Let me start this piece by commending the online activist movement by various segments of the Nigeria society on various issues, no matter the views and counter views generated. Their interventions, no matter how little it is perceived, go a long way in shaping the discourse and direction of this country. When I write some time ago about the sociology of politics, many views were expressed and commentaries generated. But few details were omitted principally to allow that digestion of the piece. Events thereafter has validated that theoretical and practical exploration and explanation of the structure of power and society in Nigeria.
It is no wonder that Mr David Cameron, Prime Minister of Britain said Nigeria is a fantastically corrupt country along with Afghanistan. Of course, the comment was not a Freudian slip nor was it politically incorrect. As much as it was a statement of fact, it is not reflective of the ordinary Nigerian who struggle daily to eke out a living. Most of those captured in his statement are the civil, economic and political class that derive their living from and sustenance on the government and its patronage. However, Mr Cameron ought to know, hence his comment because his father too is among the gang of persons that are fantastically corrupt as the Panama papers has shown. At least, he is among the beneficiaries of his own father stealing/fraud. It takes a thief to know another thief!
However, to put his comment in the right perspective, it should not be forgotten that the statement was his personal view and comment reflective of the dominant and subsisting thinking and relationship between Britain (Western world) and Nigeria/Africa (Periphery/Underdeveloped world). As much as the statement is offensively odious and diplomatically insensitive, Mr Cameron was just displaying arrant ignorance, immaturity and vulgarity associated with many politicians in Britain and US, particularly, the vulgar Mr Trump. And those type of speech, comments and insults should be expected. As I explained in the sociology of politics, the tendency of third world leaders including those from Africa to often go cap and bowl in hand like beggars for aids and loans has often exposed them as fools and men/women without conviction and integrity. When third world leaders steal, they take the money to Britain, US and other safe havens that are located in Europe or Panama. There is no doubt that leaders and government officials steal and are corrupt in Britain and other Western countries, but have you seen and heard that the stolen money from there is kept in any African country?
Furthermore, Mr Cameron’s comment is also symptom of the assumed superior and inferior complex and relationship between the North and South, between the colonizer and the formerly colonised. The slave/colonised mentality has been ingrained in African leaders who saw and see themselves as inferior and shoe shiners. I mentioned during the 2015 general elections that why would Buhari go to CNN, Sky and BBC to grant interviews about Nigeria elections when Nigerians were the primary voters. How many times do you Mr Cameron or Mr Obama granting press interviews to AIT, NTA or SABC, even during elections? The cycle of slavish relationship predates Buhari and Jonathan and other African leaders, but Buhari has continued in that stead and even increased it. Instead of cancelling his London trip in view of that stupid comments as a form of dignified response, Buhari was at the event! Shameless! So how can Mr Cameron (the West) respect him and Nigeria/Africa? Not a chance in a million for that respect to materialise. Nigeria/Africa wake up!
However for Mr Cameron’s attention, historically, Britain/Europe has always been a corrupt state/society. From medieval times, the amount of corruption has been mind boggling. It was the fantastic corruption of Europe (France) that lead to the French revolution and peasant revolution in Britain. It was the sad state of Britain’s system and society that lead to the philosophical works of James John Harrignton as well as the Levellers and Diggers ideology. It was the not so good nature of the political and economic system of Britain that partly informed the works of Thomas Hobbes and John Locke who served as confidential secretary to Lord Shaflesbury, the founder of the whig party and who is regarded as the chief theorist of the revolution of 1688. For Mr Cameron’s education, the British society was so corrupt and brutish that a re-engineering of the society was negotiated, part which made the British monarch ceremonial and that is what formed the basis of the modern British system and society.
Thereafter, given the corrupt nature and tendencies in the British system, it was not long that Britain joined the idea and practice of mercantilism and its derivative in form of colonialism across the world and particularly in Africa. The half-baked administrator, Mr Lugard and his co rulers as well as the subsequent ones after him were so corrupt that they sowed the current seed of corruption in Nigeria. For example, it was the mistress of Lugard that gave Nigeria its current name, demonstrating moral corruption and ineptitude. Deceit (419) and outright appropriation (corruption) of the colonised people and system was the order of the day throughout British rule in what is now known as modern Nigeria. Divide and rule (political corruption) as the ruling template adopted by the British in colonised Nigeria. Encouragement of the cultivation of food crops to be appropriated or sold at ridiculously low price (economic corruption) for the manufacturing companies in Britain was British’s economic policy in colonised Nigeria/Africa. They sowed the seed of disconnect between the rulers and the ruled and corruption with their policies in colonised Africa including Nigeria. Through various forms of corruption, an asymmetric relationship developed between Britain and its colonised territories whereas as Britain developed from proceeds from these territories (then and now), the territories becomes more underdeveloped. It was a system developed in corruption, maintained in corruption and sustained by corruptive interdependence spearheaded by Britain, its postulations to the contrary absurd and unconvincing.
Thus, modern British system is not corrupt free but has developed new innovative ways by which it remains fantastically corrupt by providing safe havens for slush and stolen funds from legion of foreign thieves, principally from its commonwealth countries, its lackeys and kleptomaniac African/Third world leaders. So next time Mr Cameron wants to label a country fantastically corrupt he should remember the history and current realities of his country and of course, his father’s infamous name among the fantastically corrupt individuals in the Panama papers!
It is no wonder that Mr David Cameron, Prime Minister of Britain said Nigeria is a fantastically corrupt country along with Afghanistan. Of course, the comment was not a Freudian slip nor was it politically incorrect. As much as it was a statement of fact, it is not reflective of the ordinary Nigerian who struggle daily to eke out a living. Most of those captured in his statement are the civil, economic and political class that derive their living from and sustenance on the government and its patronage. However, Mr Cameron ought to know, hence his comment because his father too is among the gang of persons that are fantastically corrupt as the Panama papers has shown. At least, he is among the beneficiaries of his own father stealing/fraud. It takes a thief to know another thief!
However, to put his comment in the right perspective, it should not be forgotten that the statement was his personal view and comment reflective of the dominant and subsisting thinking and relationship between Britain (Western world) and Nigeria/Africa (Periphery/Underdeveloped world). As much as the statement is offensively odious and diplomatically insensitive, Mr Cameron was just displaying arrant ignorance, immaturity and vulgarity associated with many politicians in Britain and US, particularly, the vulgar Mr Trump. And those type of speech, comments and insults should be expected. As I explained in the sociology of politics, the tendency of third world leaders including those from Africa to often go cap and bowl in hand like beggars for aids and loans has often exposed them as fools and men/women without conviction and integrity. When third world leaders steal, they take the money to Britain, US and other safe havens that are located in Europe or Panama. There is no doubt that leaders and government officials steal and are corrupt in Britain and other Western countries, but have you seen and heard that the stolen money from there is kept in any African country?
Furthermore, Mr Cameron’s comment is also symptom of the assumed superior and inferior complex and relationship between the North and South, between the colonizer and the formerly colonised. The slave/colonised mentality has been ingrained in African leaders who saw and see themselves as inferior and shoe shiners. I mentioned during the 2015 general elections that why would Buhari go to CNN, Sky and BBC to grant interviews about Nigeria elections when Nigerians were the primary voters. How many times do you Mr Cameron or Mr Obama granting press interviews to AIT, NTA or SABC, even during elections? The cycle of slavish relationship predates Buhari and Jonathan and other African leaders, but Buhari has continued in that stead and even increased it. Instead of cancelling his London trip in view of that stupid comments as a form of dignified response, Buhari was at the event! Shameless! So how can Mr Cameron (the West) respect him and Nigeria/Africa? Not a chance in a million for that respect to materialise. Nigeria/Africa wake up!
However for Mr Cameron’s attention, historically, Britain/Europe has always been a corrupt state/society. From medieval times, the amount of corruption has been mind boggling. It was the fantastic corruption of Europe (France) that lead to the French revolution and peasant revolution in Britain. It was the sad state of Britain’s system and society that lead to the philosophical works of James John Harrignton as well as the Levellers and Diggers ideology. It was the not so good nature of the political and economic system of Britain that partly informed the works of Thomas Hobbes and John Locke who served as confidential secretary to Lord Shaflesbury, the founder of the whig party and who is regarded as the chief theorist of the revolution of 1688. For Mr Cameron’s education, the British society was so corrupt and brutish that a re-engineering of the society was negotiated, part which made the British monarch ceremonial and that is what formed the basis of the modern British system and society.
Thereafter, given the corrupt nature and tendencies in the British system, it was not long that Britain joined the idea and practice of mercantilism and its derivative in form of colonialism across the world and particularly in Africa. The half-baked administrator, Mr Lugard and his co rulers as well as the subsequent ones after him were so corrupt that they sowed the current seed of corruption in Nigeria. For example, it was the mistress of Lugard that gave Nigeria its current name, demonstrating moral corruption and ineptitude. Deceit (419) and outright appropriation (corruption) of the colonised people and system was the order of the day throughout British rule in what is now known as modern Nigeria. Divide and rule (political corruption) as the ruling template adopted by the British in colonised Nigeria. Encouragement of the cultivation of food crops to be appropriated or sold at ridiculously low price (economic corruption) for the manufacturing companies in Britain was British’s economic policy in colonised Nigeria/Africa. They sowed the seed of disconnect between the rulers and the ruled and corruption with their policies in colonised Africa including Nigeria. Through various forms of corruption, an asymmetric relationship developed between Britain and its colonised territories whereas as Britain developed from proceeds from these territories (then and now), the territories becomes more underdeveloped. It was a system developed in corruption, maintained in corruption and sustained by corruptive interdependence spearheaded by Britain, its postulations to the contrary absurd and unconvincing.
Thus, modern British system is not corrupt free but has developed new innovative ways by which it remains fantastically corrupt by providing safe havens for slush and stolen funds from legion of foreign thieves, principally from its commonwealth countries, its lackeys and kleptomaniac African/Third world leaders. So next time Mr Cameron wants to label a country fantastically corrupt he should remember the history and current realities of his country and of course, his father’s infamous name among the fantastically corrupt individuals in the Panama papers!
Olugbemiga Afolabi
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