PAN-AFRICANINSING CALLS FOR ‘RESTRUCTURING’

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          Okello Oculi writes on controversies connected with ‘restructuring’

 The NEW NIGERIAN newspaper once carried a front-page photograph of former Ambassador Joe Garba’s quick sleep allegedly at the General Assembly of the United Nations.

 Some staff of the Faculty of Arts and Social Science (FASS) at Ahmadu Bello University enjoyed a vindictive laughter; recalling a swaggering Joe Garba criticising those Socialists who soil Nigeria’s image by ranking it is a ‘’poor country’’.

. He disagreed with claims that Nigeria’s leaders are greedy exploiters and are agents of foreign capitalists. Their abusive reference to leaders as a ‘’Bourgeoisie’’ is abusive. He challenged them to travel to African countries like the Republic of Niger to see what ‘’poverty’’ looked like.

The critics in FASS hit back at Joe Garba when at her independence Namibia rejected his nomination as Nigeria’s Ambassador to Windhoek, their country’s capital. This slap on Nigeria’s face came as a surprise

. Joe Garba as Nigeria’s Ambassador to the United Nations chaired the UN’s Committee on Decolonisation. It was central to Nigeria’s commitment to gaining freedom from racist dictatorships by European immigrants in Zimbabwe, Mozambique, South Africa, Namibia and Angola.

 This puzzle that a beneficiary of this militant diplomacy threw sand at efforts of Nigeria’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs who sent his name to President Sam Nujoma. Namibians could not be punishing Joe Garba for snoring diplomatically.

The key probably was a betrayed ‘’Restructuring’’ at onsets of Independence (UHURU) in Algeria, Kenya, Zimbabwe and South Africa; where NATO leaders ruthlessly insisted that vast fertile land (previously grabbed with gun violence by European immigrants), must be Bought Back for redistribution to landless citizens.

In Kenya, Zimbabwe and Algeria much blood had been shed to win back the land. The notion ‘’paying’’ robbers for their loot was a bitter meat to chew. In Kenya, Jomo Kenya accepted a Loan from the British Treasury to buy back land from European immigrants for his new class of Black Aristocracy’’.

  Robert Mugabe, in contrast, directed ‘’War Veterans’’ to pay for land with the same violence that European immigrants had invested in it. Euro-American governments hated him till his death.

Mugabe, however, earned a hero-worship among Namibians which they denied Joe Garba. It seems that in negotiations at the United Nations, Garba leaned favourably towards Germans South African owners of vast fertile land in Namibia. Helpless Namibians were made to sign for an Independence in which the Executive and Parliament would Not legally Redistribute land to Namibians without the Consent of German-Boer land occupiers,

The agreement was to be superior to the CONSTITUTION of ‘independent’’ Namibia. The contempt in the spirit of the agreement was blunt and brutal.

As the Minister of Foreign Affairs Joe Garba attended a simulation of a Summit of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), by students of FASS, claimed that he had Intimidated Ian Smith, rebel leader of Rhodesia, inside Nigeria’s High Commission in London.  He boasted that Smith had accepted rule by the majority Black population.

We were sceptical. Mugabe’s ZANU-PF was very bitter over their independence agreement driven by Nigeria; notably the directive that Mugabe  must Not seize back land until his country had been ‘’independent’’ for 10 Years.  Mugabe’s Veterans of the war for freedom were angry. The ruthless agreement imposed on Namibians suggests that Ambassador Joe Garba followed his earlier strategy for ‘’intimidating’’ European racists.  Jomo Kenyatta described the formula as ‘’Suffering Without Bitterness’’.

 In Ethiopia Prime Minister Melles Zenawe’s restructuring used violence and harsh imprisonment of Amhara politicians, academics, civil servants, businessmen and journalists on fears that they were demanding free and fair elections to vote his minority Tigray out of power.

The question of which sector of society would benefit from “Restructuring’’ is relevant and urgent. In South Sudan, the Nuer leader Riek Machar has waged war for his Nuer minority group to rule the majority Dinka. Fulani leaders in Guinea are against the majority Soninke in Guinea (Conakry).

Donald Trump is fanning a potential civil war and layers of violence among victims of blocked economic and cultural restructuring in America’s unequally industrialised society.  In South Sudan John Garang led a struggle fuelled by rejection of racist contempt; denied development in comparison to Arabised northern Sudan.

Nyerere engineered a positive model of restructuring. He told coffee-growing Bachaga parents to build and fund private schools in their District. His government built schools only in poorer Districts.  He disengaged from the University of East Africa and established branches of the University of Dar es Salaam in the far corners of northwest, southwest, southeast and the vast central region. The late President John Magufuli was a product of this model.

This restructuring was done by the central government. Its legitimacy was dispersed because benefits were not confined to groups that control power…

Prof Oculi writes from Abuja