Pathfinder international

Dissecting Nuhu Ribadu

Brazil’s New Problem with Blackness — Page 3 – Pg.15

Power and Politics In Nigeria — Buhari Pg. 9

PATHFINDER International Lifting up the standard for African nationalities

VOL. 1, NO. 1

Catalan President seeks Venice Commission ’s role in referendum – Page 2

FREE

June 2017

Mozambique: Burden of War and Debt — Page 7

Why CenterLeft Parties choose to go radical – Page 14 Back in the Dying Days of Scotland’s – Page 13 Independence

Cleric makes case for India to become Hindu nation.

– Page 4

China breeds spikes-free rice to combat diabetes – Page 2

Somalia: The Watson files – Back page

Congo’s bad year is about to get worse — Page 2

2 | PATHFINDER International, June, 2017

PATHFINDER International, June 2017 | 13

NEWS

Catalan President seeks Venice Commission’s role in referendum B

arcelona (ACN) — the Catalan President, Carles Puigdemont, has sent a letter to the Council o f E u r o p e ’ s Ve n i c e Commission in order to seek its “collaboration” for the celebration of an independence referendum in agreement with Spain.

Congo’s bad year is about to get worse F

or a country that has witnessed millions of deaths, brutal colonial rule, and devastating dictatorship, the past year in the Democratic Republic of Congo still stands out as a bleak one.

Civilian massacres, decapitated police officers, bloody crackdowns, and resurgent armed groups, were fed in part by a national political crisis. The resulting instability has sparked fears of triggering the kind of regional war that scarred central Africa at the turn of the century, and has sent ordinary Congolese scrambling for safer pockets of the country.

“DRC's largely forgotten crisis in central Africa superseded all other crises in terms of the number of people forced to flee their homes,” Ulrika Blom, the Norwegian Refugee Council's country director in Congo, said in a statement. “Even Syria or Yemen's brutal wars did not match the number of new people on the move in DRC last year.”

More than 922,000 Congolese were internally displaced due to conflict in 2016 – the highest recorded globally, according to a report published by the Internal Displacement

Monitoring Center on Monday.

Analysts attribute part of these ills to an enduring election crisis.

President Joseph Kabila stayed in power after his constitutionally mandated two-term limit expired last December, citing heavy costs and incomplete voter lists for the delay in holding elections that were due last November.

“The political situation is chaotic,” said Augustin Kabuya, a spokesman for the main opposition UDPS party.

Indeed, recent months have seen violent street demonstrations, media shutdowns, and the arrests of opposition leaders, journalists, and activists.

The government and the opposition coalition, known as the Rassemblement, engaged in two rounds of talks last year to resolve the crisis. The first, mediated by the African Union, a key regional player, failed after criticism that it excluded much of the opposition.

A second deal, brokered by the Catholic Church on New Year's Eve, called for elections before the end of 2017 and a transitional government. But that agreement too has been stuck after many quarrels –

the most fractious being the nomination of the prime minister.

Kabila picked Bruno Tshibala, a dissident who had split from the Rassemblement, for the post in April, angering the opposition, who said the accord had been violated.

If you count the years since the overthrow of kleptocrat Mobutu Sese Seko by Kabila’s father Laurent in May 1997, the family has been in power for two decades. Joseph Kabila began to rule the country in 2001, after his father's assassination.

Despite this long period of time in the public eye, not many Congolese are familiar with the media-shy Kabila, said Fidel Bafilemba, a former Mai Mai rebel turned NGO consultant.

“We just woke up one day and he's the president,” he said.

A B l o o m b e rg N e w s investigation last year found that the Kabilas have “built a network of businesses that reaches into every corner of Congo's economy and has brought hundreds of millions of dollars to the family”.

“The reality is that [the] natural resource potential Contd. on Page 11

Puigdemont informed the Parliament plenary on Wednesday that he wrote the letter on May 29th explaining the Government’s intention of celebrating the referendum as well as the refusal of Spanish President, Mariano Rajoy, to negotiate it. The Catalan president said in the missive that he was “convinced” that the Catalan issue will be “of interest” to the Venice Commission because of its “political significance” and put himself “at the disposal” of this international body to discuss it further.

At the end of April, the alternative left coalition CSQP, which is in favor of holding a referendum but not necessarily independence, said they would support a unilateral referendum if it had international guarantees.

CSQP's spokesperson, Joan Coscubiela, said that the Venice Commission, the Council of Europe's institution in charge of these kind of processes, has to endorse the referendum before his party can support it. Back then, governing cross-party proindependence coalition JuntsPelSí celebrated this position, saying the group had “taken a step forward” by joining those that consider the celebration of a referendum in Catalonia even if it is done “without Spain's permission”.

During a debate with CSQP, when their leader, LluísRabell, reproached the Government for trying to organize the referendum by side-lining the demands of the cross-party National Pact for a Referendum (PNR), CarlesPuigdemont confirmed that the Catalan Government had written to the Venice Commission.

Puigdemont accused the alternative left coalition of “underestimating the Government” after not

attending the meeting he convened on Monday and showed the plenary that he is actually seeking the international collaboration that CSQP asked for.

However, the left-wing party said that the letter “does not do” what the resolution from Parliament said. According to Coscubiela, the letter is a “manipulation” because it “only informs” the Venice Commission of the Parliament and Government plans, but does not seek, in their opinion, its direct intervention.

In his letter to the Venice Commission, Puigdemont explains that Parliament approved a resolution in May underscoring the executive's “willingness to celebrate a referendum about the political future of Catalonia in accordance with the Spanish government”. He added that the resolution also urged the government to “initiate the necessary procedures to have,” in this scenario of agreement, the “collaboration of the Venice Commission”.

Puigdemont said in his letter that the Venice Commission expertise can serve “without any doubt” as a “guarantee” in a democratic process such as a self-determination referendum. “Europe was built on the basis of dialogue and it is through dialogue that we need to face and solve our current challenges,” he insisted.

Although Puigdemont admitted that the Spanish government has so far rejected all calls for a referendum negotiation, he added that his executive “has kept the door open at all time” to the possibility of coming to an agreement about one.

“I am convinced that this information will, because of its political significance,

be of interest to the Venice Commission. Therefore, I am at your disposal in case you need any clarification on the issue,” Puigdemont concluded.

The leader of the Catalan Socialist Party (PSC), Miquel Iceta, warned that the Venice Commission will not interfere in the Catalonia debate. “This body will say that a referendum outside the Constitutional framework is not possible,” he said in the plenary. Iceta added that Catalans are at “a dead end” and criticized Puigdemont's government for not “taking into account the consequences of their decisions”. “They are irresponsible,” he criticized.

The Venice Commission The Venice Commission can only write reports at the request of another body of the Council of Europe, a member state, an international organization, or by its own initiative. This means the Catalan Government is not able to ask directly for the Venice Commission's opinion on the referendum and has to rely on a petition by the Spanish government (which is unlikely), a body of the Council of Europe, another international organization, a third country, or the organization itself.

The Venice Commission 'guidelines' of good practices for referendums state that any referendum “must comply with the legal system as a whole” and “cannot be held if the Constitution or a statute in conformity with the Constitution does not provide for them”.

Therefore, a unilateral referendum against the will of the Spanish government could easily fall outside the recommendations of the Venice Commission. n

China breeds spikes-free rice to combat diabetes W

ith a stack of small, brown envelopes in hand, Li Jianyue trudges through a rice field in southern China to gather grain specimens she hopes might one day fight diabetes.

The obesity-linked disease is on a tear in China, and rice — the country's favorite staple — is showing up in studies as an important contributor. The black kernels Li pinches off mature stalks with her fingers and drops into paper sachets have been bred to avoid causing the high spikes in blood-sugar when

eaten that can eventually lead to type-2 diabetes.

China tops the world in the number of adults living with diabetes: 109.6 million as of 2015. Another 40 million could join the ranks by 2040 unless preventative steps are taken. Refined white rice is seen as an obvious target because the majority of the nation's 1.4 billion people consume it at least once a day, and eating it has a similar effect on blood-sugar levels as gorging on white bread.

“The number of people with diabetes is surging,” said Li, a professor of life

and environment sciences at Shanghai Normal U n i v e r s i t y, t r e a d i n g between muddy rows of rice in green rubber boots. Still, healthier rice alone won't tackle the problem — it has to taste good too, she said.

“So, we're also trying to improve the texture.”

The rice experiments Li is working on — under a giant bird net at a plant-breeding site about 20 kilometers (12 miles) from Sanya city, on the southern tip of Hainan island — are part of an international effort to improve the nutritional Contd. on Page 4

PATHFINDER International, June, 2017 | 3

NEWS

Brazil’s New Problem with Blackness P ELOTAS, Brazil – Late last year Fernando received news he had dreaded for months: he and 23 of his classmates had been kicked out of college. The expulsion became national news in Brazil. Fernando and his classmates may not have been publicly named (“Fernando,” in fact, is a pseudonym), but they were roundly vilified as a group.

The headline run by weekly magazine CartaCapital — “White Students Expelled from University for Defrauding Affirmative Action System” — makes it clear why.

But the headline clashes with how Fernando sees himself. He identifies as pardo, or brown: a mixedrace person with black ancestry. His family has struggled with discrimination ever since his white grandfather married his black grandmother, he told me.

“My grandfather was accused of soiling the family blood,” he said, and was subsequently cut out of an inheritance. So when he applied to a prestigious medical program at the Federal University of Pelotas, in the southern tip of Brazil, he took advantage of recent legislation that set aside places for black, brown, and indigenous students across the country's public institutions.

While affirmative action policies were introduced to U.S. universities in the 1970s, Brazil didn't begin experimenting with the concept until 2001, in part because affirmative action collided head-on with a defining feature of Brazilian identity. For much of the twentieth century, intellectual and political leaders promoted the idea that Brazil was a “racial democracy,” whose history favorably contrasted with the state-enforced segregation and violence of Jim Crow America and apartheid South Africa.

“Racial democracy,” a term popularized by anthropologists in the 1940s, has long been a source of pride among Brazilians.

As the country's black activist groups have argued for decades, it is also a myth. Brazil's horrific history of slavery — 5.5 million Africans were forcibly transported to Brazil, in comparison with the just under 500,000 brought to America — and its present-day legacy demanded legal recognition, they said. And almost two decades ago, these activists started to get their way in the form of race-based quotas at

universities.

For Brazil's black activists, however, the breach of the country's unofficial color-blindness has also been accompanied by suspicion over race fraud: people taking advantage of affirmative action policies never meant for them in the first place.

“These spots are for people who are phenotypically black,” Mailson Santiago, a history major at the Federal University of Pelotas and a member of the student activist group Setorial Negro, told me. “It's not for people with black grandmothers.”

But in a country as uniquely diverse as Brazil — where 43 percent of citizens identify as mixedrace, and 30 percent of those who think of themselves as white have black ancestors — it's not immediately clear where the line between races should be drawn, nor who should get to draw it, and using what criteria.

These questions have now engulfed college campuses, the public sector, and the courts.

A state of racial vigilance permeated campuses across at least six states in 2016. In February of that year, the student activist group ColetivoNegrada reported 28 allegedly fraudulent students to the Public Prosecutor's Office in Espirito Santo state. In Bahia alone, students across

five universities, including the association of black medical students NegreX, reported on each other for allegedly faking their identity. A few months later, Setorial Negro members in Pelotas took their cue. They filed suit against Fernando and 26 other seemingly white medical students — a process that set an investigation in motion and saw 24 of them kicked off campus in December, earning black activists nationwide their biggest victory of the year. (Three students were cleared of wrongdoing.)

At least three schools — including Federal University of Pelotas, or UFPel, as the school is commonly known — installed controversial race boards to inspect future affirmative action applicants. Several others are considering doing the same. It is possible that such panels will eventually be codified into law. What's alread y clear is th at affirmative action, as a strategy for racial equality, has proven an uneasy fit for Brazil, resolving certain racial dilemmas by creating entirely new ones.

“It divided our program,” admits Marlon Deleon, a black second-semester medical student at UFPel who enrolled through the university's racial quotas system and personally reported on a classmate who did the same, but whom

Deleon described as “flagrantly white and blond.”

“A lot of students thought of this as a new inquisition, as a witch hunt,” Deleon said. “But there were many of us who believed it was the right thing to do.”

The United States has provided Brazil with the most direct blueprint for affirmative action. But the two countries' divergent histories have left them with distinct understandings of race.

Relationships across black-white boundaries have always been rare in the United States. Settlers arrived for the most part in family units, which together with the gaping material and legal chasm between the white ruling class and black enslaved population, ensured that interracial relationships remained taboo. At one point or another, 41 U.S. states had laws banning interracial marriage — 17 of them as recently as 50 years ago.

(The Supreme Court finally ruled anti-miscegenation laws unconstitutional that year in the landmark Loving v. Virginia decision.)

Meanwhile, race was codified into laws determining that even one drop of African ancestry rendered a person legally black.

Unlike in America, “miscegenation” played an integral role in Brazilian nation-building. White

settlers skewed heavily male, and they were vastly outnumbered by people of c o l o r. R e l a t i o n s h i p s between white settlers and indigenous, and latter black enslaved women, were not only accepted, but encouraged by colonial authorities (although for the women, they were rarely consensual). By 1872, whites made up only 38 percent of the population.

If interracial relationships were widespread prior to the abolition of slavery in 1888, they became a matter of national duty afterward.

That didn't happen “just because we all happened to get along,” said Mirtes Santos, a law student and ColetivoNegrada member.

“It was a way to erase black identity.” Brazil’s government launched a full-on propaganda and policy effort to “whiten” Brazil: It closed the country's borders to African immigrants, denied black Brazilians the rights to lands inhabited by the descendants of runaway slaves, and subsidized the voyage of millions of German and Italian workers, providing them with citizenship, land grants, and stipends when they arrived.

These policies didn't eliminate race, but they did affect how it came to be classified. The marker of race drifted away from a binary consideration of a person's ancestry and became increasingly based on one's appearance. Today, Brazilians see themselves as falling across a spectrum of skin colors with a dizzying assortment of names: burnt white, brown, dark nut, light nut, black, and copper are a few of the 136 categories that the census department, in a 1 9 7 6 s t u d y, f o u n d Brazilians to use for selfidentification.

What ultimately binds these definitions together is an awareness that the less “black” a person looks, the better — better for securing jobs, better for social mobility. The widespread acceptance of multiracial identities in Brazil coexists

Brazil’s government launched a full-on propaganda and policy effort to “whiten” Brazil: It closed the country's borders to African immigrants, denied black Brazilians the rights to lands inhabited by the descendants of runaway slaves, and subsidized the voyage of millions of German and Italian workers, providing them with citizenship, land grants, and stipends when they arrived.

with steep racial inequality — a contradiction that the sociologist Edward E. Telles has called “the enigma of Brazilian race relations.” Even the supposed embrace of interracial romance, which is more prevalent among low-income Brazilians, dwindles with each step up the socio-economic ladder.

(In comparison, the rate of mixed-race marriages in America increases in proportion to education level, although overall they remain quite rare.) As Brazil's leading anthropologist told a rapt European audience in 1912, “the mixed-race Brazil of today looks to whiteness as its objective, its way out and its solution.” He predicted that, by 2012, black Brazilians would be extinct.

While 80 percent of the country's one-percenters are white, Brazilians who look black and mixed-race make up 76 percent of the bottom tenth of income earners.

They earn, on average, 41 percent less than their white colleagues. They are also disproportionately represented across the country's notoriously underfunded public school system. As a result, compared to the mostly white students who can afford a private school education, black and mixedrace Brazilians are less equipped to navigate the college admissions process.

Only 13 percent of them between the ages of 18 and 24 are currently enrolled in a university.

Hence the need, so went the argument, for affirmative action. But if the idea seemed justified in theory, it was less clear how exactly Brazil was supposed to put it into practice.

To tackle inequality in higher education, the federal government passed the Law of Social Quotas in 2012. The law earmarks half of all admissions spots across the country's federally funded institutions to public high school graduates, regardless of their race. (Public universities, unlike high schools, are more prestigious in Brazil than private ones.) Of those reserved spots, half go to students whose families earn less than 1.5 minimum wage, or about $443 a month. A percentage of the spaces in both categories then gets set aside for black, brown and indigenous students, in proportion to the ratio of white to nonwhite residents in each given state.

The government gave schools four years, until 2016, to fully comply with the law. The problem is that Contd. on Page 4

4 | PATHFINDER International, June, 2017

NEWS Brazil’s New Problem Contd. from Page 3 the law merely asked that candidates report their own race. To many students and professors I spoke with, the only thing that seems to have risen in popular undergraduate programs like law and medicine are the number of whitelooking students who gained entry by claiming to be black.

“It's visible to the naked eye,” said LuanaPadilha, a black medical student who enrolled via affirmative action. “By my count, at least 12 of my classmates should have accessed the program through racial quotas. But I look around and can't recognize any of these people.”

“If you look at a photograph of the incoming medical class of 2015, only one of the students looks black,” said Georgina Lima, a professor and head of UFPel's Center for Affirmative Action and Diversity. “And he's not even Brazilian. He's from Africa.”

The Ethnicity Evaluation Committee, of which Lima is a member, was installed to address this loophole. It interviewed prospective students for the first time ahead of the second semester of 2016. “We saw the most incredible situations unfold,” said Rogerio Reis, an anthropology professor and head of the committee.

“People would shave their heads, wear beanies, get a tan. Just a series of strategies to turn themselves black.”

Fabio Goncalves, a lawyer and committee member, was about to put one prospective student down as black, when one of his female colleagues, “who knows more about this kind of thing than I do,” told him to note the difference in skin tone between the student's face and body. The student “had darkened her features with make-up!” he told me, in utter bewilderment.

For as long as black activists have demanded affirmative action, they have also stressed the need for monitoring strategies.

“Brazil is the country of frauds,” said Helio Santos, president of the Brazilian Diversity Institute and a leading figure in the black rights movement. “Civil rights efforts that don't come with any oversight are a joke.” But the recent implementation of verification panels across several schools has raised troubling questions about who gets to define race in a country where people don't fall neatly into black and white categories.

“My father is black. My official documents say I'm white. I have firsthand experience with miscegenation. This issue is not so clear-cut,” said

Kelvin Rodrigues, a second semester medical student at UFPel who is critical of the evaluation committee, even if he supports expelling those who commit blatant racial fraud. Rodrigues looks black, but as someone who graduated from a private high school, he was never eligible for affirmative action spots in the first place.

“If the law stipulates that an applicant's race should be self-reported, then what right does anyone have to tell that person that they're lying?” said Luiz Paulo Ferreira, another secondsemester medical student.

He told me that he considers himself pardo(mixed race) and enrolled in the medical program through the racial quotas, but that he was not one of the 27 students who were investigated.

“How can members of the committee feel particularly qualified to make these judgment calls?” said Ferreira. “And based on what criteria?”

Eleven experts comprised the panel, among them UFPel administrators, anthropologists, and leaders in the wider black community of Pelotas. They received strict guidelines from the Public Prosecutors Office: “Phenotypical characteristics are what should be taken into account,” read the instructions. “Arguments concerning the race of one's ancestors are therefore irrelevant.”

The official criteria mirrored the way the issue has played out in the public sector as well. In 2014, the federal government approved a law that set aside 20 percent of public sector jobs to people of color. In Aug. 2016, after it had become clear that the law left room for fraud, the government ordered all departments to install verification committees.

But it failed to provide the agencies with any guidance.

The Department of Education in Para, Brazil's blackest state, attempted to fulfill the decree with a checklist, which leaked to the press. Among the criteria to be scored: Is the job candidate's nose short, wide and flat? How thick are their lips? Are their gums sufficiently purple? What about their lower jaw? Does it protrude forward?

Candidates were to be awarded points per item, like “hair type” and “skull shape.” In response to the leaked test, one college professor from the state wrote on Facebook, “We're going back to the slave trade. During job interviews they're gonna stick their hands in our mouth to inspect our teeth.”

But black activists say such measures are unavoidable. “A person who d o e s n o t l o o k

phenotypically black is not the one getting killed by police every 23 minutes,” said Santos, the law student and ColetivoNegrada member. “So long as this is how racism manifests itself here, we need to ensure that the people taking up admission spots in universities are the ones with these characteristics.”

The expulsion of the UFPel medical students at the tail-end of 2016, while a major victory for the black activist movement, has not settled the debate around quotas, race frauds, and panels. Seven of the 24 expelled students challenged the university's decision, and in February, a court gave them permission to go back to class. UFPel has vowed to appeal the ruling. The evaluation committee, meanwhile, has since interviewed candidates for the race quota slots in the first term of 2017. It has also announced a second investigation beyond the medical school, into the more than one thousand students across UFPel that enrolled via affirmative action since the law first went into effect.

The topic has also galvanized conservative politicians, who have enjoyed renewed political power since the impeachment of Brazil's first female president, Dilma Rousseff, brought an end to 13 years of leftist Wo r k e r s ' P a r t y r u l e .

Fernando Holiday, a black libertarian activist who spearheaded mass protests against Rousseff, won a council seat during October's midterm elections on a campaign platform to repeal race quota measures. The farright Congressman Jair Bolsonaro, who has long expressed vehement opposition to affirmative action laws, has steadily risen in the polls for the 2018 presidential election.

For the time being, individual students will be obliged to navigate the country's evolving racial codes on their own.

Fernando, now expelled from UFPel, remembers his interview with the evaluation committee lasting eight minutes. The panelists started by asking him about when he first recognized himself as pardo. Then, to his surprise, they asked how involved he was with the black activist movement.

“I shouldn't have to be an activist to be considered black,” said Fernando.

Although the Law of Social Quotas is extended to mixed-race candidates, he left the interview feeling like he was being singled out for having light skin.

“None of the interviewers were pardo. There was no one there that could identify with me.” n

Cleric makes case for India to become Hindu nation T hree days after a “firebrand Hindu cleric” was appointed as chief minister of India's largest state, eyes were already on the slaughterhouses.

India's governing party, B J P, a p p o i n t e d Yo g i Adityanath, the 44-year-old priest turned politician, to be chief minister of Uttar Pradesh (UP). Adityanath has called for India to be a Hindu nation (according to a recent census, the country is 80 percent Hindu and 14 percent Muslim) and supports the construction of a Hindu temple on the site of a razed 16th-century mosque (which, given that he is now chief minister, may well happen). On Tuesday, just three days after his appointment, it was reported that butchers and meat traders are already concerned about the consequences of Adityanath. Only five slaughterhouses operate in UP legally (slaughtered meat is a point of contention in India, where cows are largely sacred and violence has been carried out against Muslims over suspicion of carrying beef).

SadanandDhume, a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, said he wasn't sure whether illegal or all

By Emily Tamkin

slaughterhouses will be targeted. “But either way, it's clear that the party is not shying away from a cultural agenda,” he said. Irfan Nooruddin of Georgetown University believes the slaughter-house ban will be put into effect. “To be a Christian minority or a Muslim minority is going to be very hard” in the state of UP, he told FP. Why would Prime Minister Narendra Modi's party, on the heels of its greatest political victory since 2014, which it won largely on Modi's political coattails, appoint such a person?

“The results of the Uttar Pradesh elections suggested strong consolidation of much of the Hindu vote in the state,” Dhume explained, adding, “the BJP wants the symbol of that consolidation to be a confrontational figure best known for his animus toward Muslims.”

Politics in UP are characterized by three things: personal wealth amassed by corrupt politicians, nepotism within party politics, and disproportionate power of those in the coalition.

Because coalitions in power were so narrow, those in it

enjoyed tremendous pull, which gave rise to the idea that Muslims had disproportionate political clout, according to Dhume.

Further, by choosing a head of a Hindu holy order, BJP is aiming to transcend caste, an idea that Modi put forth during the campaign.

But so, too, does it signal something else. Since coming to power, Modi has focused on “development politics” — reforms (or promises of reforms) that would develop and strengthen India and its economy.

That doesn't mean Adityanath signals a complete break from BJP politics. “I think that this is completely with keeping with the campaign strategy used in UP, and that we should not be surprised,” Nooruddin said. However, typically, campaigns aside, Modi and company have put in place more technocratic individuals. The five-time devout MP is not that. And so Adityanath’s appointment suggests not that the BJP may be abandoning development politics, but that it will also pursue identity politics.

And that it may be doing so to the detriment of 14 percent of India’s population. n

China breeds spikes-free rice Contd. from Page 2

value of rice.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, for example, is working with rice researchers in the Philippines and Bangladesh on rice enriched with vitamin Ato tackle blindness.

Australia's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization, or CSIRO, is developing rice with more fiber so that it's broken down in the lower digestive tract, where it can aid gut health and avoid the glucose-surge that can weaken the body's response to insulin and eventually lead to type-2 diabetes. A separate program underway with the Chinese Academy of Sciences is seeking to pack rice with more vitamin B and E, iron, and zinc.

“Middle-class Chinese are now very focused on nutrition,” said Phil Larkin, a chief research scientist with the CSIRO in Canberra.

“The rate of increase in type2 diabetes in China is very frightening.”

A study released in 2013 estimated that China had 114 million people living with diabetes, or 21.6 million million more than a study three years earlier.

Li's experimental rice has a larger germ — the embryonic part of the kernel — than normal rice, she explains. That feature gives it more protein and less carbohydrate, which is converted into glucose during digestion. Her current work involves creating hybrids that combine that property with the taste and texture of the rice varieties

popular on China's populous eastern seaboard.

Black rice from her lab grown on a 1-hectare (2.5acre) plot last year was sold to two local companies.

Shanghai Microwells Biotechnology Co. removed the hull and blended it unpolished with white rice in a 20 percent blend. General Manager He Jianhui said it was a potentially risky move since most Chinese prefer eating white rice and believe that unpolished rough rice is inferior.

“But, now that more Chinese are seeking a healthy diet, we hope the unpolished rice can help people with the potential to develop diabetes, and that by improving their diet, they can avoid turning to doctors for medicine,” he said.

Contd. on Page 14

PATHFINDER International, June, 2017 | 5

EDITORIAL

“

A L u t t a Continua” was F R E L I M O (Frente de Libertação de Moçambique) coined “A Lutta Continua” as its battle cry against Portuguese colonialism; a slogan adopted by antiimperialist and especially antiapartheid groups in Africa. In Nigeria, it became the identifying characteristic of the student movement such that no “struggle” was deemed legitimate without the “a lutta” component .

T h i s m a k e s Mozambique a unique anti-colonial and antiimperialist territory in A f r i c a .

A t Independence in 1975, only two percent of the over 20 million inhabitants were literate; this includes those who were sent to Portugal for their education. Within this context, FRELIMO embarked on some f o r m o f “industrialization” where Soviet machinery were imported to work on the “collective farms”

EDITORIAL BOARD Publisher Femi Odedeyi Managing Editor Gbenga Gbesan Production Editor Soji Amosu Graphics / Design Mikaiil Akinlawon Published by Pathfinder Media LLC P.O. Box 1256, Greenbelt, MD20768, USA Tel: 240-838-4466.

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Aluta Continua as part of the effort at m e c h a n i z e d agriculture fueling industrialization.

These machinery's operating manuals were written in the Russian Language.

Needless to say, a society with such a low incidence of literacy in her colonial language and with no formal written language of its own cannot be expected to operate machines designed for the express use of a completely different Language. To make matters worse, an internal war compounded this economic and social dysfunction hence making such decisions as analyzed in “Mozambique: The Burden of War and Debt” could not but occur.

This was part of a series of decisions characterizing the post-colonial African States, in spite of development rhetoric, such that the question of “Power and Politics

in Nigeria” became another manifestation.

The “US Secret Memo ATHFINDER International on the Biafran War” in Nigeria was a subset of thisgeneral question which forms the foundation of the endless wars in Africa, where attempts by a section or faction of the While all of these ruling elite always try dominate the other wars are going on, to thereby leaving the Africa’s lands are e s s e n t i a l w o r k o f being steadily and combating the impact s o m e t i m e s of colonialism on the continent for another stealthily sold to day. the same econo- While all of these mic formations wars are going on, lands are which colonized Africa's being steadily and the continent. The sometimes stealthily frenetic pace at s o l d t o t h e s a m e formations which this is going economic which colonized the on will soon make continent. The frenetic Africans landless pace at which this is occupants of their going on will soon make Africans landless continent. occupants of their continent.

In comes the “Christian Dialog for Change” with its reflection on “Creation, Language and Nationhood”. It is

P

“

”

usually stated that the African continent has the fastest growing Christian community in the world; yet this has not translated into their making any impact on the solution; rather, the tendency is to reinforce that colonial assertion of the irrelevance of their identity in human affairs in spite of their being created by God and expressed by their Language/Tongue. The “Christian Dialog for Change” anchors its analysis on the recognition of this foundational truism.

This being a welcome development, otherwise, hopes would still have to be placed on Europe for a solution, where its Centrist parties are feverishly trying to figure out how to combat the rise of the inappropriately named “populist” parties, especially in the United States and Britain. This resistance is a fresh breath of air in all of what is happening to Africa andAfricans. n

6 | PATHFINDER International, June 2017

FAITH

African Christians and Nationhood C

hristians in Africa are faced with the problematic of what is to be done, considering the systematic annihilation of Christian lives, either by supposed herdsmen of Fulani extraction or those described as Islamic terrorists without any intervention by the Apparatus of State. This had been the general experience of Christians in Nigeria, especially in the northern parts where their sufferings because of their faith is compounded by their EthnoNationality, which was and is why these atrocities are always limited to geopolitical territories largely inhabited by non-Fulani and non-Muslims, thus limiting the narrative to a contrived religious conflict when it is n o t s o .

That certain largely Christian and non-Fulani territories in Northern Nigeria, especially in the Middle Belt axis, had been formally and officially taken over by the Fulani through the creation of new local government areas for them is not a religious phenomenon; that the methodologies employed in these instances followed a similar pattern as being practiced in the Darfur Region of the Sudan where the African populations are being systematically destroyed by the Statesupported group known as the “janjaweed” is not a religious affair; so also the nomadic business of cattle rearing almost always leading to destruction of farmlands and murders of farmers, raping of women and general disregard for local customs are not religious phenomena; not even when Christian preachers are routinely beheaded by “Islamists” with no consequence on the perpetrators can such be deemed a religious affair.

In all of these, the State Apparatus had always been found wanting, ignoring the atrocities while usually punishing the victims, which point to the reality that what we are faced with is not religious conflict but the utilization of a State Apparatus to perpetuate a pre-arranged political and economic and therefore cultural order for the Peoples inhabiting the Nigerian geo-political s p a c e .

The glue holding all of the different cultures, nationalities and lingual groupings together in Nigeria is the State with all of its apparatus with a mandate anchored on a Constitution aimed at protecting the various interests ostensibly for the good of all and with enough criteria for dealing with errant behavior.

There is no doubt that the Nigerian State has failed in

“…. of the sons of Issachar who had understanding of the times, to know what Israel ought to do…..” (1 Chronicles 12:32) this particular instance over a long period of time as there are enough evidence to support the lackadaisical attitude of the State towards these occurrences.

Nigerian Christian response have been lackluster; mainly concerned with praying for the authorities but without specifics as to what is being prayed for, save the usual exhortations of God ministering to the hearts of those in government or authority. At other times, they embark of usually fruitless peace missions alongside those leaders of the Islamic faith into areas of conflict only to be confronted with further attacks thus making nonsense of such peace efforts. Yet, some have also found it necessary to engage the State Apparatus in trying to make it alive to its responsibilities, either by serving in any of the Administrations directly or as advisers, again without any commensurate response from the State in terms of either lessening of tensions or directly neutralizing the causes of these tensions, while others are advocating self-help measures , especially if their places of worship are attacked and which are justified by the State's non-responsiveness to its own responsibilities.

While all of these may be avenues towards efforts at resolving some of the issues, a basic ingredient is not being taken into consideration, to wit: having an understanding of the times, to know what we o u g h t t o d o .

As earlier noted, unresponsiveness on the part of the State Apparatus in following through on its expected role of providing for the good of all is selfevident and that is where the approach to the problematic ought to start from.

How then did this failure of the State come about? There were Christian politicians and non-politicians active in the ways and manners by which the State itself came into being and now being run hence we cannot claim that the State is rigged against Christians. Christian leaders played various leadership roles in the emergence or sustenance of any of the administrations that have run Nigeria, c i v i l i a n o r m i l i t a r y, including those who served as Heads of State professing to be Christians, yet without any impact as to the State coming alive to its responsibilities.

That means, Christians, in

general, have not yet taken time to go to the root of the matter, which is, the Nigerian State (and by the way the African State) is not based on Language, which is the only Godly basis for everything. There would be no Creation, no social relations and hence no society, without the Spoken Word, for God spoke all that was created into being just as Adam named(that is, spoke) everything created

by God. Furthermore, it is written: “in the beginning was the WORD, and the WORD was with God, and the WORD was God. All things were made through Him and without Him nothing was made that was made (John 1: 1-3); this WORD being Jesus Christ whose manifestation, in the beginning, came about from being Spoken. Speaking out the word is by and through Language as the means of communication.

It is further written, in another place: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.

Then God said, (that is, spoke), saying, “let there be light”; and there was light.

(Genesis 1: 1-3).

Furthermore, Genesis 11:59 says: “But the LORD came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of men had built. And the LORD said, “Indeed the people are one and they all have one language, and this is what they begin to do; now nothing that they propose to do will be withheld from them. Come, let Us go down and there confuse their

language, that they may not understand one another's speech.” So the LORD scattered them abroad from there over the face of all the earth, and they ceased building the city. Therefore its name is called Babel, because there the LORD confused the language of all the earth; and from there the LORD scattered them abroad over the face of all t h e e a r t h . ” Our Lord's Prayer says in M a t h e w 6 : 1 0 “ Yo u r kingdom come. Your will be done On earth as it is in heaven” where what is done in Heaven is described in Revelation 7:9-17 thus: “After these things I looked, and behold, a great multitude which no one could number, of all nations, tribes, peoples, and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, saying, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!” All the angels stood around the throne and the elders and the four living creatures, and fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, saying: “Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom, Thanksgiving and honor and power and might, Be to our God forever and ever.

Amen.” Then one of the elders answered, saying to me, “Who are these arrayed in white robes, and where did they come from?” And I said to him, “Sir, you know.”

So he said to me, “These are the ones who come out of the great tribulation, and washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Therefore they are

Christians in Nigeria are now faced with the challenge of Restoration, for the essence of our faith is Restoration, of the individual to God and of the society into which God intended it to be for us to manifest the God-nature in us. This way, all of the contradictions embedded in social life will have a Godly foundation through which they could be resolved.

before the throne of God, and serve Him day and night in His temple. And He who sits on the throne will dwell among them. They shall neither hunger anymore nor thirst anymore; the sun shall not strike them, nor any heat; for the Lamb who is in the midst of the throne will shepherd them and lead them to living fountains of waters. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes”… all of which were previously reflected in Acts 2:5-12 as “And there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men, from every nation under heaven. And when this sound occurred, the multitude came together, and were confused, because everyone heard them speak in his own language. Then they were all amazed and marveled, saying to one another, “Look, are not all these who speak Galileans?

And how is it that we hear, each in our own language in which we were born?

Parthians and Medes and Elamites, those dwelling in Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya adjoining Cyrene, visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs—we hear them speaking in our own tongues the wonderful works of God.” So they were all amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, “ Wha te ver co uld th is mean?” From all of these, the centrality of Language in Creation and all of the works of God are very clear, veering away from which will ultimately lead to extinction and continuous conflict with the nature of the society as had happened to several peoples and languages throughout history. Yet history exist to guide us in avoiding its pitfalls, hence when a Nigerian State Apparatus came into being without this fundamental Language c h a r a c t e r, w h a t h a s happened and will continue to happen ought not be surprising. We can only speculate on what could have happened to Christianity in West Africa, had Samuel Ajayi Crowther not translated the Bible into Yoruba and other African Languages.

Christians in Nigeria are now faced with the challenge of Restoration, for the essence of our faith is Restoration, of the individual to God and of the society into which God intended it to be for us to manifest the God-nature in

us. This way, all of the contradictions embedded in social life will have a Godly foundation through which they could be resolved.

Thus, the conflicts in the northern parts of Nigeria would be resolved when Nigerian Christians make it its duty to address this fundamental language problematic by intervening in the Constitutional Reformation of the country from the Language perspective, which, by definition, empowers all of the Lingual groups in the Nigerian geo-political space and which will Restore our Peoples to their Godintended purposes, having been created in His own i m a g e .

It is not by happen stance that Nigeria (Africa) remain the most underdeveloped section of humanity principally because we have allowed our Languages to be vernacularized and criminalized such that it plays no part in our understanding of phenomena/nature which God has given us the ability to do as it is written in Ecclesiastes 1: 13(And I set my heart to seek and search out by wisdom concerning all that is done under heaven; this burdensome task God has given to the sons of man by which they may be e x e r c i s e d ) Theories about economic and social development abound, even if anchored on what is good for the “developed world” and Nigerian Christians have become experts at some of these Theories and have actually applied some to Nigeria's developmental efforts. All floundered on the unresponsiveness of the Nigerian State Apparatus largely due to its separation from its Language sources since a culture of development cannot exist outside the Language of its expression; this is without prejudice to multi-lingual, multi-cultural congregations and assemblies each of whom will have to take responsibility for the cultural/lingual and therefore developmental existentialism of the c o n g r e g a n t s .

This is also not advocating some form of Christian Theocracy, but a recognition of the centrality of Language in God's creation as it is written in 1 Corinthians 12:12-13: “For as the body is one and has many members, but all the members of that one body, being many, are one body, so also is Christ.

For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free—and have all been made to drink into one Spirit…..” this being the Holy Spirit through whom Creation was spoken into being. n

PATHFINDER

International

M

ozambique’s two main political parties remain locked in a sinister war of attrition as the economy gallops to total collapse. The Frente de Libertação de Moçambique, which has held power since independence from Portugal in 1975, is fighting to maintain its grip on the country – whatever the cost to the population. Economic and political strife has worsened in the wake of a debt scandal of mindboggling proportions, in which the government secretly guaranteed loans of US$2.2 billion for dubious projects during the second term of former President Armando Guebuza.

In response, donors froze budget support, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank suspended their financial aid to the country, and all are now awaiting the results of an independent audit of three companies that received the bulk of the money, just over $2 bn. in total: Ematum($850 million obtained in 2013, claimed to be for creation of state tuna fishing fleet),Proindicus($622 mn. obtained in 2012 and 2013, claimed to be for maritime security), Mozambique Asset Management (MAM) ($535 mn. obtained in 2014, claimed to be for ship maintenance and the shipbuilding industry). This will be carried out by the corporate investigations and risk advisory company Kroll.

Economists believe that Mozambique would always have endured tough times during the recent period of lower commodity prices, but the secret debt deals landed a heavy blow at exactly the time when Mozambique needed to exercise greater financial prudence. Finance Minister Adriano Maleianerevealed on 25 October that Mozambique's debt levels are officially unsustainable, inflation is at 25% and rising, and the metical has fallen 70% against the US dollar in 2016 alone.

The country’s credibility is in tatters, and the wave of assassinations of senior members of opposition party Resistência Nacional de Moçambiquethat, has marked the current peace talks is doing further damage to Frelimo, which is believed to be responsible for these deaths as well as attacks on critics in civil society. While President Filipe Nyusibegs investors to have faith in Mozambique, for the IMF to reengage with a new program, and for donors to disburse, more

7

Magazine Vol. 1, No. 1, June, 2017

Mozambique: Burden of War and Debt

skeletons lurk in the closet. These include revelations about how the $2 bn. was really spent, the companies' murky links to other private companies owned by the Frelimo elite, and the possibility that they used money from their

The country’s credibility is in tatters, and the wave of assassinations of senior members of opposition party, Resistência Nacional de Moçambiquethat, has marked the current peace talks is doing further damage to Frelimo, which is believed to be responsible for these deaths as well as attacks on critics in civil society.

state-guaranteed loans as collateral for finance in more opaque deals.

Questions and Answers Are Ematum, Proindicus and MAM able to pay their debts?

No. None is running even close to full operational capacity, nor turning a profit, nor showing any sign of being able to do so.

Ematum has made huge losses and boats have not gone out to fish for ten months. Equipment for Proindicus and MAM is sitting in containers or rusting on the shore.

All three companies severely lack the trained staff, resources and capital necessary to bring the project to fruition.

Can the government honor its guarantees and make debt repayments for Ematum, Proindicus and MAM? No. Finance Minister Maleiane has admitted that it is

unsustainable and on 25 October, at a creditors' meeting in London, he said that the government was unable to pay and needed to restructure the loans. This includes not only Proindicus and MAM but also the Mozam bond, which replaced the original Ematum bond when it was restructured in March 2016. As a result, Mozam's value has taken a sharp dive. A group forming 60% of the Mozam bondholders has said they should now be last in line for a restructure, and are unwilling to cooperate. Mozambique is now considered the highest-risk issuer of debt in the world. Financial experts believe sovereign default to be a real possibility.

Why is an audit of the three companies necessary?

Clear signs that the $2 bn. was misspent and continued uncertainty over what else

government might still be concealing are behind the demands for the audit. After all the lies and incompetence, donors and investors have lost confidence in Mozambique. They are waiting for an endorsement from the IMF, but the IMF is unlikely to embark on a new program with Mozambique until it is satisfied both that it has all the information and that the country has sustainable debt levels.

Has the government declared all of Mozambique’s hidden debt?

Maleiane has stated that there is no more hidden state debt. While this may be the case, it is impossible to be certain, since the government's claims now lack credibility. The government spent more than three years trying to cover up the hidden loans and remained in denial even when Contd. on Page 8

8 | PATHFINDER International, June 2017

Mozambique: Burden of War and Debt Contd. from Page 7 information began to leak.

Guarantees given by the previous Finance Minister, Manuel Chang, were illegal under Mozambican law and kept secret, even from senior Ministers. Current Finance Minister Maleiane continued the cover-up, falsely declaring to the IMF in December 2015 that state guarantees for loans since 2010 totaled $897 mn. He failed to mention Proindicus, MAM and other loans to the Ministry of Interior of $221 mn. from a bilateral creditor that the government still refuses to disclose. Sources close to the government say this creditor is China.

Furthermore, while there may be no further state guarantees or loans, Africa Confidential has learned of more private sector debt that was indirectly facilitated by the original state guarantees for the $2 bn. package. This was ultimately used to supply the state security sector.

What is the hidden military spending to which AC refers?

Does it to amount to yet more state debt?

AC refers to 'another $900 mn. of secret security loans, this time for companies owned by the Frelimo elite to broker arms deals for the state' (AC Vol 57 No 20).

The sum is therefore debt incurred by private companies, not the state of Mozambique. However, the financing structure used by these private companies is closely linked with these state-owned entities. It is the sum total of more than one loan, obtained by more than one private company, but for the overall purpose of military procurement by the state.

How is it linked to the $2 bn. of hidden, state guaranteed loans?

An assessment of the goods and services which Mozambique purchased with the $2bn., indicates that at least $1 bn. is unaccounted for. Some believe the unexplained figure is even higher.

AC's story sheds light on where a large chunk of the money was diverted, directly or indirectly: for a large military package, once again procured through a complex and partially-privatized structure that sought to both provide rentseeking opportunities for the Frelimo elite, and disguise the use of commercial loans for military procurement.

The package includes not only weapons and armored vehicles, say Frelimo sources, but also large sums spent on training for the state security services, surveillance equipment, and in general

provided a large injection of funding into Mozambique's secret services, Serviço de Informação e Segurança do Estado (SISE).

Where did the money for these loans come from? How was it obtained?

AC understands that Proindicus and the structure behind it, ultimately controlled by SISE and its company Gestão de Investimentos, Participações e Serviços(GIPS) enabled these companies to arrange their financing by providing guarantees for their loans. Part of the $2 bn. is likely to have acted as collateral for the loans obtained by the private companies. Some, or all, of this money may represent new money in the form of additional private sector commercial loans.

It is possible that some or all of these loans actually came from the original $2 bn. This may help explain why $256 mn. ofProindicus's $622 mn. loan is not accounted for by the contract covering its maritime security project.

Did Ematum, Proindicus and MAM purchase arms?

No, not directly. However, money from the $2 bn. was used to enable the purchase of arms by the state through an arms-length structure. It potentially allows money from commercial loans, not intended to be spent on arms, to fund a military package. It also allows politically-connected individuals to make money by doing business on behalf of the state.

Who are the beneficiaries behind these private companies?

Members of the Frelimo elite.

Local newspaper CanalMoz alleges that they include companies owned by the son of former President Armando Guebuza, Mussumbuluku.

CanalMoz has produced what it claims is evidence, including photographs and bank account numbers, of these companies buying arms from Israel and selling them to the state.

Would an audit reveal the presence of this money and the military package it funded?

It will depend on the terms of reference of the independent audit

by Kroll, which the IMF pressed on Mozambique. We hear that SISE applied immense pressure on government and the Attorney General’s office to restrict the scope of the audit. We also hear that senior members of SISE are very concerned about this previously undeclared spending becoming public. This indicates that records of this money exist in the accounts of Proindicus and/or

its parent companies.

Will the Terms of Reference of the audit be made public?

So far, discussions have been kept secret. The current expectation is that the terms of reference, now finalized, will not be made public. This has provoked criticism among donors and civil society, who say that in an exercise that is about transparency, such details should not be kept secret. It has also fueled speculation that the government is still trying to cover up certain aspects of the deals and that it may be allowed to get away with it.

Does the government deny that there were arms purchases associated with the $2 bn.?

No. In response to AC's story, no denial was made and, in private, senior Frelimo officials are starting to admit that while the three companies themselves did not buy weapons, some of the money was used for this purpose.

Sources close to SISE

acknowledge that there is a large military package that may need to be explained to auditors.

Why is the debt of these private companies relevant to the Mozambique debt story as a whole, and the future forensic audit? Why should it be made public?

It was facilitated by companies whose capital comes from the state or state-guaranteed money. Some or all of the money loaned to these companies may come from the original $2 bn., much of which is known to have been diverted. One of the key aims of the audit is to discover how the money was really spent.

It seems that the customer of these private companies is the state. One must question how the apparent middleman role of these private companies can be justified, and why they received assistance from state-owned entities to undertake military procurement destined for state use. Why was this not undertaken transparently

Some. Electronic surveillance capacity has increased greatly. The growing crackdown on civil liberties and Renamo indicate more sophisticated surveillance of internet use and emails. A cutting-edge surveillance system has reportedly been supplied by Chinese company Zhong Xing Telecommunication Equipment Company Limited (known as ‘ZTE corporation’).

by the relevant ministries?

Is there evidence of the security forces using new arms?

Some. Electronic surveillance capacity has increased greatly.

The growing crackdown on civil liberties and Renamo indicate more sophisticated surveillance of internet use and emails. A cuttingedge surveillance system has reportedly been supplied by Chinese company Zhong Xing Telecommunication Equipment Company Limited (known as 'ZTE corporation').

Run from a sophisticated command center in Maputo, it can intercept and record a wide range of communications, including calls and emails, as well as accessing encrypted messages.

There are clear signs of a recruitment drive by SISE, sources at universities in Mozambique say, and personnel who left the service are being encouraged to return. Evidence of new riot vehicles has also been noted during the government's recent efforts to stop public protests over the debt crisis and there are reports of new small arms from Israel being at the security forces' disposal.

What's the evidence of elite involvement in arms acquisitions?

A company owned by Guebuza's younger son Mussumbuluku, named 'Msumbiji Investment Limited', acted as an intermediary, making an 8% commission – or $11.2 mn. of the $140 mn. contract with ZTE corporation. Despite this signed page of the contract being published by CanalMoz, showing clear evidence of grand corruption, Mozambique’s Attorney General has shown no interest in the case, say sources in possession of the documents. n

PATHFINDER International, June 2017 | 9

MAGAZINE

Chief Obafemi Awolowo

Odumegwu Ojukwu

Chief M.K.O. Abiola

President Muhammadu Buhari

Power and Politics in Nigeria A

major political event passed without Nigeria and the Yoruba political society feeling what ought to have been its tremendous impact. It was the thirtieth anniversary of the passing to glory of the late Ikenne sage, statesman, philosopher, economic genius and political visionary, Obafemi Awolowo. Unarguably the greatest Yoruba son of the last century, Awo was also without doubt one of Africa's most intellectually talented political figures of the post-colonial era.

The Ikenne remembrance was attended by family members and a band of fanatical devotees which included surviving disciples of the late political titan particularly the Afenifere grandees, many well wishers, stargazers and political wannabes. But it was an occasion shorn of the pomp and pageantry normally associated with political power in Nigeria.

Although it can be argued that the Awo brand remains the supreme political talisman in the Yoruba political world, it must now be obvious that a brand does not remain the same forever in terms of power and potency. It must undergo qualitative changes in the volatile and combustible world of politics, even as it must test its strengths against emergent brands, sometimes in an oedipal struggle between fathers and children.

Three principal reasons can be advanced for the muted remembrance of the late titan.

First, as Awo retreats into remote legend with the tribe of those who have come into actual contact with him dwindling fast, it is the potency of his ideas and vision of Nigeria as a prosperous and egalitarian nation that matter most. Second is the gross politicization of the brand which has seen it worsted in the struggle for political power with more vibrant and more politically alert emergent brands. In the brutal world of Nigerian politics, loss of power often comes with loss of prestige and principality.

Thirdly and finally, the Awo commemoration was quiet because of critical developments in the nation. For those who can see, it is obvious that a dark cloud has descended on the Nigerian political firmament. It is full of portents and sinister foreboding.

For those who can read political horoscopes of impending disaster,

TATALO ALAMU examines the power play in Nigerian politics. this one is palpable in its astral malignancy. Like a band of merry somnambulists, Nigerians are sleepwalking to a major political catastrophe with eyes wide opened.

First is the harsh reality of presidential ailment which in an abiding climate of kleptocrats and political cut-pockets has put a lid on purposeful governance and productive politics. This has in turn sparked off a nasty and barely disguised succession battle the like of which nobody has seen in this clime before. Compared to the UmaruYar'Adua succession debacle, this one promises to be the mother of all political hostilities.

This obsession with politics as a zero-sum game played out in the mischievous attempts by some elements in the presidency to “coordinate” and coerce Acting President YemiOsibajo out of full presidential power and responsibility through sheer semantic brinkmanship. The whole drama speaks to the quandary of an idle and unproductive political elite which does not believe in economic selfactualization but which sees access to power as a life and death struggle for personal enrichment.

The second development is actually more worrisome in terms of the scale and scope of its possibilities. This was the statement widely created to the Chief of Army Staff, General TukurBuratai, that some elements in the civil and political societies w e r e al r e a d y ap p r o a ch i n g

military brass hats with the possibility of calling out the troops for a military intervention.

In a curious but instructive development, the British High Commission in Nigeria also weighed in frowning at the thought not to talk of the possibility of military intervention at this stage in Nigeria's political development.

The dour, taciturn Buratai is not known as an officer with an ambition beyond his professional purview. He enjoys widespread reputation as a courageous commander on the battlefield and off the battlefield as a serious, apolitical professional soldier. But his sudden outburst against civilian interlopers needs to be subjected to more stringent scrutiny and rigorous evaluation to establish its veracity. This is not the time to fly a kite or to throw up a red herring as a smokescreen in order to foster something dark and sinister on the nation.

As a military phenomenon for disorganizing and reorganizing state power, coups have become globally passé, the relic of an authoritarian past in which autocratic tyrannies rule the roost.

The last military coup in Nigeria took place twenty four years ago when General Abacha sacked the Shonekan travesty and installed himself as the maximum ruler of the nation. Subsequently, the close involvement of the Nigerian military institution in the political ruination of the country has cost the Army its national prestige and respectability.

Twenty four years after, Nigeria is still grappling with the dire consequences of the annulment of the June 12 1993 Presidential election and the cost to national unity and cohesion. Despite the advent of the Fourth Republic, it is clear that all is still not well with the nation. The National Question has certainly taken a turn for the worse and rather than binding national wounds elections have actually exacerbated them and opened up national fault lines.

Given the self-demystification of the military class, the implosion of its messianic conceits and the intellectual interrogation of its constant deployment as a power proxy by a dominant section of the Nigerian ruling class, it is strange that anybody would still be thinking of using military advantage to influence the outcome of political struggle as it has been done in the past.

But nothing can stop the politically desperate and it is impossible to legislate against coups. In Third World countries and societies transiting to full democracies, nothing will stop a coup whose time has come or a coup that is an own goal against the run of play. Consequently and given the parlous state of the country, those who may be pushing for a coup may be pushing for the last putsch in Nigeria.

Given the fractious state of ethnic relations and goodwill even among Nigeria's major nationalities despite a nominal alliance between two of them, any coup day announcement

This obsession with politics as a zero-sum game played out in the mischievous attempts by some elements in the presidency to “coordinate” and coerce Acting President YemiOsibajo out of full presidential power and responsibility through sheer semantic brinkmanship. The whole drama speaks to the quandary of an idle and unproductive political elite which does not believe in economic self-actualization but which sees access to power as a life and death struggle for personal enrichment.

irrespective of origin or bequest is likely to trigger an exit clause among the other nationalities leading to a precipitate disintegration of the nation.

Nobody should quibble and equivocate about this.

In this regard, a nation is like a human organism. Once its grievous wounds are left unattended to over a period of time, it will die a natural death.

This is why the greatest nations on earth are constantly tinkering with their constitution, working towards what the Americans memorably call a more perfect union. This is why this ceaseless striving towards perfection often involves tinkering with the political alchemy of the nation itself in a way that throws up a new type of leadership such as it happened in France recently to the echoes of a glorious national catharsis.

As it is at the moment, Nigeria reminds one of a badly wounded elephant cut to pieces but still shambling and lumbering towards an inglorious finale as it emits a fearsome rumble. The Nigerian political elite have neglected to bind the wounds of the nation or dress its suppurating gashes. Now it has gone fearfully septic and everybody is waiting for the end.

One man who would have viewed developments with a dark frown was the late titan from Ikenne. Awolowo understood that a nation is a permanent project to be kept in a state of constant repairs. More than any other politician of his age, Awo wrote copiously about how to improve the political architecture of the Nigerian conglomerate and how to return the nation to the path of genuine federalism. He was shunned and scorned.

But as he ponders the state of the nation from beyond, what would have puzzled Awo the more is the fact that we are back to fifty years earlier and to an event in which Awolowo himself played a significant national role as the leader of the Yoruba and as a broker and binder. In May 1967, the nation had its back to the wall and had to choose between forcible restructuring or forcible break up as insisted upon by the then Colonel EmekaOdumegwuOjukwu. Awo swung it and his people in favor of a united Nigeria.

Fifty years after and thirty years Contd. on Page ...

10 | PATHFINDER International, June 2017

MAGAZINE Contd. from Page .... after his translation to higher glory, Awo must be wondering whether it was all worth the epic sacrifice in the light of subsequent events, particularly the rigged elections of 1979 and 1983 which terminated his own political career, the annulment of the 1993 presidential election, the death of Abiola in prison, the imposition of Obasanjo, the wastage of Bola Ige and many other Yoruba icons, and the current political melodrama involving none other than his own grandson-in law.

But it must also be understood that for Awo, it was a hard and bitter choice, between the devil and the deep blue sea and between two sets of political predators. If Aw o view ed th e no r ther n predators with disdain mixed with wary apprehension, he was even more scornful in his distaste and disapproval of the hegemonic pretensions of the eastern leaders who appeared more interested in subjugation than cooperation and cohabitation in a truly federalized nation.

Fifty years after, the nation is back to square one and exactly the same spot with the loudest clamor for secession once again coming from the east, with the north exercising executive power and with the west acting as strategic arbiter in a political duel onto death. Perhaps on further reading and reflection, Awo could have come to the conclusion that it is not worth anybody's while to keep a country, however rich and promising, together in a condition of modern political slavery and permanent economic servitude.

People make history but not under the conditions and circumstances of their making.

Given their own royalist antecedents, the Yoruba tend to view the feudal time-warp in the north with far more sympathy and understanding than their turbulent compatriots to the east. Yet their progressive politics and belief that history cannot be arrested makes them natural allies of their eastern co-nationals.

In the last fifty years, the cost of this in-between and go-between political sensibility of the Yoruba people have been particularly prohibitive turning them and many of their illustrious scions to targets of hostility and canon fodders of recent Nigerian history.

This cannot continue. A nation cannot exist on a foundation of political injustice and economic tyranny without something giving.

On Biafrans sounding more Yoruba than the Yoruba themselves, the American ambassador noted in a confidential document of 15 September 1967: “In fact, the Eastern effort to tell Yorubas who their leader should be as well as not to follow Awolowo could cause opposite reaction among majority of people in Yorubaland.

Power and Politics in Nigeria

The time has come once again for western Nigeria to play a decisive role in the destiny of the nation. Unfortunately for the people, unlike the time of Awo when one single exceptional individual had a pan-Yoruba mandate and the mantle of authority and legitimacy, there is no such thing at the moment. At the moment, the Yoruba political world is marked by rancor and infighting.

But if a political consensus appears to be crystallizing in the horizon, it is that the Yoruba, no matter the alliance at the center, will no longer allow themselves or their most illustrious children to be used as sacrificial lambs for the perpetuation of a depressing racket like Nigeria. Snooper is old enough in this game to know that once the Yoruba people reach a consensus, their leaders must find a way to align themselves with the dominant mood of an ancient nation. “ Since I am their leader, I must follow them”, Winston Churchill famously rued.

Interesting and dangerous times are here again.

(2) Excerpts from Confidential US dispatches on the Nigerian C i v i l W a r .

A US document of 11 September 1969 quoted Akinjide as telling Mr. Strong, American consul in Ibadan, that “he (Ojukwu) suffers from Hitler-like megalomania”.

Akinjide explained to Strong that as a child, Ojukwu was rejected because his father strongly denied that he was solely responsible for the pregnancy that led to him, arguing that other mysterious force or forces may have been at work as well. His mother, claimed Akinjide, was a mistress his multimillionaire father, Sir Louis Ojukwu, acquired on one of his business trips to the North. Being a devout Catholic, Sir Louis refused to keep the boy in his house in Lagos, preferring to send him back to the North, where he was born and where his mother made a living as a trader. As the boy grew up, friends of the business mogul prevailed on him to recognize him as a son.

According to Akinjide, Sir Louis agreed to do so, but the boy became something of an embarrassment to him, the reason for which he sent him to school in England, where he made it into

Oxford University.

Akinjide, a member of the Nigerian National Democratic Party, NNDP and federal minister in the First Republic, said: “When Ojukwu returned to Nigeria, he tried to get a job with the Nigerian Tobacco Company, NTC, but was turned down.” Akinjide speculated on how Nigerian history might have panned out if NTC had given Ojukwu a job.

“Instead, he drifted into the civil service and was given a post as Assistant District Officer at a bush post in the East. He was unhappy in this position,” claimed Akinjide, because he felt his talents undervalued.

Chief Obafemi Awolowo's assessment of the Biafran leader was not very dissimilar to Akinjide's view of him as a man who sought to control everything a r o u n d h i m .

Reviewing his own efforts, undertaken at considerable personal risk to find an accommodation with Ojukwu before he declared the secession in May 1967, Awolowo told US Ambassador Elbert Matthews on 24 August 1967 in Lagos that he was convinced it was impossible to negotiate with Ojukwu, who was seeking to bring the whole of southern Nigeria under his control. He described Ojukwu as being committed to conquest, not secession. According to the Periodic Intelligence Note complied on the Nigerian situation by Thomas L. Hughes, Director of Intelligence and Research, submitted to US Secretary of State, Dean Rusk, the “chief target” of Ojukwu's “seizure of Midwest” was the Yoruba. On 12 September, Radio Biafra broadcast attacks on Awolowo and Anthony Enahoro for being in “the rebel government of Gowon”. The radio station referred to the recent arrest and detention of “Wole Soyinka, that patriotic Yoruba son” and the arrest and interrogation of Tai Solarin, the well-known Yoruba educator and writer.

It thought it “significant” that these “Yoruba freedom fighters” should be threatened by a government of which “Chief Awolowo himself a Yoruba is a deputy head.” It reminded its listeners that “Awolowo and Enahoro have not only succumbed

to northern pressure, but have also teamed up with Gowon to suppress Solarin and Soyinka, whose ebullient enthusiasm for Yoruba freedom is threat to their security, but they have substituted private interest for c o m m o n w e a l t h . ” The radio station, confirming the findings of the US intelligence estimate, then recommended that “all Yorubas should waste no time in responding to call by one of their own sons, Brigadier Victor Banjo, commander of liberation forces. It is such young men as Brigadier Banjo, Wole Soyinka and Tai Solarin that will provide effective but selfless leadership that Yorubas badly need at this m o m e n t ” .

On Biafrans sounding more Yo r u b a t h a n t h e Yo r u b a themselves, the American ambassador noted in a confidential document of 15 September 1967: “In fact, the Eastern effort to tell Yorubas who their leader should be as well as not to follow Awolowo could cause opposite reaction among majority of people i n Yo r u b a l a n d . ” I t d i d .

With troops blazing with Biafran agenda already at West's door at Ore, it became clearer to Awolowo that Ojukwu was not interested in secession, but actually in conquest. Awolowo proceeded to rally the Yoruba, who had hitherto been lukewarm to Gowon's government with a powerful “I am absolutely and irrevocably committed to the side of Nigeria” press release on 12 August 1967. It was Awolowo's first statement defending the Federal Government since the Civil War b e g a n o n 6 J u l y.

Unlike many of Awolowo's speeches and public statements, this one derived its forceful elocution from the use of adverbs and intensifiers. There were no “could,” “might” and other hedgebetting modal verbs. It was all “must,” “will” and other commanding auxiliary verbs.

“It is imperative that the unity of Nigeria must be preserved and the best judge of what to do now is the Federal government, which Yorubas must continue to support.

The Yorubas have never set out to dominate others, but have always resisted, with all the energy in them, any attempt, however slight or disguised, by others to

In a chat with the American consul, Bob Barnard, in Enugu three days after the executions, Ojukwu said: “The plotters intended to take Brigadier Hillary Njoku, the head of Biafran Army, into custody and bring him to the State House under heavy armed guard, ostensibly to demand of him that Njoku be relieved of the command on the grounds of incompetence. dominate them.…Indeed it is for these reasons that they must now be ready to resist any attempt by the rebel forces from the East and the Mid-West to violate their territory and subjugate them.…To these ends, therefore, all Yoruba people, particularly those in the Western and Lagos states, which now face the threats of invasion, must not only be as vigilant as ever, but must also lose no time and spare no efforts in giving every conceivable support to the Federal troops in defense of their homeland and of the fatherland, A w o l o w o s a i d .

He was not only rallying the Yoruba people, he was sending a powerful message to the Biafran High Command in Enugu. Victor Banjo, on 11 August, had sent a secret note to Governor Adebayo, the man who, according to the Biafran High Command, was slated for assassination by Banjo's gun. In the letter, amongst other things, Banjo asked for “clarification of the Western position.” Adebayo promptly passed the letter to Awolowo in Lagos. S.G. Ikoku, an Awolowo loyalist in the East and SecretaryGeneral of his Action Group, who was in exile in Ghana, said Major Emmanuel Ifeajuna told him when he escaped to Ghana, their plan in the January 1966 coup was to free Awolowo from Calabar prison and install him as Prime Minister. In reality, there was no army unit heading to Calabar to spring Awolowo from jail.

Receiving the secret note, Awolowo publicly pledged his allegiance to the federation and called upon special adverbs, forceful intensifiers and commanding modal verbs to elicit and consolidate the patriotism of his fellow Westerners. The statement split the Action Group and the West down the middle.

They had not forgotten the monstrosity of northern hegemony; they had not forgotten how the North colluded with Igbos to forment trouble in the West. They had not forgotten how the North-East coalition had excluded Yoruba from key posts and grassroots recruitment p o l i c i e s .

On 7 August 1967, the American consul in Ibadan, Strong, wrote: “An old line of supporters, including more mature intellectuals like Professor Hezekiah Oluwasanmi (Ife University Vice Chancellor) and Contd. on Page 10

PATHFINDER International, June 2017 | 11

MAGAZINE Contd. from Page ....

S.O. Ighodaro (lecturer at the University of Lagos) support the statement. They said Awolowo has always been a minorities man and the Eastern takeover of Midwest and continued occupation of Eastern minority areas is an indication of continued Ibo desire to dominate southern Nigeria.”

Ojukwu said he killed Victor Banjo, Emmanuel Ifeajuna, Philip Alale, Sam I. Agbam because they wanted to remove him, remove Gowon and install Chief Obafemi Awolowo as the Prime Minister. In a secret document cabled to the Defense Intelligence Agency in Washington, the US military and defense attachés in the Nigeria reported that based on available information at the time (3 August 1967), “in the long run Njoku will unseat Ojukwu.”

In a chat with the American consul, Bob Barnard, in Enugu three days after the executions, Ojukwu said: “The plotters intended to take Brigadier Hillary Njoku, the head of Biafran Army, into custody and bring him to the State House under heavy armed guard, ostensibly to demand of him that Njoku be relieved of the command on the grounds of incompetence.

Once inside the State House, Njoku's guards would be used against him. Ifeajuna would then declare himself acting Governor and offer ceasefire on Gowon's terms. Banjo would go to the West and replace Brigadier Yinka

Power and Politics in Nigeria Adebayo, the military governor of Western Region. Next, Gowon would be removed and Awolowo declared Prime Minister of Reunited Federation.”

Ojukwu continued: “Victor Banjo, Ifeajuna and others kept in touch with co-conspirators in Lagos via British Deputy High Commission's facilities in Benin.”

When the American consul asked Ojukwu for evidence, Ojukwu replied: “Banjo is a very meticulous man, who kept records and notes of everything he did.

The mistake of the plotters was they talked too much, their moves too conspicuous and they made notes which came into my hands.

As a result, the conspirators came under surveillance from the early stages of the plot's existence.

Their plans then became known and confirmed by subsequent e v e n t s . ” In another document, Major (Dr.) Okonkwo, whom Ojukwu appointed as military administrator of the Midwest, said he and Ojukwu participated in court-martialing Banjo in Enugu on 22 September 1967 and Banjo “freely admitted in his testimony that a group of Yorubas on both sides of the battle were plotting together to take over Lagos and Enugu governments and unite Nigeria under Chief Awolowo.

Gowon, Ojukwu and Okonkwo were to be eliminated. Gowon was to have been killed by Yoruba

officers in the Federal Army.” He added that when arrested on the night of 19 September, Banjo offered no resistance because he said then it was too late to stop the affair and the plot was already in motion. His role, Banjo said, was already accomplished. “As far as is known, Banjo died without revealing the names of his collaborators in Lagos,” Okonkwo said. Ojukwu, who told the American diplomat that the

coup against him “involved many who participated in the January 15, 1966 plot” and that aside the four he had executed three days before, he would not execute others yet because “ he did not wish to give the impression he was c o n d u c t i n g b l o o d p u rg e . ” Ojukwu did not execute Njoku. He only demoted him and replaced him with Colonel Alexander Madiebo. The secret US document

called Njoku “the best Enugu has (and one of the very best Nigeria has produced). The UK defense advisor, who had known Madiebo as subordinate officer First Recce Squadron for several years, said he is “perfectly charming socially, but quite worthless professionally.

He is weak, ineffective commander and consistently had worst unit recce squadron.” To affirm what he was saying, he showed the US defense attaché Madiebo's file at the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst.

Madiebo’s records were abysmal.

Congo’s bad year is about to get worse Contd. from Page 2 we have tends to be a curse,” said Bafilemba, who also coordinates GATT-RN, a coalition of 14 civil society groups that acts as a watchdog for oil, gas, timber, gold, and other minerals. “All it has done is invite predators, not just foreigners but also the government and on top of it Joseph Kabila.”

A government spokesman was unreachable by phone and text message, but the Kabilas have routinely denied any suggestion of wrongdoing.

Opposition woes In February, Etienne Tshisekedi, the charismatic leader of the opposition UDPS, died in Brussels. The Rassemblement has since been riven by infighting and suspicions that some members are hand-in-glove with Kabila.

Even Tshisekedi's body has become a source of political tension. The government has not agreed on a location to bury him in Congo and the body has remained in Brussels, raising speculation that the delay is to staunch protesters from rallying around the corpse.

“We want to bury him, but Kabila doesn't want it,” said Kabuya, the UDPS spokesman, later adding: “They are illegally shutting down the offices of opposition political parties; they are burning down offices; opponents are being arrested because of their opinions.”

“UDPS, which is the core of this country, the engine that turns the wheels of democracy and freedom in this country, it's being hunted, tracked down by the political family of Joseph Kabila,” he added.

More troubling perhaps for Kabila's opponents, few takers have emerged to fill the void left by the death of Tshisekedi.

MoiseKatumbi, an opposition leader, remains the most popular choice by far, according to an opinion poll conducted this year.

But Katumbi remains in exile.

Less than a quarter of the survey's respondents had a favorable view of Kabila.

Tinderbox While political uncertainty grows, reports of new violence have proliferated in recent months.

In the central Kasai region, hundreds have been killed – including two UN investigators in March – since armed clashes broke out last August between the Congolese army and a local militia known as KamuinaNsapu. n

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12 | PATHFINDER International, June, 2017

BOOK REVIEW

I

n these two books, Rowland Abiodun, formerly, Professor of Art at Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife and currently Professor of Art and Black Studies atAmherst College and Suzanne P. Blier, Professor of Fine Arts and African and African-American Studies at Harvard University in the United States have given the world of Art and art scholarship in relation to Yoruba art two tomes of well researched books.

Surprisingly, these two books of deep reflection and many years of research by both authors have not been reviewed together in Nigeria: the postcolonial nation that houses Ife, whose artistic heritage has been examined with rigor in both books. It is the hope of this writer that this review will attract more joint reviews of the two works on a visual heritage that has become of immense interest to the rest of the world of art.

Abiodun in nine chapters and Blier in nine chapters (apart from each book's introduction on the concepts that drive analyses and conclusions of each author) support their interpretations with numerous illustrations from a wide range of artistic works. For example, Abiodun has 135 illustrations, collected primarily from Ile-Ife and other parts of Yorubaland while Blier has 131 illustrations collected primarily from the ancient city-state of Ife and related communities. Each author uses his/her illustrations to support the interpretations derivable from the methodology employed to examine the data provided. What distinguishes one work from the other is largely hermeneutic tradition employed b y e a c h a u t h o r .

The methodology of each author renews aspects of what W.J.T. Mitchell once recognized in The Language of Images, as “the language about images, the words we use to talk about pictures, sculptures, designs, and abstract spatial patterns in the world…and “images regarded as a language” or the semantic, syntactic, communicative power of images to encode messages, tell stories, express ideas and emotions, raise questions, and speak to us.”

Abiodun does more of the first while Blier does more of the second form of language. Each author states with conviction the power of his/her preferred method of reading many visual objects that the two books have in common. For example, Abiodun states boldly: “The urgent task before us is to ensure the survival and essential role of African artistic and aesthetic concepts in the study of art in Africa.” In his e ff o r t t o a p p l y a Yo r u b a perspective to the interpretation of African art, Abiodun draws attention to the interconnection of visual and verbal arts of the Yoruba. He does this by deploying cross-genre aesthetic concepts, such as iwa, ewa, oju-inu, oju-ona, iluti, asa, and newly created vocabularies such as Ifenaturalism, Ako-graphic, Asegraphic Asa, and Epe-graphic as lenses for reading Yoruba visual culture and images. In short, Abiodun establishes a Siamese connection between Yoruba verbal and visual art forms, citing Oriki as the proto-form for both mimetic and stylized traditions of

REVIEW: (1) Yorùbá Art and Language: Seeking The African in African Art, by Rowland Abiodun. Cambridge 2014; 386 pages; Hardcover: $115.00. (2) Art and Risk in Ancient Yorùbá: Ife History, Power, and Identity, C. 1300. Suzanne Preston Blier, Cambridge 2015; 574 pages; Hardcover: $115.00.

REVIEWER: ROPO SEKONI

Yoruba verbal and visual arts.

Oriki is used consistently in Abiodun's book as a verbal or visual communicator's representation and interpretation of any aspect of life in the Yoruba world in terms of reflection or r e f r a c t i o n .

Blier, on the other hand, emphasizes that her goal “throughout this research was not only to gain a deeper understanding of the artworks in question but also to try to reposition these works within the specific geographic and temporal settings in which they were made, found, and used.” In what Blier calls 'thinking anew about ancient Ife art,' she pays special attention to physical attributes and symbolic properties of the works under study through a close reading of objects, their locations, ongoing ritual contexts and oral traditions, to unearth the theme of risk, power, and identity. Apart from the use of a few Yoruba proverbs and the reference to Aroko as a symbolic form of communication that is capable of both horizontal and subliminal meanings, she does not dwell on Yoruba oral traditions as much as Abiodun while Abiodun also does not give as much attention as Blier to speculations about how ancient Ife art tells the story of actual events in the history of the ancient city-state.Each author's methodology illuminates the field of Yoruba visual art. For instance, by rooting his interpretation in Yoruba language, worldview, and thought system, Abiodun brings insight to the influence of Yoruba metaphysics and values on creation of Yoruba visual art in all its manifestations: alloy, wood, beads, terracotta, stone, etc.

Similarly, Abiodun's privileging of oriki as the driving force behind Yoruba verbal and visual art further illuminates the form, style, and significance of specific art

objects as well as the field of Yoruba art in general. For instance, Abiodun's notion of the centrality of oriki to creative arts or even the creative industry in ancient Ife and contemporary Yoruba culture cuts across all forms of Yoruba semiotic system: verbal, spatial, and temporal. He further shows that oriki tradition of portrayal or memorialization of a subject allows for fidelity to the object, as well as for underrepresentation and overrepresentation of the object. This explains why ako can be as close to the subject being portrayed as is humanly possible why the representation of the human head can be outlandish as it is in conical heads or conical headgears ranging from the Are crown in Ife, Ondo, Owo, Ijebu, Ila, and many other Yoruba cities to contemporary tall hats, such as is seen today on the head of the current governor of Ogun State in the Yoruba region of Nigeria. The desire of the artist to illustrate the concept and power of Ori-inu (the inner head) may lead, according to Abiodun, to creation of oversize heads while an artist's effort to reproduce in the fashion of ako may stimulate naturalist representation.

Blier's book raises many important questions that should interest not only art scholars but also students and admirers of Yoruba art and culture. Blier's reading of ancient Ife art and ritual shows a magisterial knowledge of Western hermeneutics. While Abiodun relies on Yoruba metaphysics, spirituality, and language to illuminate Yoruba visual culture, Blier applies Western interpretive techniques ranging from psychoanalytic and semiotic criticism to the rich texts at her disposal. She illustrates the theme of risk to the artist and the community in many works that include full-size memorialization

of historical figures and design of crowns and other headgears. She also shows how specific sculptures repeat stories also simulated in rituals, with the aim of imaging the ancient city-state's history of conflicts, already acknowledged in its myths of origin and legends of growth.

The focus of Blier's book is on works she categorizes under Florescence and Post-Florescence eras. She ties the Florescence era to Obalufon II, an Ife king noted in Yoruba tradition as a major art patron and who Blier describes as the king and art patron that encouraged the marriage of old and new Ife, the period before and after the 'emergence' of Oduduwa.

Drawing connections between Ife rituals such as Oramfe and Olojo in particular, Blier identifies the preoccupation of ancient Ife sculptures with the theme of conflict, change of political order, and reconciliation of both losers and winners of the struggles for power over the kingdom.

By relating the works of other cultures: Ugbo-Ukwu, Tada, Benin, and Igala, for example, Blier suggests that ancient Ife was undoubtedly a cosmopolitan center for a large section of p r e c o l o n i a l We s t A f r i c a .

Similarities in artistic motifs and style, she affirms, must have affected the creative industry in a city-state that was in its own time a melting pot for several nationalities and their cultures. The suggestion that the art of ancient Ife was enriched by contact with neighboring cultures should not surprise observers of influence of other cultures on the Lagos of today.

Without doubt, readers will find these two books insightful for different reasons. Both of the books cover a wide range of visual objects, ranging from memorialization of monarchs to depiction of animals. In an ancient society that was characterized by animism, it is not surprising that totem of power, such as leopard, elephant, horse; totem of peace such as ejaaro (a sub-specie of cat-fish) and snail; as well as totem of alterability or change such as agemo or oga (chameleon) featured prominently in the samples examined by both Blier and Abiodun. Similarly, the Yoruba habit of elaborate dressing that includes layers of clothing and adornment of dress with elaborate embroidery acknowledged by Abiodun and Blier in ancient Ife art is also a major part of Yoruba fashion today.

On the surface, especially with reference to the introduction to both books, readers are likely to find the messages of the two books to be counter-signs, but the body of each of the two books makes the authors' analyses act more like cosigns than counter-signs. Both books have substantial significance to the study of Yoruba culture, especially its aesthetics and iconography. Abiodun in his book combines old and new

Yoruba aesthetic concepts and vocabularies to make Yoruba visual art—naturalist, stylized, and idealized—intelligible to both specialists and people with interest in understanding the relationship between Yoruba thought system and artistic production. He provides new analytical techniques that can provide models for art and culture scholars not only in the Yoruba world but also in sub-Saharan Africa, as well as for those in other parts of the world who need knowledge of indigenous perspectives to enrich their understanding of African visual culture. Abiodun popularizes an area of study of African cultural production that has been kept on the back burner for long; development of emic or indigenous perspectives and concepts that explain nuances (and sometimes the so-called mystery) of visual art in Africa produced by artists who practiced largely in the era before their c o n t a c t w i t h We s t e r n epistemology and hermeneutics.

Abiodun does effectively with Yoruba art what Western art scholars do with theirs: art interpretation in relation to Western worldview: philosophy, ethics, metaphysics, values, and language. His work is in good stead to motivate others working in the field of African art and criticism.

Blier in her own book provides additional methods of reading ancient Ife art in a way that can be intelligible to the Anglophone world, which also includes Africans in diaspora and professional art critics on the African continent. She provides insights on the desire of ancient Ife artists to tell stories about the evolution of the kingdom by applying a multidisciplinary analysis to numerous samples of Ife visual art. While recognizing the politics of ancient Ife art, Blier provides insight on the connection between Ife art and desire of its ancient leaders to overcome the division that periodic struggles for power created or could create. She also uses her methodology to suggest a clue to issues that may puzzle the Yoruba world; the role of multiculturalism in ancient Ife and its influence on the flowering of sculpture in the ancient kingdom.

Each of these two books deserves whatever investment goes into its purchase. The books complement each other in many ways and will be of immense benefit to art and culture scholars who want to deepen their knowledge of an ancient artistic tradition that continues to excite art connoisseurs worldwide.

Students of Yoruba art should read Abiodun's book before reading Blier's, as doing so will enhance appreciation of Blier's book.

In addition, it will be a profitable investment in knowledge and culture, if Obafemi Awolowo University in Ile-Ife, in collaboration with other knowledge centers, guardians of Yoruba culture such as: Ooni, Alaafin, Awujale, Olowo, Osemawe, Orangun, Ewi, etc., and rich collectors of Yoruba art such as Omooba Shyllon, can organize an international colloquium at Ife, to discuss the two books that seek to change for different reasons the study of Yorùbá art. n

PATHFINDER International, June 2017 | 13

FEATURE

Back In the Day: The Shameful Dying Days I of Scotland’s Independence before the Act of Union T was the final year of an independent Scotland – at least until the next referendum – but the full story of the 12 months or so leading up to May 1, 1707, is rarely told to Scots.

No wonder, for the details of how the Act of Union came into being despite the opposition of perhaps 80 to 90 per cent of Scots are truly shameful.

Those who say it was a monarchic fix, who claim the Scottish Parliament was bribed, who argue that Scotland was not treated like an equal partner, and that the Act of Union was a grubby political deal between men of little moral fibre – the evidence is there to prove all those assertions.

Even those in favor of the Union would have to concede that the Act was passed against the wishes of the majority of Scots, and probably a substantial minority of English people, too. It is often said that England's need for national security and the guarantee of a Protestant succession to the throne were its chief inspirations in seeking the Union, but many in England viewed Scotland as wholly backward and did not see the need for a political union with a poor country they felt would be a drag on English resources, a view that is still extant today in some English quarters.

The first item to note is that the Scottish Parliament w a s w h o l l y unrepresentative of the nation as a whole. The Estates of Parliament, to give it its proper name, had until 1690 consisted of the three estates, namely senior clerics, nobles and burgh commissioners.

King William and Queen Mary's supporters in Scotland reorganized the Parliament so that by 1706, there were 154 commissioners (MPs) from 99 constituencies. The franchise, such as it was, was very limited, and only a tiny fraction of the population had a vote, with land ownership the main qualification for being allowed to vote or represent

By Hamish MacPherson

a constituency.

The Scottish Parliament, in other words, was full of vested interests, and records show that after the 1702 election, the Parliament consisted of 67 nobles, 80 shires members, 67 constituent burgh members and the remainder were officers of state appointed by the Queen.

It is wrong to say, however, that the Parliament was just a lap dog for the Queen and her aristocratic supporters in the Government.

It was both a court – the highest in the land – and the setter of tax rates, the body which decided Scotland's foreign policy and which was very much involved in the affairs of the national religion and the Kirk.

Party politics as we know it was in its infancy in the early 1700s, but there were four defined groups in the Parliament – the Court Party, so called because it formed the administration; the Country Party, which was effectively the main opposition, the Jacobites, who called themselves Cavaliers; and the Squadrone Volante, a group of Presbyterian nobles whose real name was the New Party.

When the fateful last Parliament first met in 1703, the agitation for and against Union with England made for a very fractious gathering. That was still the case in 1706 with a clear split emerging between the two sides for and against the Union – and the “for” side held all the aces. Last week we saw how previous attempts at a Union had failed for a variety of reasons, but it is vital to know that the prime instigator for the successful 1707 Union was Queen Anne, the last Stuart monarch. If any of her 17 pregnancies by her husband, Prince George of Denmark, had led to an adult heir then her fears over her succession would not have existed.

As it was, only one child

survived beyond infancy, and Prince William, Duke of Gloucester died at the age of 11 in 1700, the same year that Anne had her final child, a stillborn son.

Such was Anne's concern over the need for a Protestant to succeed her that from her accession to the throne in 1702, she concluded the only way to stop Scotland from choosing a different king or queen was to have a full union – in short order, a shared parliament under the same monarch.

As we saw last week, by early 1706, the Scots were placed in a massively negative position by the Alien Act that would effectively make them foreign nationals in England despite sharing the same monarch, as well as slashing trade with English markets on which so many Scots depended.

Some in the Parliament were so offended that they seriously discussed another union, this time with the Dutch Republic. The Scottish Parliament's only way to combat the Alien Act

was to agree to talk about Union, and many of the Country Party took the view that when it came to actual union, there would be no way that the Scottish and English Parliaments would both agree to it – a big mistake.

Eventually, 62 “commissioners” were appointed, 31 from each country, to negotiate a Treaty that would eventually become the Act of Union.

That appointment process saw the first serious piece of treachery. Scotland's most senior peer, the Duke of Hamilton, was supposedly the leading light of the Country Party and an antiUnionist. But he was also an ardent royalist and on September 1, 1706, at a late sitting of the Parliament, he proposed that Queen Anne appoint all the negotiating commissioners. The proposal passed by just four votes, and Anne duly appointed Scottish commissioners who were all pro-Union.

We now know, thanks to diligent work by historians,

Local councils across Scotland joined the outcry and it can only be stated that there was a nationwide reaction against the proposed Union, with protesters taking to the streets of Edinburgh, Glasgow and most major towns.

The demonstrations were suppressed by the local authorities, sometimes with violence, and the use of what was effectively internment to take out the leaders.

that the commissioners from both sides held secret informal meetings, with no minutes taken and no report back to either Parliament for fear of inflaming already high emotions.

In April 1706, the commissioners met officially in London, and were presented with the proposal approved and possibly even written by Queen Anne: “The two kingdoms of England and Scotland be forever united into one kingdom by the name of Great Britain; that the United Kingdom of Great Britain be represented by one and the same parliament; and that the succession to the monarchy of Great Britain be vested in the House of Hanover.”

In just 10 days, sitting in separate rooms in W h i t e h a l l , t h e commissioners hammered out the basis of the treaty and it took just another three weeks to deliver the full treaty. In effect, the Act of Union was negotiated in just over a month.

Its 25 articles were mainly concerned with financial and economic matters, and there was very little disagreement about such issues as the uniting of the two parliaments, the design of the Union flag and the standardization of weights, measures and coinage.

The Hanoverian succession was confirmed in Article Two, Scots law was preserved, as was the Scottish education system and its universities, while the Royal Burghs maintained their ancient rights.

The preservation of private rights, and of

h e r i t a b l e o ff i c e s a n d jurisdictions caused some discussion and there was outright disagreement at first over the number of Scottish peers and MPs to sit in Westminster – 16 and 45 were the eventual numbers – but the biggest cause of friction was taxation. The Scottish side eventually won a series of exemptions on taxable items such as paper, windows, coal, salt and malt.

The speed of action and the proposed scale of the union took everyone in Scotland by surprise. The Church of Scotland was most concerned that the Act did not guarantee that English-style bishops would not be imposed on it, and the Presbyterians became the most vocal critics.

Local councils across Scotland joined the outcry and it can only be stated that there was a nationwide reaction against the proposed Union, with protesters taking to the streets of Edinburgh, Glasgow and most major towns. The demonstrations were suppressed by the local authorities, sometimes with violence, and the use of w h a t w a s e ff e c t i v e l y internment to take out the leaders.

We k n o w w h a t t h e reaction was on the streets because a writer called Daniel Foe, above – he added De to his second name to make himself sound grander – was sent as a spy from London to gauge reaction in Scotland.

Now we all know history is written by the victors, so much of Daniel Defoe's History of the Union is biased. Yet there were several telling episodes that he recorded and which have been confirmed from other sources, including one Scottish chronicler of the time who reported that Defoe was “a Spy amongst us, but not known to be such, otherways the Mob of Edinburgh had pulled him to pieces”.

Defoe, who would later write Robinson Crusoe, was very fearful of the Edinburgh Mob, that loose association of troublemakers who could rise up in an instant and achieve their ends through sheer weight of numbers and an inclination to violence and intimidation.

At one point in October 1706, Defoe witnessed the Edinburgh Mob attacking Contd. on Page 14

14 | PATHFINDER International, June 2017

FEATURE

Why Center-Left Parties choose to go radical

Back in the Day Contd. from Page 13 the house of Sir Patrick Johnston, one of the Scottish commissioners.

He wrote: “His Lady, in the utmost despair with this fright, comes to the window, with two candles in her hand, that she might be known; and cryed (sic) out, for GOD's Sake, to call the Guards. . . one Captain Richardson, who commanded, taking about thirty men with him, march'd bravely up to them and, making his way with great resolution thro' the croud, they flying, but throwing stones, and hallowing at him, and his men, he seized the foot of the staircase; and then boldly went up, clear'd the stair, and took six of the rabble in the very act; and so delivered the gentleman and his family.”

Defoe, as the master of faction, then placed himself at the centre of events: “I heard a great noise and looking out saw a terrible multitude come up the High Street with a drum at the head of them shouting and swearing and crying out 'all Scotland would stand together, No Union, No Union, English dogs,' and the like.”

Troops were summoned as Parliament met to discuss the treaty, while petitions sprang up all over Scotland against the Union.

In the Scottish Parliament, opposition to the Union was less violent but no less passionate.

It transpired that the English Parliament was prepared to pay a sum of money to its Scottish counterpart. That sum of almost £400,000, or around £30 million nowadays,was

called the Equivalent and was ostensibly to compensate Scotland for taking on a share of the English national debt.

Scotland had no national debt but many people in the country were deep in personal debt due to the Darien scheme disaster, and many of those voting in Parliament were compensated for their losses.

Now at last, in late 1706, parliamentarians had to make their stances clear.

John Campbell, second Duke of Argyll, led the Court Party in favor of the Union, with the Duke of Queensberry as the Queen's Commissioner in charge of proceedings. Their main work was accomplished behind the scenes as peers and other members of the Scottish Parliament were bribed with promises of offices the new set-up and sometimes just plain cash.

They were to prove brilliantly effective at buying up what Robert Burns so memorably called a Parcel of Rogues. The Duke of Hamilton came out against the Union, asking: “Shall we in half an hour yield what our forefathers maintained with their lives and fortunes for many years?”

Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun railed against it, as did Lord Belhaven, but the fix was in. In one day, the opposition of the Kirk was ended by an Act rushed through Parliament guaranteeing the “Security of the Church of Scotland”.

Yet when it came to the vote on the first Article, the majority was just 32 with a vote of 115 to 83. All the remaining Articles were voted through by larger majorities. n

China breeds spikes-free rice Contd. from Page 4

Refined white rice — even varieties bred to have less of a detrimental effect on blood-sugar — is still a nutrient-poor food, said Sun Qi, an assistant professor at Harvard University’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston. Whereas whole grains, including brown rice, are rich in cereal fiber, minerals, vitamins, and beneficial phytochemicals.

Hybrid varieties with increased vigor and diseaseresistance have helped China achieve some of the world's highest rice yields among major producers and remain largely selfsufficient in the cereal, even as consumption advanced 13 percent over the past decade driven by popula-tion growth.

Until recently, nutritional and processing quality had been overlooked in striving for yield improvement, said Zhongyi Li, a plant molecular biologist with the CSIRO's in Canberra.

Annual per-capita consumption slipped to 104.8 kilograms in China last year, from a peak of 109.7 kilograms in 1997, as diets changed and improved food transportation gave consumers more choice. The nation's wheat-based bakery industry expanded about 10 percent last year.

Making rice more nutritious and less likely to accumulate heavy metals, like cadmium, may help reverse the decline in percapita consumption, and boost prices. Japonica rice futures on Zhengzhou Commodity Exchange have dropped 8 percent this year, while long-grain nonglutinous rice has advanced 2.7 percent.

In the Philippines, the International Rice Research Institute, or IRRI, has identified the genetic basis of a component of starch that may be used to counter the cereal's glycemic impact — or propensity to spike bloodsugar, said Nese Sreenivasulu, head of the institute's grain quality and nutrition center. n

By Leonid Bershidsky

C

enter-left parties throughout the Western world have been tempted to pick dogmatic, hard-left leaders. In Europe, one after another party has succumbed to the temptation, though it has hurt their electoral chances. It seems illogical, but it may eventually pay off.

The Spanish Socialists, the party that has been in government most since the country democratized, has just returned Pedro Sanchez to the helm.

Sanchez, who has ended rallies singing the socialist anthem, the Internationale, is no Blairite centrist.

The patter n of his election is familiar enough: The party establishment was lined up behind a different candidate, Susana Diaz, who was considered to be the favorite but wasn't radical enough for the rank-and-file.

That's also the story of U.K. Labor Party's Jeremy Corbyn and the French Socialist Party's presidential candidate Benoit Hamon. It could have happened in the U.S. too, when Bernie Sanders mounted a stronger-thanexpected primary challenge to the Democratic establishment; but the establishment managed to put down the rebellion in the name of holding off Donald Trump's populist threat (we all know how that went).

Corbyn stands to lose next month's general election by a scandalously wide margin. Hamon won 6.5 percent of the vote in the French presidential election last month as most Socialist voters backed another radical, Jean-Luc Melenchon, a defector from the party — but

Melenchon, too, lost.

Sanchez had led the Socialist party's leadership before, and with him at the top, it lost by a 10-point margin to Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy's People's Party a year ago, then suffered some painful regional defeats.

So why do the Socialists consistently pick these losers? Don't they care about governing at all? It feels at times like they don't — like when Corbyn includes a pledge to protect bees in his party's manifesto or Hamon runs on an uncompromisingly far-left platform including everything from a universal basic income to the legalization of euthanasia. But the radicalization of the traditional center-left is, more likely, born of a combination of necessity and a tendency to look further into the future than center-right parties do.

European economies are on an upswing. It's no longer 2014, when a leftwing party could make gains with anti-austerity slogans. Voters are betterdisposed toward growthoriented programs, and they're concerned about law and order in the wake of a string of terror attacks and a barely controlled wave of refugees from the Middle East. Leftist parties are ill-suited to these requirements, nor can they borrow parts of the agenda pushed by far-right populists, as center-right parties have been doing in the U.K., the Netherlands, France and Germany. The options have narrowed for the center left.

One of these options is a political union with far-left forces, including even the Communists, something Portuguese Socialist leader

Antonio Costa, now the country's prime minister, has tried with some success. But it's a tough proposition in most countries. In France, Melenchon theoretically could have gotten into the run-off round had he made a deal with Hamon, but the Socialist Party hierarchy wouldn't allow that and Melenchon thought he could win on his own. In Spain, Sanchez faces similar problems (and, reportedly, bad personal chemistry) if he tries to strike a deal with Pablo Iglesias, leader of the farleft Podemos party.

In Germany, as Social Democratic leader Martin Schulz has discovered, even a hint of a bloc with Die Linke, heirs to the East German Communists, can mean setbacks in Germany's western states where the far left has made little headway since the country's unification. In the U.K., there is no electorally useful far left with which Labour could unite.

Another option for the traditional socialists is to keep pushing their milquetoast, palliative agendas and hope to form anti-populist coalitions with the center-right.

That's more or less what Schulz is doing in Germany ahead of the September election, and what Dutch center-left parties attempted in March. It's a dangerous path because, when voters lose sight of what a party really stands for, it may not win enough support to be valuable even as a junior coalition partner. That's what happened to the Labor Party in the Netherlands in the March election, and it may even happen to the German Social Democrats if Chancellor Angela Merkel

finds more convenient partners among the smaller political forces — such as Christian Lindner of the resurgent Free Democratic Party. Again, this is not an option in the U.K. since coalitions are rare in that country's political system.

So what remains is the nuclear option — radicalization. Picking leaders who spout tax-and spend, anti-elite, antiAmerican rhetoric is a bold bet on an existential failure of center-right forces — perhaps a new economic crisis, the collapse of U.S. power or America's retreat into itself, a new industrial revolution resulting in a catastrophic loss of jobs.

It's a matter of faith in a highly unstable future and the probability of global cataclysms. After such events, voters tend to be open to trying something completely different, open to big new, untested ideas such as a universal basic income or a robot tax.

The radical leaders picked by the socialists are receptive to these ideas, too — and that helps them with young voters in search of big ideas. Jesse Klaver'sGreenLeft in the Netherlands hasn't won a national election yet, but the party's rallies are full of enthusiastic young people.

Indeed, Bernie Sanders' success with young Americans is a more inspiring beacon for the future than the compromise of Costa's government in Portugal.

The big problem with the radicalization of socialists is that most voters would hate to see an event that might give such transformed parties an opening. But that's the center's problem, not theirs. n

PATHFINDER International, June, 2017 | 15

CRITIQUE Mallam Nuhu Ribadu was born on November 21, 1960.

He is an indigene of Adamawa State of Nigeria. He was the pioneer Executive Chairman of Nigeria’s Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), a commission tasked with the duty of countering corruption and fraud.

Nuhu Ribadu got admission to study law at Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Kaduna State from 1980 until 1983, following which he received a Bachelor of Laws degree (LL.B.). He proceeded to the Nigerian Law School the following year and was called to Nigerian Bar in 1984. He immediately did his Master of Laws degree at Ahmadu Bello Univesity, Zaria. He was a TED Fellow and a Senior Fellow at St. Anthony’s College, University of Oxford, UK. In the year 2003, Ribadu was appointed the Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission by the then Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo. In the year 2007, his appointment was renewed and he was consequently promoted to the position of Assistant Inspector-General of Police.

Under Ribadu’s administration as the EFCC Chairman, the Commission charged prominent bankers, commissioners of Police, former as well as serving state governors, ministers, senate presidents, high-ranking political party members, and perpetrators of advance fee fraud to court, and many of them were convicted.

LEYE IGE did a critique of Nuhu Ribadu’s speeches at the 11th Convocation Lecture of Nnamdi Azikwe University on February 15, 2017, and Ahmadu Bello University on June 8, 2013.

l

Nuhu Ribadu

Dissecting Nuhu Ribadu “

The widespread belief today is that Nigeria is an artificial creation. The truth is that, as late Dr. Yusufu Bala Usman pointed out, not a single region in what is now Nigeria was home to just a single ethnic nationality living all by themselves before the coming of the colonialists. “Exclusive ethnic identities are inventions of our political advocacies and relevancies.

Nigeria was a stretch of land hosting many city-states and cosmopolites, where in the south-west the Ijebu and the Egba people didn’t consider themselves as one, talk less of as Yoruba.” “Not living all by thems-elves before the coming of the colonialists” does not negate the reality of the ethnicity; for various peoples had always lived together throughout human history. In spite of this, ethno-national composition of a society are defined by certain social and cultural factors, primary of which is Language, otherwise there will neither be indigeneity nor dominance of any particular grouping in any society. Language constitutes the first expression of the cultural/social expression of a people and it communicates the culture in such a way that “foreigners” always have something to adapt to in their new environment. Nuhu Ribadu says, the Ijebu and Egba are not Yoruba people, yet they speak the same language, dialectal differences notwithstanding. The main thrust of the Yoruba “war to end all wars”— the Kiriji War — was fought within the context of a foreign invasion that had destroyed Oyo Ile and which then aimed to unify all of Yorubaland under one Government and which pitted the Monarchists against the Republicans, which tendencies abound in different forms among the

various sub-groups in Yorubaland and which truce was arranged and signed on September 23, 1886. British intervention denied the Yoruba the opportunity to establish a form of Constitutional Monarchy through the armistice—a particular fall out which was the usurpation of that prospect by the British, since they ended up as the “political” authority as the colonial power while retaining some form of “traditional” power of the Obas. The Egba, Ijebu and other Yoruba sub-groups regard Ile-Ife as their source.

Even when the view that the Ijebu were not from Ile-Ife was being promoted, it was also clear from historical records that this was not so.

Regardless, the Obaship is in both Ijebu and Egba; there are the Ogboni, Orisa worship and other Yoruba cultural manifestations in both Ijebu and Egbalands.

All of these are what the Yoruba call “aarunoju”— self-manifested, its existence is its proof. Ascribing ethnic identities to “inventions of our political elite” is turning history and logic on its head.

In the first instance, to assume that “Nigeria was a stretch of land hosting many city-states” was to assume that Nigeria had always been; yet, we all know that the Nigerian geo-political landscape came into being only in 1884 as the precursor to the 1914 formal amalgamation. So the question is, did these “citystates” exist prior to 1884?

Of course yes. Meaning their existence had absolutely nothing to do with Nigeria; Nigeria being their negation.

Yet, “Nigeria” is not the only country in Africa with a “stretch of land hosting many city-states and cosmopo-lities.

Uganda(with the resistance of the Buganda), Zimbabwe,

even South Africa had to recognize its own “stretch of land…” via official recognition of all the indigenous Languages. And, of course, the entire question in the Sudan is a reflection of the “stretch of land…..”

Hence to now claim that Ethno-National advocacy are “inventions….” is patently false, for it denies Ethno-National resistance to colonialism. The “stretch of land….” is not a natural outgrowth of or in Nigeria, for Nigeria came into being as a deliberate political/ military decision which cannot, in any way, be considered a natural phenomenon. Besides, it was only in 1961 that Southern Cameroons voted in a plebiscite, to remain part of the Cameroons while the Northern part voted to be part of Nigeria where they now constitute Adamawa, Taraba and parts of the North East Zone. So, if we are to accept Ribadu's logic, who were they before the 1961 plebiscite? All of which brings forth the question of where Nuhu Ribadu is going on this journey to nowhere?

The only conclusion would be his attempt at pandering to the Igbo in preparation for the 2019 elections. There are no problems with that, but he is doing a disservice to the country he laments as not having a “honest” leadership for there is no honesty in his conclusions. Nuhu Ribadu says: “Nothing exemplifies the Nigeria we should aspire for than the gregarious nature of the Igbo man. It is a common joke that whichever village you go in Nigeria and you don't see an Igbo man, you should take to your heels. Though taken simply as a joke, this speaks to the industrious and adventurous nature of a typical Igbo persona and illustrates how rooted the Igbo are in this country. In many cities and

towns across Nigeria, if the Igbo decide to wind up their businesses, they could bring that city, whether it is Lagos, Kano or Abuja, to its knees.

In the same mould, you can talk about the Fulani herdsman, who combs the length and breadth of the country with his herd, in search of opportunities. The Fulani herdsman is blind to political borders, the language we speak or religion. Like the Igbo, what matters to him is where it is convenient to survive. There is no clearer demonstration of our interwoven existence than this. It also signifies true unity in diversity.”

Let's consider: “If the Igbo decide to wind up their businesses….” Action begets reaction. For the Igbo to take such a step would simply mean that such society has to find an alternative, unless it is already assumed that such a society is not capable of having such capability — which will be another form of denial. Furthermore, the Igbo would also have to find their own alternative since a business environment does not simply drop from the sky; it has to be created; meaning wherever the Igbo are operating now testifies to the availability of such an environment enabled by the indigenous society itself and wherever they would go would also require the existence or creation of such an environment, all of which will border on the reason for their leaving, in the first instance. So, it cuts both ways. And when Nuhu Ribadu says “the Fulani herdsman is blind to political borders, what matters to him is where it is convenient to survive”, there emerges an attempt at creating a synergy between the Igbo and the Fulani, oblivious of the fact that the Fulani herdsman violates the law in his “blindness” while the Igbo,

by and large, subscribe and live within existing laws. In a sense, therefore, they are oppo-sites. Now, political borders exist for a reason, to wit: pursuit of social, economic and political development of the society, preferably in a peaceful atmosphere, hence when some people are “blind” to it and such “blindness” is being celebrated, it can only mean that such a political border is an inconvenience that can be thrown overboard at will. And that is exactly why the Nigerian State allows the herdsmen to perpetrate their atrocities while punishing the victims.

But the Fulani also recognize these political borders as the platform for its power which was why it always attempts to control such border through mostly foul means and always threatening war over its “right”.

Furthermore, if being “blind” to political borders is a good attribute, why is the Nigerian Government trying to destroy those Igbo who are agitating to secede from Nigeria? Why is it OK for the Fulani herdsman to be “blind” to political borders but not OK for those agitating for Biafra? For, if what matters is “where it is convenient to survive” it must follow that “blindness” to political borders must be commended to every Nigerian Nationality.

Nuhu Ribadu’s resort to using Somalia and South Sudan as examples of “ State failure” and therefore negation of the National Question fails to address the imposition of the Colonial State as a negation of the Somali Nationality, especially when the land was divided up among three colonial powers, Italy, France and the UK thereby neutralizing her homogeneity. Independence became the anti-Thesis to the Somali

Nation, their respective subordination to the colonial power became the foundation for their relationships and the basis for conflict such that the entire landscape became a playground for the world powers, notably during the height of the Cold War. The after-effects of all of these are now playing out in the entrenchment of Islamic terror movement in Somalia.

In South Sudan the only form of political activism they experienced was through the barrel of the gun, and now compounded by the Islamist Sudanese govern-ment interventions also a function of the non-resolution of the National Question in spite of the Independence of the “State”. In both instances, and in much of Africa, the “State” simply became Independent of the People, hence the perennial crisis between the two. If we are to use any Index for fragile states, developmental wise, security or order, no African country will make the grade.

And contrary to Nuhu Ribadu, the fact that African post-colonial countries are unable to address this fundamental problematic, the National Question, is the most important aspect of the development quagmire Africa finds itself — and it starts from the denial; for this denial implies the imposition of an alternative which is only possible through the post-Colonial State Apparatus via the utilization of force as the only means of acquiring power and why Nuhu Ribadu would end up recommending a “paradigm shift in governance that urgently allows us to tackle the alarming inequality in our country, as well as the mass poverty and misery it nurtures.” It is all about “power calculation” a.k.a “governance”— outside the context of the Peoples. n

PATHFINDER International Lifting up the standard for African nationalities

VOL. 1, NO. 1

FREE

2017

Somalia: The Watson Files A

fter sunrise on April 1, 2008, the renowned English ecologist Murray Watson left the Saakow Hotel, a modest concrete guesthouse in rural southern Somalia, heading off for work in a Nissan Patrol. He and a Kenyan colleague, an engineer named Patrick Amukhuma, along with a translator and two guards, were on their way to finish up a survey of flood-prone areas for the United Nations using an aerial and ground survey technique Watson had pioneered decades earlier.

One of the more lush regions in a largely arid country, the area covered by Watson's survey was also among the most hazardous. It was crawling with al-Shabab extremists, who had taken to extorting the banana and sugarcane farms that unfurled along the banks of the Shabelle and Jubba rivers. Increasingly erratic rainfall, a phenomenon scientists have linked to climate change, was further threatening the farms by causing frequent floods that Watson hoped his survey could help mitigate. Though the 69-year-old Englishman wouldn't have described it as such, he was leading a groundbreaking climate adaptation effort in a country that is among the most vulnerable to climate change — and to the conflict that often follows in its wake.

Watson knew the dangers of working in this region, but over the years he had honed a set of instincts that usually kept him out of harm's way.

He had lived in Somalia on and off for more than a decade (from the late 1970s until the government collapsed in 1991), spoke basic Somali, and was married to a Somali-Kenyan woman. He was fluent in the country's ever-shifting power dynamics. But no amount of local knowledge could have saved him that spring morning.

About an hour after they left the hotel, as they bumped along a dirt road that ran parallel to the Jubba River, Watson and Amukhuma came upon a vehicle blocking their path. Six gunmen lay in wait. The driver attempted an evasive U-turn but got stuck in a gully as the attackers opened fire. Watson was hit, and blood soaked through the sleeve of his shirt. One of the guards surrendered his weapon; the other fled on foot after firing a few rounds.

“What if there were a blueprint for climate adaptation that could end a civil war? An English scientist spent his life developing one — then he vanished without a trace.”

Photo: Watson with his Piper Super Cub bush plane. (Courtesy of a friend to the Watson family) The gunmen tied up the driver and translator, leaving them behind. Then they pushed Watson and Amukhuma into the car and sped off deeper into the wilderness.

One of the guards managed to call the Saakow Hotel and a band of local militia quickly mobilized to search for the researchers.

When they got to the scene of the ambush, they found Wa t s o n ' s d r i v e r, t h e translator, and the guards.

The kidnappers and their victims were long gone.

For days, authorities from Britain's embassy in neighboring Kenya worked to track them down. So did a number of Watson's friends and acquaintances, including the veteran BBC reporter Owen BennettJones, who was based in London but had contacts at the BBC Somali Service.

The Brits sent at least two search parties to case the area around Jilib — a town where they believed he was being held, about 100 miles south of Saakow — and assess the feasibility of an extraction, but they were never able to establish

exactly where the kidnappers were holding Watson.

A few days after the abduction, Bennett-Jones started getting calls from a Somali man who spoke excellent English and claimed to be a negotiator for the kidnappers, whom the journalist by then believed to be members of al-Shabab. The man's demands ranged from $2 million to $4 million for the ecologist’s safe return.

Watson’s family couldn't pay, his country wouldn't, and the trail has been quiet ever since. No group has claimed his killing. No remains have ever been found.

For years after the kidnapping, the small cadre of environmentalists still working in Somalia had assumed that decades' worth of scientific knowledge compiled by Watson had also been lost. Without vital land surveys that vanished during the civil war, it would be hard to determine precisely how or at what rate the country’s climate was changing — and therefore difficult to design measures that could limit the damage.

But a recent discovery, made more than 4,000 miles away in Britain, has suddenly resurrected the possibility of continuing Watson's environmental work. It has also revealed the extent to which his legacy may be intertwined with the fate of Somalia itself.

Somalia is a country long beset by extremes. In its harsh and arid scrublands, where temperatures can e x c e e d 11 0 d e g r e e s Fahrenheit, nomadic people eke out a living on just inches of rainfall each year.

The margin for survival is razor thin, and drought has often sparked bloody conflict over livestock and other resources. When the rains fail, herds of camels and goats wither and die, often wiping out the communities that depend on them. Somalis “give names to the droughts, and they give names to the wars,” said Abdullahi Ahmed Karani, whose work as one of Somalia's pioneering environmenta-lists spanned too many of both.

It was a massive drought that propelled Karani, who

is now almost 80, into the job that defined his career.

Somalia typically has two wet seasons each year: The long rains, gu, last from April to June and the deyr from October to November.

But in 1974 and 1975, the rains never came. The Dabadheer drought, as it became known, translates to “the long-tailed one,” because “it stayed for a long time,” Karani explained.

Some 19,000 people starved to death, and a quartermillion nomads lost most of their livestock, leaving them destitute.

After the Dabadheer drought, Somalia's president, the MarxistLeninist military leader Siad Barre, decided that more needed to be done to help people cope with recurring dry spells; they should be prepared for the next inevitable drought. So Barre established the National Range Agency to spearhead conservation efforts, and he tapped Karani to run it. Housed in a beautiful building with arching arabesque corridors, the agency established the country's

first national parks, most famously the Lag Badana National Park in the fertile southern region, where the Jubba River sustained oldgrowth forests and visitors could see giraffes, elephants, and lions. The agency also protected pastures from overgrazing and banned charcoal exports in order to protect trees. “He was a dictator — I know that,” Karani said of Barre.

“But actually he was doing very good things [for the environment].”

Under Karani's leadership, the National Range Agency blossomed from a tiny organization with just one Somali forestry specialist to a government agency with about 2,000 people on its payroll by 1988. The agency put 3,000 more employees to work in the countryside on forestry and sand dunes projects in exchange for food rations. Karani's goal was to get all Somalis to see conservation as their duty: Environment Day was celebrated three times a year, with the main event in April, the start of the rainy season. Throngs would gather at the National Theatre in Mogadishu to hear Barre’s annual speech about the value of trees, and the following morning, people would turn out to public spaces in their neighbor-hoods to plant seedlings.

Like other government agencies, the National Range Agency benefited from Somalia's Cold War alliance with the United States, which channeled hundreds of millions of dollars into Barre's coffers.

Leading researchers and technicians from around the world were drawn to the work — botanists from Pakistan and Sweden, Indian forestry managers, a Canadian ecologist. Donor countries sent staff to projects housed at the a g e n c y, a n d f o r e i g n universities set up partnerships. A young Somali named Abdi Dahir, who had studied plant curation at the Royal Botanic Gardens in London, came home to direct the new national herbarium that contained 50,000 plant specimens, all displayed in wooden boxes.

Of all the international experts attracted to the National Range Agency, a Cambridge Universityeducated British ecologist stayed the longest.

To be continued in the next edition.

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