The Headmaster and the Senior Prefects

About four weeks ago, a meeting of Turkish-African business men held in Ankara, Turkey. Nigeria was represented at the meeting by a delegation led by the FCT Minister Dr. Aliyu Modibbo Umar.

I do not know when it started but for some time now I have been reading about Shino-Africa Summit which usually holds in Beijing, China. Africa leaders are ‘summoned’ (do not say invited) in their hundreds to attend.

Similarly, India recently woke up to the reality that as an emerging super power, it must not be left out in the game of summoning African leaders to her capital to lecture them on good governance and decent behaviour and promise them loads of aids(Acquired Import Dependency Syndrome). And so not too long ago, India also convoked an Indo-African summit in Delhi.

advertisement

For years, there has been Franco-African Summit where France presides over a meeting with her former (?) colonies. There is also a meeting of Lusophone countries where former Portuguese colonies gather under the overlordship of Portugal.

The most nauseating for me is of course the Commonwealth meeting where about fifty nations in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean and the Pacific gather, I think, every two years to acknowledge that they are still loyal vassals to Great Britain. I am particularly pained by this meeting because my own country Nigeria, which ought to be a proud, independent and prosperous state, is a part of this humiliating and degrading assembly. For me any self-respecting nation should feel ashamed of her colonial past and ought to do everything reasonable to distance herself from any gesture that even remotely hints that she is still subservient to her former colonial overlord.

Surely, the old colonial masters-colonies’ meetings that have been in existence since the 60s and the new form of paternalistic meetings going on now between emerging powers and African leaders, give indication that a new scramble is on for the minds and resources of Africa. Emerging powers who regret that they were not strong enough in the 18 th and 19 th centuries to grab a piece of the African pie are anxious to wield undue influence over a continent that has suffered, and is still, suffering serial rape from predatory colonialists, clever neo-colonialists, indigenous predators in the clothes of leaders and rapacious multinational corporations.

What is amazing to me is that our leaders seem oblivious to this new scramble for Africa and the resources God has given her. As a self-respecting African, I do not find this new approach to the recolonisation of Africa funny at all. I do not relish the idea of African leaders being summoned like school children to the morning assembly ground to hear what instructions the HM has for the day.

Self-respecting leaders attend bilateral or multilateral meetings aimed at advancing the cause or interest of their countries. But the new type of meetings which African leaders are made to participate in can never be described as meetings where equals congregate to find solutions to their common problems. Rather in the new type of skewed meetings I am seeing with much consternation these days is that one country that thinks she has arrived as a major global player will summon all African leaders to go and face that country in his terrain. I find this strange. It also looks very demeaning to me.

At those meetings you will see one lone Caucasian or Asiatic looking man addressing a sea of black faces who listen to him with rapt attention. When he finishes his address, these numerous black faces will clap enthusiastically for him in the manner school prefects show undisguised admiration and deference to their headmaster.

As I said a while ago, I feel even more humiliated in the particular case of the Commonwealth. Like all others of such congregations, this organisation does not pretend to be democratic at all nor does it ever pretend that it is an assembly of equals: it has since its creation been led by one housewife who is called the Queen of England. To rub salt into my injured self pride, this housewife is most contemptuous of the mostly castrated males who usually attend the meeting which she chairs. She does not condescend to shake her naked hands with these senior prefects for possible fear that they will hurt her soft, delicate palms with their rough, callused, workmen hands. So she always takes the pains to wear a glove before she shakes hands with these men! We take this insult every two years. For some of our African leaders (sorry, senior prefects), it is a matter of great pride and accomplishment to be in the company of those lined up to attend meeting with this house wife.

Why is my dear country Nigeria still a member of the Commonwealth? Why is this organisation always chaired by a Briton without any talk about democracy? Why must this Briton be someone’s housewife? Do not our African leaders many of whom are polygamous men have their own wives who are beautiful enough and intelligent enough to be ceremonial head of this organisation?

What is Britain? This is a tiny island nation of about fifty million people. But for oil found at the North Sea, Britain should be of no real consequence. In fact, apart from a history of plunder and theft of other people’s wealth and of course the North Sea oil, Britain should be a dirt poor land surrounded by immense body of water.

advertisement

Yet because of guile on their part and extreme folly on our own, Nigeria, a nation of 140 million people with unquantifiable wealth, plays not second, but a hundred fiddle to Britain. Yet we have learnt to live with this for over a hundred years.

Our trouble is simple; we lack wisdom. Above all, we lack a sense of dignity. Colonialism and now neo colonialism have robbed us of the ability to think aright and a sense of self- worth. Nothing fills some of us with a greater sense of revulsion than our being a member of the commonwealth .When you ask why we should continue to be members of the Commonwealth and some will say it is because we have shared historical ties. No one seems to bother about the nature of such historical ties or shared common heritage which are not in any way edifying at all. How do former slaves maintain any equal, egalitarian and just ties with their former owner?

If you dare to suggest to some of our leaders that we should break free from the Commonwealth and such other neo-colonial organisations that rub us of our sovereignty and dignity and chart a more self-respecting course in our quest for development, some will shout you down and roll out their tongues to lecture you on the benefits we derive from such organisations.

Our leaders and diplomats surely relish attending such meetings because it gives them the photo-opportunity to be captured in living colours rubbing shoulders with the so-called world leaders. More importantly, it gives them a chance to earn foreign currency in form of estacode and to steal away for a few days from the chaos and poverty they nourish at home. Dare not suggest to them that it is very demeaning of us and our nations to be summoned to attend such meetings. They will roll their diplomatic tongues and positively insult you telling you you are a diplomatic illiterate. Yes, I do not know much about diplomacy but when I see an attempt to insult me and my country, I need no diplomat to tell me so.

I do not know how other Nigerians feel about all this but as for me and my household we feel so ashamed seeing our leaders being treated like some glorified school prefects and our nations being treated like some prefecturates of some metropolitan powers. It greatly injures my sense of self-pride. As a people, do we not have some pride left?

The summits are supposed to provide a platform for how best to provide economic aid to Africa. Must we continue to live on aid? Our leaders should continue to delude themselves, living in a fool’s paradise hoping that some do-gooding foreigners will load a cargo ship with the men and material we need to develop, come and berth at our harbours and off-load them for our benefits. No such thing will happen. Our fate lies squarely in our hands.

By Idang Alibi

Mr. Idang Alibi is an Abuja-based journalist.