to the latter. In societies of the past, access to opportunity is determined by questions of identity and ancestry. “Where do you come from?” is the most significant question in such places and the answer to it carries bread and butter and life and death implications. In states of the future, access to opportunity is based on the individual’s potential. The operative question is not where he or she comes from but what he or she can become.

In states of the past, citizens are defined by their heritage; in states of the future, they are defined by their aspirations. In the former, ancestry is destiny; in the latter, potential is destiny. States of the past consider shared memory the basic raw material for nation-building. For states of the future, it is a shared destiny. Talent flows from the former to the latter because above all else people want to transcend the limits of social ascription and be masters of their fate.

America’s ascent towards superpower status gained momentum in the early 20^th century when it absorbed talented Jewry fleeing anti-Semitic persecution in totalitarian European societies. These societies were states of the past where rabid identity politics excluded Jews and other minorities. That brain drain resulted in immense cultural, economic and military gains for America. Similarly, after Idi Amin expelled Indians from Uganda, the country’s economy tanked while many of the refugees made for England where they established businesses that boosted British commercial life.

When Martin Luther King declared his hope that his children would one day be judged not by their colour but by the content of their character he was urging America to more fully become a state of the future. Obama frequently says that his personal odyssey as an African-American in the White House could only have been possible in America. Given his Luo ancestry, Obama’s chances of similar success in his native Kenya would have been nil. A bitter joke which made the rounds in Nairobi after Kenya’s bloody 2007 polls held that a Luo could be elected president of America but not of Kenya.

In Nigeria, access to goods like public education and employment is shaped significantly by ethnicity and religion. Institutionalized discrimination in many places disqualifies Nigerians from accessing public goods that are theirs by right. Almost every official document defines us by our ancestry or “state of origin.” “Where do you come from?” is the most frequently asked question. Obviously, a culture of excellence and achievement cannot thrive where ethnocentric mediocrity and identity politics trump meritocracy.

It is more than likely that Ejiofor and Aliyu would not have made it here. At some point, their ancestry would have proven a fatal roadblock to their aspirations as it has for millions of talented Nigerians. They might have been labeled “non-indigenes”, or found to be surplus to acceptable ethnic quotas or in contravention of federal character. But they have been accepted by societies where a person’s true worth is not divined from his bloodline but derived from his gifts and dreams. People do not choose where they are born but they can choose to maximize their potential. Societies that enable them to make those choices without the fear that their heritage is a hindrance will always lead the world. Conversely, nations that define identity as a weapon or weakness minimize both their people and their chances of growth. A nation cannot outgrow the existential constraints on its citizens.

Enterprising Nigerians are daily defying psychic and institutional barriers in pursuit of the better life. The key to unleashing our national genius is to redefine ourselves as a state of the future. This means ending the use of identity as a determinant of access to opportunity and defining ourselves by where we are headed rather than we come from. It also means practically creating a meritocratic environment where people can aspire to their best knowing that their country genuinely rewards excellence. 

To be sure, heritage matters. But what is heritage if not the stock of ancestral dreams and visions? We inherit from our forebears what they made of themselves and their times just as our children will inherit from us what we make of ourselves and our times. What better bequest to our progeny than a society in which their genius rather than their genes will speak for them?

(All images sourced online)

(Published in Thisday, March 9, 2014) 

It's Time to Reimagine Nigeria

 (Text of my speech at the commemorative national centenary edition of the Abuja Literary Society’s Night of the Spoken Word on Friday, January 24, 2014)

The idea at the heart of this nation’s birth was racial redemption. At the beginning of the 20^th century, race was the barrier that divided the world. The colour line split humanity into an allegedly superior white race and a supposedly inferior black race. The generation of agitators that formed the nationalist movement saw Nigeria as an opportunity to register the black man’s presence in the modern world. They wanted to show that Africans could build a pinnacle civilization of their own. Nigeria was to be a showpiece state and an exemplary nation – incontrovertible proof that blacks had something positive to offer humanity.

In order to achieve this, our founding patriarchs had to have a certain kind of faith. They believed in a cosmic sovereign will operating in history. They believed that this being had impelled diverse communities from far-flung places to migrate over the course of centuries and eventually congregate in this space that would one day be christened Nigeria. They also believed that a force greater than Frederick Lugard’s penmanship had ordained the nation’s existence. Consequently, they did not see Nigeria as a whim of the British Empire but as the will of providence.

Now, the patriarchs were usually fractious on many issues but they were of remarkable agreement on one matter: Nigeria was unique and exceptional. Thus Nnamdi Azikiwe declared that Nigeria would be “a country of consequence” and “a force in world affairs.” As he took office as Nigeria’s first indigenous Governor-General in 1960, Azikiwe declared that Nigeria had a duty to “revive the stature of man in Africa and restore the dignity of man in the world.” Adegoke Adelabu described Nigeria’s independence as “a cosmological imperative.” Ahmadu Bello, who at one point famously described the nascent Nigerian nation as a mistake, predicted that with independence she would rise to become “first among equals in Africa.” Chinua Achebe once described Nigeria as a nation favoured by providence and burdened with a historic purpose that no other nation can fulfill

This belief in Nigeria’s manifest destiny energized the nationalist struggle and earned us independence from the British in 1960. This ended the first chapter of our national odyssey.

Our learning curve as a nation since that time has been steep. We have since learned that liberation is different from nation-building. It is one thing to achieve freedom from colonial bondage; it is another thing to seize control of the post-colonial Promised Land. The journey from servitude to sovereignty has been very challenging. We have been through so many traumas – the fall of the First Republic and the abortion of the heady promise of independence, the civil war, the cycle of coups and counter-coups, the oil boom that gave us more wealth than we knew how to usefully spend, the subsequent era of recession and austerity, the age of SAP, the structural adjustment programme, decades of military dictatorship, chronic ethno-religious violence, terrorism – through all of these plagues, we have survived resiliently against the odds. We are still here. And that fact alone gives us the impetus to face the future boldly.

Here are three lessons from our national odyssey that we must take to heart.

1. Nations are not transformed in electoral cycles but in generational cycles. It took a generation of nationalists to earn our independence from colonialists. It took another generation of nationalist pro-democracy activists to confront military despots and win us democracy. And now it falls on another generation, ours, to expand the borders of the freedom that we have now. For democracy means more than just the right to vote. Ultimately, it must mean that everyone has the means to live their dreams and be makers of their own destiny.

For our purposes, a generation is not defined by the coincidence of belonging to the same age bracket. A generation is defined by shared values. So however young or old you are, if you believe that this land can and should be better and will work for its progress, then we belong to the same generation.

2. We live in a society that constantly reminds us of our differences – distinctions of creed, clan, tribe and language. ‘Divide and rule’ was a weapon that the British used against the nationalists and delinquent political elites have long used it against the Nigerian people. But the fact is that from Talata Mafara to Brass, Shendam to Oshogbo, Nigerians want the same things. They want to dwell in peace and raise their children in safety. They believe that no condition is permanent; that tomorrow’s harvest will exceed today’s; and that the stars are ever in their favour. They believe in ‘Live and Let Live.’

We should certainly understand our differences, such as they are, but they need not define us or limit us. There is a meeting of hearts and minds that transcends geography and genetics. The diehard nativists and tribal fundamentalists may insist that blood is thicker than water but a nation is much more than a bloodline. It is as Edward Renan said “a spiritual principle” and “a moral consciousness”. We do not have to be kin to be kindred spirits bearing the burden of a common destiny. The fact that we do not speak the same language does not mean that cannot find solidarity in our suffering.

Throughout our history, our finest moments as a nation have occurred whenever we transcended these so-called differences. All our transformational struggles – the struggle for independence from colonialists and the struggle against military tyranny for democracy – were waged and won by movements that transcended our differences. These movements triumphed by welding northerners and southerners, Muslims and Christians, humanists and agnostics, the faithful and the faithless together in the patriotic agony of shared purpose. This is what we must do in our time.     

3. Thirdly, Nation-building is an act of constant imagination and re-imagination; of constant invention and reinvention. The soul of a nation is forged in the crucible of its imagination. It is poetry and prophecy, prose and propaganda; it is faith and praxis. We are all moved by the majestic proclamation of the U.S. Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men were created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

But when these words were written, these truths were not at all self-evident. The Declaration had fifty-six signatories, all white males. There were no African-Americans. At the time, blacks were considered less than human and fit only for slavery. Indeed, some of the signatories were themselves slave-owners. There were no Native Americans. The Native American civilization had been virtually wiped out. And, of course, there were no women. Now, we can look at this contradiction as an act of high-sounding hypocrisy on the part of those who wrote the declaration. But I suggest it was something more. When those men wrote those words, they were reimagining their nation and reaching for an ideal that could inspire generations after them.

It is possible for us, as a generation, to re-imagine our social, political and economic realities. It is within our powers to declare new possibilities and to reach for new ideals that will shape the next one hundred years. The future will not come until we become it; in our words, creativity and craft, in our activism, in our politics, in the narratives we are producing about ourselves and the examples we are setting for our children. Franz Fanon said that each generation must discover its calling and either betray it or fulfill it. Tonight our calling is clear. One hundred years after Lugard’s amalgamation, fifty-four years after independence and fifteen years into the Fourth Republic, it is time to re-imagine Nigeria. Thank you.      

 

Let My People Think

No intellectually honest person of faith can escape Nigeria’s most pungent social contradiction – the surfeit of religiousity represented by the proliferation of churches, mosques and shrines in the context of intensifying moral degeneracy and social anomie. The last three decades have witnessed the inescapable paradox of religious revivalism and ethical collapse. Public religiousity is at a crescendo while public morality is at a nadir.

To make sense of this paradox, we must begin with the less-than-obvious distinction between rituals and values. That people share the same religious rituals does not mean that they share corresponding religious values. Rituals are the routines built into ceremonial observances while values are convictions with behavioural consequences. Rituals are performed in the controlled environments of our particular shrines while values cannot be choreographed – only lived out in the unscripted course of everyday life in the society. Rituals are generically performed while values are subjectively practised. Thus, nominally affirming the Ten Commandments does not mean that we will not commit theft and murder.

So far, these are fairly run-of-the-mill observations. Religious communities have historically engaged in slavery, racism and apartheid. The age of Victorian prudery in England was also marked by horrendous social injustices. Our Muslim and Christian politicians, while advertizing their spiritual credentials, continue to demonstrate atheistic impunity and prodigiously secular proficiencies in public theft.  

Religionists have long had to manage the tension between their beliefs and their behaviour, their profession and their praxis. The challenge for us in Nigeria is that such tension is no longer discernible. The keen sense of moral contradiction that inspires repentance has disappeared from our theology. A conceptual rupture has separated the world of ritual and doctrine from that of values leading to a religion without moral implication and ethical significance.

Religious rituals are symbolic dramas that should point us towards higher truths and behavioral ideals. However compelling rituals are, if they cannot inspire ethical development, then they are no more than hollow routines and farcical charades. And if this is the case, what is the point of observing these rituals? Put another way, what is the use of organized religion when it fails to deliver on its most fundamental proposition – that of transforming personal and social conduct?

                    

Popular religious discourse, such as it is, focuses on doctrinal hairsplitting about pious irrelevancies which are more likely to raise sectarian and denominational hackles than to pave a path towards a just and humane society. The faithful are more likely to endure bitter disputation over whose moon sightings are more authoritative, the propriety of Muslims offering Christmas greetings to Christians or the proper age of baptism, than to reach a consensus against social evils such as corruption.    

Nigeria’s ardent religiousity is belied by its flagrant deficit in the ethics of civilizational progress. Basic principles such as the sanctity of human life and a regard for the common good remain contestable. What compounds our ethical crisis is the fact that oil wealth has given us the means to purchase the latest tools, toys and trinkets of modernity. We can afford state-of-the-art phones and automobiles but in terms of the civilized values that define societal progress, it is far from clear that we have migrated into the 20^th century much less the 21^st.

The religious establishment has failed to inspire the sort of hunger for righteousness and justice that has historically decommissioned sociopolitical evils, preferring instead to preach a theology of narcissistic consumerism and to forge an accord with errant power elites. Thus, a society rife with Forbes-listed billionaire clergymen is also plagued by astronomical levels of child mortality, destitution, and diseases that humanity acquired the means to conquer in the 19^th century. Faith as ethical consciousness, empathic awareness and social conscience is a minority, even, contrarian tendency on our shores.   

Politics and religion have unsurprisingly become mutually reinforcing growth industries in recent decades. Were it not for spiraling youth unemployment, it is certain that our camps and crusade grounds would be less crowded by desperate Nigerians seeking by means of supplication the things that should accrue to them as citizens. Extremist clerics would definitely have less cannon fodder for their unholy missions. If our hospitals functioned optimally, fewer Nigerians would throng churches in search of miracle healings. If life was not so uncertain, pastors would not be acting as modern-day oracles divining the future for anxious followers. If Nigerians had access to social security institutions, they would assuredly be less amenable to the notion of God as a celestial ATM and allied deceptions.

Politicians create the material conditions for religious profiteers to thrive. The political elite simulate “hell” through their derelict management of dysfunctional institutions enabling uncertainty and systemic chaos to consume lives and livelihoods. The religious elite provide politicians with an exculpatory narrative that posits official failures as acts of God or as plagues of the devil from which the people must seek spiritual deliverance. Religionists are enjoined to pray for those that prey on them. The religious elite also serve to defuse the civic outrage necessary to force institutional changes by converting it into a sterile rage directed at the devil rather than at his earthly proxies. If the devil’s work is to steal, kill and destroy, then his earthly legions, readily identifiable by their larcenies, require prosecution and punishment, not prayer.

Religion can be a force for good; its transformative potential is undeniable. But it has to be rescued from the charlatans whose shenanigans could provoke the next generation unto nihilism. Our progress as a society now requires a measure of iconoclasm and irreverence. We have to reclaim our senses and spirits from the enchantments of compromised pulpits and reject propaganda dressed as prophecy. We need an intelligent spirituality that posits faith and reason as complementary rather than contradictory. A new spirit of inquiry must reinvigorate our faith, enabling us to discern phony epiphanies and question contrived “revelations”. This will necessarily involve the figurative dismantling of the shrines, temples and “anointed” personas that garrison the establishment from democratic scrutiny. Judgment must begin from the house of God. 




(All images sourced online)