By Bassey Ubong
Are African countries right to sustain the outcry against colonial powers more than half a century after they gained independence?
The partition of or scramble for Africa which crystallised in 1884 during the Berlin Conference, which led to colonialism and economic exploitation, continues to be a subject of debate today.
Africa presented a new frontier for exploitation of human and material resources for the development of the colonial nations. At present, western countries see planets in outer space as the new frontiers for the future economic development of their countries.
But two issues remain on the hot plate in the outcry against colonialism. First, would it have been better for Africa if she remained in its primal state; and second, should Europe be held responsible for the current state of underdevelopment of Africa?
I throw my hat with strong conviction in any camp which supports colonisation of Africa at this point in time (pains to Africans regretted) and I disagree without reservation on a position which blames the West for Africa’s current woes.
The oldest evidence of human habitation of earth continues to be traced to Africa despite spirited efforts by western archeologists and scientists to point to another continent.
Africa made early starts in Egypt and Ethiopia with respect to civilization, but what can these countries and their siblings show for the headwinds early commencement gave them?
At present African countries have massive crude oil and natural gas, but how many of them have used such natural blessings and endowments to transform their countries the way Middle Eastern countries have?
Why should Africans complain if people came from late-emerging communities to teach them how to make use of their natural endowments? Should the oil have remained underground till new energy sources make them useless? What benefits would that have been to Ogoni people from untapped oil reserves because they have blocked efforts to tap them?
First, let us peep into Nigeria as a geographical reality before colonialism. For houses, our ancestors and forebears lived in huts where they cooked with firewood, while bamboo sticks and oil lamps provided light at night. They left several plots in fallow to facilitate renewal of soil fertility.
On being attacked by malaria, they drank herbs, and when cure failed, they consulted juju priests or blamed witches and wizards for their predicament. If a woman had twins, the children were dumped in the forest, while the mothers were banished or treated like agents of the devil. Skills and alternatives to everything were few, while life expectancy remained low.
Today, colonised Africa enjoys the benefits of clean cooking with gas from her soil and electricity which powers microwave ovens and toasters for quick foods. Fertilisers have eliminated the need for land fallow practices and quadrupled farm output. Malaria can, to a large extent, be prevented and managed to enable witches and wizards to have peace.
Mary Mitchel Slessor, a Scottish Presbyterian missionary in the late 1870s, made twins and their mothers to be accepted and loved, while today fertility clinics assist those declared barren or infertile to have children.
From 1925, we are told American Miss Caroline Phelp-Stokes recommended education for skills for Africans adopted by the colonial authorities. This led to the development of several skills before independence and several more after independence. Beyond the few, important cases should make anyone ask the simple question – given the option or choice, would any African want to return to the pre-colonial days?
Fast forward to post-colonial Africa and the controversy as to the role of colonialism in the present state of affairs. The monumental work of Walter Rodney, a Guyanese historian, has been a source book, which has kept the debate open as to the role of Europe and the entire West on Africa’s inability to cast away the shackles of underdevelopment.
In 1972, Walter Rodney published a book titled, “How Europe underdeveloped Africa.” His arguments at face value can be regarded as persuasive, but arguable.
By 1972, as a 12-year old, Nigeria held the status of a baby independent country. If Nigeria recorded several missteps at 12, the country should be forgiven. But should an adult at 63 continue to point accusing fingers at what her parents did or failed to do to make him begin to behave as one who has come of age?
Where in Nigeria would people cheer a man or woman at 63 who, in good physical and mental health, continues to live in one room in the residence of his or her parents and eats from their kitchen?
But Nigeria continues to be an adult child at 63, who is eating from the kitchen of the parents, in this case her colonial masters. Whereas most of these things are imported from the West – from chocolates to gasoline, are made from nature’s largess to the country. The stunted economic growth and development, along with lack of unity and cohesion among the component units of the federation, have justified the concept of the ‘Nigeria Project’, rather than the Nigerian nation.
Several persons, including Professor J. D. Okoh, one-time Deputy Vice Chancellor of the University of Port Harcourt, believe Nigeria stays a long distance from the status of a nation.
We can draw our attention to certain actions and inactions that have kept the country down, despite her natural, human and material resources.
When a Senator earns more than the country’s President, and far ahead of his counterpart in the world’s richest nation, colonialism cannot be blamed for our underdevelopment. The same body, which members earn ₦31 million a month, legislated for a ₦30,000 per month as minimum wage for civil servants, which most state governments and businesses pay in default.
Governments prefer imported SUVs to those by local manufacturers like Innoson Vehicle Manufacturing Company Limited located at Nnewi, Anambra State. Factories in the West continue to bubble and pay their workers as well as millions of workers on the supply chain, while unemployment numbers continue to rise in Nigeria.
Years ago, Volkswagen and Peugeot vehicles were assembled in Nigeria in Kaduna and Enugu respectively, with multiplier effects via local content. Today, we buy SUVs assembled in Ghana with Nigeria as the main market.
Fellow Nigerians, by 1961, Malaysia posted lower economic indices than Nigeria. Malaysians came to Nigeria and carried oil palm seedlings to their country. Today, we are told we import palm oil products from Malaysia. United Arab Emirates, which includes Dubai as a province, functioned as fishing villages in the 1950s. Today, Dubai stands as the 4th most visited tourist destination in the world after Bangkok, Paris, London, and Paris.
A legislator in the 9th National Assembly preferred Dubai to Nicon Noga Hilton for his mother’s 90th birthday party, while he bought a Mercedes car for his wife for $300,000.
In 2020, when he bought the car, the local value stood at ₦111 million ($1: ₦370). Such amount would have set up a cottage industry for direct employment of at least 50 people and thrice the number in the supply chain.
Can we imagine the millions of Africans in western countries who impact on the development process from science to arts to sports? Lands lie fallow as do brains, because of lack of encouragement and empowerment. We look up to the West for everything – from food to high-tech goods and services. And imagine what will happen next when education subsidy goes and market forces take over. Imagine what will happen when the few youths who will access education loans graduate and meet unemployment when the man who crafted the Bill neither sponsored nor promoted a bill on job creation to enable the borrowers earn salaries and pay back the loans.
Maybe our “”chi” or god should take the blame for our value system. Europe and America met ‘ebo’ in Yoruba land where folks obtain bank loans to get their parents to reposition their bones in their resting places.
In Ibibioland, the ceremonies of transition depended on the economic strength of the departed. People used to access free food and drinks for upwards of three months. But we should blame white people for such misapplication of funds, after all another person has to be blamed for our ‘mistakes.’
If each of us lived moderate lives and invested a little to become value creators rather than consumers, the Nigeria project would have become a reality by this time. Policy makers know the importance of small and medium enterprises as drivers of employment and production as well as services in the most developed countries of the world. How do they encourage citizens who want to brave the tough world of business? How many public officers and politicians wear made-in-Nigeria dresses and for goodness sake, dry-clean their clothes in Nigeria?
Nigerians are no longer sensitive to stories of misappropriation of public funds. From thousands in the immediate post-independence days through millions in the post-oil boom days to trillions today, we move as if nothing has gone wrong, while those who have access to the press and social media continue to divert attention as they accuse colonialism for Africa’s underdevelopment.
Let someone mention one case of a white man who placed a gun on the head of an African to force him or her to make provision for SUVs in the budget and pay for the cars. Let someone mention one case of a staff in a Swiss bank who compelled an African to transfer foreign exchange into coded accounts which their children may have no knowledge of and will have no access to when the original thief (sorry, we can use the euphemism embezzler) made the transfer.
When shall compatriots arise and do the right things to enable us work with the West to grow rather than blame them for our woes? When next shall other countries come to borrow ideas from Nigeria the way Ghana borrowed the fabulous idea of Tertiary Education Trust Fund, which has made higher education worth the dream of our good compatriots?
When do we stop borrowing from China, which few decades ago, belonged to the category of underdeveloped country? When shall we grow the micro and small scale subsectors to assume their traditional role as the bedrock of the economy, the way it happens in developed countries?
If we continue to point accusing fingers, rather than work hard; live honest and prudent lives, husband our resources well, we have to agree with William Shakespeare who said, “The fault is not in our stars, but in ourselves that we are underlings.”
Cassius stated further, “Men sometimes have to be masters of their fate.” Nigeria may attain the great lofty heights we sing in our National Anthem by the year 2050 if we stop pointing accusing fingers at the West, avoid self-inflicted wounds, and follow the tested paths of progress.
Dr Ubong, a writer and public policy analyst, lives in Uyo
