Frank Ukonga Lecture 35: Terrorism & Security challenges in Nigeria and Sub Saharan Africa:-A 21st Century - Functional Panacea-
Nigeria and sub Saharan Africa is plagued by new challenges in the 21 century of terrorism, ethnic/tribal chevenism,struggles for power and domination, problems of marginalization, black on black imperialism, economic frustration, endemic poverty,corruption, looting and acute larceny of state and federal treasuries of countries of sub Saharan Africa by its leaders,poor health delivery system, AID/.HIV pandemic,epileptic electricity generation and distribution, comatose capacity utilization of the real sector economy, religious strives,obsolete agricultural prowess, prostitution, poor education and child upbringing resulting in the products of faulty adults gender...and lot of other problems have added to the underdevelopment of the Nigeria and in general countries of sub Saharan Africa.
As these are the major challenges of Nigeria & sub saharan Africa in the first quartile of 21 century, it would be dialectical to begin to reserch into the causes of these problems with a view to inventing lasting solutions that would guaratee peace, social economic and industrial prosperty of this great region to the benefits of the over 400 million peoples of Nigeria/sub saharan Africa and to the glories of the Human Race of substantiated realms of subsequent creation...
Historical Status quo Anti Bellum vs New Thinking/Realities and Conflicting Frontiers:
The 2000 years history of sub Saharan Africa with it enviable splendor , did identified a number of tribes/ Ethnic groups that held sway of its leadership since the beginning of modern Empires of Western Sudan; beginning with the Ghana Empire,followed by the Mali Empire, the Songhai empire, Futa Toro / Futa Jalon Empires, Kanem Borno Empire, Hausa Fulani Empire, Zauzau Empires, Yoruba Empire, Benin Empire, Jukun/ Nupe Empire, Igbo states,Okpobo , Ishekiri empires , Kwararafa Empire of the Ebira/Igarra peoples etc ,
These great Empires were usually composed of several tribes with a number of stronger tribes holding unto power and controlled the others either as vassals or lesser partners...untill the coming of slavery,& colonization of the invasion of sub saharan Africa by the white Race; which brought all the peoples of this region to fight as one block to liberate their land from the slavery, colonization and neo colonization of the white race that took 500 years to achieve, but at the end.this was successful...with a brief spell of democracy and a prolonged military rule of above 30 years in many countries of sub saharan Africa including the Nigerian federation,
The military, ruled with nationalistic ideology of coesion of peoples and tribes addressed towards attainemt of common good of national development, so in this era there were little tribal wars and fear of entnic domonation by one trible on others...but with the current wind of democratic dispensatiobn blowing across the Sub Saharan landscape including Nigeria, a new frostration and fear of enthic domination, trbal chevenism, and other existing dogmas like some believe they are "born to rule others "...etc has begin to rear its head...and this is a hydra headed monster that has been the remote causality of the Nigerian civil war and lots of wars and ethnic strives in Nigeria and sub saharan Africa and perhaps also the remote progenitor of the contemporary upsurge in terrorism in Nigeria and countries of sub Saharan Africa including Mali,. Cameron, Sudan, South Sudan etc
The New Thinking and Frontiers conflicts:
The new thinking came with the ushering into being of democracy in Nigeria and the enlightenment of the children of all and sundry in the polity so the idea that some tribe and peoples would continue to eternity to lord it over others became somewhat edged out by the acts of commissions and omissions in the contemporary turbulent recent events in Nigerian History since June 12 polls 1993 till date it has being the struggle, war between those who used to hold onto powers either by proxy of fronting surrogates; but today that order has changed and those who used to hold unto that power of course naturally would do every thing to recapture the power back while the new entrant into the power axis would do everything to keep the power...it is the conflicting frontiers of these two great protagonist that is the direct and remote causalities of civil Strives in Nigeria and sub Saharan Africa today...and the panacea is through constructive engagement of " internationally monitored National dialogue." with a view to evolving a true confederacy and resource control of various Regions...which would make the center less attractive through devolution of powers to the coligathing members Regions of the emerging confederacy...this would be adequate solution for self rule and remove marginalization and fear of domination...the current unitary model started by H.E. Thomas Aguyi Ironsi the first military head of state of Nigeria abolishing the Regional autonomy can only hold sway in a Military regime but in a democracy it would always be an aberration and a misnomer. ,,,
Contemporary induced problems challenging the security and peace of Nigeria and sub Saharan Africa in the 21st century:
1]Endemic corruption: This problem of corruption, looting of states and federal treasuries of countries of sub Saharan Africa thereby pushing the masses in to poverty, ruins and shame as monies meant to develop and provide social amenities for these peoples are looted away....this causes frustrations of a national scale that begin to rear national hate and public apathy for the system and this public anger if not well managed could explode into collapsing the Republic..this impacts negatively on the safety of life and properties of the polity.....
2]Black on Black Imperialism:Induced poverty due to the unequal distribution of wealth: the entire wealth of most countries of sub Saharan Africa including the Nigerian state are controlled by less than 10% of the population leaving more than 370 million peoples of the region to squalor, scavenging, want, shame and grief..this phenomenon breeds revolutionary tendencies in the masses as well as social delinquencies which ends up in instigating change, distrust, public apathy etc...coupled with the disappearance of the middle class which should permeate a well managed economy as the binding cohesion of social fabric...but that is not so...today in Nigeria and countries of sub Saharan Africa all there is is the have few and the have not masses; the panacea to this aberration of crass capitalism is a new round of redistribution of wealth and labour power among the citizens addressed to ameliorate the abrasive contrast to ward away the imminent clash of class and social struggle which according to Karl Max would end up in the revolutionary edging out of that social order that has gone moribund, to be replaced by another more tolerable one.
3]Unemployment- Redundancies of skilled and unskilled labor; In recent times the redundancy of skilled and unskilled labour force has taken an astronomical proportion as over 60 % of the total population of Nigeria and sub Saharan Africa are unemployed...this is not good enough. As this would continue to breed hate and public apathy, frustration, poverty, scavenging,shame and grief in the communities and has the potential of causing crimes from restive youth and vices including thuggery, arms robberies, frauds, kidnapping including terrorism...it is common sense that no fully gainfully employed youth living a great life would be tempted to join terrorist group except by some other forms of indoctrination..."as an idle mind is a devil's workshop"
4]weak institutions & moral Decay: African instututions are genrally very weak; from the institution of governance; judiciary, legislative,educational, agricultural, cultural,etc...this is responsible for the lack of continuity in policy making and implementation in Nigeria and sub saharan Africa with abandoned project all over the places..this causes a bid drain on the frail reasorses of African states. When a new govt comes on board which is very frequent they abandon the projects of the prediccessors and begins a new chapter , just to be abandoned by the nexrt administrator...this has been part of the causality of the underdevelopment of the sub saharan Africa and Nigeria. The contemporary moral decay is also a bid problem.
5] Language &Cognition:Poor system of Education and curriculum: conflicting frontiers of Euro-centric education vs Afrocentric education:The contemporary poor performances of students in examinations is due to the asymmetric adaptation of extrinsic educational models of Euro centric definitions into a more complex African superlative esthetics and value systems. its major damage is the inpierrment of adequate senses of cognition of the African personality in cognitizing images of image less thoughts in the order of the Laws of Pascal Leon of cognition,as it is truth self evident that the primary languages of cognition is the mother tongue of human beings so images, concepts ideas are translated with mental processes of split second between the language officail being used in schools either french or English or Spanish to the undeveloped languages of the African genre and lots of meaning is lost during this split second of mental assimilation...whence languages are very important in teaching and learning. here Africans are advised to speak and teach their children their mother tongue..researchers are advised to develop the African languages to standered and invent new words into the vocabulary for faster cognition...
Euro-centric education vs Afrocentric education :Secondly the Euro centric education curriculum for Africans are addressed to only socialize them and perhaps to comprehend something out of a broad based educational system so that they can be useful marketers and representatives of Euro-centric products..it had never been directed towards making the African personality to grow to become self sufficient, innovative, inventive etal in the aspects of Research and Development...the solution to this is the introduction of Afro centric curriculum which harps on Africans being trained in one form of trade ,craft or another, this will re empower the African personality to be more creative, inventive and this would develop the African personality to become creative, adventurous, entrepreneurial which would solve the problems of redundancies and poverty on a regional and continental scale...and impact positively on security and safety of life and properties...
WEB Dubois one of the greatest intelligentsia of the Black Race started developing a functional Afrocentric pedagogy & curriculum for the African personality in partnership with His Excellency Kwameh Nkrumah the President of Ghana but died before he could achieve that dream . If he could have concluded it and implemented in all of Africa the situation would have been a different one today...today only few Africans can cogntize the English language or any other official language as the owners of the language..great genius like Prof, Wole Soyinka, Chek Anta Diop,Prof Leonard Jeffries,Proff Ali Mazuri, Frank Ukonga and a few others have the capacity to cognitize in the languages of Europe because of their extra ordinary developed streams of mental processes...
6]Poor and Epileptic infrastructures;The poverty in infrastructural developemt of the Nigerian polity as well as that of sub saharan Africa pose a great challenge to safety of life and properties of the sub region..from the tellecommunications , to roads, bridges, transportations,social amenities, electricity generation and distribution, etc this has been the major hindrance in tracking dowm criminals, terrorists , kidnappers as the systems of information gathering is underdeveloped and the avenues to track down cuklprits in the vast mangrove and savanah vegetation is cumbersome and problematic...this also is repounsivble for the underdevelopment of the real sector of the African economy which on a secoundary level causes unemploymet, redundaicies and on the third scale is respousible for the abject poverty of Sub Saharan Africa and the African continent...the solution is to continue to do more on infrastructural developemt...
7]Lack of developmental finance:The lack of Developmental Finance to develop the African Continent which includes Nigeria and sub Saharan Africa is a big problem that endangers the social economic growths and development of this Regions..The unwillingness of private capital lending syndication and other regional lending Banks to give loans to many African countries sterns from the almost bad experience of the decades of the 80;s of the previous century were Africa was plague by the problems of loan defaults due to illiquidity and insolvency..and save for a few countries that were able to live above board in that era of mundane recklessness, the rest of the African continent are still haunted by that era of living dangerously...while the lenders are not ready to forget too quickly the harrowing experiences of that bad case in Human history...where Africa became indebted to the tune of more than 500 billion dollars...with nothing to show on the ground for those loans...little wonder the apathy of the Western capital metropols in lending to African countries,,,the solution here is to role up our sleeves and work hard,to rebuild trust
8] Lack of innovative and committed leadership; It is important to note that lack of innovative leaders to man all the segments of the African society Nigeria and sub Saharan Africa inclusive pose a big hindrance to social economic development which impacts negatively on the safety of lives and properties of the sub region..and the African continent in generality...lack of adequately serious and committed leadership to stare the ship to a heralding landing as the countries of the Asian Tigers who a few years ago were at same level of developing countries category with African countries due to focused purposeful leadership are now Asian Tigers, rubbing shoulders with the developed worlds',,,but the African case safe for South Africa is a bad case...
9] problems of nepotism and quota systems: The problems of nepotism, brotherhood, ethnicity, tribalism and quota systems have mortgaged the quality of the employment cadre into the length and breath of the employment structures of Nigeria and sub Saharan countries where the best is not likely to get the job for the aforementioned hindrances..this impacts adversely on quality service delivery as well as impacts negatively on a secondary level on the safety and security of the polity...
10]Religious struggles: The question of religion strives have been with the human Race from the beginning of time and it is imperative to begin to understand that all religion need to live together alongside
conclusion:The security challenges of Nigeria and sub Saharan Africa in the 21st century as analyzed in the above lecture is solvable as the problems are known so the solution becomes obvious..but a point need to be emphasizes that Nigeria and sub Saharan Africa need courage, will, purposeful ,committed leadership to be able to solve the problems and stear the countries toward greater callings of social economic prosperity for which peace, security and safety of life and properties are imperatives...
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