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A Misguided Engagement Of The Biafra Issue-jide Ajani by frankdoz1: 12:45pm On Dec 06, 2015 |
Deal with it: He may have taken more than three months
but President Muhammadu Buhari would need to deal
with the growing discontent coming from the South-
East. His direct silence or, better put, seeming
indifference, or both, has, one way or the other,
contributed, in no small measure, to the spark that has
happened on members and leaders of the Indigenous
People of Biafra, IPOB – and the Movement for the
Sovereign State of Biafra, MASSOB, riddled by in-
fighting, is playing catch up with relevance.
But beyond the noise, needless braggadocio of the
Nigerian state and somewhat uncreative approach to
dealing with the agitation, is the lack of a clear
understanding of why nations fail.
Every nation seeks the total sum of good for its people.
One of the ways this is done is by unlocking the creative
potentials. Since after the civil war, what ordinarily
ought to have been a Marshall Plan of sorts for the
South-East was never engaged. Worse still, some self-
appointed leaders of the zone have engaged in serial
short-changing of their people by placing the pursuit of
filthy lucre above the welfare of Igbos. Until the
destruction wrought by the war in the North-East, some
parts of the South-East looked and still look like fresh
topography of war owing to neglect, un-development
and underdevelopment. When there is inequality, it
breeds poverty. Poverty in turn breeds instability of
many forms. Instability breeds further poverty. This is
not just because it has to do with the Igbo nation. It is
the way the Nigerian state is structured for development
by leaders whose parochial appreciation of governance
is best underscored by the failed leadership and wasted
opportunities of the last 16years.
Whatever grievances the Igbos are crying about today,
many parts of Nigeria typify that neglect.
But there is a nexus between good governance, rule of
law and prosperity. Which is why good governance,
justice and equality would always be a sine-quanon for
development and prosperity.
The following, excerpted from the book, WHY NATIONS
FAIL, by Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson,
creates the linkage between Africans, laziness,
despotism, good governance and prosperity:
“One widely accepted theory of the causes of world
inequality is the geography hypothesis, which claims
that the great divide between rich and poor countries is
created by geographical differences. Many poor
countries, such as those of Africa, Central America and
South Asia are between the tropics of Cancer and
Capricorn. Rich nations in contrast, tend to be in
temperate latitudes. This geographic concentration of
poverty and prosperity gives a superficial appeal to the
geography hypothesis, which is the starting point of the
theories and views of many social scientists and
pundits alike. But this doesn’t make it any less wrong.
President Muhammadu Buhari
President Muhammadu Buhari
“As early as the late eighteenth century, the great
French political philosopher Montesquieu noted the
geographic concentration of prosperity and poverty, and
proposed an explanation for it. He argued that people in
tropical climates tended to be lazy and to lack
inquisitiveness. As a consequence, they didn’t work
hard and were not innovative, and this was the reason
why they were poor. Montesquieu also speculated that
lazy people tended to be ruled by despots, suggesting
that a tropical location could explain not just poverty
but also some of the political phenomena associated
with economic failure, such as dictatorship.
“The theory that hot countries are intrinsically poor,
though contradicted by the recent rapid economic
advance of countries such as Singapore, Malaysia, and
Botswana, is still forcefully advocated by some, such as
the economist Jeffrey Sachs. The modern version of this
view emphasises not the direct effects of climate on
work effort or thought processes, but two additional
arguments first, that tropical diseases, particularly
malaria, have very adverse consequences for health and
therefore labour productivity, and second that tropical
soils do not allow for productive agriculture. The
conclusion, though, is the same temperate climates have
a relative advantage over tropical and semitropical
areas.
World inequality, however, cannot be explained by
climate or diseases, or any version of the geography
hypothesis. Just think of Nogales. What separates the
two parts is not climate, geography or disease
environment, but the US-Mexico border.
“If the geography hypothesis cannot explain differences
between the north and south of Nogales, or North and
South Korea, or those between East and West Germany
before the fall of the Berlin Wall could it still be a useful
theory for explaining differences between North and
South America? Between Europe and Africa? Simply,
no….
‘So Close and yet so different: The Economics of the Rio
Grande’
“The city of Nogales is cut in half by a fence. If you
stand by it and look north, you will see Nogales,
Arizona, located in Santa Cruz County. The income of
the average household there is about $30,000 a year.
Most teenagers are in school, and the majority of the
adults are high school graduates. Despite all the
arguments people make about how deficient the US
health care system is, the population is relatively
healthy, with high life expectancy by global standards.
Many of the residents are above age sixty five and have
access to Medicare It’s just one of the many services
the government provides that most take for granted,
such as electricity, telephones a sewage system, public
health, a road network linking them to other clues in the
area and to the rest of the United States, and last but
not least, law and order. The people of Nogales, Arizona,
can go about their daily activities without fear for life or
safety and not constantly afraid of theft, expropriation,
or other things that might jeopardize their investments
in their businesses and houses. Equally important, the
residents of Nogales, Arizona, take it for granted that,
with all its inefficiency and occasional corruption, the
government is their agent. They can vote to replace their
mayor, congressmen, and senators, they vote in the
presidential elections that determine who will lead their
country. Democracy is second nature to them.
“Life south of the fence, just a few feet away, is rather
different. While the residents of Nogales, Sonora, live in
a relatively prosperous part of Mexico, the income of the
average household there is about one third that is
Nogales, Arizona. Most adults in Nogales, Sonora, do
not have a high school degree, and many teenagers are
not in school. Mothers have to worry about high rates of
infant mortality. Poor public health conditions mean it’s
no surprise that the residents of Nogales, Sonora, do
not live as long as their northern n3eighbours. They also
don\t have access to many public amenities. Roads are
in bad condition south of the fence. Law and order is in
worse condition. Crime is high, and opening a business
is a risky activity. Not only do you risk robbery, but
getting all the permissions and greasing all the palms
just to open is to easy endeavour. Residents of Nogales,
Sonora, live with politicians corruption and ineptitude
every day.
Nnamdi Kanu
Nnamdi Kanu
In contrast to their northern neighbours, democracy is a
very recent experience for them. Until the political
reforms of 2000, Nogales, Sonora, just like the rest of
Mexico, was under the corrupt control of the
Institutional Revolutionary Party, or Partido
Revolucionario Institucional (PRI).
“How could the two halves of what is essentially the
same city be so different? There is no difference in
geography, climate, or the types of diseases prevalent in
the area, since germs do not face any restrictions
crossing back and forth between the United States and
Mexico. Of course, health conditions are very different,
but this has nothing to do with the disease
environment; it is because the people south of the
border live with inferior sanitary conditions and lack
decent health care….”
In the face of the tenacity of the average Igbo, his
creative instincts – which, though, are not in short
supply in other parts of the country – his
industriousness and such other attributes that form
good ingredients for national development, would the
Nigerian state not be the better were it to tap into this
mass of humanity. It is about creating the right
conditions. And it is about effective engagement and not
opening of fire on innocent civilians. Lives are already
lost; and many more may be lost if this wrong-headed
approach is followed by the authorities.
Now, even those who dismissed Nnamdi Kanu, leader of
IPOB, as a joke, are now showing empathy – a man who
was not reckoned with before has suddenly become a
hero for a people.
His anti-Nigeria statements signpost him as lacking
courtesy or out rightly indecent or both, but he now
appears to be making sense by describing Nigeria as a
zoo, one where police would shoot at innocent civilians
with live bullets. In retrospect, how did Boko Haram
become what it is today? God forbid anything happens
to Kanu while he is in government custody (as was the
case with Muhammed Yusuf), what does this
administration think would happen? |
Re: A Misguided Engagement Of The Biafra Issue-jide Ajani by rolexsms(m): 12:47pm On Dec 06, 2015 |
If u ask me eeeeee...na who I go ask |
Re: A Misguided Engagement Of The Biafra Issue-jide Ajani by Nobody: 1:13pm On Dec 06, 2015 |
Nice punch.... |
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