CONFESSION OF AN OCTOGENARIAN BRITON ON THE NIGERIA PROJECT

[Ademola Dasylva]

‎I saw this piece on WhatsApp and USAAFRICADIALOGUE, and felt it is worth drawing attention to; that is, provided the claimed source is genuine. One cannot be too sure nowadays:

BRITON CONFESSES TO FRAUDULENT CENSUS IN NIGERIA

The man Harold Smith is not new in Nigerian history. He is one of the architects of colonial foundation that midwife Nigerian independence in 1960. His response was "I am in my 80s now; I have agreed but in the past' they' did not want me to say anything, but now I don't want to go to my grave without telling the truth about the atrocities perpetrated in Africa by the colonialists. Brothers and sisters; on Ben TV last Thursday, Harold Smith was on a program to reveal what went behind the scene before the independence. The Oxford University graduate had this to say about his role in Nigeria pre and after independence era.

‘Our agenda was to completely exploit Africa . Nigeria was my duty post. When we assessed Nigeria, this was what we found in the southern region; strength, intelligence, determination to succeed, well established history, complex but focused life style, great hope and aspirations… the East is good in business and technology, the west is good in administration and commerce, law and medicine, but it was a pity we planned our agenda to give power "at all cost" to the northerner. They seemed to be submissive and silly of a kind. Our mission was accomplished by destroying the opposition at all fronts. The west led in the fight for the independence, and was punished for asking for freedom. They will not rule Nigeria !

Harold Smith confessed that the Census results were announced before they were counted. Despite seeing vast land with no human but cattle in the north, we still gave the north 55 million instead of 32 Million. This was to be used to maintain their majority votes and future power bid. He stated that the West without Lagos was the most populous in Nigeria at that time but we ignored that. The north was seriously encouraged to go into the military. According to him, they believe that the south may attend western education, but future leaders will always come from military background. Their traditional rulers were to be made influential and super human. The northerners were given accelerated promotions both in the military and civil service to justify their superiority over the south. Everything was to work against the south. We truncated their good plan for their future. "I was very sorry for the A.G; it was a great party too much for African standard. We planned to destroy Awolowo and Azikiwe well, the west and the east and sowed a seed of discord among them". We tricked Azikiwe into accepting to be president having known that Balewa will be the main man with power. Awolowo has to go to jail to cripple his genius plans for a greater Nigeria . However, Harold Smith justified the British agenda of colonialism in Nigeria , which he believed was originally to help build Africa after the ruins of slave trade, but lamented that the British only looked after themselves and not after Nigerian interest. The British really let Nigeria down. When I see Nigerian been accused of fraud and from what I saw on the streets of Lagos ; the British were worst fraudsters. Looking at the northern leaders now he said, "If they have any agenda in Nigeria at all, sadly it is only for the north, and nothing for Nigeria . He stated that the British look after the British people and this is so all over the world. He said the time has come now to see people of intelligent minds with an open and inclusive agenda for all Nigerians in power…people who will really look after Nigerians large population…but "I still curiously and sorrowfully see now that the British has not let go of Nigeria…her wealth,. her potentials, her future. He opined that the Caucasian people now assert themselves as the keeper of the "New Age" keys. He therefore said that it is only logical for Europeans to maintain their position of power, scientific superiority, economic exploitation, they must continue to perpetuate their lies and falsehoods and this is the most unkindest cut of all in relation to Nigeria situation!

According to him, Nigeria , a great nation was crippled not because of military juntas or corrupt leaders alone but by the British and American fear of Nigeria great future. He confessed, "The fear of the place that will be our ‘dumping ground' really occupied our minds". Some of the things he said were not new to Nigerians or to the whole world but hearing it from the horse's mouth is quite revealing and established more reality zones. He finally submitted that the colonial masters have caused havoc while they were in Africa , and planted timed bombs when they finally left. What we see since independence, the administration of new internal colonial masters by fellow Nigerians holding sway in power is doing more damage to Nigeria . Instead of detonating the time bombs planted by the British, the north is planting mines. He added that ‘It was my duty to carry out all of the above and I was loyal to my country. Nigerians should try to be loyal to their country leaders and followers alike. Love your country. You have got the potentials to be great again and the whole world knows this'.

I am sorry for the above evil done to Nigeria . I c[truncated by WhatsApp]

Ademola O. Dasylva‎

Sent from my BlackBerry 10 smartphone.

[kenneth harrow]

hi ademola
in my opinion it reads like a scam.
ken

--
Listserv moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfric...@googlegroups.com
To subscribe to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDial...@googlegroups.com
Current archives at http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
Early archives at http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "USA Africa Dialogue Series" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to usaafricadialo...@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

-- 
kenneth w. harrow 
professor of english
michigan state university
department of english
619 red cedar road
room C-614 wells hall
east lansing, mi 48824
ph. 517 803 8839
har...@msu.edu

[Moses Ochonu]

It is not a scam. It has been circulating for almost a decade. It is a largely true account, a product of neocolonial guilt and soul searching by a colonial actor. The British did not hide their desire to see northerners take over the leadership of post-independence Nigeria and worked towards it. Historians who have read colonial correspondence, diaries of colonial officials, and the many published and unpublished memoirs of former colonial officials will testify to this bias. It is thus not only plausible that they manipulated the census to give an electoral advantage to to the North, what Smith is saying is entirely consistent with the cardinal objective of British decolonization in Nigeria: to install a conservative postcolonial government they could trust not to move away from the commonwealth and towards a socialist or pan-African agenda of total decolonization. As a result, they loved and cultivated ties with the aristocrats/politicians of the Northern People's Congress (NPC), a conservative political party of Northern aristocrats and their supporters.

The British (and the Americans) detested the NCNC and the AG, the two main southern political parties, whose leaders, Azikiwe and Awo, were considered too radical and too anti-colonial for the kind of postcolonial government the British were trying to install upon their "departure." To be sure, the British had always had a soft spot for the conservative and gradualist disposition of the northern emirates and disdain for the Western educated intelligentsia of the South. This attitude started from the very beginning of unified colonial Nigeria in 1914, even before. If you read Philip Zachernuck's book you will see this tension between the Southern intelligentsia and colonial authorities. Matters came to a head during the amalgamation proposals, when the Southern Western educated elites vehemently attacked the proposals, perhaps Nigeria's first coordinated anticolonial campaign. By the way, I have published on some of these themes, especially the British fondness for the dominant political tendency in the North, especially the Muslim emirates.

Finally, there is nothing unusual about the content of this "confession." Electoral manipulation by colonial authorities were routine colonial business. In fact the French were more brazen in this pursuit. A Columbia University graduate student is writing her entire dissertation on the topic of electoral manipulation and election rigging in colonial French West Africa. She gave a brilliantly revealing presentation at a conference at attended in Columbia last year. The popular, three-part al-jazeera documentary "The French-African Connection" lay bare such manipulations in several colonies--Cameroon, Gabon, etc, with testimonies and interview footage of former colonial officials and intelligence operatives who participated in or coordinated the rigging confessing to their deeds.

A small personal anecdote: at another conference last year, I made a prefatory remark during my presentation, saying basically that there was a certain affinity between the aristocrats of the North and British colonial officialdom, and that the British seemed to be drawn to the Northern aristocrats' political disposition and their religio-political tradition. Professor Murray Last, author of the most authoritative book on the Sokoto Caliphate, who was at the same conference, promptly interjected to say that there was no need for me to be tentative, since it was well established and well documented that the British not only favored the North but worked to empower the conservative politicians of the NPC to take over at independence.

Sent from my iPad

[Toyin Falola]

Just a small contribution to this thread: I was approached in the early 1990s to publish a memoir on this, as the ex-colonial officer could not find a publisher in England and allegations were made about harassments. Privacy rights do not allow me to disclose what happened to the manuscript in the end.

For some of the complications of this era, the University of Rochester Press will release later in the year a long book, Decolonizing Nigeria: Politics, Power, and Personalities, 1945-1960 where this issue is put into a larger context.

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)

http://sites.utexas.edu/yoruba-studies-review/

http://www.toyinfalola.com 

http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa  

http://groups.google.com/group/yorubaaffairs 

http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue   

[Ademola Dasylva]

Yes, yes, Ken, the right side of my head is in agreement with your suspicion, but the left side is already causing a volcanic eruption in my fairly magnus capit, ... fighting hard, praying it is real and not a scam‎! 

 Anyhow Ken, after Nigeria's hundred years of "mismatch" or forced marriage of a thousand and one nations shouldn't there be a more realistic national sovereign conference or an all involving referendum to critically examine why the 'colonial experiment' isn't working?  The write-up under reference could be one of the working papers. And to find out what could be done, not to dismantle it, but to make the Nigeria project work, albeit, strictly on the terms of all the federating units; NOT on the shrouded terms of "colonial determiners"of the current Nigeria project; NOT on the terms of their local agents or beneficiaries, and home-grown tyrants (or national treasury looters, whatever name you choose to call them)!

Ademola O. Dasylva‎

Sent from my BlackBerry 10 smartphone.

From: kenneth harrow Sent: Sunday, 3 January 2016 14:35 To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com Reply To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com

Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - CONFESSION OF AN OCTOGENARIAN BRITON ON THE NIGERIA PROJECT

[kenneth harrow]

it isn't the content that i find scam-ish, but the language.
has there been any corroboration over this particular figure, harold smith, and the location of the publication?

[Malami Buba]

The statement that "it was well established and well documented that the British not only favored the North but worked to empower the conservative politicians of the NPC to take over at independence", is in line with basic British 'fudge' instinct: If they must succumb, then the weakest link is strongly preferred.  But do not be fooled by this love affair; the same fate visited any Northern aristocrat who tried to rock the boat during this decolonisation period. In other words, it was very much a British script on offer.

Malami

Prof Malami Buba

Department of English Language & Linguistics, 

Sokoto State University, Sokoto

PMB 2134, Birnin Kebbi Road, Sokoto

NIGERIA

[Emeagwali, Gloria (History)]

http://web.ccsu.edu/afstudy/upd12-1.html?redirected#Editorial

VOL<http://web.ccsu.edu/afstudy/upd12-1.html?redirected#Editorial> X11. issue1. winter 2005
Foreign Policy and Africa

The above issue contains a piece by Harold Smith. I believe he sent this to me and
I found it credible.

As Moses points out this was consistent with British actions elsewhere. Examine their actions in Egypt, and the Gulf states
and you see familiar patterns. In Egypt they hooked on to the Pasha dynastic family, corrupt and inept as they were,
and tried to derail the genuine independent and popular forces for independence. That is how the Brotherhood
emerged.....and eventually Nasser.

GE

Professor Gloria Emeagwali
History Department
CCSU. New Britain. CT 06050
africahistory.net
vimeo.com/user5946750/videos
Gloria Emeagwali's Documentaries on
Africa and the African Diaspora

________________________________
From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com [usaafric...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of kenneth harrow [har...@msu.edu]
Sent: Sunday, January 03, 2016 9:52 AM

To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - CONFESSION OF AN OCTOGENARIAN BRITON ON THE NIGERIA PROJECT

it isn't the content that i find scam-ish, but the language.
has there been any corroboration over this particular figure, harold smith, and the location of the publication?

On 1/3/16 9:33 AM, Moses Ochonu wrote:
It is not a scam. It has been circulating for almost a decade. It is a largely true account, a product of neocolonial guilt and soul searching by a colonial actor. The British did not hide their desire to see northerners take over the leadership of post-independence Nigeria and worked towards it. Historians who have read colonial correspondence, diaries of colonial officials, and the many published and unpublished memoirs of former colonial officials will testify to this bias. It is thus not only plausible that they manipulated the census to give an electoral advantage to to the North, what Smith is saying is entirely consistent with the cardinal objective of British decolonization in Nigeria: to install a conservative postcolonial government they could trust not to move away from the commonwealth and towards a socialist or pan-African agenda of total decolonization. As a result, they loved and cultivated ties with the aristocrats/politicians of the Northern People's Congress (NPC), a conservative political party of Northern aristocrats and their supporters.


The British (and the Americans) detested the NCNC and the AG, the two main southern political parties, whose leaders, Azikiwe and Awo, were considered too radical and too anti-colonial for the kind of postcolonial government the British were trying to install upon their "departure." To be sure, the British had always had a soft spot for the conservative and gradualist disposition of the northern emirates and disdain for the Western educated intelligentsia of the South. This attitude started from the very beginning of unified colonial Nigeria in 1914, even before. If you read Philip Zachernuck's book you will see this tension between the Southern intelligentsia and colonial authorities. Matters came to a head during the amalgamation proposals, when the Southern Western educated elites vehemently attacked the proposals, perhaps Nigeria's first coordinated anticolonial campaign. By the way, I have published on some of these themes, especially the British fondness for the dominant political tendency in the North, especially the Muslim emirates.

Finally, there is nothing unusual about the content of this "confession." Electoral manipulation by colonial authorities were routine colonial business. In fact the French were more brazen in this pursuit. A Columbia University graduate student is writing her entire dissertation on the topic of electoral manipulation and election rigging in colonial French West Africa. She gave a brilliantly revealing presentation at a conference at attended in Columbia last year. The popular, three-part al-jazeera documentary "The French-African Connection" lay bare such manipulations in several colonies--Cameroon, Gabon, etc, with testimonies and interview footage of former colonial officials and intelligence operatives who participated in or coordinated the rigging confessing to their deeds.

A small personal anecdote: at another conference last year, I made a prefatory remark during my presentation, saying basically that there was a certain affinity between the aristocrats of the North and British colonial officialdom, and that the British seemed to be drawn to the Northern aristocrats' political disposition and their religio-political tradition. Professor Murray Last, author of the most authoritative book on the Sokoto Caliphate, who was at the same conference, promptly interjected to say that there was no need for me to be tentative, since it was well established and well documented that the British not only favored the North but worked to empower the conservative politicians of the NPC to take over at independence.



Sent from my iPad

On Jan 2, 2016, at 10:30 PM, kenneth harrow <<mailto:har...@msu.edu>har...@msu.edu<mailto:har...@msu.edu>> wrote:

hi ademola
in my opinion it reads like a scam.
ken

On 1/2/16 8:09 PM, Ademola Dasylva wrote:
‎I saw this piece on WhatsApp and USAAFRICADIALOGUE, and felt it is worth drawing attention to; that is, provided the claimed source is genuine. One cannot be too sure nowadays:

BRITON CONFESSES TO FRAUDULENT CENSUS IN NIGERIA
The man Harold Smith is not new in Nigerian history. He is one of the architects of colonial foundation that midwife Nigerian independence in 1960. His response was "I am in my 80s now; I have agreed but in the past' they' did not want me to say anything, but now I don't want to go to my grave without telling the truth about the atrocities perpetrated in Africa by the colonialists. Brothers and sisters; on Ben TV last Thursday, Harold Smith was on a program to reveal what went behind the scene before the independence. The Oxford University graduate had this to say about his role in Nigeria pre and after independence era.

‘Our agenda was to completely exploit Africa . Nigeria was my duty post. When we assessed Nigeria, this was what we found in the southern region; strength, intelligence, determination to succeed, well established history, complex but focused life style, great hope and aspirations… the East is good in business and technology, the west is good in administration and commerce, law and medicine, but it was a pity we planned our agenda to give power "at all cost" to the northerner. They seemed to be submissive and silly of a kind. Our mission was accomplished by destroying the opposition at all fronts. The west led in the fight for the independence, and was punished for asking for freedom. They will not rule Nigeria !

Harold Smith confessed that the Census results were announced before they were counted. Despite seeing vast land with no human but cattle in the north, we still gave the north 55 million instead of 32 Million. This was to be used to maintain their majority votes and future power bid. He stated that the West without Lagos was the most populous in Nigeria at that time but we ignored that. The north was seriously encouraged to go into the military. According to him, they believe that the south may attend western education, but future leaders will always come from military background. Their traditional rulers were to be made influential and super human. The northerners were given accelerated promotions both in the military and civil service to justify their superiority over the south. Everything was to work against the south. We truncated their good plan for their future. "I was very sorry for the A.G; it was a great party too much for African standard. We planned to destroy Awolowo and Azikiwe well, the west and the east and sowed a seed of discord among them". We tricked Azikiwe into accepting to be president having known that Balewa will be the main man with power. Awolowo has to go to jail to cripple his genius plans for a greater Nigeria . However, Harold Smith justified the British agenda of colonialism in Nigeria , which he believed was originally to help build Africa after the ruins of slave trade, but lamented that the British only looked after themselves and not after Nigerian interest. The British really let Nigeria down. When I see Nigerian been accused of fraud and from what I saw on the streets of Lagos ; the British were worst fraudsters. Looking at the northern leaders now he said, "If they have any agenda in Nigeria at all, sadly it is only for the north, and nothing for Nigeria . He stated that the British look after the British people and this is so all over the world. He said the time has come now to see people of intelligent minds with an open and inclusive agenda for all Nigerians in power…people who will really look after Nigerians large population…but "I still curiously and sorrowfully see now that the British has not let go of Nigeria…her wealth,. her potentials, her future. He opined that the Caucasian people now assert themselves as the keeper of the "New Age" keys. He therefore said that it is only logical for Europeans to maintain their position of power, scientific superiority, economic exploitation, they must continue to perpetuate their lies and falsehoods and this is the most unkindest cut of all in relation to Nigeria situation!

According to him, Nigeria , a great nation was crippled not because of military juntas or corrupt leaders alone but by the British and American fear of Nigeria great future. He confessed, "The fear of the place that will be our ‘dumping ground' really occupied our minds". Some of the things he said were not new to Nigerians or to the whole world but hearing it from the horse's mouth is quite revealing and established more reality zones. He finally submitted that the colonial masters have caused havoc while they were in Africa , and planted timed bombs when they finally left. What we see since independence, the administration of new internal colonial masters by fellow Nigerians holding sway in power is doing more damage to Nigeria . Instead of detonating the time bombs planted by the British, the north is planting mines. He added that ‘It was my duty to carry out all of the above and I was loyal to my country. Nigerians should try to be loyal to their country leaders and followers alike. Love your country. You have got the potentials to be great again and the whole world knows this'.
I am sorry for the above evil done to Nigeria . I c[truncated by WhatsApp]

Ademola O. Dasylva‎

Sent from my BlackBerry 10 smartphone.
--
Listserv moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin

To post to this group, send an email to <mailto:USAAfric...@googlegroups.com> USAAfric...@googlegroups.com<mailto:USAAfric...@googlegroups.com>
To subscribe to this group, send an email to <mailto:USAAfricaDial...@googlegroups.com> USAAfricaDial...@googlegroups.com<mailto:USAAfricaDial...@googlegroups.com>

Current archives at http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
Early archives at http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "USA Africa Dialogue Series" group.

To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to usaafricadialo...@googlegroups.com<mailto:usaafricadialo...@googlegroups.com>.

For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.


--
kenneth w. harrow
professor of english
michigan state university
department of english
619 red cedar road
room C-614 wells hall
east lansing, mi 48824
ph. 517 803 8839

har...@msu.edu<mailto:har...@msu.edu>

--
Listserv moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin

To post to this group, send an email to <mailto:USAAfric...@googlegroups.com> USAAfric...@googlegroups.com<mailto:USAAfric...@googlegroups.com>
To subscribe to this group, send an email to <mailto:USAAfricaDial...@googlegroups.com> USAAfricaDial...@googlegroups.com<mailto:USAAfricaDial...@googlegroups.com>

Current archives at http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
Early archives at http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "USA Africa Dialogue Series" group.

To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to usaafricadialo...@googlegroups.com<mailto:usaafricadialo...@googlegroups.com>.

For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
--
Listserv moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin

To post to this group, send an email to USAAfric...@googlegroups.com<mailto:USAAfric...@googlegroups.com>
To subscribe to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDial...@googlegroups.com<mailto:USAAfricaDial...@googlegroups.com>

Current archives at http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
Early archives at http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "USA Africa Dialogue Series" group.

To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to usaafricadialo...@googlegroups.com<mailto:usaafricadialo...@googlegroups.com>.

For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.


--
kenneth w. harrow
professor of english
michigan state university
department of english
619 red cedar road
room C-614 wells hall
east lansing, mi 48824
ph. 517 803 8839

har...@msu.edu<mailto:har...@msu.edu>

--
Listserv moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfric...@googlegroups.com
To subscribe to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDial...@googlegroups.com
Current archives at http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
Early archives at http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "USA Africa Dialogue Series" group.

To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to usaafricadialo...@googlegroups.com<mailto:usaafricadialo...@googlegroups.com>.

[Moses Ochonu]

Ken,

I see what you are saying. Smith may have embellished a little, as all confessional texts tend to do. In this case I would even chalk it up to overcompensation on his part, an attempt perhaps to assuage the guilt of having participated in something that resulted, in his opinion, in catastrophic consequences. Again, I have read a ton of similar unpublished memoirs at Rhodes House Oxford, where most of them are housed. The language tends to follow the same pattern of embellishment and latter day exaggerations of the authors' importance in these events. And finally, I am always uneasy when folks say that the British favored the North and undermined/marginalized the South and then proceed to extrapolate from that premise to make all sorts of political statements about contemporary Nigerian socioeconomic and political conditions. It is not that the statement is false but that it is not the whole picture. A lot of people from Southern Nigeria stop at this statement instead of going on to ask or state why the British favored the Northern aristocratic political tendency over the Southern radical tradition. Posing and answering "why" question would put the blame and the burden deservedly on the British and not on Northern Nigerians as alleged collaborators and beneficiaries of British patronage. By leaving out this crucial element of colonial strategic calculation, Smith may be perpetuating the incomplete and misleading narrative about a British-aided Northern Nigerian political domination in contemporary Nigeria.

Sent from my iPad

[kenneth harrow]

he sounds more like an idiot in the original posting than in the piece
you are citing here, gloria.
anyway, when we lived in yaounde, in 1977, there was a census that took
a year. below us lived a woman who taught in the geography dept, and
participated in the census. she saw the original figures, and then we
all saw what was published. guess what? the population of douala, which
was anti-ahidjo, was cut in half. the west , home to the bamileke and
anglo opposition, was reduced in the 10 years period of the census; the
population up noth, where ahidjo came from, increased everywhere....!
read 'em and weep!
ken

[Moses Ochonu]

Malami,

Precisely! In fact I am always correcting my Southern Nigerian brethren's misperception that the British-Northern Nigerian love affair was indeed a love affair instead of a manifestation of British real politik, which is what it was. The British did not care about any African groups as much as they cared about preserving their influence and ability to control from afar. Any group or individuals deemed amenable to this objective became their favorite. It was thus a strategic British courtship, not a preference for Muslims or Hausa or an inmate hatred for "educated" Africans as is widely believed in Southern Nigeria.

In some other African British colonies like the Gold Coast and Tanganyika, where the dominant nationalist personality was so popular that the British could not discredit or marginalized them, and where the British didn't have the regional/ethnic/religious tendencies they could play off against one another, they worked to moderate the radicalism of People like Nkrumah and Nyerere and to negotiate an independence deal they thought they could live with. 

And yes, perhaps more Northern Nigerian aristocrats were disciplined by the British than Southern Nigerian ones. It was all about protecting and advancing British interests, and the professed affection for northern politico-religious traditions were mere justifications, although they were very elaborate.

Sent from my iPad

[Emmanuel Udogu]

My thought on this issue

As noted already, this script or anecdote is not new. Many of us have
expressed our concerns on this matter in our writings and at different
forums and conferences. In fact, I shall allude to this question at a
conference to be held in Budapest, Hungary this spring.

Recently, I expressed my view on this issue thus: “Our leaders who
were carefully schooled and socialized in the governance template of
the colonial overseers found it—and still find it—difficult to peel
off the authoritarian character imbibed during colonial rule. Put
bluntly, the hegemonic powers governed autocratically but “imposed” a
liberal democratic genre on Africa; it was an impossible mission, many
argued, for Africa’s new leaders who mimicked their colonial
administrative ancestors with panache to change.”

The question, however, is: How do scholars—particularly
Africanists—deconstruct this political attitude (of rigging
elections—a subject in our forthcoming volume—for example)?
Fortunately, some of us on this forum and elsewhere have been
producing modalities for doing so in our works. But, we have a long
way to go partially because some of our current leaders remain
inflexible to change. Accordingly, we should roll up our sleeves and
go to work for substantial improvement in order to make our future
generations proud of us!

Ike Udogu

[Moses Ochonu]

Corrected version:

Precisely! In fact I am always correcting my Southern Nigerian brethren's

misperception that the British-Northern Nigerian love affair was indeed a

love affair instead of a manifestation of British real politik, which is

what it was. The British did not care about any African groups as much as

they cared about preserving their influence and ability to control from

afar. Any group or individuals deemed amenable to this objective became

their favorite. It was thus a strategic British courtship, not a preference

for Muslims or Hausa or an inmate hatred for "educated" Africans as is

widely believed in Southern Nigeria.

In some other African British colonies like the Gold Coast and Tanganyika,

where the dominant nationalist personality was so popular that the British

could not discredit or marginalized them, and where the British didn't have

the regional/ethnic/religious tendencies they could play off against one

another, they worked to moderate the radicalism of people like Nkrumah and

Nyerere and to negotiate an independence deal they thought they could live

with.

And yes, perhaps more Northern Nigerian aristocrats were disciplined by the

British than Southern Nigerian ones. It was all about protecting and

advancing British interests, and the professed affection for northern

politico-religious traditions was a mere justification, although the justification was

very elaborate.

Sent from my iPad

[Emeagwali, Gloria (History)]

What was the date of the original posting? Has he embellished the facts

over the years. What he sent to me was 2005.





GE
________________________________________

From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com [usaafric...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of kenneth harrow [har...@msu.edu]

Sent: Sunday, January 03, 2016 10:54 AM

To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to usaafricadialo...@googlegroups.com.

[Emeagwali, Gloria (History)]

In the case of Egypt they wanted to maintain their presence at the strategic Suez Canal
at all costs, and feared that local Egyptian nationalists would drive them out. So they cut a deal with
the Pasha family who became their favorites.

The House of Saud became a favorite to many
western powers- but now that the US has become a major oil exporter
those days may be numbered. It is all about opportunism - and
greed too.

Professor Gloria Emeagwali
History Department
CCSU. New Britain. CT 06050
africahistory.net
vimeo.com/user5946750/videos
Gloria Emeagwali's Documentaries on
Africa and the African Diaspora

________________________________

From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com [usaafric...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Moses Ochonu [meoc...@gmail.com]
Sent: Sunday, January 03, 2016 12:50 PM

To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - CONFESSION OF AN OCTOGENARIAN BRITON ON THE NIGERIA PROJECT

Corrected version:

Precisely! In fact I am always correcting my Southern Nigerian brethren's
misperception that the British-Northern Nigerian love affair was indeed a
love affair instead of a manifestation of British real politik, which is
what it was. The British did not care about any African groups as much as
they cared about preserving their influence and ability to control from
afar. Any group or individuals deemed amenable to this objective became
their favorite. It was thus a strategic British courtship, not a preference
for Muslims or Hausa or an inmate hatred for "educated" Africans as is
widely believed in Southern Nigeria.

In some other African British colonies like the Gold Coast and Tanganyika,
where the dominant nationalist personality was so popular that the British
could not discredit or marginalized them, and where the British didn't have
the regional/ethnic/religious tendencies they could play off against one
another, they worked to moderate the radicalism of people like Nkrumah and
Nyerere and to negotiate an independence deal they thought they could live
with.

And yes, perhaps more Northern Nigerian aristocrats were disciplined by the
British than Southern Nigerian ones. It was all about protecting and
advancing British interests, and the professed affection for northern
politico-religious traditions was a mere justification, although the justification was
very elaborate.

Sent from my iPad

On Jan 3, 2016, at 11:28 AM, Emmanuel Udogu <udo...@appstate.edu<mailto:udo...@appstate.edu>> wrote:

My thought on this issue

As noted already, this script or anecdote is not new. Many of us have
expressed our concerns on this matter in our writings and at different
forums and conferences. In fact, I shall allude to this question at a
conference to be held in Budapest, Hungary this spring.

Recently, I expressed my view on this issue thus: “Our leaders who
were carefully schooled and socialized in the governance template of
the colonial overseers found it—and still find it—difficult to peel
off the authoritarian character imbibed during colonial rule. Put
bluntly, the hegemonic powers governed autocratically but “imposed” a
liberal democratic genre on Africa; it was an impossible mission, many
argued, for Africa’s new leaders who mimicked their colonial
administrative ancestors with panache to change.”

The question, however, is: How do scholars—particularly
Africanists—deconstruct this political attitude (of rigging
elections—a subject in our forthcoming volume—for example)?
Fortunately, some of us on this forum and elsewhere have been
producing modalities for doing so in our works. But, we have a long
way to go partially because some of our current leaders remain
inflexible to change. Accordingly, we should roll up our sleeves and
go to work for substantial improvement in order to make our future
generations proud of us!

Ike Udogu

USAAfric...@googlegroups.com<mailto:USAAfric...@googlegroups.com>

To subscribe to this group, send an email to

USAAfricaDial...@googlegroups.com<mailto:USAAfricaDial...@googlegroups.com>

Current archives at http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
Early archives at
http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
Groups "USA Africa Dialogue Series" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send

an email to usaafricadialo...@googlegroups.com<mailto:usaafricadialo...@googlegroups.com>.

For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

--
kenneth w. harrow
professor of english
michigan state university
department of english
619 red cedar road
room C-614 wells hall
east lansing, mi 48824
ph. 517 803 8839

har...@msu.edu<mailto:har...@msu.edu>

--
Listserv moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin
To post to this group, send an email to

USAAfric...@googlegroups.com<mailto:USAAfric...@googlegroups.com>

To subscribe to this group, send an email to

USAAfricaDial...@googlegroups.com<mailto:USAAfricaDial...@googlegroups.com>

Current archives at http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
Early archives at
http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
Groups "USA Africa Dialogue Series" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send

an email to usaafricadialo...@googlegroups.com<mailto:usaafricadialo...@googlegroups.com>.

For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.


--
Listserv moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin
To post to this group, send an email to

USAAfric...@googlegroups.com<mailto:USAAfric...@googlegroups.com>

To subscribe to this group, send an email to

USAAfricaDial...@googlegroups.com<mailto:USAAfricaDial...@googlegroups.com>

Current archives at http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
Early archives at
http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
"USA Africa Dialogue Series" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an

email to usaafricadialo...@googlegroups.com<mailto:usaafricadialo...@googlegroups.com>.

For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

--
Listserv moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin
To post to this group, send an email to

USAAfric...@googlegroups.com<mailto:USAAfric...@googlegroups.com>

To subscribe to this group, send an email to

USAAfricaDial...@googlegroups.com<mailto:USAAfricaDial...@googlegroups.com>

Current archives at http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
Early archives at http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
"USA Africa Dialogue Series" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an

email to usaafricadialo...@googlegroups.com<mailto:usaafricadialo...@googlegroups.com>.

For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

--
Listserv moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin

To post to this group, send an email to USAAfric...@googlegroups.com<mailto:USAAfric...@googlegroups.com>

To subscribe to this group, send an email to

USAAfricaDial...@googlegroups.com<mailto:USAAfricaDial...@googlegroups.com>

Current archives at http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
Early archives at http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
"USA Africa Dialogue Series" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an

email to usaafricadialo...@googlegroups.com<mailto:usaafricadialo...@googlegroups.com>.

For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.


--
Listserv moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin

To post to this group, send an email to USAAfric...@googlegroups.com<mailto:USAAfric...@googlegroups.com>
To subscribe to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDial...@googlegroups.com<mailto:USAAfricaDial...@googlegroups.com>

Current archives at http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
Early archives at http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "USA Africa Dialogue Series" group.

To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to usaafricadialo...@googlegroups.com<mailto:usaafricadialo...@googlegroups.com>.

For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

--
Listserv moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfric...@googlegroups.com
To subscribe to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDial...@googlegroups.com
Current archives at http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
Early archives at http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "USA Africa Dialogue Series" group.

To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to usaafricadialo...@googlegroups.com<mailto:usaafricadialo...@googlegroups.com>.

[Cornelius Hamelberg]

An aside:

“Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves: be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves.” (Jesus talking, Matthew 10:16, King James Version)   and this “wise as serpents” cuts both ways.

Harold Smith (R.I.P.) made that big buzz when he was featured in New African more than a decade ago –part of the “how the Oyibo favoured the North” mythology.  Similar story about Sierra Leone – the Creoles of those colonial days may have been properly regarded as “half-Englishmen “or “Black Englishmen” when it came to realpolitik as Professor Ochonu points out, to what advantage? Middle men?  Check out page 5 of Graham Greene’s “The Heart of the Matter “ which seems to capture the matrix of the colonial mentality (Sierra Leone

“…I hate the bloody niggers. Mustn’t call them that you know”

“My boy seems all right”

“A man’s boy’s always all right. He’s a real nigger – but these, look at ‘em, look at that one with a boa feather down there. They aren’t even real niggers. Just West Indians and they rule the coast. Clerks in the stores, city council, magistrates, lawyers - my God. It’s all right up in the protectorate. I haven’t anything to say against a real nigger. God made our colours. But these – my God! The government’s afraid of them. The Police are afraid of them. Look down there” Harris said, “look at Scobie”…

“He loves ‘em so much” Harris said, “he sleeps with ‘em”

To those of us  who did not formally study history beyond secondary school and make no pretention to being historians, Leo Spitzer ‘s The Creoles of Sierra Leone: Responses to Colonialism and Akintola Wyse’s  H. C. Bankole-Bright and Politics in Colonial Sierra Leone, 1919–1958 have been sufficient to unearth a similar kind of palaver with British colonialism  - the old Creole peoples grievance up to this day, which I hope to be taking up with my honoured  guest,  Professor Bernard Porter this coming Wednesday :  the procedure whereby Freetown and the Western Area which was the colony was eventually amalgamated with the Protectorate( the hinterland of the country) and of course the disappearance of Creole political power  - the Creoles, vastly outnumbered, lost  in the ocean  of “one man, one vote” whereby the Creoles lost political power forever  (some of the stiff-upper lip Anglo-Sierra Leoneans still lament  their lost aristocracy, pedigree  (not degrees) and privilege and  are  feeling sincere  even today  when  they say that “the country has gone to the dogs” (smile)

I could tell you some of the unwritten history since where we lived was once a hotbed of intrigue ( circa 1958-Independence in 1961) I eavesdropped and served some of the Creole Elders at their  hush hush meeting – they took the British crown right up to the Privy Council  to retain their colony status --- it’s a behind the scenes story  and I am privileged to know some of it because my Yoruba grandmother’s sister Gertrude was or rather is the mother of Cyril Rogers-Wright, my (Uncle Cyril) one of the Creole agitators and headed by Mr. Buck/ Buckle  & co of  “The Settlers' Descendants Union”

 There are still people griping that “The injustices done to the Krios in Sierra Leone by the British have to be addressed. “ (Tom Jones)

I suppose that they will be griping for another 400 years.

Na wah o!

Cornelius

We Sweden

...

[Moses Ochonu]

Maybe embellishment is not the right word. I understood Ken to be pointing to the text's rather sensational and melodramatic tone and style and I agreed with him on that score. Most confessional autobiographical texts tend to be written in that tone and style. Anyway, to the best of my knowledge, Mr. Smith's account has remained the same since it first appeared--no latter day alterations as far as I know. I came to know of the account in 1999 or 2000 but it is clear that it was very popular among the pro-democracy activists of the early to mid 1990s, most of whom where Southern Nigerians who found in Smith's account validation for their campaign for a Sovereign National Conference to discuss how to undo the supposedly rigged nation the British had created and renegotiate Nigeria along fairer, more equitable lines.

Sent from my iPad

[kenneth harrow]

my granddaughter's first b'day now taking my attention. moses is right,
it was style, not content that made it seem exaggerated. i think it is
crucial to get down right how discourses sound, are constructed, reflect
their times. i have not read the archive, not read other colonials and
their writing. for most of my life/career i read africans, not
europeans, when it came to colonialism.
k

[Anunoby, Ogugua]

Mr. Smith's account if it is authentic as it seems to be, is affirmation of the obvious and enduring imperative of colonization (and imperialism) all through history. Colonization has one over-riding mission- to build the mother country at the expense of the colonies. The puzzle for me is why not much is still being done to truly deconstruct the colonial structures inherited at independence so as to fully add and create value for the greatest number of citizens in Nigeria and South Africa among others for example? It is still possible to create achieving societies of the countries. What seems to be in engineered short supply is the desire and will, not ability or resources with which to do so.

oa

Sent from my iPhone

[Samuel Zalanga]

Dear OA,

I sincerely appreciate your comment. I have equally thought seriously about this. There are times I would not sleep because of the situation in Africa. My greatest fear is that I will probably die without seeing Africa at the level of where the continent should be in spite of all the potentials. No matter how personally successful I am, that is something that makes me feel disappointed. Life is not just about personal consumption. Some times I read a story about something terrible, and my emotional feelings become disrupted for the whole day. Then later when I sit back to reflect what was really making me feel bad, I will remember it is something sad that I have read.

One conclusion I arrived at is that Whites or Europeans colonized Africa and treated us terribly bad, because of what someone like St. Augustine characterized as "Libido Dominandi" i.e., the lust to conquer and to only have things one's way. He said Romans have courage but humility is not part of their type of courage. To be powerful or privileged and have humility to care for others when you have the opportunity to treat them like trash and get away with it requires is something special. It requires a different kind of courage.

 Unfortunately, "libido dominandi" is not a strictly a White or European problem only. It is not just applicable to them. It is a human problem as I have come to painfully realize during my lifetime. I tell my Black students that the mere fact that I am Black does not guarantee them that I am inherently immune from taking advantage of them. Depending on the makeup of a person, it is not only a White person that can do that. The skin color is just an appearance. What matters is the deeper substance or essence therein. Much depends on context, structure, institution and system in place. 

In some way, the human body and mind is like a machine, and what the machine ends up being used for depends on the "software" that goes into it, i.e., the values, norms, ethics, and moral commitments that shape the person. What goes into us as humans which is shaped by too many factors, is part of the explanation for our relative backwardness. It is not that there is something wrong with the African but the kinds of institutions and social processes set in place can shape the calculations of a people and once they are in a trap, unless they can get out of the trap, it will be difficult to make fast-paced progress.  I hate to think that in some parts of Africa, if there is going to be free and fair referendum, some people are so disappointed with the postcolonial state that they would not mind voting for Whites to come and manage the system. I think people like Nyerere, Nkrumah, Fanon, Cabral, Samora Machel etc, will feel very sad about this in their graves.

Furthermore as Ha-Joon Chang argues in "Bad Samaritans" while culture can be an obstacle to development  at a particular historical juncture, it is not really a problem if  a people are determined. In one chapter in the book, he cited examples of how Germans were described by the British and how the West described Japan --- Very negatively. Without being told, the quotes would never be thought to be referring to Germans and Japanese because they have transformed their societies. The same thing with China. Thus for some of us, it is dangerous to essentialize cultural arguments.

It deeply makes me feel bad that Africa has great potentials but we are not moving as expected, or only the children of the privileged get to be raised with all the necessary facilities to develop themselves. And some are happy with that because they do not take the agenda of collective progress seriously, or they have tried and ended up becoming cynical.

Samuel

[Ibukunolu A Babajide]

Dear Annunoby and Zalanga,

This is the crux of the failure of the intellectual elite.  Either they are too consumed in an impassioned revolt against colonialism or they become compliant tool of the same to continue as proxy oppressors for the colonialist instead of engaging in the hard work of deconstructing the colonial model and re-orientating the populate and the political class for genuine development.

All will steal scarce local resources and ensure that capital flight endures by taking the money to buy estates and enrich bank accounts abroad at the expense of their own citizens.  It is too difficult to re-orientate our peoples to believe in themselves and stop copying the colonial oppressors.  Long after their physical oppression, we suffer mental self-hate and oppression.

I say the wealth of any country is in the brains and mind-set of her citizens.  Not in IMF or World Bank statistics or models based on the colonial foundations of world economic imbalance.

Cheers.

IBK

_________________________

Ibukunolu Alao Babajide (IBK)

(+2348061276622)
ibk...@gmail.com