At the conference on Nationalism
and Economic Justice, A.G.A. Bello (with many supporters) thinks that resource
control ends the socio/political and security problems facing Nigeria. Some
renowned activists/scholars also are of the view that giving us quality
education will end our entire dilemma; this is because education will lead to
man’s liberation. Long before the International Conference on Nationalism and
Economic Justice, these issues have been topical themes in the Nigerian polity.
The question remains: “why is the status quo still the same?” If we are to take
the statistics, up to 80% of Nigerian if not more, will make recourse to the
government. I will tackle these issues one after the other:
Education:
Let me put it more bluntly in a way we could all understand. Is it humanly possible for the oppressor to
teach the oppressed how to be truly free? Like
the slave-master morality of Nietzsche, the freedom of the slave becomes a
source of worry for the master because power is only relevant where there are
subjects which serve as outlets to vent such power. The freedom of the citizens
threatens the existence of the bourgeois. It is a situation where the awareness
of the proletariat endangers the bourgeois as increase in their awareness
decreases their capacity to be trampled upon by the bourgeois. How can they
exercise their lordship over the vast majority by dictating how to run the
resources of the state if they are allowed to go through progressive education
that liberates them? If you know that the master reasons this way, then you
should be aware that no master will genuinely send you to school to become
liberated since your liberation sends them to hell. There is need for some sort
of mental emancipation that will disturb the old equilibrium; a level of
genuine ideological war that reverses the reasoning of the elites and the
trampled majority, so as to bridge the gap that has long existed between both
groups of people in the African society.
Resource control: the question of
the various percentages that should go to oil producing communities has
lingered pendulously from one administration to another. But I do not wish to
bug you with such intricacies as it is absolutely secondary to my endeavour. I
want you to note that when Nigerians engage in a particular struggle, what
preoccupies their minds is the fact that they are interested in the immediate
and magical change of their problematic situation; as such the present moment
is what is most important. Thus, a rich politician knows the psychology of the
average Nigerian that when he gives him/her some handsome sum of money, he wins
ticket to a political office. When we go back to history, we should be aware
that African nations that sought to be independent and ethnic groups that
sought to have their independent states engaged in such struggle because they
were marginalized. But that on its own hasn’t put an end to the fight of
marginalization. People are more disintegrated when they fight each other than
when they fight common enemies; the more the limitation of the quest, the
higher the chances of national disintegration. That is the exact story of resource control. Give an
oil producing state 100% control over their resources and they will kill
themselves daily; at this point the fight will be brother against brother. It is so clear that when we talk of resource
control in Nigeria, the first thing that comes to mind is crude oil/Niger Delta
communities. The question of resource control is a conceived ideology by politicians
to lure various groups toward violent agitations all for the good of the
political elite, yet with little or no benefit to the greater majority who are
the victims of dejection. It therefore becomes the projection of the will of a
few unto the whole. But we still ask ourselves if these people are being
marginalized and our answer is yes and they also have a right to a fair share
of their resources, but to imagine that it automatically curbs violent
agitations is erroneous.
Here is
my advice to actors (misguided masses) who play the script of politicians: you
can never be a director in your own movie, because the more you align with the
political elite, the better you are taught the rudiments of being disqualified
from existential situations which are to serve as real solutions to your
plight.
