Africa as steppingstone

Also published in Daily Trust



Vice President Muhammad Namadi Sambo and the Kuwaiti officials

Leaders and representatives of Arab and African countries recently held a two-day summit in the oil-rich Kuwait. It was the third of its kind since 1977 when it was first held in Cairo, Egypt. The second summit was held in 2010 in Libya. Like the previous summits, the recently concluded summit was, according its organizers, intended to discuss partnership between African countries and their Arab counterparts for economic development.

By the way, though the majority of Arabs are geographically Africans, they hardly identify themselves as Africans. Instead, when they refer to Africa they don’t necessarily mean the whole of Africa as a continent; instead they mostly mean the non-Arab African countries.

Deprived of pride

Also published in Daily Trust

While watching the last two matches of Nigeria’s Golden Eaglets in Dubai and Abu Dhabi stadiums respectively, in the recently concluded FIFA U-17 World Cup, I observed that the enthusiastic exuberance that defined Nigerian fans’ passionate cheering of the Eaglets before, during and after the matches was quite disproportionate compared to the significance of the achievement, even though the Eaglets were indeed recording an achievement worth celebrating anyway.

Besides, I also observed that almost all the national achievements that have generated similar widespread excitement and celebration across Nigeria have always been in sports, particularly football. Though I recognize the importance of sports in our national development, and indeed recognize the value of whatever success Nigeria has achieved in various international championships, I felt quite disappointed for our collective inability as a nation to make any profound and remarkable achievement of global significance, in more important aspects of life e.g. scientific research & development, economic development, manufacturing, etc.

The electricity jinx

Also published in Daily Trust

While growing up in my native Kano, I used to hear people lamenting the poor quality of public services and the dwindling quality of life in general. They would nostalgically recall how they were better off previously. I obviously believed them and indeed wished I was born much earlier. After all, just like other kids, I would often shout “NEPA!” to celebrate and cheer the defunct National Electric Power Authority, NEPA for being kind enough to restore electricity after long hours of power outage.

Though the situation was obviously frustrating, I had to live with it and suffer the associated disappointment resulting from my inability to, for example, watch the weekly Indian movies every Saturday on the NTA or iron my clothes, when I began to grow old enough to take care of appearance.

A costly step

Also published in Daily Trust

Since time immemorial, man has always emigrated from one place to another for various reasons. Also though the introduction of immigration regulatory systems following the emergence of modern sovereign political entities (e.g. countries) has regulated human migration, which also restricts the flow of particularly prospective illegal migrants across international borders, the trend continues anyway.

By the way, many countries have succeeded in building successful, stable and prosperous countries, whereas the persistent leadership failure in many other countries has rendered a significant number, if not the majority, of their citizens hopeless hence desperate to flee, given the opportunity. While the later have effectively shattered the hopes of their citizens, the former have succeeded in dramatically and substantially turning their people’s lives around.