ON NIGERIAN UNIVERSITIES: A CRY FROM A GHANAIAN

[Kissi, Edward]

Friends,

I have been following the conversation on what is happening in the Nigerian Academy and what is to be done. I am not very familiar with Nigerian universities, but I passed through a university in Ghana. I have been reading most of the postings on Nigeria and taking cues from them for my desire to help my Alma Mater, the University of Ghana, avoid what may be happening in the Nigerian academy.

My intervention here is to register my discomfort with the attempt by some to dismiss other voices as less than practical. Every nation needs two types of people: the strident critics of the dysfunctions of society, and the silent philanthropists who put their checks to work. One is not better than the other. The rooster may not step out in the morning to scratch the earth for the chickens, but it is often the one that announces the approach of dawn.

 

Those who constantly do things for society should not dismiss those who constantly point out what is wrong with society. There is a place where voice and action meet. The town crier too offers important services; for it may be in her or his voice that the solutions to a problem can be found. One does not have to lift the dead to be considered to have attended the funeral. Even those who cried louder than the owners of the corpse announced their attendance too.

 

May this cry from a Ghanaian guide the useful deliberations on the Nigerian academy!

 

 

Edward Kissi

 

[Moses Ochonu]

Brother Edward, thanks for this punchy, succinct intervention. 

I don’t know about Ghana, but the tendency you analyzed is ubiquitous in Nigerian public discourse. The most common response to social critics and critics of specific institutions and practices in Nigeria is the expression, “what is your solution?” and variants thereof. We have even seen that predictably pedestrian response on this list on many issues.

This type of counter-critical canard often prompts retorts such as “Political leaders and Government bureaucrats are paid to provide solutions and implement them, not private citizens.” 

I and my friend, Farooq, have had to tell many Nigerian interlocutors on social media who raise that predictable objection to our criticisms that 1) it is our job to criticize what is wrong; 2) that proffering solutions is not a requirement for criticizing what is wrong; 3)that every society needs critics (unpaid) and solution providers and implementers (often paid); 4) that nothing stops them from complementing our criticism by advancing solutions If they’re really concerned about solutions; and 5) that a careful and sincere reader and interlocutor would see that the solution is often embedded in or implied in the criticism.

The other common response to critical commentaries is the “what are you doing to solve the problem?” refrain. The problematic assumption that undergirds this thinking is that individual  philanthropy is a substitute for societal reform, amelioration, and transformation. Or that individuals can do what states and their institutions and groups within them should do and have failed to do.

The common denominator, in most cases, between those who argue that a critic is not credible unless they suggest solutions or that critics should also be doers of deeds is that they’re expressing their discomfort and displeasure with the criticism, for reasons of personal investment in a dysfunctional system, ideology, or a desire to distract from the criticism or muddy the issues. 

You’d observe that such attempts to shift the conversation from the substance of the criticism to the alleged absence of “solutions” and philanthropy never dispute or refute the issues raised in the criticism because they’re often unimpeachable and accurate.

Sent from my iPhone

On Jan 31, 2021, at 5:37 AM, Kissi, Edward <eki...@usf.edu> wrote:



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[Toyin Falola]

There are two elements to be added:

Social media---When people like Soyinka and Ngugi saw its abusive tendencies, they were alarmed and quickly canceled their Facebook accounts. I am not on Facebook, as the language, in a number of cases, is “gutter”. Gutter language destroys criticisms, as no decent person must read them. You cannot abuse my father and ask me to accept your comments.

External critique—Since the Stone Age, no culture or society responds positively to criticisms coming from the outside. I know not to go to Staff Club at the University of Ibadan and criticize the institution. Many people in the diaspora tend to forget this. Two presidents of Ghana where Edward comes from told me that they don’t want anyone from the US to lecture them on how to run Ghana! One even told me that he instructed his staff not to send any comments to him coming from the US!

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[Moses Ebe Ochonu]

Oga, social media is not all bad. It is a vibrant space of rewarding intellectual and social exchanges if you know how to use it in a. disciplined and self-interested way. You can filter out the gutter material and language and reach those who will enrich you and be enriched by you. Yes, the relative anonymity gives people a latitude of expression that is sometimes abused but this list is not anonymous and yet I have seen very nasty fights on it, so I think no medium is intrinsically bad or good.

On your category of "external critique," I'm not sure I fully agree. The category of the "external" or "internal" is elastic but the way you're deploying "external" here is rather rigid and fixed. Is externality a function of physical location alone, or of residency in a shifting world characterized by fluid notions of home, residency, and by increased flows and connectivity? 

Is a diasporan Ghanaian like Edward or Oga Assenssoh an external agent? Can a Nigerian diasporan who makes ten trips to Nigeria a year and talks to family and associates in Nigeria daily still be regarded as an "external" entity? Can a Ghanaian resident in Ghana who, because of his wealth and privilege, spends seven months out of the year in his London or New York home an "internal" citizen that the former Ghanaian president would listen to just because they proclaim themselves resident in Ghana or own investments in Ghana? 

Between such a Ghanaian and the Ghanaian who "resides" in Chicago but spends eight months of the year in Ghana and is more actively engaged in the country's affairs, who should the former Ghanaian president listen to--have listened to?

If leaders and professionals in Ghana do not want to take their compatriots in the diaspora seriously, they can invent any specious reason they want to justify their position, but it doesn't mean that we should not interrogate such a reason and their strategic deployment of it to avoid the uncomfortable opinions and criticisms of so-called external critics.

I believe Assensoh's post from last week is instructive in this respect. I don't even see Professor Assensoh as a critic, and yet he had the experience he narrated.

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[Farooq A. Kperogi]

Oga,

Two things: One, there is more gutter language on this listserv than there is on Facebook. It isn't Facebook that spews gutter language; it's people. 

There are some four or so people on this list whose email addresses I've blocked and whose views I don't read. You can do the same on Facebook or any social media site. You're missing ny not being on social media because that's where the most consequential conversations are taking place now.

Dismissing Facebook as filled with gutter language while moderating an anything-goes listserv full of chronologically old but emotionally childish guttersnipes does no good to your argument, sir.

Two, diasporan critics of homeland dysfunctions aren't outsiders. They're emotional insiders who are temporarily on the geographic outside. 

The insider-outsider dynamic is so fluid that several diasporans who had lived in the West for decades have gone back home to be vice chancellors, professors, deans, department chairs, senators, ministers, politicians at several levels, doctors, etc. More will follow.

 A true outsider can't transition that seamlessly into the inside.

At the same time, many insiders have left or are planning to leave the country. What matters is our citizenship and our emotional investment in our country, not our temporary geographic locations.

 Living in the West doesn't make us foreigners in Nigeria. Nor does living in Nigeria make people who live there more Nigerian than those who live outside it.

Farooq

Personal website: www.farooqkperogi.com
Twitter: @farooqkperogi
 

Sent from my phone. Please forgive typos and omissions.

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[OLAYINKA AGBETUYI]

TF

In other words presidents of Ghana, Soyinka and yourself are wrong in your assessment of the 'freefall' contributions on Facebook.

At least there is a moderator here to guide against descent into ' freefall' contributions of ' guttersnipes' on this listserv ;,problem is some columnists try to evade this by interlacing ' guttersnipe' language into the columns they write, verifiable by all.

OAA

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

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