A Reply to Kperogi.doc

From: dialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of "Dr. Bitrus Gwamna" <bgw...@gmail.com>
Reply-To: dialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Date: Saturday, May 25, 2019 at 5:13 AM
To: dialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - A Reply to Kperogi.doc

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Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju

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May 25, 2019, 6:21:16 AM5/25/19

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Why not post this reply in the mail space rather than as a Word document? It will be easier to read that way with the volume of things one needs to read

Jibrin Ibrahim

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May 25, 2019, 6:26:29 AM5/25/19

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Bitrus, please just duck, they will descend on you with a vengeance you cannot imagine. Meanwhile, it's good you are not allowing yourself and Pita to be intimidated by thuggery.

Professor Jibrin Ibrahim

Senior Fellow

Centre for Democracy and Development, Abuja

Follow me on twitter @jibrinibrahim17

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Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju

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May 25, 2019, 6:26:40 AM5/25/19

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From Dr. Bitrus Gwamna

A Reply to Kperogi

Dear Colleagues:

Let me begin this note by first acknowledging my familiarity with Professor Farooq Kperogi, not only through his pithy write-ups on numerous social media platforms but several phone conversations, email exchanges and a physical encounter in Columbia, Missouri, last July. His amiable disposition is a sharp contrast from the passion conveyed in his articles on this forum. I also have established a rapport with Professor Kperogi’s ideological counterpart, Professor Moses Ochonu. Like Farooq, Moses has a most charming disposition. I am indeed grateful to them for positively responding to the request by the planning committee of last year’s Zumunta National Convention to address our gathering.

Second, Professor Pita Ogaba Agbese and I acknowledge our full membership of the Association of Nigerian Scholars in the Diaspora [ANSD). This association was conceived several years prior to the 2015 Nigerian elections for conversations and discussions on literary and socio-political themes. The association is yet to be registered as our membership is yet to decide on the appropriate platform for dispensing the outcomes of our deliberations and increasing our membership. We know that the association does not need to be registered for its members to call for conferences or express their views on issues which concern them or our country. Our last physical encounter with each other was September 1^st at Eagan, Minnesota, during which members of the association analyzed Nigeria’s security situation and proposed a set of policy options for a lasting peace in the country. Our discussions are long and exhaustive as there is a desire on our part to reach a consensus or a majority decision on any issue before a communique is issued. Alas, Professor Agbese and I whose names represent the Association of Nigerian Scholars in the Diaspora have been embarrassed by the verbiage contained in the write-up that has angered Professor Kperogi. Had it undergone the editing process that has been put in place by our members, he and those displeased with its contents might have had little cause to fault our stance. We believe that the current military chiefs have done an outstanding job in containing the Boko Haram menace and we urge that the progress and the momentum against Boko Haram and other threats to peace and stability in Nigeria sustained. On Emefiele, the governor of the Central Bank, we did not see the need for Nigeria to move in a different direction on fiscal or monetary policy. It is interesting that those who always excoriate President Buhari on appointments which they alleged were anchored on nepotism would not applaud the president for nominating Emefiele for a second term as CNB governor.

We also felt that US reports on human rights in Nigeria are written from a holier-than-thou attitude on the part of the US State Department. The US record on the treatment of its minority populations leaves much to be desired. Moreover, while the US is quick to condemn the actions of security forces in other parts of the world, it has refused to subject its own security forces to standards required under international law. The contempt in which the current US administration under President Donald Trump holds international norms is clearly demonstrated by Trump’s decision to pardon American soldiers who had been convicted of violating US and international law. We wish that one day, our nation too would issue annual reports on human rights in the US. However, in the meantime, we don’t feel obliged to accept everything the US says about Nigeria. We do not consider the US a god or an oracle whose opinion on Nigeria cannot be challenged.

We will not seek to deprive the learned professor of his right to rail against the current Nigerian presidency detesting the head of the administration with every ounce of his energy. However, to arrogate to himself, the right to decree what structures should exist or claim the academic label is not only uncharitable but smacks of dictatorship, an attitude unworthy of his stature as a scholar. I have been on this forum long enough to witness the good, the bad and ugly among members when arguments fail to mollify their egos. Yes, facts are sacred, but the interpretation of various narratives leads to different outcomes.

We will be careful to properly edit the contents of our publications to ensure that we are accurate in our communication with those who are exposed to our deliberations and conclusions, but we will not tailor our beliefs to please anyone for fear not to be tagged fraudulent.

While we appreciate Prof. Kperogi’s determination to protect our integrity when he saw a publication that aroused his suspicion, we would have laid his suspicion to rest if he had contacted us before rushing to this forum to declare our association as fraudulent. Cordially Yours,

Bitrus Gwamna, also writing on behalf of Pita Agbese.

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Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju

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May 25, 2019, 6:30:04 AM5/25/19

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Bitrus,

Your assessment of US hypocrisy could be factual.

Would that exonerate inadequacies of the Buhari govt?

Could you share what your organisation had to say about the Buhari govt on the subject in question?

toyin

Toyin Falola

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May 25, 2019, 6:30:05 AM5/25/19

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Great Jibrin:

No use of the word “thuggery” to criticize dissent. Intellectual caution is needed as debates can feed political actions that we all lose from.

TF

Toyin Falola

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From: dialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Jibrin Ibrahim <jibrinib...@gmail.com>

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Date: Saturday, May 25, 2019 at 5:26 AM
To: dialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>

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Jibrin Ibrahim

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May 25, 2019, 6:35:24 AM5/25/19

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Toyin I know the thuggery I have suffered from on this platform.

Professor Jibrin Ibrahim

Senior Fellow

Centre for Democracy and Development, Abuja

Follow me on twitter @jibrinibrahim17

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Ibrahim Abdullah

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May 25, 2019, 6:56:48 AM5/25/19

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Gibo fears not! It ain’t thuggery—it’s called robust interrogation. Guess you’re getting soft with age; and you want the young Turks to treat you like a feudal prince.

Sent from my iPhone

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Femi Segun

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May 25, 2019, 8:28:12 AM5/25/19

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Oga Jibo,

It is absolutely unacceptable to characterise dissent as thugerry. What then is the essence of democracy, which the Campaign for Denocracy that you led for many years worked so assiduously to make a reality in Nigeria? If intellectuals cannot broach alternative views, how do we expect our power drunken political elites to listen to the alternative voices of reason that we offer through our numerous writings. I have had cause to disagree with you on this forum, when I noticed that you were pandering to the murderous Fulani Herdsmen campaign of displacment and annihilation of Middle Belt and now Southwest people, but I am not a thug. Criticism is one of the canons of our profession as academics. You have offered incisive criticisms of the failings of many government policies and officials for decades, but those did not constitute thuggery. Why should it be that when people disagree with you, you mischaracterise it as thuggery. I think all forum members deserve a penitent apology from you.

Femi.

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Farooq A. Kperogi

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May 25, 2019, 2:48:58 PM5/25/19

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Dear Professor Gwamna,

I have held you in the highest esteem since I first had the privilege to know you. Your sky-high zest and your uncommon courage to rise to the top in spite of tall odds is a source of inspiration to me and many more people than I can persuade you to believe. My friend Moses, whom I am sure will speak for himself, shares these sentiments about you. A measure of how highly we estimate you was demonstrated by the fact that when you invited us to Missouri for the Zumunta convention, which we had never participated in, we left everything aside and attended. We had reservations about regional associations, but we said your reputational capital was sufficient to wipe away our anxieties. So we attended, and we had a good time there.

Although I had never heard of, much less known, Professor Pita Agbese before, I also found him to be a gracious, witty, smart, complaisant person. I felt honored to know him and was particularly excited to discover that he was friends with and schoolmate of Professor Attahiru Jega, my mentor at Bayero University, Kano. The impressions that registered in me about Professor Agbese are, to be frank with you, inconsistent with the sort of unprincipled, uncritical, and conscienceless cheerleading of Buhari's fascism that I've later discovered he habitually engages in. My own sense is that he conscripted you into this since he travels to Nigeria more frequently than you do and seems to be friends with senior military officers. But I may be wrong. It's also not my business whom he chooses to align with. I get that.

Now, let's address the substance of your response. You are from southern Kaduna. People in that part of the country are at the receiving end of unceasing government- and military-assisted mass slaughters by Fulani herders. In addition to mass murders by Fulani brigands, every prominent Adara political leader is in jail as I write this. Professor Agbese's people, the Idoma, were, and still are, also the victims of horrendous mass slaughters and forceful displacement by Fulani marauders. Your "Association of Nigerian Scholars in the Diaspora," to the best of my knowledge, has never issued a single statement on these and other troubling issues that threaten the very foundation of Nigeria.

Every single statement your association has issued so far has been in defense of Buhari's government, and especially of the military. How can you in good conscience advance the claim that the military led by Buratai and other corrupt, incompetent service chiefs have defeated or weakened Boko Haram when more soldiers have been murdered by Boko Haram in the last two years than at any time since the Boko Haram insurgency started, when scores of soldiers are starving on the frontlines, when scores of civilians are still being murdered in the northeast on a daily basis, when vast swathes of land in Borno and Yobe are still under the control of Boko Haram, and when poor, defenseless people in these states still pay taxes to the ruthless, homicidal thugs that constitute Boko Haram?

I agree that America has its own problems and shouldn't be the police of the world. I also agree that American soldiers committed and commit war crimes in the Middle East and elsewhere and aren't held to account. Nevertheless, these facts do not vitiate the accuracy of the US State Department's report on the unacceptable human rights violations by the Nigerian military that your association appears invested in defending at all costs. In fact, there is nothing in the US State Department's report that hasn't already been pointed out by Nigerians in the national media and on social media.

I respect your and Professor Agbese's right to association and freedom of speech, but I hope you also respect my right to be disappointed that people for whom I have profound regard have become cheerleaders of fascism in their homeland from the comfort of their diasporic location. Be well and say hello to madam for me.

Farooq

Personal website: www.farooqkperogi.com

Twitter: @farooqkperogi

Author of Glocal English: The Changing Face and Forms of Nigerian English in a Global World

"The nice thing about pessimism is that you are constantly being either proven right or pleasantly surprised." G. F. Will

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Femi Segun

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May 25, 2019, 7:22:44 PM5/25/19

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For Prof Bitrus Gwamna:

" We know that the association does not need to be registered for its members to call for conferences or express their views on issues which concern them or our country"

With due respect to our esteemed Professor, this knowledge that an association need not be registered to call for conferences is strange to any corporate law that I am aware of. Yes, an intending business person or a group of people desiring to form an association can use a company on the shelf, but those are already registered with approved names.There are dire implications of defending the activities of a faceless and an illegal organisation or association. One, if such an association spread fake news or incite public violence, no one will be held accountable. Two, as it has happened severally in the NGO world, if such unregistered asociation get funding, perhaps on personal recognition of the promoters, the money can disappear without a trace and nobody will be held accountable.

The above is just obiter dictum-statement by the way as Lawyers will put it. What is more worrisome to me is for enlightened citizens to rationalise internal colonisation, fascim and subjugation of fellow citizens under any guise. Pray, why on earth are many of us so complacent that we continue to defend what is going on under PMB, especially in relations to his one-sided, conscienceless conspiratorial rationalisation of the displacement of thousands of people from their ancestral homeland in the Middle Belt and increasingly in the Southwest Nigeria? Why are we having IDPs ad infinitum when humongrous amount of money is budgetted for security every year? Is protection of lives and security not the first duty of the state? Why is it legal for Fulani herdmen to go about with assault rifles but this is not allowed for other groups of people in the country? And as per the issue of Adara people in Southern Kaduna and the fascism of El-Rufai, how can anyone with conscience not see anything wrong about this arrogant display of power to subjugate the will of indigenous people by imposing emirate council on them, against their own wish? What is the gain of demoracry if people are not allowed to express dissent against an unjust policy? And where is PMP in all this naked display of projection of religious and ethnic suzerainty by El-Rufai? Before we condemn America, can we begin our charity at home? Or is this part of elite conspiracy to keep silent when our bread is buttered by the power that be, no matter how cruel those who hold the lever of power can be to the voiceless victims of such misuse of power? Everyone is free to support whoever, but as Fanon warned, history will be harsh to those who have the knowledge to speak against oppression but chose to be silent and indifferent.

Femi

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Chidi Anthony Opara, FIIM

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May 26, 2019, 7:01:35 AM5/26/19

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"Or is this part of elite conspiracy to keep silent when our bread is buttered by the power that be, no matter how cruel those who hold the lever of power can be to the voiceless victims of such misuse of power? Everyone is free to support whoever, but as Fanon warned, history will be harsh to those who have the knowledge to speak against oppression but chose to be silent and indifferent" (Femi).

Yes, it is!

History would also be harsh on those who foisted Buhari on us four years ago, even when the signs of fascism were there.

Yes, apology have been rendered and accepted(?), but those apology would not remedy the harsh verdict of history.

CAO.

Michael Afolayan

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May 26, 2019, 7:02:04 AM5/26/19

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Hello Professor Bitru Gwamma -

While not necessarily in agreement with the platform of your organization, I truly appreciate your handling of Professor Kperogi's write-up. I always appreciate maturity, and thanks for showing it. A good many folk would be defensive or even offensive; instead, you explained your position to the best of your ability.

However, I still would love for you to respond to Oluwatosin Adepoju's query, and I quote it below:

"Your assessment of US hypocrisy could be factual. . . Would that exonerate inadequacies of the Buhari Govt? . . . Could you share what your organization had to say about the Buhari govt on the subject in question?" (Adepoju)

Thanks for being responsive.

Michael O. Afoláyan

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OLAYINKA AGBETUYI

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May 26, 2019, 1:15:40 PM5/26/19

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Prof.

I think Prof Jibrin Ibrahim has a point. Just because someone chose to work for a democratic govt which others disapprove of does not mean they should be attacked by violent language. It is called democracy because we will not all support a govt or its actions.

If those attacking a govt or its supporters can't even put themselves forward at election time I don't see the point of armchair criticism

OAA

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

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Toyin I know the thuggery I have suffered from on this platform.

Professor Jibrin Ibrahim

Senior Fellow

Centre for Democracy and Development, Abuja

Follow me on twitter @jibrinibrahim17

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OLAYINKA AGBETUYI

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May 26, 2019, 1:16:04 PM5/26/19

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Let me thank Bitrus Gwama for this modulated response stating his side of the story.

Samuel Zalanga

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May 27, 2019, 7:19:19 AM5/27/19

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Thank you very much OAA. I read the email exchanges that took place in this forum with regard to the essay written by Farooq on Professor Gwamna and Professor Agbese. I am writing this to share some of my thoughts about it because I was at the conference that Farooq made reference to and even made a presentation there. Of course I am not one of the organizers but I remember inviting three friends of mine to attend the conference / forum. Two of the friends I invited are from south western Nigeria while the other is from Southeastern Nigeria. Two of them are professors: one is a systematic and contextual theologian and the other is criminal justice scholar. The other is an employee of the state of Minnesota.

In my assessment there are two main parts to the concerns raised by Farooq about Professors Agbese and Gwamna. One has to do with claiming to represent an organization that is not registered, and the implication that this was done for dubious reasons or so it seems as he argued. The second part has to do with the claim that the two persons are engaged in some kind of propaganda to support the Buhari administration in spite of the terrible situation that the Buhari government has created in Nigeria.

Let me start by saying that just as Farooq accorded respect to the two persons based on their meeting at the Zumunta Convention last year, I too will start from there but I will go further. I have met many Nigerians in the United States, but Professor Gwamna who is a senior colleague to me has become like a brother to me. I am from Bauchi but he is from Southern Kaduna. I remember hearing his voice reading news in Radio Nigeria Kaduna when I was younger. I visited him in Iowa twice and the most recent was last Easter. I celebrated my last Easter break with him. This is my full disclosure. I have come to know his spouse who is a very kind woman. I have had extended contact and interaction with them such that while I agree that the concern Farooq raised about representing an organization that is not registered is a legitimate one, I do not want people to just totalize the character of the two persons around that. Please try to know them as persons in a holistic way. There is more to each one of us than just one wrong decision. I observe a lot and while people do make mistakes, I do not see anything in the life of Professor Gwamna that indicates that he is the kind of money-chasing person that he is being made to look like. His life is characterized by faith, moderation and humility. One can still make mistake but let us not from a distant just use one mistaken decision to draw conclusion on a person’s character please.

Professor Agbese is someone I see not just as a senior colleague too but as a mentor since he was the classmate of Attahiru Jega. Jega returned to Bayero University Kano while I was still there as an undergraduate but I did not take a course from him. I however used to see him regularly at the Faculty of Social and Management Sciences. Although Professor Agbese visits Nigeria frequently according to Farooq, yet, this is not something that started recently. Even before Buhari became president he used to travel to Nigeria a lot. I am not sure also, but I have heard him speak on the role of the military in Nigeria in many conferences in the past, which indicates to me that either that is his area of specialization or one of the areas of his scholarly focus. His interest in the military is not starting now. This would help in greatly explaining his interest in the military. Now, again this does not mean that this makes it right to represent an unregistered organization but please, I do not want us to rush to totalize someone’s character just based on such a mistake. That is why I feel strongly that Professor Agbese’s picture should not have been in the article written by Farooq. In my view, that went too far. This is almost like treating someone as a criminal. From the way Farooq wrote, at some point it looks like he did some intensive research and knows a lot about the two persons. But I was surprise when he asserted that the two persons live in the same town. In fact, the distance between where the two live is more than two hours drive or thereabout. Let us all be careful about claiming details on things on the ground. I have visited Professor Abegese’s house too but in my observation, I did not see any extravagant lifestyle that one may suspect based on Farooq’s article, unless of course if I made a mistake in my observation which I could..

As for the conference organized in Minnesota last year, it went very well. Indeed, I wish there were more people in attendance. It was not propaganda as some may think. The presenter truly brought to limelight a lot of details about what is happening on the ground in Nigeria in fighting insurgents in order to help Nigerians here understand the complexity of the situation in Nigeria. Yet, he also encountered tough questions and scrutiny. I will say as my friends who were there would say also that if the goal was propaganda then the person did not succeed because it was a serious forum for intellectual discussion. I was not paid and no one dictated to me what to present on. I wish there would be more of such forums organized because that will help Nigerians in diaspora understand some of the things happening on the ground. After living in Nigeria for 13 months in 2017-18, I realized that we assume too much that armchair expertise or philosophizing here by us can bring immediate change in the distant grassroots communities in Nigeria or Africa at large. This is not a de-legitimation of the work we do, but I prefer praxis in the sense of the dialectical relationship between theory / ideas and existential life and struggles of people out there in the real world. And seeing the reality on the ground in Nigeria made me feel humbled about what kind of civil repair I can initiate in Nigeria from here. People in the conference were free to express their disagreement with the presenter and the body language of the presenter did not indicate he was shocked about that. He is a very educated military officer and did an excellent job in articulating his analysis of the issues and he got challenging feedback.

While food and accommodation was provided to those who attended the conference, this, in and of itself in my assessment should not immediately qualify as something dubious except of course if someone has some other kinds of evidence. For example, there was a time an organization at the Graduate Theological Union in California received funding from Templeton Foundation to promote dialogue on science and religion in Africa. They invested seventy thousand dollars or thereabout to organize an initial conference about this subject matter at the University of Ilorin, Nigeria. At the very time the conference was to take place, the United States invaded Afghanistan and for security reasons, the organizers were advised not to travel to Nigeria for security and safety reasons. The organization requested me to represent them instead, which I did. But they paid for all people’s food and accommodation at the conference in so far as one’s paper was accepted for presentation. So my point is not to say that I know exactly the details of anything but in my assessment, having seen something like this somewhere and long ago, it should not be immediately assumed that organizing the conference in Minnesota was dubious. I know that all that attended felt it was a value addition. With regard to the press release, in and of itself, there is nothing wrong since it is an expression of their perspective, except for the point that Farooq made about representing an organization that does not exist. But let us treat that as a mistake and be cautious not to use it to totally condemn their lives and character. There are many press releases that I never read, e.g., from the White House.

I do not think that Professor Agbese and Gwamna do not feel the pain coming from the violence in Nigeria. There was one conference in Atlanta, where Professor Agbese made a thorough analysis of the Fulani Violence in Nigeria. What I will say briefly is that he examined the intersection of factors and processes that led to the violence instead of isolating just one factor as many people do. With regard to the fact that as Farooq claims Professor Agbese supports Buhari, I believe while many will disagree with that, but if he chooses to do so, the best one can do is to provide counter evidence. In this forum, there are many opinions that disagree and sometimes it is not just disagreement but as Thomas Kuhn would say in “The Structures of Scientific Revolution,” the different positions people take are incommensurable. Before the elections in Nigeria, people supported different candidates. Yes, intellectuals should not sell their conscience but at a deeper level, conscience itself is not developed in social or cultural vacuum. Owing to elective affinity and how the intersection of social and material interests can subconsciously create a plausibility structure for a worldview and political arguments, intellectuals may end up supporting something that cannot claim universal applicability to all social and interests groups. Of course this does not mean that we should discard the question of “social responsibility.”

The way Professor Agbese is presented is that he is too close to the military. Well, I do not know as much as Farooq claims to know but I know that Agbese did his sabbatical at Bingham University which was established by the denomination I grew up in i.e., ECWA. It is not necessarily one of the highly rated universities in Nigeria. Would not someone highly connected to the military establishment or the government of Buhari as implied be able to use his connections to get a more strategic location for his sabbatical through the military at for instance, The National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies in Kuru (Plateau State) or even the Army Resource Center in Abuja? How much will Bingham pay him? Bingham University has been in serious financial difficulty. I truly believe they did not pay him on time. Please let us not rush.

I agree with Farooq that it would not be good or nice for anyone of us to represent an organization that is not registered. Even if we have good intentions, doing so can create concern about our intentions, but that notwithstanding, please let us not rush to judge these two people based on one issue or mistake. And let us all learn a lesson from this. It is always good to understand people in different or numerous ways than doing so based on one issue. I do not deny that humans can make mistake or make wrong judgement but let us not reduce the complex life of a person to one issue or event please. These two persons are not perfect human beings and I am not sure there is one, but I believe if one knows them closely, he or she would not rush to put them in a pigeonhole.

Samuel Zalanga

Bethel University

Department of Anthropology, Sociology and Reconciliation Studies,

Bethel University, 3900 Bethel Drive, #24, Saint Paul, MN 55112.

Office Phone: 651-638-6023

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Toyin Falola

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May 27, 2019, 7:53:56 AM5/27/19

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Sam:

Can you please elaborate on one point regarding the legitimacy or otherwise of an association based on registration and non-registration? Registration is an instrument of control by the state, a policing instrument to throw innocent people into jail. It is also an instrument to delegitimize as in characterizing some organizations, as in the case of many anti-apartheid ones, as terrorist organizations. It is a tool. You can be subversive by refusing to register as we did with the Zapatista Movement in Austin. I was in several anti-war associations but we did not register as we knew the consequences on our individual members. If the birds perch and human beings use catapults to kill them, no one teaches them to keep flying without perching as your stones will keep missing!

The Idoma people in Nigeria or anywhere in the world do not need anyone’s permission or registration to come together to discuss issues of concern to them. However, if they want to raise funds, and they don’t want to be accused of mail fraud, like Marcus Garvey, they can do the paperwork.

Thousands and thousands of organizations remain un-registered—in churches, mosques, communities, etc.

The issue, to me, is not about registration, but about voice—who speaks for the others?

Pita Agbese was active in the 1990s in pro-democracy movements. He did not push to benefit from it and returned home as Kayode Fayemi or Julius Ihonvbere did, but his contributions to the termination of military rule in Nigeria were solid.

As a moderator, I only issue cautionary statements, and I don’t get involved.

TF

Toyin Falola

Department of History

The University of Texas at Austin

104 Inner Campus Drive

Austin, TX 78712-0220

USA

512 475 7224

512 475 7222 (fax)

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From: dialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Samuel Zalanga <szal...@gmail.com>

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Farooq A. Kperogi

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May 27, 2019, 3:09:23 PM5/27/19

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Samuel,

I am not in the business of divining the motives for the actions, inactions, and choices that people make. My judgement of people's action is guided by empirical evidence. The fact of the Association of Nigerian Scholars in the Diaspora not being registered, suspicious as it is, isn't the issue at point. Nor is the biographies of the two people associated with it. The point at issue is the CONSISTENTLY pro-regime propaganda of the group since its inception using the instruments of prevarication and even outright mendacity. What sort of association of diasporan scholars never makes a public statement about the state of scholarship abroad or at home but instead ONLY issues statements in support of a homeland government that is smoldering its people with cruelly insensate policies and a military whose incompetence and notoriety for egregious human rights violations is legendary?

I don't know if Pita Agbese is in the pockets of Nigeria's military fat cats nor am I in a position to determine if you are "used" for the conference in Minnesota. But I do know that the military has a huge budget for propaganda and that the current service chiefs, who should have retired sometime early this year, are expending humongous sums of money to get Buhari to re-appoint them. Now read the press statement Professors Gwamna and Agbese issued on May 20 that caused people in Nigeria to question their motives. Here is the full news story from Vanguard:

Emefiele: Scholars hail Buhari, task FG against replacing security chiefs

President Muhammadu Buhari has again received a pat on the back over the reappointment of Godwin Emefiele as the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) for a final five-year term. Godwin Emefiele The Association of Nigerian Scholars in Diaspora, an umbrella organisation of Nigerian scholars in the Diaspora, which gave the commendation, noted that reappointment of Godwin Emefiele as the apex bank governor’s boss was indeed a welcome development that depicts a strong political will by the government of Nigeria towards repositioning Nigeria to take its pride of place in the comity of Nations.

The Association of Nigerian Scholars as a prelude delegated its committee on Economic Development that consists scholars versed in Economic Development to assess the tenure of Godwin Emefeile as the CBN governor in Nigeria and discovered that the Nigeria economy indeed gained substantial traction in the last four years and also commended the dexterity with which the governor of the CBN handled our economic crisis. [My comment: As far as I know, the association is a two-man association made up of a professor of communication and a professor of political science. Which "Economic Development Committee" assessed Emefeile's tenure? Plus, so in spite of the devastating recession from which the country still hasn't quiet recovered and another impending one the same Emefiele alerted the nation about a few weeks ago, this association thinks Emefiele is handling Nigeria's economy with "dexterity"?] Prof Bitrus Gwamna, President of the group in a statement on Sunday averred that it would have been counter-productive if President Muhammadu Buhari had effected a change in the leadership of the CBN, especially in this critical stage of our existence because the country just exited recession.

The group also cautioned the presidency against replacing the current security chiefs the country. The statement reads. The Association of Nigerian Scholars in Diaspora consequently wishes to charge President Muhammadu Buhari to continue to bring on board more seasoned individuals to assist in Nation building regardless of their ethnic or religious affiliations. The reappointment of Godwin Emefiele as the governor of the CBN is indeed a step in the right direction, which should be replicated in other critical sectors such as security. The Association of Nigerian Scholars in Diaspora also notes the invaluable efforts of the security agencies in curtailing the activities of criminal elements that have attempted to hold the country to ransom through their nefarious actions and inactions. Worthy of mention is the role of the Nigerian Army in the fight against terrorism in Nigeria.

The position of the Association of Nigerian Scholars in Diaspora is that the military hierarchy indeed displayed capacity and competence in arresting the various security challenges that almost brought the country to its knees. Consequently, the position of the Association of Nigerian Scholars in Diaspora is that the various heads of the security agencies in Nigeria should be supported and not replaced in the critical point of our existence. This is in our opinion is so, upon a careful assessment of how the Nigerian military has carried on with the fight against terrorism in North East Nigeria, as well as other militant groups in other parts of Nigeria. The Association of Nigerian Scholars in Diaspora having assessed the performances of the Service Chiefs in Nigeria, unanimously agreed that President Muhammadu Buhari would indeed write his name in gold if he extended same gesture in the economy by the reappointment of Godwin Emefiele as CBN governor to the current set of Service Chiefs who by all parameters have performed creditably well in onerous task of keeping the country safe and secured.

It is necessary so due to the volatile nature of the security situation in Nigeria. And an attempt to tinker with the current security architecture might have some consequences, which in our opinion might rubbish all the gains that have been made in the fight against terrorism in Nigeria. It is, therefore, the position of the Association of Nigerian Scholars in Diaspora that the Service Chiefs should be retained so that can consolidate in the gains made in the security sector in Nigeria. The Association of Nigerian Scholars in Diaspora is in tandem with the position of the Senate of the National Assembly of Nigeria on the reappointment of Godwin Emefiele as the governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria. The Association of Nigerian Scholars in Diaspora wishes to state that President Muhammadu Buhari deserved commendation in the areas of the economy and security with the quality of appointments made so far, and having the will to resist political pressure to effect a change in the leadership of the Central Bank of Nigeria. The Association of Nigerian Scholars in Diaspora sees the current Service Chiefs as the best in the annals of the country and highly recommends that just like in the case of the Central Bank of Nigeria, the status quo should remain for consolidation of the gains already made in the past four years in the sensitive security sector in Nigeria by the present administration. Vanguard

Read more at: https://www.vanguardngr.com/2019/05/emefiele-scholars-hail-buhari-task-fg-against-replacing-security-chiefs/

It's obvious that these gentlemen merely used the opportunity of the re-appointment of CBN governor Godwin Emefiele to push a predetermined advocacy for status quo perpetuation on behalf of Nigeria's corrupt and incompetent service chiefs. Emefiele's appointment merely served as what we call a news peg in journalism to give currency and urgency to an agenda that would have seemed out of place if it had come earlier. If the press statement quoted above doesn't strike you as anomalous, if you think this sort of advocacy is mere opinion, then I have no business continuing this conversation.

Farooq

Personal website: www.farooqkperogi.com

Twitter: @farooqkperogi

Author of Glocal English: The Changing Face and Forms of Nigerian English in a Global World

"The nice thing about pessimism is that you are constantly being either proven right or pleasantly surprised." G. F. Will

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Samuel Zalanga

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May 28, 2019, 3:27:39 PM5/28/19

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Professor Falola,

Thank you very much for your question. I will try to be very brief in explaining my position and response. But first, I appreciate that a person like you with great experience and high standing can recall the contribution that Professor Agbese made to pro-democracy struggles in Nigeria in the past. I have heard of others apart from the ones you mentioned who used some Nigerian Diaspora Organization in the U.S. as a stepping stone for a more lucrative position in Nigeria. This is an example of what I meant when I said that a single event should not be used to portray a person in a manner that makes him or her look as someone who is just after himself or herself.

With regard to registration of associations or organizations, there are so many dimensions to the issue. In principle I have no objection to groups meeting freely without registration depending on what they are doing, but in practice I have a hermeneutic of suspicion about that because there are different types of groups in a liberal democratic society. But let me begin by saying that a lot about your question has to do with the distrust of the state and the struggle for maintaining social order in a complex society. This is a huge issue that I cannot discuss here. But if after hundreds of years, modern people cannot still create a state that they trust, it suggests we should raise large questions about the nature of the society they have created. Fukuyama wrote a book on Trust where he criticized neoclassical economists for not taking trust seriously as a foundation for creating a well-functioning society. They just focus on exchange.

The freedom do associate in a liberal democratic society is I believe part of a larger pantheon of themes that are characterized as the liberal ideology of liberating human beings from tyranny and oppression. So in this respect, progressive groups such as the one you mentioned in Texas can freely organize and be subversive or operate without formal public registration. In doing so, they have contributed to creating a more just and fair society. The only problem is that this same right or freedom the groups in Texas enjoyed whether registered or not can equally be enjoyed in a liberal democratic society by hate groups such as the ones in Charlottesville. There are lots of things that hate groups can do to make life horrible for others without breaking the law actually.

Some weeks back, I reviewed a documentary film on Charlottesville and other similar groups across the United States whose ideology is white or racial supremacy. When the incident at Charlottesville happened last year, or was it in 2017, I was out of the country. I wanted to really understand what happened and decided to order the documentary film titled "Documenting Hate." One of the major challenges the authorities had which constituted a serious security problem is that many of such groups across the country operated without registration. Security agencies had to use video recordings to capture certain consistent faces that appear in such events and try to track and identify the relevant individuals. I have also used a documentary film on the history and activities of KKK groups where they preach hate message. But in this case, the police are there to even protect them because of the freedom of expression. It is hard for me to see anything that groups with progressive agenda can do to defy the state that right-wing groups cannot equally do. It is like a draw game. Other factors will make the difference but not simple freedom to associate without registration.

Registration of associations can be used by the state to jail or track individuals and prosecute them, but lack of registration also create security situations in the country that people only become worried about when violent events happen. So part of the question is the distrust of the state, depending on what it is, and then part of the question is whether the lack of registration automatically guarantees a better and progressive society, given that any right that a progressive group can claim to propagate its ideas in defiance of the state as in Texas, can equally be claimed by hate groups or something similar in propagating their messages or vison of the new society somewhere in the United States. In my assessment, progressive groups require more effort to build themselves because they are trying to build bridges and promote a more inclusive and just society. It is easier to organize hate groups, because they appeal to the narrow selfish human interests, and they can be smaller in size but much more energetic. And as Mancur Olson argues in “The Rise and Decline of Nations,” for social groups to shape public policy, they do not have to be many in terms of membership. They can be small but if they are highly motivated and well-organized because of the gain and satisfaction they can get from their activities, they will make far more impact that is disproportionate to their size in society.

In support of the line of reasoning that groups should not be judged by someone with regard to the validity or utility of their ideas in the public square, Juan Stuart Mill, I believe in his book "On Liberty" argues that ideas as articulated by different groups or individuals should be allowed to compete in a free market place of ideas where the market or the public square can decide which one is right and which one is wrong in the long run. This is where politics and consumer behavior almost overlap. But here we are almost at a point similar to Nozick's reduction of justice to commutative exchange. In other words, in so far as there is a willing seller and buyer, whatever result that comes out of a transaction is just even if it is unfortunate. In this case, if organizations as the sellers of ideas in the public market place are matched with buyers or consumers of their ideas, whatever result that comes out of the transaction is fine. Of course there is a commitment to protecting human dignity. No group should violate the human dignity of others. The problem is that people hardly angry on what these boundaries of human dignity are especially in a neoliberal hegemonic economic system which we take for granted. That is why we need the state to intervene through the courts etc. On the surface, the liberal society claims to offer a lot to human beings, but it fails because laws alone cannot inform human conduct if there is no virtuous cultivation of moral and ethical restraints as Alasdair MacIntyre would argue in his work on virtue ethics.

This whole issue is similar to the debate in economics, which should not surprise us as liberal ideology traverses both economics and politics. The related question in economics is why should there not be free trade? The argument is similar. If we allow the government to regulate businesses by requiring all producers of goods to be registered it will lead the state to deny some people their freedom to engage in free commerce. There is evidence to support this. But on the other hand, while free trade or unregulated trade sounds like a good idea about granting the individuals the freedom to engage in transaction as willing sellers and buyers with no one's interference, yet Joseph Stiglitz has demonstrated how the idea of free trade that is unregulated has been used to the disadvantage of the masses in many countries, both in the developed and in the developing world.

Along the same lines, one would argue that not allowing people to cook food and sell it anywhere they have space to do so in the U.S. is limiting people's freedom because there are willing sellers and buyers and frankly the price may be cheaper if allowed. But because of public health concerns etc. the government said, no. Thus, to cook and sell food one must be registered. It seems like there is public support for this. Depending on the nature of the state, registration is a kind of quality control on what someone claims to do and whether they are doing it well. Not all people may be informed enough to judge what various groups claim to be doing. Left-leaning groups will complain that the right wing state will use registration requirement to silence them, and Right-leaning groups will equally complain that the left-wing state will use registration requirements to silence them. Ideally, customs and traditions of respect for the human dignity of all should regulate human conduct beyond the law, but liberal society broadly conceptualized generally undermines customs and traditions in order to create a more homogenized society, notwithstanding the talk about multiculturalism.

Moreover, there are some who would argue that in our world today, the production, spread and consumption of certain ideas can be potentially damaging as the consumption of some kind of food. There are many ideas that were distributed in the social media by the Russians during the last presidential elections in the United States. Some of it was intentionally and deliberately aimed at poisoning the population consuming the information, which cannot be traced initially to anyone specific producer or group at the time. But when people believe the poisoned information like food, they begin to hate or fight each other with great public repercussions as we have come to realize after the 2016 elections. Now there is effort both in the United States and other countries to increasingly regulate the social media in many countries because the consumption of its product can be dangerous sometimes especially when the product is there but we cannot identify who exactly is responsible for it and why? Knowing who is responsible for producing it can really help in maintaining social order. European countries are struggling with this concern very much now.

For me, at this stage, what I feel about liberalism is that what it gives you with one hand, it takes away with another. It is the recognition of this that led MacIntyre to emphasize virtue ethics instead of simple reliance on the law to regulate our complex human society. But as a society, we are too much in a rush and few in society care to cultivate virtue ethics because that slows people down in their pursuit to reach their state of "Nirvana" so to say.

To conclude, in my assessment, registration is in theory not a big deal at all. The freedom to associate is one of those juicy promises of liberalism to humanity. But lack of registration or registration should be understood within the broader context of the structure and process of liberal democratic society, which promises a lot in terms of freedom and liberation of people but conducts itself in such a way that results in making people fight each other as it heightens egocentric behavior while undermining the genuine sense of community. Any strategy that can be used by a progressive group to defy the state can also be used similarly by some kind of hate group on the far-right. At the end, it is like a dog eat dog world, a Social Darwinist social order that is packaged as liberalism’s attempt to emancipate and free people from political tyranny.

Yet, the major tyranny that liberalism fails to address is the tendency of tyranny within many of us human beings today in our psyche, where human appetitive desires take over and contorl the mind, reason and the soul. The social crisis in the wider society is a manifestation of this inner crisis in the human psyche that we encounter today at a more egregious level. Religion has tried to address it but in my assessment, I have the feeling that this human appetitive desires that have taken over the human consciousness have also gotten a privileged seat at the inner-sanctum of many religious places of worship. Such religious organizations may be free to organize as part of civil society without registration, but that does not help us in terms of guaranteeing a pathway to “Dar es Salaam,” the “New Jerusalem,” or the “Neoliberal Utopia,” among other visions of human ideals.

Thank you very much.

Samuel

Samuel Zalanga

Bethel University

Department of Anthropology, Sociology and Reconciliation Studies,

Bethel University, 3900 Bethel Drive, #24, Saint Paul, MN 55112.

Office Phone: 651-638-6023

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Toyin Falola

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May 28, 2019, 3:53:28 PM5/28/19

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Sam:

God does not give me the talent of language competence that you possess.

Your thesis is solid---Boko Haram has no registration number, no zip code, and no address.

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OLAYINKA AGBETUYI

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May 28, 2019, 4:45:41 PM5/28/19

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Thank you Samuel Zalanga for your intervention and thanks to Prof Falola for his timely intervention on the significance of registration. I still would want Prof Gwamna to respond to my queries.

OAA

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

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