Nigeria - The
Blackman's Burden
By
Bolaji Akinyemi
Text of the public lecture, Nigeria: The Blackman's Burden?
delivered February 24, 2005 by former External Affairs Minister Prof. Bolaji
Akinyemi at the Nigeria Institute of International Affairs (NIIA).The lecture
was organised by the Centre for Black and African Arts and Civilisation to mark
the 28th Anniversary of Festac and the 2005 Black History month.
February 24, 2005
In 1969, I defended a doctoral
dissertation at Oxford University titled “Pax Nigeriana: Nigerian Attitudes To
African Issues”. In adopting the concept of “Pax Nigeriana”, I acknowledged the
debt to but also distanced it from the concept of a Pax Romana or Pax Britannia.
I wrote in that thesis “The concept of Pax Romana or Pax Britannia was that of
peace imposed on others by Rome or Britain in their respective empires. Hence,
the ancient usage of this concept has implied the imposition of a certain
standard of behaviuor by one state on the conquered people of another state.
However, the concept of a Pax Nigeriana does not imply the imposition of a
Nigerian peace on Non-Nigerians. To the extent that between 1958 and 1966,
African states, without European intervention, were searching for norms of
behaviour to guarantee peaceful relations among themselves, these years were a
formative period. To the extent that this search developed into a struggle
between two sets of political principles identified with Nigeria and Ghana
respectively, and to the extent that it was the political principles that were
identified with Nigeria that were adopted by African states and embodied in the
OAU charter, a Pax Nigeriana in Africa can be spoken of”
In a speech delivered on October 19th 2004, to mark the celebration of the 70th
birthday of General Yakubu Gowon, Professor Ali Mazrui used precisely the same
words “Pax Nigeriana” to describe leadership aspects of Nigerian Foreign Policy.
He, in fact, titled that section of his speech “Towards a Pax Nigeriana.” He
argued his justification of the adoption of the concept thus “almost from
independence, Nigeria’s exceptionalism included a potential leadership role to
keep the peace in West Africa – a kind of Pax Nigeriana”. I will return later
to the convergence and divergence in the two expositions of this concept.
Even before the independence of Nigeria, there had grown up within the domestic
political intellectual class and the international foreign policy elite a belief
in the manifest destiny of Nigeria to play a mega role in world affairs. At a
time when the Nigerian political class should still be focusing almost
exclusively on seeing the struggle for independence to a successful conclusion,
foreign affairs had already started to carve a niche for itself in the
consciousness of the Nigerian elite. As early as 1953, Chief Obafemi Awolowo
had delivered a lecture to the 1953 Action Group Summer School Lectures titled
“Imperialist Agents in Dependent Countries.” In 1958, one of the publications
credited to Awolowo was titled “A Foreign Policy for independent Nigeria.” In
October 1959, Eme Awa was writing in the Daily Times on Nigeria’s Foreign
Policy: The Need For A Third Force”. Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe in 1960, the very year
of independence, had credited to him an article titled “Nigeria in World
Politics”, in Presence Africaine. Dr. Tunji Otegbeye published “Foreign Policy
for Nigeria: Positive Neutralism” in July 1959 in the Daily Times. In August
1960, Ebenezer Williams wrote “Nigeria’s Foreign Policy: This is a weapon of
Victory”. Nigeria was not at war, and this was a curious juxtaposition of words
– defining foreign policy in terms of “weapon” and “victory” – and this, even
before independence. Ebenezer Williams was not alone in this aggressive (not
siege) mentality. It was shared with the articulate political class that
included politicians, labour, students, media etc. This was the same class that
was mobilised to defeat the Anglo-Nigerian Defence Pact. It was not expecting
Nigeria to be attacked but it was expecting the foreign policy arena to be a
battle field (not in the literal sense) and it was expecting Nigeria to emerge
as the leader of Africa. That was what the battle was all about.
The flavour of these publications reflects a consciousness among the Nigerian
elite of an acceptance that Nigeria had a crucial role to play in world affairs
in the post-independence period. What motivated or spurred this consciousness in
the first place? There were four operational factors that under-laid this
consciousness. The first factor was the early independence of Ghana which became
what was perceived as a genuine African voice on the global stage. This was in
spite of the fact that Liberia and Ethiopia had been independent African states
much, much, earlier than Ghana. But neither the Emperor of Ethiopia, Haile
Sellasie, nor the President of Liberia, William Tubman, had the flair or vision
of Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana. Nigeria felt that this was an affront to the role
which should have been reserved for Nigeria because of her mega size.
The second factor was the activist foreign policy pursued by Ghana. She
practically hit the ground running on cold war issues and on Pan-Africanism. If
Ghana had achieved independence and kept out of the international limelight,
Nigeria would not have felt the urge to stake out foreign policy positions long
before independence. But Nkrumah was not the quiet one. He was the stuff that
revolutionaries were made off. As if responding to Dylan Thomas burgle command
“do not go gentle into that good night,…rage, rage against the dying of the
light”, Nkrumah came out raging against the international system. He teamed up
with Pandit Nehru of India, Abdel Gammal Nasser of Egypt, and Sukarno of
Indonesia in forming the Non-aligned Movement. On the African continent, he
launched a blitzrick of ideas and institutions, summoning a Conference of
Independent African States (1958) and an All African Peoples’ Conference
(1958). The third factor was the existence of the cold war which led to a
competition between the United States and the Soviet Union for control and
influence in all parts of the world. This competition meant that the Soviet
Union and the United States were sensitive to political developments in Africa
and did not always wait for independence before seeking to acquire friends.
Finally, the fourth factor was and still what I will call the mega syndrome of
Nigeria in Africa. If Nigeria had been a mini-state, it is an open debate
whether she would have been sensitive to and irritated by the early independence
of Ghana. A classic illustration of this irritation was when the Daily Service
denounced Nkrumah as “cocky” and “swollen headed” for not consulting Nigeria
before summoning the Conference of Independent African States. It described
Nkrumah’s attitude to Nigeria as “gratuitous contempt” and “unwarranted insult”.
The mega syndrome of Nigeria is a phenomenon which Nigerians, Africans and the
international community has had to confront. The physical size of Nigeria, the
state of her economy and the size of her population vis of vis other countries
in Africa have bred an expectation of a leadership and activist role for Nigeria
in the global system, a state with a manifest destiny to become a Black Power.
There is a critical question which raises itself? Did the consciousness of this
mega syndrome originate with Nigerians or was it externally bred and
trans-planted back into Nigeria? In other words, was the concept of the mega
syndrome authoctonous or not?
Under normal circumstances, a political elite from a colony focussing on foreign
policy would have been laughed off the stage with derision and contempt. But the
controllers of the international system were already alarmed at the moves that
Ghana was making internationally and the new international status she was
acquiring that it would only be natural and logical to speculate that they would
be shopping for a counterfoil to Ghana. Even though there is no evidence to
support this, I wouldn’t be surprised if in some foreign quarters, there was no
regret that Nigeria was not granted independence before Ghana. In other words,
in official foreign quarters and in the foreign media, the idea of a
mega-Nigeria playing a mega role was actively canvassed.
But does this mean that Nigerians themselves did not develop a dose of
megalomania? Irrespective of party allegiances, there was especially in Southern
Nigeria a highly articulate elite that was conscious of and familiar with the
developments in the ideology of Pan-Africanism. They were aware of and some of
them had attended the Pan-African Congress in the United Kingdom. Some of them
had studied in the United States and attended Lincoln University, the hotbed of
Afro-American nationalism. Nnamidi Azikiwe was familiar with the history of
Liberia and in tune with the developments in that country. Through his
newspaper, the West African Pilot, his readership was exposed to the evangelism
of Pan-Africanism. But this could not have automatically translated into the
mega syndrome. Nigerians would have had to be made of a different hue of the
human genes if they themselves could not fathom what advantage to derive from
the peculiarities of the natural resources of their country. Nigerians were
aware of their size and the advantage this size could confer.
But I must introduce a caveat here. As a minister, I once had the occasion to
deliver the 1986 Gold Medal Lecture ( I wonder what has happened to the series)
and I identified certain self-imposed factors which were inimical to the mega
syndrome and which Nigerians need to liberate themselves from. I said at that
time “I wish to refer to certain freedoms which are essential and crucial to
credibility and balance in our foreign policy. These freedoms are:-
Freedom from the Right – Rightist tendencies have often manifested
themselves in the advocacy that whatever is good and desirable to
strengthen economic relations with Western Industrialised Countries is in
Nigeria’s interest. Their position is that every aspect of our economic
relations is of necessity beneficial to Nigeria! Their call that Nigeria
should always design political policies that will reinforce the present
state of our economic relations with the West ignores the fact that that
there might be need to design and implement political policies that will
seek to rectify the pressure which economic relations with the West
currently impose on us. My view is that the questions which Nigeria should
always ask are: What is the benefit of a given association to Nigeria? Does
a given relationship enhance or diminish our freedom of action?
Freedom from the Left – by which it is meant that the success of our foreign
policy pronouncements or lack of it should not be judged whether such a
policy or policies pursued by government is supportive of left-wing
governments in any part of the world. Nigeria is not a left-wing or a
socialist state. Therefore, we have no business seeking an automatic
congruence of views with left-wing regimes all over the world…
Freedom from being apologetic about our size. Yes, Nigeria is the most
populous black nation in the world. Why should we be apologetic about it?
The tendency of our being apologetic has often led us to seek to please
other nations and, in the process, to displease ourselves. Why do we want to
be loved by others? My position, which I have stated earlier on, is that we
should not seek to be loved but to be respected. Freedom from sentiments of
a historical religious or cultural nature – by which I mean that our foreign
policy pronouncements, actions and initiatives should not be dictated by
emotional attachments to a particular viewpoint because of historical,
religious or cultural affinity with peoples of other countries…”
Obviously some of these views are no longer relevant due to developments in the
international system. But the point of drawing attention to these comments is
that the acceptance of a mega syndrome by Nigerians did not translate into
convergence in what policies should be pursued to actualise it. In fact from the
quotation above it is evident that the advantages to be derived from the
syndrome could have pushed Nigeria in several directions.
Irrespective of the source of the syndrome, whether it was home grown or not,
whether it was sponsored from external sources or not, nothing showed the fact
that there were Nigerians who felt the syndrome should be used to enhance the
status of the black race than the views which the present President of Nigeria,
Chief Olusegun Obasanjo ascribed to Major Chukwuma Kaduna Nzeogwu, that
enigmatic figure of January 15, 1966. in his seminal book simply titled
“NZEOGWU” , Obasanjo wrote:
“Chukwuma had a dream of a great Nigeria that is a force to reckon with in the
world, not through ineffective political rhetoric but through purposeful and
effective action…He dreamt of a nation where social justice and the economic
interest of its citizens will not be subjugated to foreign control and
manipulation. He believed in the ability of the Blackman…. Chukwuma, as had been
pointed out, was a well read individual. He was familiar with Marx, Giap and
Mustafa Kemal – the Attaturk. He probably saw himself in the mould of the
latter, a kind of Nigerian military hero on horseback, a moderniser, a
nationalist, and a Nigerian bent on carving a niche for the Blackman in world
history, an idealist who wanted to put the Blackman on the same pedestal as all
other races. He saw Nigeria as pivotal to his dreams. In order for Nigeria to
realise what seemed to him a divine if not self-evident mission, he had to clear
the augean stable…”
Naturally, this is a loaded passage that one can fill a whole book
deconstructing. The only two issues I wish to draw attention to are firstly, no
one can accuse Nzeogwu of being a character that is subject to manipulation.
Secondly, there is manifested here a recurrence of that theme of “manifest
destiny” characterised here as “divine destiny”. Obviously, there is sufficient
evidence here of a domestic fertile ground for a home grown philosophy of a mega
Nigeria and its relationship to the emancipation of the Black race.
This is not to imply that aspects of this philosophy did not only surface abroad
but that attempts were made to transplant its overseas variant back into
Nigeria. As earlier canvassed, the controllers of the international system,
panicked by the radicalism of Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, sought for and found in
Nigeria a counterfoil to deflect Ghana. If this is a correct reading, then there
is no doubt that to embrace the Nzeogwu model of mega Nigeria would in fact have
been counterproductive as it would only have created a bigger Nkrumah with a
bigger capability. To that extent, the variety of mega Nigeria that would be
encouraged from overseas would be for the limited purpose of blunting Nkrumah’s
vision for Africa and the Black race.
Another evidence of the recurrent theme of the mega Nigeria and its nexus with
the Black race is to be found on the platform on which this lecture is being
delivered. This lecture is one of the activities commemorating the 28th
Anniversary of FESTAC and the Black History Month. FESTAC in English translates
in full into World Black and African Festival of Arts and Culture. Even though
Senegal was the first to host the first Festival, there must have been more than
a symbolism in the fact that Nigeria was declared the “star country” at the
Dakar Festival and was asked to host the Second World Festival, after which none
has been held. That FESTAC was not just a cultural event simplicter was
propagated by the Arts people themselves. Writing in 1981 in the Survey of
Nigerian Affairs, 1976-77, Femi Osofisan, a major participant at the Festival,
wrote an article, titled “FESTAC and the heritage of ambiguity” in which he
commented as follows “secondly, there was also in the choice of Nigeria as host
a tacit recognition of the country’s symbolic role as the ancestral home of the
blacks in diaspora… thus, for the blacks outside, coming to Nigeria was like a
pilgrimage back through history and suffering to the replenishing fountains of
their and our ancestry”. Ola Balogun, another participant at the Festival,
delivered a lecture at the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs in 1986
titled “Cultural Policies as an Instrument of External Image-Building: A
blueprint for Nigeria .” In it, Balogun commented “in other words, given our
country’s large population, our internal dynamism, and our considerable economic
and military potential, Nigeria will inevitably have to assume the role of Black
Africa’s leading nation. It is also quite obvious that Nigeria’s potential
leadership role in Africa is not only a duty that we owe to the rest of Africa
and to the black race in general, but also a natural prolongation of our own
quest for a coherent national outlook.”
On official level, Nigeria sought to concretise its nexus with the world Black
Community by announcing the “establishment of a Museum of Black and African Arts
and Civilisation…the Nigerian Federal Government pledges further its willingness
to subscribe to any such efforts based in institutions of higher learning or
outside, in the belief that a proliferation of Centres of African Studies all
over the world, is one of the firm guarantees that a break-through will be made
in giving a sound basis for what we are trying to achieve in FESTAC ‘77”.
In a book titled Nigerian Cultural Diplomacy in the Twentieth Century,(2002),
Dr. Jide Timothy Asobele argued thus: “consequently, we should set up Cultural
Centres: in Brazil for example, to cater for the Africans in the Diaspora in
that great country. Slave trade, colonial transatlantic trade led to the
physical deportation of millions of Africans to Brazil and the Caribbean
Islands. …The cultural presence of Nigeria in the United States is a diplomatic
imperative. Nigeria has an interest in influencing America politically,
economically and culturally… the presence in America of a large Black and
African population makes Nigerian cultural presence in the USA a diplomatic
imperative”
This recognition of the nexus between the mega syndrome and the Black Race whose
exposition I have dated back to the 1960s can perhaps explain my bewilderment at
the appearance of a question mark as part of the title of my lecture. The
question mark signifies an uncertainty on my part as regards the validity of the
nexus. I entertain no uncertainty on the mental, philosophical and intellectual
levels. Therefore there is no need for the question mark and there was none when
I submitted the topic.
At the beginning of this lecture, I drew attention to the adoption of the same
term by Professor Ali Mazrui and I. While I had used the term Pax-Nigeriana in
1969, Professor Mazrui used the same term in Abuja in October 2004.
There was both a convergence and a divergence in both usages. When I used the
term in 1969, I anchored the concept on the contestation of ideology between the
radical and the conservative wings of Pan-Africanism. Even though the military
components of Nigerian foreign policy had been evident in the Congo and
Tangayikan experiences, my case was that these military components were not
central to the evolution of the Pax Nigeriana. The military operation in Congo
was not at Nigeria’s initiative and was carried out under the United Nations
operations, while the military operation in Tangayika was carried out at the
express invitation of Mwalimu Julius Nyerere, the President of that country. In
other words, even though both operations were evidence of Nigeria’s capability,
they were not projections of Nigerian power in the sense of unilateral
enforcement actions of the type later undertaking in Sierra Leone and Liberia.
In the sense that my own conception of the mega syndrome was located in the
struggle for which ideas and which institutions would embody Pan-Africanism in
post-independence Africa, I was able to locate my concept of Pax-Nigeriana
firmly in Africa.
Ali Mazrui located his own concept in West Africa and firmly grounded it in
the use of military might to project Nigerian power and interest across its
borders. He argued “ on the evidence so far, Pax Nigeriana –keeping the peace in
West Africa under Nigeria’s auspices – is better fulfilled when Nigeria is under
military rule than when it is under the politicians. The most spectacular
exercises in Pax Nigeriana occurred in the 1990s when Nigeria led the forces of
ECOWAS (the ECOMOG troops) into Liberia first to restore peace and then to help
re-start electoral democracy. The final result were elections in 1997, which
returned Charles Taylor to power for a while…In 1998, Nigeria more unilaterally
took on the army in Sierra Leone, which had overthrown the elected government of
the President. Nigeria reversed the military takeover and restored the
constitutionally elected government…It is arguable that one of the first
exercises of Pax Nigeriana occurred in Tanazania in 1964… it is arguable that
the beginnings of Pax Nigerianna lie in a voluntary partnership between Nigeria
and what later became Tanzania.”
As Professor Ali Mazrui struggled to grapple with this concept of a
Pax-Nigeriana, he ended up producing the evidence of an event which happened way
across the continent which involved Nigeria to justify a concept which he had
originally sought to limit to West Africa. To that extent, what originally
looked like a divergence between my exposition of the concept and Ali Mazrui’s
exposition have been resolved.
In any case, apart from the case of the United States, the only mega global
power left on the scene, the global role of other actors in the international
system is anchored on their regional capabilities. They are basically regional
enforcers, medium rather than global powers. But recognition of the regional
capability by others leads to continental and international status.
Recent events in both West Africa and North Africa have further reinforced the
validity of the Pax-Nigeriana. In 1998, Liberia again exploded into a murderous
rage of bloodletting. Long after the international community had decided that
the government of Charles Taylor had to leave and that this could only be done
at the point of external military enforcement, the United States, the former
global enforcer in Liberia moved a marine flottila and anchored off the shores
of Liberia and refused to go any further until Nigerian troops moved in to
re-establish law and order. The United States marine put in a brief appearance
for forms sake and left the military balls in Nigerian hands. Presumably, this
validates Ali Mazrui’s original limitation of the concept of Pax-Nigerianna. But
the Nigerian leadership of the limited African Union military exercise in the
Darfor region of Sudan locates the manifestation of the mega syndrome just
outside West Africa. Theory and reality meets in the genocide fields of Darfor.
Apart from Darfor, events in Sao Tome and Principe and perhaps in Togo show that
the vitality of the concept is still very much in evidence. There is no doubt
that a clear and present readiness to send in troops to overturn the coup d’etat
in Sao Tome and Principe was conveyed to the coupists and this was responsible
for the coupists surrendering power back to the constitutional authorities. In
Togo, events are still unfolding. But it is instructive that spokesmen for the
Nigerian authorities have refused to rule out publicly the use of force to
resolve the situation. The Nigerian National Assembly had already embraced the
mega syndrome by calling on President Obasanjo to use force to roll back what
one can only describe as a clever coup by the back door.
Karl Max must have had Togo in mind when he wrote in The Eighteenth Brumaire of
Louis Napoleone, “ Hegel says somewhere that all great events and personalities
in world history reappear in one fashion or another. He forgot to add: the first
time as tragedy, the second as farce”. In 1963, when President Sylvanus Olympio
was assssinated, Jaja Wachuku, the Nigerian Foreign Minister in condemning the
action added that for security reasons, Nigerian boundary was the Togo-Ghana
boundary. He was roundly condemned. Looks like he was just speaking forty years
out of turn. He would be pleased to know that Nigeria had caught up with him.
And that should also be a lesson to those who think that Nigerian foreign policy
started and ended up with them.
There are three other examples which I wish to draw on to show not only how
widespread is the acceptance of the concept of the mega syndrome but also how
the parameters have been expanded. In 1979, Mazrui delivered the Reith BBC
lectures and argued for Nigeria to develop a military nuclear capability as a
means of restoring the balance of power between the West and the Third World.
As the Foreign Minister of Nigeria in 1987, I called for Nigeria to develop a
Black Bomb as I was and am still firmly convinced that you do not clap with an
open hand in foreign affairs. Edem Kodjo, a former Secretary-General of the
Organisation of African Unity, who later became the Prime Minister of Togo, put
it eloquently in a Preface to my book, Essays on International Politics: Foreign
and Domestic Affairs, “This strong Africa…must be powerful Africa. I mean
militarily powerful. We should not fall into the angelism in a world where power
mongers are equally military. Africa cannot make the economy of a modern army at
the service of a brighter diplomacy. This does not mean warmongering. On the
contrary, it is in Africa’s interest that peace reigns in the world. But she
must learn to walk on her two legs, and the more she progresses economically,
the more she develops militarily…though I am not a Nigerian, I believe in the
fundamental role of Nigeria in building a united Africa. I have been saying it
over the years and I am getting furious that Nigeria is not totally assuming the
role which should be hers ever since…There should be ‘federating factors’:
countries with a dense geopolitical mass and an acceptable economic power who
will take upon themselves to achieve, by federating gestures, the unity of our
continent… Nigeria is indisputably one of these countries, if not the only one.”
The third evidence of a global reach of the mega syndrome is the continuing
existence of the Technical Aid Corps scheme and its continuing expansion. Right
from its inception in 1987, the scheme covered twelve countries which included
Fiji and Jamaica, two distinct non-African countries. The following batch in
1990 expanded to fifteen countries with Dominica joining the list of non-African
countries. The following batch in 1992, saw Belize joining the list of
non-African countries. The following batch in 1994 saw St. Kitts and Nevis
joining the list of the non-African countries. As an average, non-African
countries have been responsible for about a quarter of the yearly beneficiaries.
Of course, General Yakubu Gowon was in fact the first Nigerian Head of State to
go for a global reach of the mega syndrome when he offered to pay the salaries
of civil servants in the West Indies.
As the original designer of the Technical Aid Corps, let me state categorically
here that Europe was also part of the target areas conceived in the original
plan. There are large black communities in European inner cities where the
African history that is taught is a travesty of the real thing. In a slightly
modified form, the Technical Aid Corps would have included a corps of African
historians who would have been offered to educational authorities in the inner
cities to teach African history – a reversal of the missionary flow of early
years sent to evangelise Africa.
Underline the advocacy and promotion of the mega syndrome is the recognition
that the facts of geography crudely put as Nigeria having the largest
concentration of Blacks in the world owe it to itself, Africa and the rest of
the Black world to make it. The success of Nigeria will have a spill over effect
in the way the world perceives the Black race. This train of thought is clearly
evident in the vision attributed to Nzeogwu, in my choice of the term Black
bomb, in my design of the Technical Aid Corps scheme to cover any area where
there is a black population, in Gowon’s offer for Nigeria to pay salaries in the
West Indies, and in the sub-consciousness of FESTACPHILE. If one reads between
the lines of Mazrui’s advocacy of the mega syndrome, one sees for reasons that
need not delay us, the contortions that Mazrui goes through to down play the
element of race in the international system. The Nigerian bomb in NIGERSAKI is
to balance equation between the industrialised north and the Third World. If not
for the element of race, why couldn’t the Indian bomb play the same role?
A major plank in the advocacy of the mega syndrome which gets lost in the
cacophony of the criticism that the syndrome attracts, and yet which is so
obvious is that Nigeria must get its act together before it can play the role
manifest destiny has assigned to it. Obasanjo wrote “in order for Nigeria to
realise what seemed to him (Nzeogwu) a divine if not self-evident mission, he
had to clear the Augean stable of a corrupt, decadent, reactionary and
ethnically divisive government, which according to him had raised the art of
unprincipled compromise to a dogma and principle of government, instead of a
strategy for minimising conflict at home. This was why he thought the government
had to go.” Edem Kodjo, a normally urbane diplomat, could not have been more
direct when he wrote “…I am getting furious that Nigeria is not totally assuming
the role which should be hers ever since…The country must first of all overcome
her own problems to assume a sound management of her resources, effect national
consensus to help the consolidation of the country by the Central Government
before turning to the external world… Nigeria is too much undermined by
centrifugal forces, selfish interests and religious upheavals. All these are
set-backs to this great country and to the whole Africa.”
Edem Kodjo and Nzeogwu, quoted above, struck at the core of the BLACKMAN’S
BURDEN argument. To most Nigerians, Nigeria through its aid programme is already
carrying the Blackman’s burden. But my position which is shared with those who
have been associated with the mega syndrome is that in fact it is Nigeria that
is letting down the Black race by not achieving its potential. The same
controllers of the international order who as earlier shown had promoted the
mega syndrome as an anti-Nkrumah tool are now only too happy to trumpet
Nigeria’s failure because it is not in their interest for that mega syndrome to
energise the international Black community. If Nigeria, with all the resources
that she is endowed with cannot make it then something is genetically wrong with
the Black Race. Without meaning to, even Chief Obafemi Awolowo lent credence to
this perception when he was supposed to have said that if you removed all
Germans and brought them to Nigeria, and if you transferred all Nigerians to
Germany, within a short while, Nigeria would have been transformed into a
Germany while Germany would have been transformed into a Nigeria. It is in this
sense that Nigeria is the burden being carried by the Black Race.
For the avoidance of doubt, let me emphasize that the mega syndrome has three
components. The first component is a progressive and activist foreign policy.
The second component is a military establishment to back up this foreign policy
activism and this must include a nuclear component. Thirdly, Nigeria must have a
total domestic overhaul to not only complement the other two components but to
also be the engine of growth for the other two components. Most of the critics
of the mega syndrome have focussed on the absence of the third component to
question either the desirability or the achievability of the other two
components. Advocates of the mega syndrome, on the other hand have sought to
adapt the Management by Objectives paradigm to public policy. They have argued
that the reason that Nigeria fritters away so much resources is that she has no
fixed objectives to guide the allocation of resources beyond mouthing the usual
palliatives about development. If a consensus can be built around the components
of the mega syndrome, then they become as fixed as the fixed elements of the
consolidated vote.
I expect that one of the criticisms that the views expressed in this lecture
will attract is the issue of timing. At a time when the country is beset by some
many problems on both the political and economic fronts, does it not amount to
going to Afghanistan to devote intellectual resources discussing a mega
syndrome. I believe that there are so many Nigerians blessed with intellect that
we can safely spare some to raise visions about lofty goals which have been
present from the birth of this nation and which have been unrealised.
One cannot end this lecture without averting one’s mind to the expected
