Opinion

Molefi Asante: Breathing Africa, Living Blackness

Published

4 years ago

September 7, 2021

NewTimes

Dele Jegede In Conversation With Prince Yemisi Shyllon

THE TOYIN FALOLA INTERVIEWS

A CONVERSATION WITH MOLEFI ASANTE, PART 1

Toyin Falola

Molefi Asante Breathing Africa, Living Blackness

Professor Molefi Kete Asante

Em hotep nefer weret!

I have listened to his lectures. I have served on committees with him. I have read his books. I have adopted many of his ideas reworked into Black liberationist thoughts. He has taught me as much as I have taught his works and ideas in classes for over forty years. I have reviewed his books. I have evaluated his manuscripts for publishers. I have gone to Temple University on multiple occasions, the last time to give a lecture on “the construction of words” to his graduate class. I have been asked to endorse the use of his name for two major prizes named after him. When I heard that he wanted to criticize the emerging concept of decoloniality, I did not mind that the venue was in Pretoria, South Africa, far away from my base in Austin, United States. His fans awaited him in Pretoria, and the hall was packed full. The lecture was provocative.

Molefi, the brave Asante

He does not call color red as blue

A brave deity

Who says it as it is

Who does not call a bad thing a good thing.

The knowledgeable one

One that sees everything

He understands the dawn and the sunset

The priest of wisdom.

I’ve been to many strange homes,

But none like Nubia, the home of Asante

Where nature is beautifully alive.

I’ve tasted the milk of other lands,

None matches that of mother Africa,

The Black Egypt

Where Molefi was born bright.

The great philosopher came;

Saw the future in Africa

He took her and showed her the part of life

Gave her everything needed to forge on;

Blessed is Mother Africa,

With great heritage and culture

Blessed is Molefi,

For keeping the culture, as the name bares.

A super communicator, passion comes with his words, as if the Yemoja, the preeminent goddess of the sea, comes out of the Atlantic Ocean in Bahia to deliver a message from Orunmila, the god of divination. Energy defines his engagement, like Sango, the god of thunder and lightning, issuing majestic commands. Conclusions must be revisited, and Asante turns into that powerful god of the crossroads, Eṣu, whose name must not be called in vain. The past lives in him, the living Pharaoh in the Black World. In another era, Asante would have been transformed into a god and venerated. There are no two people like him. Divide a city into two: one half belongs to Molefi and the other half to Asante!

Molefi Asante: Breathing Africa, Living Blackness

Conversations around African knowledge productions and the audacity to lay claim to it without being intimidated by the imposing frame of the Western epistemic system would have generally been impossible without the irrevocable commitment of some dedicated persons. Africa was confronted with the demanding tasks of challenging the webs of misconception and the desperate identity assassination that the imperialists dragged them to in the prelude to and aftermath of colonialism. This identity shaming, it must be emphasized, was considered a strategy for which the people would not only be conquered in all dimensions―politically, culturally, socially, economically, and maybe philosophically―but would also be the foundational justification for the subjection of the people to the deprecatory experience they faced during the period of colonization.

Africans were innocent, ignorant of the possible dangers inherent in being conquered by the imperialists, and not prescient enough to foresee what their future would look like with the history of the European expansionism dotting their evolutionary process. The damage was done, and colonial engagements within the 100 years when it held the continent by the jugular shattered, damaged, and trashed all the progress that the Black people had made before the colonizers invaded them. This damage was more debilitating for reasons that are not unconnected to the fact that even when the victims of colonization, Africans, this time around, were dragged to the ground of dishonor, they were practically unaware that the colonially erected institutions left in the wake of colonial imperialism would carry the mark of disrespect, and continue to serve as the agency to sustain the molestation and prostitution of the African image.

After years of anger, the motivation to challenge the age-long calumny overtook a generation of Africans, to which Asante belongs. They began to counter Western fiction with fact, challenge European biases with catharsis, and, more importantly, correct wrong notions with sound knowledge. In the group of African intellectuals who embraced this call to duty is Asante, providing solid and unwavering academic insights that replaced ignorance with knowledge, changing the revisionist information with verifiable information, and substituting jaundiced views with relatively objective perspectives about Africa and Africans.

Molefi Asante: Breathing Africa, Living Blackness

Asante became an intimidating posture in the academic wave of resistance that is tagged Afrocentrism. The movement began in the mid-21^st century as a potent force erected to counter the existing derogation of Africans by the West, eventually becoming an interdisciplinary thing in the long run.

Dubbed as among the most prolific African-American scholars of all time, this intellectual figure has cracked the knot that was considered impossible and made landmark accomplishments in academic waves where his sound contributions enthuse the occupants of the imagined center. There is an infinite possibility, Asante argues, what Africa and Africans represent if they function effectively without hindrance. That many black people do not exude the expected confidence to challenge established biases in the academic, political, or economic systems is a condition facilitated by the colonizers’ watertight efforts to keep them eternally repressed in their deplorable conditions.

It cannot be contested that Africa has contributed meaningfully to the human race and has made impressive landmarks in many areas before the ascension of the European power. Underestimating the continent continues because they have refused to stand up for themselves and make impressive development in areas where they have all been badmouthed. But then there is Asante, who persistently challenges this negative view of black people, from Lagos to New York, not with emotions this time around but with educative works and insight that set straight the records that have been wrongly stated in the first place. We must credit people like Asante for setting the pace and raising the bar and for the effective wave of resistance in all fields.

Molefi Kete Asante has published widely, and his body of works has changed the narratives of the African and black people for good. Central to his academic engagement is promoting African/black interests to repudiate the damaging misconceptions and assassinations of the African image and identity. In his recent publication in 2020, with his scholarly work titled The Afrocentric Pan Africanist Vision, this prolific scholar discusses the vision of the people about what they have in the contemporary time. He argues that the current situation of the people does not in any way represent who they are, and being victims of the history of colonization does not in any way have the possibility of running them aground forever. For Asante, the Pan Africanist vision is shaped by the accumulated experiences that the people have been challenged by in recent or distant times. In other words, the determination to make Africa distinct from the rest of the world is informed by the awareness that they would continue to face predatory temptations by the civilizations that have attained technological and economic transformation if they did not solidify themselves and begin to put in place the needed transformative energies.

It is essential to picture an African future reflective of their true self and capable of accommodating other civilizations without sacrificing their African identity in the process. This means that such a future holds the potential to transform the continent nearly in all conceivable ways. There would be a level of economic self-reliance and technological transformation which would align with their ideological and philosophical principles without necessarily taking away their political beliefs, freedom, and identity. This vision means that the continent would be expediently independent of all the vested interests who have fleeced the continent for ages under different guises. They were considered less technologically advanced, so they were suppressed by the European imperialists and lost nearly all their resources to external civilizations that came to encroach on them for generations. In essence, Asante, in The Afrocentric Pan Africanist Vision, talks about the importance of having this vision and emphasizes more the need to prepare for creating a civilization that can birth and sustain this system. Africa deserves freedom, not only of any political imposition that comes from all civilizations who believe that their economic development should be an automatic ticket for abusing Africa but also of the socioeconomic entanglement they have helplessly found themselves in the recent years.

A very devoted observer of Asante’s academic engagements would notice that not only does he appear to create a breathtaking relationship between his work, but he also makes them appear like an academic work in series. One would be marveled by the close relationship between the work identified above and the one he produced some five years preceding it. In his work, The African Pyramids of Knowledge, this preeminent scholar of inestimable intellectual capacity is unequivocally direct about the fecundity of Africa in knowledge production and value creation. To be candid, there would be no reliable vision for a continent that does not have good intellectual resources on which they can depend for the transformation of themselves and the dislocation of baseless narratives created to keep them under perpetual repression. The knowledge base of the people is used in the management of their society, and this accounts for the enhancement of the identity despite century-long pillaging and deprecatory encounters with the external civilizations. In this work, Asante argues that contrary to the assumption that blacks were devoid of critical thinking and are a strange bedfellow to productive engagement, numerous historical and cultural accomplishments are evident in their greatness even until contemporary time.

Meanwhile, one year before that, in 2014, this same intellectual giant premiered the book titled The History of Africa, which gives sufficient information about the past experiences of Africa and Africans. It is nearly impossible to talk about the African knowledge pyramid without knowing about the people’s history. This indicates that the book written by the sage in 2015 on Africa’s knowledge production and systems is backed by the history, foundation, and past events of the people across all aspects of human endeavor. The History of Africa serves to place in perspective the past experiences and records of the people. For example, the book talks about how the people organized themselves into different political groups using systems that favored and worked for them in the political domain. The decision to organize a political strategy is informed by the knowledge that they demanded very organized structures to enhance their collective progress. If they did not have a robust template for the political system across the continent, the possibility of arranging themselves would not only be slim; it would also be very hard. Asante’s book explains this aspect of human history that they lived before the ascension of Europeans, Arabs, and even during their post-settlement in the continent.

More than it addressed their political past, the book, The History of Africa, also concentrates on the African cultural and religious systems. There seem to be unending ill-conceived generalizations that many civilizations have made concerning Africans, including but not limited to the assumption that the African people were not intellectually evolved to build cultural traditions that are vibrant enough for contemporary times. It would have come as a surprise for people who do not understand the deep-seated connections between colonialism and these narratives. Still, people who understand the underlying Eurocentric agenda from such a position know that it was an attempt to rubbish the continent and justify the corresponding political overtake they later introduced. As much as we understand that such a position lacks a strong background, there would be no way of challenging the impression if individuals do not make necessary and befitting efforts to counter these positions. However, there is no need to panic because people like Asante continue to fumigate the lies against Africans for centuries with facts and figures about their past that can be confirmed by research and replicable scholarship. Essentially, The History of Africa addresses nearly all the aspects of the life of the people and how they did evolve as other peoples of the world did in their various cultural and political experiences.

Asante’s academic contributions do not exclusively center on Afrocentrism. He also has many works that address thematically different yet intellectually complementing themes. For one, this scholar has written essentially on race issues and discussed how the concept had generated more than necessary controversies in the academic world. His writings on race have developed to an edition-by-edition engagement where the idea of racism is looked at from different angles, all of which add to the contemporary understanding of the politics and motivations behind the division of the world along racial lines.

Titled Erasing Racism: The Social Survival of American Nation, the 2009 edition addresses racism and how it has polarized the American society beyond imagination and repair. The American society, it seems, is founded on a philosophy of othering where those who do not come from America or do not express their ideological beliefs are considered less critical, if not less human. To the extent that the society has institutionalized a master-subordinate relationship among their people, they have continued to place themselves beyond others, even unconsciously. Therefore, the book states the different dimensions that racism has taken in American society and how the oppressed groups have made substantial efforts to adapt and protect themselves in the process.

The book, which comes as a recommendation to the international community, instigates more questions than it appears to answer. Asante argues that the African-Americans are overwhelmed and are gradually losing themselves to the carnage of racism. Their identity, cultural traditions, history, and social system are victims of persistent verbal abuse, so much that they do not understand how and where they can begin to challenge the racist prejudices that have faced them from time immemorial. That is the level at which they have degenerated in recent history. Eradicating racism begins with accepting that society has been lopsidedly arranged across racial lines from a distant time. This would put people in the right frame of mind to understand how the white race, the privileged ones in the American society, have enjoyed series of benefits, advantages, and privileges to the detriment of some other people in the society, specifically and the world generally. In this awareness and acceptance, they would begin to correct the age-long anomaly consciously. Without following this systematic path, it would be difficult to talk about putting an end to racism, which has overtaken American society.

In 1971, Asante published a book that seemed to clarify the justification of the same theme covered in the above work. Titled How to Talk to People of Other Races, the book brings up the issue of plural identities and cultural diversities that exist in human engagements. There is the general impression that people would be different in their racial and cultural disposition, though this does not mean that they would not have reasons to depend on one another or forge a strong network of alliance. However, this dependence would be determined by people’s communication when dealing with individuals from different cultural backgrounds. Therefore, the language of communicating with individuals of different races must be respectful. In other words, talk, which is personified as the form of exchanges between people of different races, must be such that the integrity of some people is not threatened or their identity molested. How to Talk to People of Other Races shows that the responsibility of submerging racism stands on the agreement to stem its tide by the people who are important as far as the need to forge a common bond is concerned.

Additionally, it would come as no surprise that this man of inestimable intellectual brilliance is duly recognized far and wide in the world for his outstanding contributions to knowledge production. Apart from being awarded professorate honor in different academic environments, namely, Zhejiang University (2007-2010) and the University of South Africa (2009-present), he has also bagged for himself honors that befit the intellectual greatness he represents. The protruding accolade for which he has been associated reflects the assumption that his contributions do not in any way go without making a substantial impact.

For a man who teaches in the United States, there is no doubt that he has registered a lasting place for Africans in Africa and even in the Western world. Asante’s intellectual activities promote rather than demote African image in places where they have suffered grandstanding and monumental shaming. There is no place in the world where the influence of Asante’s work has not spread to. Asante’s works have served as points of reference and motivation for drawing different academic strategies for upholding the African image across different African countries. Evidently, the recognition he has attracted over time is long overdue.

Beyond the activism in academics, Asante has participated in different involvements that have to do with redeeming Africa’s dented image and restoring its identity in all fora. He once served as the coordinator of diaspora intellectuals, Pan African Scientific Council, African Union, all in 2009, where he promoted quality and excellence that skyrocketed the values of the associations. Interestingly, Asante founded an academic institute, the National Afrocentric Institute, in 1989, and its creation became an instant success across the board. All these establishments he created or where he serves as a member witness immediate transformation because he is conscious about their advancement. He is also a driving force paving the way for them through his intellectual productions.

It cannot be emphasized enough how this philosopher has motivated people who decide to retrace their steps to discover their true African identity. Asante has shown pride in the continent of Africa through his academic involvement and in the various sociopolitical groups he belongs. When academics talk about his greatness, they do not over bloat his importance; when they mention his contributions, they merely state the values he represents. Asante has already won for himself a beautiful place in the knowledge production about the African people. He has expanded the African-American academic engagement magically and retrieved for them the lost image of their ancestors.

Rather than be fazed by the intimidation of others who have considered themselves the general standard for knowledge artistry, Asante has mastered the way to popularize his ideas through the agency of academic engagement. The redefinition of African literature, culture, and history speak for him in decibel that cannot be fully consumed in the annals of history. From political science to historical scholarship, scientific engagements, and professional researches, Asante has roared deeply, and his voice has spread to places one cannot readily predict. He is a dedicated human to the cause and actions he believes in. There has been no time when he backed down from the ideological convictions he is identified with. In the academic industry, he is recognized for the outstanding efforts he makes to advance the collective aspirations and goals of the people.

Asante

The immortal man

Born before our black eyes,

The magical writer,

Touching the marrows of men,

Forever may you live.

No one hears the death of a hoe

You will not die

No one hears the death of cloths

You will stay till the world’s end

No one hears the death of the land

You are covered.

Asante

The man of the people

Who grants rights as privileges

The kind, humble and gentle-hearted

Who sits among the living skeletons

The hero of our people,

May all your wishes be accepted by the gods.

Aṣe!

Please join us for a conversation with an eminent professor and philosopher, Molefi Kete Asante.

Sunday, September 19, 2021

5:00 PM Nigeria

4:00 PM GMT

11:00 AM Austin CST

Register and Watch:

https://www.tfinterviews.com/post/molefi-asante

Join via Zoom:

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85124202652

Watch on Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/tfinterviews/live

Watch on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2lvX7A2iVndiCq0NfFcb0w/live

Falola is a Nigerian historian and professor of African Studies. He is currently the Jacob and Frances Sanger Mossiker Chair in the Humanities at the University of Texas at Austin.

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Opinion

Professor Femi Badejo At 70: The Advocacy Of Equity

Published

3 days ago

March 7, 2025

NewTimes

Prof. Toyin Falola

By Toyin Falola

People who are well-grounded in understanding the operations of the universe would quickly tell anyone who cares to listen that life is about words, signs, and symbols. Individuals in this category do not suddenly come to that knowledge midway through their life’s journey but through experiences, exposure, and study.

Regardless of their cultural identity or ideological mindset, everyone would accept that many things that happen in life are circumscribed by universal signs and symbols, which ordinary or inexperienced people may not easily understand. For example, where people are born and the environment where they grow up are vital signs that sometimes determine the trajectory of their life journey.

These things constitute what should be called signs because where we are born, and the environment where we grow up is crucial in shaping a few things in our lives, especially how we see the world or how we socialize in it, leading to the manner of which we negotiate the unfurling activities. More importantly, one’s lifelong destiny is often shaped by confident choices that humans make, especially the choice of what career path to follow or one’s ambition concerning one’s intellectual evolution. Professor Badejo’s signs and symbols of greatness are easily unmasked by his life’s series of activities, especially his career choices. Anyone expert in political science and law should excel in what they do, except if they do not have enough discipline to see themselves through.

The world has long cultivated the habit of celebrating individuals with outstanding contributions to the human world, and it is no coincidence that Professor Badejo falls into this category. The signs have always been there that an individual of his intellectual strength and persuasion cannot but contribute significantly to the straightening of things in a chaotic world, particularly in their conviction that as the world operates today, issues and activities are not orderly or in a right direction to guarantee collective advancement.

It cannot be overemphasized that every moment in human history is always dotted with a fair share of critical problems that often demand outstanding individuals’ precocious ideas and creative ingenuity. Professor Badejo is a shining example of the quest to make the world a better place. His foundation in the legal profession is deliberate, for he understands early enough that people who would dare the devil in today’s global society must understand the operations of their activities and predict human steps. This way, they can make timely decisions that would change the tides of things for the good of everyone. As already implied, the world always faces a fair share of its challenges because there are individuals who are blessed to solve issues using their intellectual strength. As a professor and a professional in legal affairs, Badejo is very grounded in dissecting international issues so that people can have a proper overview of the interplays of power and contestation in the global community. In other words, if you intend to take advantage of the vulnerable systems of the world, people like Badejo would be there, reminding you of the atrocities sparked by the parochialism of your ambitions.

It is exciting to discover that Badejo has profound knowledge of political science, which places him in good condition to understand political figures’ operations, intentions, and inclinations toward whatever actions they embark on. It, therefore, makes it more rewarding for him to use his intellect to redefine public relations through political insights so that the human world will attain progress and sustain the one they have already accomplished. That Badejo has worked in different places, especially in international locations, using his educational insights and professional skills to improve the conditions of the world speaks highly of his dedication to making an indelible impact.

I cannot state enough how vital Badejo has been. As indicated, the signs that he would make such accomplishments exemplify his career choices. While we cannot deny his commitment to such ambitions, we cannot understate how he has dedicated himself to getting the best from his knowledge. We, therefore, cannot undervalue his dedication to academic engagements, as that forms the basis of his intellectual advancement today―one which continues to brighten his life in tremendous ways. At the international level, he has served in different capacities; the summary is that he was either contracted to use his wealth of experience to save the day or use his professional expertise to provoke a change.

His efforts in community development services, especially in his involvement with the international community or non-governmental organizations, have always demanded his intellectual support. This cannot even overshadow his contributions to building the world’s human capital. It is interesting to state that Professor Badejo is a teacher who has made substantial contributions to knowledge generally. Apart from being a seasoned researcher, he has always been dominant in teaching, producing a sizeable fraction of students who underwent tutelage under him. This explains why many people can attest to how profoundly this scholar has redefined how they see the world and the things in life. Teachers hold a good place in our collective lives because they sacrifice very much to mold people’s minds correctly.

Badejo belongs to the class of educators who make incredibly critical efforts to improve Africa. He has painstakingly conducted research to study different issues, especially in areas of political science and, by extension, the legal profession. His success is significant, and he is enthusiastic in his endeavors. I should inform you that although the activity of teaching is conventionally seen as restricted to the four walls of an institution, it, however, transcends such conceptual location; teaching is what we do when we enlighten groups of people, communities of learners, and class of individuals to impact them or provoke them to change socially.

It gets more enjoyable when you know that Badejo has made an invaluable impression on us all with his solid academic publications, from which many of us today learn. In 2024, Badejo published an exemplary work titled Nigeria Corruption Perception Data. Apart from the fact that this work produces an objective overview of how the country is perceived by its citizens and the world generally, it is also an indictment of the political class about how they manage the systems and institutions in the country, thereby affecting Nigeria’s political and economic destiny in some ways. One who knows Badejo knows that such academic engagements increase his adrenaline because it will use his intellectual expertise in that domain and allow him to present his thoughts or ideas to the people. He has consistently revealed to the world the undergarments of Nigeria’s political systems, especially how it has become vulnerable in the hands of the few who control it. In what manner and character does one explain the problems of unbridled leadership compared to how neocolonial Nigerian leaders have particularly (mis)managed the country’s available resources, demonstrating their myopic imagination about the future? Issues like this are always given the necessary attention, and it explains how Badejo addresses fundamental issues, not the periphery.

Perhaps because of his intellectual depth, he has consistently produced respectable works on African democracy, using the Nigerian situation as his experiment laboratory. On many occasions, he has suggested to the political elites that they should make conscious efforts towards transforming Nigeria’s democracy and save it from whatever problems it may face. He takes this position, knowing that it is the freedom highlighted by democracy that is fundamental to the creation of a functional society, which would produce the necessary atmosphere in which people can grow. He understands that although democracy may have internal failings and even complications that could be a threat, especially when mismanaged, it remains the only avenue through which divergent thinking can be amplified so that the best ideas and approaches can be born. Such an individual cannot but be celebrated and even appreciated for their invaluable contributions to the human world. They have paid their dues and thus would always be accorded royal treatment, for their voices remind us of what we should be as a collective and not what our impulses want us to be.

On May 15, 2025, I will offer an in-person tribute and a lecture in his honor.

Opinion

Natasha As Worthy Rebel

Published

4 days ago

March 6, 2025

NewTimes

Prof. Tony Afejuku

By Tony Afejuku

Elegant Natasha. Handsome Natasha. Beautiful Natasha. Nice Natasha. Sharp Natasha. Clever Natasha. Natasha the envy of men and women. Natasha of several qualities – above all, Natasha the rebel; Natasha a worthy rebel. Natasha a good patriot that is a worthy patriot. Everything the columnist has just stated or has just outlined or has just highlighted constitutes his interpretation of Senator (Barrister, Mrs.) Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan’s performance when she appeared before Arise News Good Morning Show on Friday, 28 February, 2025 to throw light on the drama that happened in the Senate a day or so before.

What was the drama on that day really about? What happened in the Senate between her and the Senate President was it really all about her seat re-allocation or re-assignment? Or, was it essentially about something else to entrap her – as she was allegedly told on the floor of the Senate on the afore-mentioned day of drama? The columnist saw everything as shown live on his television set that was privately power-generated (in this power-less or electricity-less clime) from the beginning to the end. The columnist wondered why, just why Natasha reacted the way she did, and why specifically she dared the Senate President the way she did. What was inevitably amiss? Why was/is Natasha claiming everybody’s attention the way she did (and she is still dong)? Why were her fellow senators, more than several of the male senators, I mean, flowing to her in her river of rebellion against the standards of the Senate that must be kept up? Was it because even if she was right in her classical democratic rebellion of a loner, it was necessary that the prestige of the great senators and that of their equally great but almighty President who is not more than first among equals should not be allowed to dwindle? And why was the Senate President so stupefied when Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan brandished Order 10 several times as she rebelliously but decorously stood her ground, grounds or no grounds? Did the Senate President at any time try to have a bite or a taste of Natasha’s inviting stupefacient something that had caused him the stupefaction I was allowed personally to notice by the inner master on that day that the rebellious one knocked him to stupor – or to a state of near-stupor before his like-minded senators came to his rescue? All these questions are significant ones (or must be significant ones) for all those who desire to find a factual and truthful solution to what is growing to be a pattern of values between the Senate President Godswill Akpabio and Senator (Mrs.) Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan, the very wife of Mr. Godswill Akpabio’s good friend (or now erstwhile good friend?).

On Saturday, 29 February, 2025, that is, almost a week ago, I read entirely on pages 10-12 of Saturday Vanguard details of the Natasha Uduaghan-Godswill Akpabio problem and other proclamations, claims and counter-claims, including Natasha’s full interview she granted Arise News Good Morning Show which I had already alluded to. Natasha answered more than very satisfactorily all the questions put to her concerning the following: “allegations by a northern group”; “harassment of clerk and requests for CVs of staff”; “how the sitting arrangement issue started”; “denial of rights”; and “the night-cub incident.” My assertion(s) to each of her every answer is clearly clear and transparently transparent, and brings me to this conclusion: A highly brilliant and sharp female senator; a highly valuable, worthy, no nonsense female senator that Senator (Drs. Mrs.) Remi Tinubu, our President’s dear, dear wife, who is equally bright and brilliant, needs in her core team of patriots to help make our country reach its rightful destination. But I have no persuasive influence whatever upon her to make her see Natasha as I see her – or as I am seeing her. Yet I should tell her as the inner master tells me to say to her what I am now saying to her. Natasha certainly has her foibles – like all human-beings, including our one and only Godswill Akpabio. Her foibles, however, pale into nothing or insignificance in comparison with her positively rebellious bent and manner.
Since the matter between Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan and Senator Godswill Akpabio entered our television screens and newspapers and everywhere outside the main-stream media the Senate President has not deemed it right to claim our attention with at least one important line of defence from his own persuasive mouth. Why? Others, some of whom claim to be activists (activists my foot!) have been speaking for him. Why? If he does not want to say anything he should instruct his hangers-on, including his lawyer(s), his acolytes and cohorts and sycophants, and Natasha’s back-stabbers in the Senate, to keep mum until the brouhaha stills itself, evaporates and vanishes. But will it? I don’t think so until he transparently opens his line of persuasive rebuttal himself.

By the way, why did his wife, his damsel (who, like Natasha, is an impeccable communicator), come into the fray? What for? I saw her on television trying to persuade people like us in vain. After all said and done I exclaimed to myself “What for?” in the trope of a question. She said several things which I, as a literary detective and gleaner, punctured. I will only mention one or two here. (After all, I am not Natasha’s lawyer as I am not Unoma’s lawyer). She said, among other things, that no woman or women ever complained against her disciplined darling husband as a governor or minister – if I heard her well. I chuckled. No woman or women who succumbed to the sheets-whims-and-caprices of her darling governor- or minister- husband would complain openly or in loud silence to Unoma or to anyone for that matter close to Unoma. I put this to Unoma as a literary gleaner who is ever objective come rain or sunshine. Secondly, her open swipe at Natasha’s husband has drawn the very decent man who cannot hurt a fly out of his refined shell. I am sure that she and her disciplined husband have since seen and read the mature and refined letter of the highly cultured Alema of the very beautifully great Kingdom of Warri, the envy of many kingdom-less kingdoms, on what has been that shouldn’t have been.

There are other things I want to say but which I am nicely holding back as a top Niger Delta personage. What I can do best is to immerse myself in my own quiet way on how to bring this matter to a good and transparent end. The Senate President and the Alema of Warri must meet to resolve the knot in the favour of their friendship and that of the people of the whole of the Niger Delta and beyond. The situation needs to be remedied. I know how, but I won’t open my mouth wide here. For the time being, however, Natasha, our worthy rebel, needs to be appeased with appeasable appeasement by appeasers agreeable to the parties and all the parties in our Niger Delta and the Confluence State and beyond. I hope I am not building castles in Spain. Phew!

Afejuku can be reached via 08055213059.

Opinion

IBB In The Annals Of Civil Service Reforms In Nigeria

Published

4 days ago

March 6, 2025

NewTimes

Prof. Tunji Olaopa

By Tunji Olaopa

The autobiography is a most delicate, complex and indeed disruptive art form. It is the autobiographer’s authorial insistence to be heard in terms of his or her narrative addition to a historical discourse. In fact, it is the autobiographer’s narration of the historical event from his or her own perspective. And more often than not, when the autobiographer is a fundamental participant in the event, the complexities of that event and the circumstances surrounding it are multiplied. Only very few autobiographies enjoy global approval. And that is because the art form is seen as an ego trip. That sentiment is summed up by the English biographer, Humphrey Carpenter: “Autobiography is probably the most respectable form of lying.” This is even made worse if the protagonists are critical individuals whose lives have affected national trajectories. General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida (IBB) is one such critical protagonist, and his autobiography has arrived.

A Journey in Service has since started generating lots of furors in all strata of the Nigerian public space, online and offline. Lots of opinions have tied IBB to several significant historical moments in Nigeria, especially the annulment of the June 12 elections, and the demise of MKO Abiola. What many have conveniently glossed over, and a case I have consistently made, is that personal narrative in the forms of autobiography and memoirs serve a unique function in terms of their historical import. If A Journey in Service had not been written, we will all be gasping within the yawning silence of the political and administrative gaps that ought to have been filled with whatever the autobiographer has to say. But now it has been written, and we can then commence the journey of unraveling how the narrative fits or fails to fit in with the existing accounts of Nigeria’s political development.
This personal narrative has a critical import for me as a historian of Nigeria’s administrative and reform trajectories. The Babangida administration played a very fundamental role in articulating a significant portion of Nigeria’s administrative reform architecture. And so, that portion of the trajectory, and the entire institutional reform agenda of the Nigerian state, will not be complete without adding the voice and perspective of the key protagonist to the understanding of how the reform policy emerged. No matter what anyone thinks, the imperative of national history demands that such an account be added to the stock of what we already know, and to flesh out a better understanding of what we already know. The idea therefore is to see how the protagonist, no matter the groundswell of national opinion for or against him, fits into a larger picture of the political and administrative frameworks that enable us to see where the nation is coming from and where it is headed.

This is a task every institutional reformer must long for without getting sidetracked by sentimental opinion that accords blame and slings mud. This is part of what makes IBB and A Journey in Service such a delight for me. Unfortunately, the head of the historic administration does not consider that irreducible reform agenda that distinguishes his administration so significantly as to celebrate its conception, elements and operation, as well as its limitations, in a significant autobiography. That responsibility has been passed to posterity. This piece rescues that fundamental omission.

The pre-Babangida administrative reform narrative must always revert back to the 1974 Udoji Commission. That Commission is singular because it was the first to attempt an alignment between Nigeria’s reform efforts and the emerging managerial revolution in public administration across the globe. The Udoji Commission took its immediate inspiration from the Lord Fulton Committee of 1968 in Britain. The task of the Fulton Report was to inquire into the capability readiness of the British civil service to confront the modern British society and its technological complexity. Fulton’s most significant recommendation was the displacement of the cult of generalist amateur civil servants in an approaching administrative dispensation that requires a critical mass of new managers who possess the professionalism and specialist expertise to harness the talents needed to make the civil service economic, effective and efficient.
By the time the Udoji Commission was inaugurated, Nigeria had also reached the critical juncture where it became imperative to ask whether the Weberian assumptions underlying the British administrative legacy were capable of tackling the urgent governance requirement of a postcolonial society. The wage impasse which the system had been confronting before independence, for the Commission, was a symptom of a deeper administrative malady represented by a bureaucratic culture that had arrested innovation and entrepreneurial creativity in the analysis and implementation of policies. Managerialism therefore provides the most timely and perfect means of making the civil service system align with the goals of national development.

The Udoji Commission went on to leverage the global good practice of the time that calls for a new style of public service that deploys new management techniques of Planning, Programming and Budgeting System (PPBS), Management by Objectives (MBO), the precursor of what is today called the performance management system, project management system, among others, that were totally alien to the Nigerian public service, at the time. The new management architecture that the envisioned management system would have institutionalized would obviously have been inadequate but would have laid a critical substructure that would have set Nigeria on the new productivity paradigm that assisted Malaysia, Singapore, the Asian Tigers and many other developing countries that are within Nigerian global ranking at the time.

The most devastating blows that the civil service suffered were those created not by it but the governance tradition that militarism and “New Federalism” of the post-civil war years created where the rigorous analytical frame that governed development investment got replaced with the unreflective “with immediate effect” command and control governance tradition which created huge process, policy, capacity, performance and resource gaps. The Udoji Commission and its limitations, as well as the succeeding Phillips and Ayida Commissions, could be understood only within this military tradition of which IBB was a significant part. When he assumed office in 1985, one of the most immediate decisions was, according to his admission, the need to “strengthen the practice of the presidential system with clear economic, political, and social reforms to strengthen the nation as a constitutional democracy based on the presidential system.” Assuming the title of a “President” was therefore more than a mere nominal gesture to narcissism. Rather, he said, it was “a summation of our consensus on the need to preserve and strengthen the presidential system and make it work better for the nation.”

But a nominal title was not enough. A commitment to the presidential system, IBB insisted, defined the necessity of “structuring a reform programme around institutions to make it work.” And given the tension that already was prevalent in the heated polity, IBB surmised, the reforms that must make any significance must be as comprehensive as the administration could make it. And the first act of symbolic gesture was negative: the urgency of the need “to review the various draconian decrees, convictions, and pending cases that bordered on human rights violations.” The Exchange Control (anti-sabotage) Decree 7 and Decree 4 (Public Officers Protection Against False Accusation) had to be significantly reviewed. This was followed by the real positive task of reforming the economy and governance in ways that go beyond “knee-jerk populist reflexes.”

The task, in governance and economic terms, was therefore to “Remove the government from the role of an enormous money changer to that of an enabler of the appropriate economic environment. We also needed to let the economy, in general, breathe more freely.” It was to liberalize the economy and make government an able enabler rather than occupying the ‘commanding heights of the economy.”

Unfortunately for us all, IBB fails to dwell on what could have been a defining dimension of A Journey in Service, the civil service reform framework of the Babangida administration. This is shocking but revealing in itself. One possible reason is that the author subsumed the civil service reform under the broader political reforms: “Our political programme targeted the critical areas of political and socio-cultural restructuring highlighted by the Political Bureau report: the party system, the electoral process, including election administration, the federal structure, the civil service, and the problem of succession, including political leadership.”

And yet, this fails to do justice to the significance of the Babangida administration and its inheritance of the Dotun Philips Commission from the Buhari-Idiagbon administration. The Phillips Study Team is significant because it had the task of re-organizing the operations of the civil service in terms of professionalism that will eventually align it with the managerial revolution recommended by Udoji. And that reform effort alone cements his administration’s significance in the annals of administrative history in Nigeria, and a fundamental contribution to the cumulation of reform knowledge in Nigeria. IBB already gave the significant intellectual basis of the restructuring that was an imperative: to achieve “national rebirth and future greatness,” there is a need for political and economic restructuring that frees up the national space for transformation. And one way to do this, according to him, was cultivate intellectuals: “We needed the input of intellectuals to enlighten the business of government.” There was also the crucial need for the public service as the engine of government business. It beats me how IBB did not see that.

The Dotun Philips Study Group was constituted by the Buhari-Idiagbon administration in 1985, with the objective of undertaking an interrogation of the structure, mode of operation and strategy of the civil service in the light of contemporary administrative situation, as well as finding means by which the eroded professionalism of the system could be restored. After the 1985 coup, Babangida inherited the study group and transformed it into a full-blown commission whose task was to keep up with the objective of aligning the spirit of managerialism and a professionalized civil service with the form and spirit of presidentialism. This was to be incorporated into the total package of the Civil Service Reforms through a Civil Service Reorganisation Decree No. 43 of 1988. Given the administration’s concern with the rigid Soviet-styled centralization of the economy and the need to open the economy up to market forces, it was only logical that the administration would adopt the critical managerial principle of letting managers manage by having greater control on critical resources. This possesses the capacity to inspire a wholesale decentralization of the HRM function to MDA. The policy choice here is between centralized resource governance for example where the civil service commission wields constitutional powers for recruitment, promotion and discipline exercised at top management levels by the Commission while delegating the powers to MDAs at middle to lower levels.

The Philips reform was compromised essentially because (a) it took the issues involved in professionalism too far (for instance, by attempting to make a professional out of everybody within the civil service); and (b) its own unique managerial thrust was directed towards integrating the civil service into the presidential system of government, with one unintended consequence being that professionalization turned into politicization through an attempt, for instance, that turned an administrative post (permanent secretary) into a political one (director-general). And yet, this is not a failure because it was a logical reform complement to the short-circuited Udoji Commission recommendation of a public service founded on performance management, and its underlying managerial philosophy was significant in getting the Babangida administration its governance template for transforming national development.

I insist that an administration is only as good as its reform agenda, both in design and implementation. The Babangida administration gave Nigeria’s reform trajectory one of the key moments in the protracted attempt to translate the gains and efficiencies of a managerial opportunity to a bureaucratic system.

. Olaopa is a Professor of Public Administration and Chairman,
Federal Civil Service Commission .