Nigeria : The folly or wisdom of Disintegration [Main Debate Thread]

[NextLevel]

So far, the debate has been pretty clear and I don't think that any of my services have been really required. I was thinking about asking for some clarification of some points from both parties, but I could equally well let the debate continue in this fashion. Please, feel free to suggest which way I should go.

[Alata]

What clarifications are you thinking about?

[Eja]

1.00: A careful reading of the arguments presented by my opponent reveals something quite telling: while he speaks for disintegration, the advantages that he ascribes to this eventuality are nothing more than the advantages that come from restructuring. In other words, he is like the self-medicator whose preference for panadol is based on the curative effects of quinine.

1.01: This state of affairs exist (as had been said before) due to the sparseness of the logic that can be called upon to support a recommendation that is ultimately more like a yearning for a return to the comforts of the womb than it is a clear eyed look at the current cold realities of the world into which one has already being born.

1.02: Because of this, ones who who seek an escape back into the mythical state of primordial ethnic purity have no other choice than to rely on misdirection as a means of making their desire seem like an acceptable option.

1.03: Just as the architects of the so-called Global War On Terror used (and are using) false descriptions to shield what has been nothing other than attempts at colonising oil reserves, so too do we see the prospective founders of ethnically pure enclaves seeking to shield their purpose by conflating their intent with that of those who are calling for a more equitable (and orderly) restructuring of our African nation.

1.04: Another point that deserves re-emphasising is how separation from those who are currently called our fellow Nigerians will not solve the problems we are currently experiencing. The creation of a purely Yoruba State will not automatically transmit into the creation of Yoruba unity of purpose. This is because the same factors that are presently dividing Nigerians are also dividing the Yoruba.

Whether the Yoruba, Edo, Ijaw or Ibo break first, their success will depend on a tacit confederacy with mutual protection (not just defence) in trade and investment, military, and travel. None of these areas will agree to a common language or currency. But then the whole of francophone west Africa used to have one currency, the CFA, allied to the French franc. Nigeria has one official currency, the Naira, and an unofficial basket of foreign currencies. Ondo, Kwara and Kogi are likely to be sources of friction between the Yoruba and other tribes. The confederacy will determine how inter-tribal lands will be administered.

2.00: My opponent obviously expects that whichever one from the Yoruba, Edo, Ijaw or Igbo "breaks first" will be breaking with the full blessings of the other groups. He assumes that whatever territorial claims they make will be acceptable to the others. He assumes that having told the other ethnic groups that "we (the Yoruba, Edo, Ijaw or Igbo) wish to have our country because we can no longer abide being your fellow country-men...", the remnants from the Yoruba, Edo, Ijaw or Igbo will say "Yes, we feel the same way about you; we also cannot stand being in the same country as you anymore. So, go with our blessings - and take whatever land you want (along with all its resources) with you as you leave...beloved brothers..."

2.01: In short, my opponent imagines that those who embark on a mission based on chauvinism may expect that those being impacted by their actions will be always be ones with the advanced sensibilities of Pan-Africanists.

2.02: However, what I know of history tells me that actions based on chauvinistic attitudes only succeed when they are backed with superior military force. You cannot alienate people and then expect those same people to hand you what you are after in good cheer.

2.03: This truth remains unspoken especially by those who deceptively sing hymns to our so-called Southern Nigerian unity of purpose.

3.00: My opponent also wishes to present the devolution of the CFA as a common currency of 'Francophonie' West Africa as an example of a successful secession that led to a more amenable form of unification.

3.01: However, the truth of that matter is, the CFA devolved because France decided that its growing commitment to the evolving European Union had placed it in a position where it could no longer offer its client-nations in Africa the same business arrangements as that which had accompanied the previous existence of the CFA.

3.02: The CFA devolved because France decided that it's own current and future interests would be better served by removing from former African servants the advantages of collective bargaining and instead, placing them in a position where each country would have to compete with the other on the basis of unilateral agreements.

3.03: This means that France (and the EU) can now deal with the countries on the basis of their individual strengths and weaknesses. The collective bargaining power that the Francophonies used to have (weak as it admittedly was), is now virtually non-existent. And, with the advent of the detrimental Economic Partnership Agreements that the EU has succeeded in getting some individual African countries to sign, we witness the additional consequences that follow the loss of collective economic resources and the institutions they support.

3.04: In short, what my opponent has tried to present as an argument in favour of what he proposes actually serves as a warning of the consequences that attend the process of seeking to smash something up with the expectation of making its component pieces stronger.

3.05: Such an attitude is probably OK if one is the sole inhabitant of a Universe. You would have time then to experiment; to erase the board and start from zero. You will have the time and space to carry out any type of experimentation that come to mind. However, we do not exist in this Universe by our African selves. We do not have the time and space for experimentation so, when we move - if we must move - we must only move from as strong a position as we can get to what we are certain will be a better position of strength.

3.06: In our normal everyday world, strength, like everything else, does not come out of a vacuum. There is only ever so much and if one thing is to gain, its opposite must lose. I make this point because, if the prospects of Africans uniting on the basis of their commonalities is to become reality, then drives towards separation (in all their seductive incarnations) must be suppressed. Unity where it exists must be strengthened and divisors, where they exist, must be eradicated.

When the colonial-remnant countries were established (Nigeria in 1960), the borders cut through many incipient tribal nation-states. The Yoruba in republic of Benin (Dahomey) and in Togo are still Yoruba. The Ibo / Arochukwu in Cameroon are still Ibo / Arochukwu. The Hausa in Benin and Niger republics are still Hausa. Many tribes became transnational as a direct result of flag independence. Till today, they hardly pay attention to the country borders as they criss-cross to visit or do business.

4.00: The phrase "incipient tribal nation-states" is a misnomer. It implies that without the intervention of the British and other European invaders, the ethnicities in the areas that later became "colonial-remnant countries" would have become "tribal nation-states".

4.01: There is no evidence to prove that without the pressures that came from having to deal with these external (and extremely alien) forces, the Yoruba and the Igbo (for example) would not have simply carried on as they had for many millenia.

4.02: Which is to say that there is no evidence to prove that beyond knowledge of each other as ones who shared similar cultural icons, the people of Ijebu and Ekiti had any indigenous joint purpose that would have united them eventually as equal members of some pan-Yoruba nation-state.

4.03: Chances are that if it had occurred, the unity would most probably have being the enforced type that comes from being components of an Empire (like the one that had been established by the Oyo and later on, by the Ibadan).

4.04: What this means is that the nation-state that is being spoken of by my opponent will in fact be something that is totally new. Now, whether my opponent actually has more at this time than his stated intentions to rely upon when it comes to the creation of this new thing is something that remains to be seen.

4.05: It should be noted that all those who wish for disintegration need to do at this present time is carry on with their repeated offensive cacophonies. The effects of these provocations, which are often similarly offensive responses, completes the energy cycle that drive the engine of the vehicle they hope to ride to their objective.

4.06: However, those who wish for a more workable restructuring need to do a lot more than just call for an immediate break-up. They need to lay out, in prominent and accessible ways, the doctrinal foundations for the new dispensation that they wish to bring about.

For me, failure to accommodate and willingness to disregard 'so-called (ethnic) minorities' is the key reason why Nigeria and the other colonial-remnant countries in Africa have failed, while other colonial-remnant countries elsewhere may have done better. It is a sort of "tragedy of the commons". Ethnicity (TRIBE) is very important for the development of self-regard and national consciousness. Nigeria has always operated on the
fallacy that some tribes matter more than others. The country tries hard to suppress the ethnicities of its citizens in its bid to build a unitary 'national' identity.

5.00: The objective of the statement being responded to in the above quote has being misrepresented. The key phrase in that statement was "For the sake of summarising the argument, we can disregard some reality for now."

5.01: In other words, there was no recommendation that there should be a "failure to accommodate" minorities nor was there an intent in the post that could be interpreted as a willingness to "disregard" minorities. What was being done was to take so-called ethnic minorities out of the equation (temporarily ) to enable a closer look (within this debate) at the relationship between the ones referred to as the two majority ethnicities of Southern Nigeria.

5.02: My opponent goes further after this misinterpretation and tries to present my summarisation as an example of the way " Nigeria has always operated on the fallacy that some tribes matter more than others."

5.03: This is gross sensationalism. My co-debater, intent on preaching from as high up as possible to the choir, has a need to climb a ladder made up from hyperbole in order that he may distinguish himself from the choir.

5.04: The truth is, he is quite free to make statements that are based on his own conclusions, however, it would be better if he simply presents them as such instead of misrepresenting my words and then presenting his own as if they were legitimate responses to me.

More sensible countries try to implement policies that recognise and build upon multiple ethnicities, religions, languages and other social differences, Nigeria and other colonial-remnant countries try to destroy these differences and must then go further to try to fabricate artificial identities to represent the rootless country. Of course, the ethnic nations fight back: they must in order to survive. It may be that there was no 'Yoruba' or 'Hausa' people before 'Nigeria' was implanted unto the African landscape. The Anago, Ijebu, Oyo, Egba and ife used to be separate and sometimes-warring 'Yoruba' nations or kingdoms before the colonial invasions. They may be separate again after Nigeria's disintegration. The issue for the African National confederacy is how to support and build upon ethnic efforts at self-improvement and community development.

Of critical importance are the issues of land use and ownership, conflict resolution, and governance. I will address these issues when I resume on your part 2.

In continuation of why Nigeria should be dissolved sooner rather than later. I would like to touch on some issues that my co-debater has already called on us to omit as of minor importance. In this part 2 of my submission, I hope to build a framework that shows these "disregarded realities" are the under-currents that birthed Nigeria and account for why its failures to its citizens are its successes to its investors. I will then apply this framework to the part 2 of our co-debater's submissions. Please bear in mind that our co-debater does not want Nigeria to disintegrate into small countries only to benefit sundry foreigners. My point of debate is that the various ethnic groups within Nigeria should begin an immediate schedule to dissolve Nigeria, firstly to save themselves from intellectual, cultural and mental extermination, and secondly with the greater aim of founding one more vibrant and protective African National Confederacy.

6.00: I wish to address the bolded parts of the quotes above.

6.01: The Nigerian State is too intellectually disorganised to have any program of "cultural and mental extermination", and, it is totally incapable of implementing the destruction of differences between ethnicities, religions, languages etc. In fact, the same people who will oversee the disintegration of Nigeria (if given a chance), are the very ones who are intent on fabricating artificial identities.

6.02: Yes, it is individuals who are in various positions of influence - some in government, some in the media, the arts, and most especially 'religious' organisations - that are presently implementing the penetration of foreign ideologies into Nigeria and other African countries.

6.03: These elites, many of whom disguise their alienation from their indigenous root with a hyper-chauvinistic disdain for other African peoples/cultures, are first and foremost Christians or Muslims in countries where the fault-lines between Christian and Muslim grows deeper daily and, globalist free-marketeers/monopolists in countries that have been designated as the bottom rung of the global economic ladder.

6.04: These are the ones who at present have the resources and organised global support that will be required to grab power in any dispensation and, if that dispensation is one where Nigeria becomes a collection of independent sovereign nations, we can rest assured that the last thing these entities will allow is the existence of a " African National confederacy" that will "support and build upon ethnic efforts at self-improvement and community development."

6.05: In short, if my opponent (and others with high ideals like him) remains without a robust coalition that spans ethnicities, a coalition that has the resources and the knowledge required to bring about the implementation of an African Confederacy, then they should know that when Nigeria disintegrates, the ones who will wield power in the component republics/kingdoms/emirates will be the same people who held Nigeria back.

6.06: From what I have seen from various discussions (past and current) that touch on ethnicity and territorial claims on this web-site, I wish to inform my co-debater, an eagle of the proposed African National Confederacy, that he is flying in the company of vultures who will remain vultures even after the 'hated' Nigerian flag is lowered from its current heights.

7.00: Since I view everything else that follows in the quote below as excellent readings of our current state and, good arguments for the re-construction of our African nation, I will make no counter arguments (as I am not one who opposes re-structuring).

In the course of a long journey, it is often necessary to detour: for water or fuel, and especially to check our roadmap so as to ensure we are still going in the right direction. So too, must we enroute to dissolving the colonial-remnant countries across Africa - and dissolve them we must so that our people can thrive - we need to detour to deal with the issues of minority populations, land tenure, conflict resolution, and community governance. Minorities, land and governance are often talked about in terms of rights. "Minority rights should be respected". "Land (private property) rights should be protected" "A community has sovereign rights to self-rule", and so on.


Of rights and duties.
What we often hear less loudly of are duties and responsibilities. The duties of minorities and majorities of whatever categories to respect their neighbours and the laws of the land. The duty of property owners to care for and not unduly burden the public domain. The duty of the country or other community of the care and security of its people, to pass laws that favour and elevate its citizens above all foreigners, and to enforce its laws fairly and equitably among its citizens. It should be clear to us all that Nigeria has been unwilling and unable to deliver on its primary duties. Nigeria has failed as a country to even show intent to act on behalf of the people it claims as citizens. This failure is reasonable but not sufficient basis for Nigeria to be disintegrated.

Why should it not surprise us that people more loudly proclaim their rights and privileges than their duties and responsibilities. Is it because rights invariably favour the private estate, while duties are invariably contributions to the public wealth? Yes. Must we disintegrate the colonial-era countries we find ourselves in in order to build a community of which our rights and duties are of our making. Yes. Why disband and not restructure? Because the colonial-remnant countries were purposely set up to never favour or elevate us as their citizens. Because they endure us to legal systems and trade agreements made in foreign lands by and for the benefit of foreign, demonstrably hostile and historically predatory powers. Because they enfeeble our ability to educate, arm, defend or protect our families or properties at home or abroad.

How? By making foreign languages, education systems, weapons, religious doctrines into the monopoly of government power that are then used to make our own heritage systems illegal under the law. Because they make it illegal for us to learn of, copy or re-fabricate any and all foreign knowledge that might benefit or harm us.

Because they assign us as citizens unto unrepresentative laws on property rights that enable every foreign thief or local Akotileta to loot us blind under the sanction and authority of the law of the land.


Minority Rights In An Illegal Country
The colonial-remnant counties make it illegal for us to manage land resources, grow businesses, resolve conflicts, and govern communities in a manner that is sustainable. These countries conducted land theft on a massive scale all across the African continent by using unfair laws similar to Nigeria's Land Use Act(s). That stolen land is then placed in the care of an investment minority. This is the only minority whose 'minority rights' mean much to the colonial-remnant African country whose duty it is to protect them.

Similar theft of public domain property has been conducted in recent years as arranged market sales into foreign ownership and control of assets and investments left behind after flag independence or acquired since then. A country that can persist only by stealing from its own people has no right to claim sovereignty. The people who must call themselves its citizens have a duty to disintegrate the country and to start other arrangements for a more protective domain. But an even greater and more heinous theft is underway: the theft of memory.


The theft of memory
What is an ethnic minority? Presumably, it is the ethnic groups (tribes) that are the least in number in a given community. Who are the ethnic minorities that our co-debater will have us dismiss with such bare concern? What makes one ethnicity weigh more for another ethnicity to be considered minor: is it population size, economic and purchasing power, military allies and diplomatic strength. media projection? Some of the most vocal ethnic majorities in Nigeria turn out to be of surprisingly minor influence even in western-central Africa.

But the core issue of concern to this debate is that Nigeria is actively trying to erase the cultural and heritage memories of all its constituent ethnicities. The only clues to culture that Nigeria wants to preserve relate to English and Arabic. The clues are in the languages on its currency, its education and its public discourse, in its two semi-official religions: Christianity and Islam, in its legal and judicial systems: one borrowed from the masonic temples of law of Europe and the other from the masonic temples of sharia of Arabia.

A false-flag mis-education
The memory of "everything before independence" is erased from the public space and omitted from the mindspace represented by education, the media, and of course the religious houses that blanket the landscape.

Children are not educated of how African societies resisted invasion and domination. Adults are not educated as to how they can resist ongoing campaigns of African genocide by abortion, medical experimentation, internecine warfare, poverty and economic sanctions, and suicide due to mental frustration. Why does Nigeria, the colonial-remnant country, do these damages to us its entrapped citizens? Because it needs us to forget who we are in order for it to continue existing as a false-flag country. Nigeria was implanted onto the numerous ethnic peoples that now make up its citizens. it can survives and persist only by destroying whatever makes those people prefer to belong to different ethnicities so that it can have its own nominal people: the Nigerians.


An Stillborn Independence.
At least our co-debater would not mind Nigeria restructured. There are those who refuse disintegration due to a deceitful claim that Nigeria was created by God or other divine powers. This claim is a lie. Neither was Nigeria born of a war of liberation won by our people under the leadership of nationalist 'founding fathers' from colonial powers. The sad truth is that Nigeria was created to contain the wave of insurgency against ethnic and economic caste structures dominated by Europe - that flowed onwards from the liberation of the USA and of Haiti. Ethnic 'white' Europeans had thrown off the colonial shackles of the European continent to found the USA. Ethnic Africans in Haiti had taken advantage of Europe's distractions to throw off the contamination of European peonage and found African's first independent country.

Two rounds of European World War totally exhausted old Europe and suddenly, the game was up. Asians threw off European and Japanese drug-induced ennui and virtual slavery. India re-emerged. Now, the Africans in the USA and in Africa were getting restive for their own ethnic nation-states. Then as at now, Africans repeated the mistake of all ages: they handed-over their best and brightest for the enemies to educate and groom wholeheartedly without any 'home training'. Then as at now, Europe gladly took to the opportunity to tighten its grip.


The Akotileta Take Custody
The daughters and sons of Africa's royal and merchant families were literally gifted to Europe in the run up to and after flag independence. They still are. These gifts of Africa were welcomed to the classroom, the bedroom, and the factory but shunned from the members club, the laboratory, and the boardroom; educated to awe of Europe but disdain of Africa prior to European ravages; screened for right-thinking but excluded of African rites of passage; and handed custody of newly-independent colonial-remnant countries across the continent. Then as at now, Nigeria remains a limited liability business venture of our foreign direct investors. It is no coincidence that any European, Asiatic or Arabian is treated as royalty by Nigerian government officials from the President through the civil and military services. To an overwhelming extent, Nigeria and other colonial-remnant countries retain the implicit structures of racism 'white' supremacy as the platform for ethnic-subjugation, religious lobotomy, foreign exploitation, and mass ignorance of Africa's peoples.

Because unlike many people have done in Nigeria, the citizens of India remain quintessentially Hindu, Sikh, and so on while the Indian country practises religious neutrality as best it can. Indians know their strength is in their ethnicities as defined in spiritual belief systems that confirm that they are daughters and sons of the gods. To the Indians, a god looks like an Indian, not any rainbow-coloured foreigner. Even the Indian who has converted to Christianity and Islam needs not walk far to see himself or herself in the image of the gods that matter.

Nigeria is a plantation country. Its psychological parentage was in the agricultural plantations of the antebellum south of slavery era USA and Brazil. Its system of social and legal governance was furnished from apartheid USA and apartheid South Africa. Nigeria is a country under perpetual economic and social sanctions just like Haiti is and for the same reason: some people in Nigeria dared to hope without planning. Then they backed down without protecting. Then they begged without defending. And all Nigerians caught 'hell' on earth. Nigeria must be disbanded forthwith, but the Akotileta in charge will not do so.


The rise of African fascism
It is when we look at the dynamics of ethnicity that discover the criminality of colonial-remnant countries. It is in this sphere of human society that we find the utter genocides of culture and heritage and people across the African continent and across African communities elsewhere. Here we make the appeal for immediate dissolution of Nigeria and the other misbegotten countries before one and/or other of two things happen.

Nigeria may realise its purpose as an staging post for creating Africa without the Africans. There will be people here who will be known as Africans just as they always were. Except that to all intents and purposes they will be mental and cultural regurgitations of European, Arab or other proselyting world-views.

Africans-in-little-but-name already populate Europe and the Caribbean and North Americas. They may make up the bulk of the last three generations on Africa itself.

Alternatively, Nigeria will reach its logical conclusion and African fascism will bloom and will rage.

I had intended to further address my co-debater's submissions. But even Eja concedes that we will have very bad odds on a bet that Nigeria will even attempt anytime soon to raise standards of living for its poor. It is a lost cause to keep Nigeria going as it is in the hope it can one day deliver a nurturing environment. My co-debater has tried to make a case why Nigeria should not be dissolved, but omi po ju oka lo (water pass gari).

The very lack of substantial or even persuasive arguments for keeping up the appearance of Nigerian nationhood is a telling damnation that has already wasted three generations. We are left only with the spectre of foreign direct investors as they await, like hyenas and vultures, to feed on the colonial-remnant countries.

My extension would have been to consider the likely flowering and dimensions of a necessary African fascism when we examine emerging combinations of ethnic and environmental factors with the newly-revealed European new world order of socio-economic castes, and the history of Africa's cultural and militant heritage. It is a consideration that moves beyond the core of this debate.

For now, I rest my case with the observation that the militancy my co-debater notes in the Niger Delta, the wave of anti-social behaviour in all sectors of society, and the cultism recorded in the country's institutions are symptoms of a phenomenon the world does not yet openly acknowledge.

"Out of Africa, always something new" as the dewy-eyed used to say. The new Africa. It will be interesting, for real.

[NextLevel]

Originally Posted by iyaalata

What clarifications are you thinking about?

I think Eja's current response highlights some of the issues that he would like you to address, such as the economic bargaining power of smaller nations and the realism (or idealism) that underlies the belief of a peaceful separation/secession. While he raises other issues which you might also address, I think that you should definitely address these issues in a response to him. One thing that is not clear is what kind of restructuring Eja considers workable and how he would expect this restructuring to work.

Rather than produce my list, maybe in the same vein, you could after you respond to him, highlight some of the issues you would like him to address?

[Alata]

Originally Posted by Eja

4.05: - 4.06:

My duty in this debate is to argue why I want Nigeria dissolved in a manner that fosters our identity and builds on a protective alliance of the various ethnicities.

5.00: The objective of the statement being responded to in the above quote has being misrepresented. The key phrase in that statement was "For the sake of summarising the argument, we can disregard some reality for now."

The misrepresentation is not deliberate and would have been avoided if my co-debater had added this rider, earlier.

6.00: - 6.01:

To destroy the cultural and mental identity of its peoples, Nigeria needs only to continue to be the ant-infested wood that it is. As people who are concerned with our competitiveness in a hostile world, we simply cannot afford to be defined by this intellectually disorganised entity. We must fabricate a new identity that suits us better.

6.02: - 6.04:

My co-debater makes my point. Our enemy trained us, fed us, brought us up, preaches to us, for so long and so totally that of us comes our enemy. Of us have become the lovers of Christian Scientific Europe and Mohammedan Tolerance Arabia. Of us are the haters and fearful of Ifa and ancestral Africa. How will one ever attempt to surpass another when one worships divinity in the image of that other? Have we not seen our fathers kneel to call boys in cassocks "Father"? But, how to re-do ourselves if we do not want to recognise the enemy of our progress that we see in the mirror?

6.05: - 6.06:

An Alternative to Defeatism
I would enlist my co-debater as a fellow African eagle.
My purpose in this debate is to give notice to other fledging eagles that they are not alone against what often seem to be random forces or accidental events. I wanted also to inform on an alternative to the colonial-remnant-countries that are so servile to foreign hyenas; an alternative that goes beyond the ethnically cleansed nation-state that Akotileta vultures have been promoting but have proven too cowardly or negligent to defend in this debate.

The alternative of African National Confederacy builds on the foundations of many tribes, one nation. How to build this 'coalition' is a debate in itself, which I feel is beyond the scope of this debate. My observation is that fascism will have a role to play in building a 'coalition identity' beyond singular ethnic sectarianism. It is an unfortunate condition of human society that hatred impacts stronger than love; that negative incentives often outweigh positive incentives of equal magnitude. For example, fascism thrives on sustaining hatred for others far more than preaching unity or love for oneself. We have seen how effective religious (Christian, Islamic Hindu) fascism have been in building on the hatred of 'non-believers' far more than they build on the love of man or god. Racist fascism likewise builds more on the hatred of alienated ethnicities far more than they build bridges across socio-economic classes.


Globalisation is Disintegrating Nigeria
To our detriment. My co-debater knows Nigeria and other colonial-remnants in Africa are straw houses that need to be demolished so that stronger fortress(es) can be built on the continent (where ethnic "tribalism" is a potent force) and in the Americas (where "racism 'white' supremacy on people of African heritage is a potent force). Tribalism and racism are tools used by vultures in Africa and hyenas beyond to diminish Afrikan competitiveness. The Igi-Eera (or Trojan Horse) of African peoples may very well be their often-commented 'friendliness' towards people whose history of 'friendliness' is of wars of rape, exploitation and extermination. What did the 'Truth & Reconciliation' mean in South Africa, Namibia or Zimbabwe other than justification (triumph!) and reward for the Christian British/Boers for their attempted physical and psychological genocide of the African tribes there? What is the 'African Union' achieving if not political cover for Arabs to disarm pan-Afrikan ethnic nationalism while infiltrating African territory with mosques and sharia laws? Indeed, what is globalisation to achieve other than Europeans laying claim to extra-territorial assets by making themselves the beneficial 'citizens' whose rights should be protected by a global government and a monopoly of weapons of mass destruction? Even as we keep the colonial-remnant borders, have our Akotileta leaders not hollowed out and sold the African countries down the river via privatisations and over-generous concessions of our community assets?


Feeding the Crocodile
Our co-debater knows Africans cannot hide in colonial-remnant countries from the gathering storms. The history and currency of religious and racialist hostility towards African persons or identities indicate the fallacy of appeasement. Many people recognise the implication of military weakness in explaining 'friendliness' towards hostile foreigners. Would we dare recognise that religion and ethnic culture are or can be militaristic? Do we remember that slave rebellions in the Americas were quelled partly by swapping African heritage religions for Christianity, partly by inbreeding the already enslaved rather than bringing in new 'wild stock' from Africa? One who keeps a crocodile farm had better not let his children crawl around. Yet, we are so addicted in colonial-remnant Africa to religion, education and media that are foundations of non-African ethnic culture.


Smiling Dagger
Our co-debater asks

"lay out, in prominent and accessible ways, the doctrinal foundations for the new dispensation.

that we wish to bring about.
Doctrines are hardly formed or accessible in the time frame (immediately) that this debate calls for. Neither are doctrinal foundations always prominent or accessible to everyone: they are necessarily 'elitist' in origin even when the ultimate beneficiaries are a wider majority.

For example, only a relatively few people defined the doctrine of 'free trade' and 'market liberalisation' as tools with which to fraudulently manufacture money out of 'thin air' and use this 'credit' to buy up real assets. Few people acknowledge the associated 'globalisation' as a worldwide socio-economic caste system in which the bulk of benefits accrue to ethnic investment minorities. Few people acknowledge that racism is a social doctrine of ethnic-tribal supremacy. Yet, very few Africans who 'access' European benefits through education, religion, marriage, or other appeasement strategies can escape racist socialisation.

So, we too must sheath our daggers with smiles.
_________________________
_________________________

Originally Posted by NextLevel

I think Eja's current response highlights some of the issues that he would like you to address, such as the economic bargaining power of smaller nations and the realism (or idealism) that underlies the belief of a peaceful separation/secession. While he raises other issues which you might also address, I think that you should definitely address these issues in a response to him. One thing that is not clear is what kind of restructuring Eja considers workable and how he would expect this restructuring to work.

Rather than produce my list, maybe in the same vein, you could after you respond to him, highlight some of the issues you would like him to address?

Will address how to "sheath our daggers with smiles" on my next submission.

[Eja]

Bode Eluyera, since you claim to have superior knowledge of Eastern Europe, then it should have been easy for you to show, point by point, what I got wrong.

Show the right side up to what you called "upside down" and, show the correct measurement of what you called "exaggeration".

You will note that when I spoke, I did not just say "take my word for it", I showed sources that backed up every single thing I said. So, why would you think that simply saying "I have lived for 15 years in Eastern Europe" is enough to make your word gospel?

If I am not qualified to speak on what happened in eastern Europe, then from where do you get the authority to speak so definitively on what is best for the entire Yoruba peoples? Are you an Oba? A Chief or, a high-ranking member of an organisation like Afenifere?

You are neither speaking to children or to ones easily overawed with "been-to" declarations. You will need to work harder; show and prove.

Back to this presumption of yours that you speak for the Yoruba (i.e. "I am only speaking for the Yorubas")....I would like to know from what part of Yoruba land you come from.

Are you Ijebu? If so, how solid is the authority that you rely on as you speak on behalf of the Ekiti?

If you think this is a simple question, then you know little about intra-Yoruba politics.

Bode, are you an Eko man and if you are, what is that qualifies you to speak for those from Ilorin?

How many Yoruba communities have you lived among? In fact, when was the last time you lived in Yoruba land?

As a loyal son of the Yoruba and a respecter of our customs, I am sure that you know how much our hierarchical structures mean to us. I am also sure that you know how much we all value our individual freedoms. So, when you start talking about this thing that has never existed before, this Oodua Republic, ones like me first wonder where you get the authority from. When you then go further and seek to prepare wars for us from the comfort of your home in deepest eastern Europe, I start to wonder what your true intentions are.

You see Bode, what you are doing nothing more than planting the seeds for warfare. True, a real man does not run from violent conflict, but only a fool or a madman prays for it.

Those who have witnessed the worst of human nature - those who have first hand knowledge of what that situation looks like - pray never to see such again. Therefore, when making plans, such ones look for all options but the ones that will lead to conflict. It is only when they know for certain that there is no avoiding conflict that they start preparing the ground (so that those who may have to fight will not be doing so at a disadvantage).

Now, I know that we have not exhausted the avenues for the peaceful restructuring of our African nation. I know that chaos is not yet the only option and, I know that even if it were, the last thing anybody engaged in preparing for a favorable conclusion would be doing is coming on the Internet to show all intentions to potential adversaries and, to the ever waiting (ever ready) manipulators of chaos.

I ask : Where is the analysis of the situation from a perspective that places the local within the global? I ask this because aside from diatribes against 'the North', there is little else on offer in your multi-chaptered opus.

Really and truly, all you have to say could have been said in one line.

There is no plan for progress and nothing that hints (even vaguely) of yours as being a mind that is capable of planning for victory. At this moment in time my friend, you appear to be one of those people who are only capable of planting the seeds for conflict. Beyond that, it seems you are in the dark.

Yes, confronted with the challenge of presenting enhancers of Yoruba unity, the best you can come up with is hatred for 'the North'. Bode, I will like you to give me an example of any people in history who started out armed with hatred who did not come to a terrible end.

Then, I would like you to show an example of how you can unite African people without asking them to hate other African people. I wonder why this has never occurred to you before as being a worthwhile project....

You are challenging me to write an article. My friend, it is not about the number of articles. It is about the useful content in what is said.

I applaud you for taking up the challenge presented by this debate...I hope that is what you are doing...now, you need to examine each of my points and, demolish them. This shouldn't be hard (since you have already stated that : "Your arguments are TOO WEAK. They are full of many LOOP HOLES").

[NextLevel]

Eja,

Please show some restraint in dealing with Eluyera. He has posted to this thread and he should not have: he should have posted to the parallel thread. I will ask that an admin move/delete his post, depending on which you prefer. Since you have responded to him, my guess is that you would prefer that his post be moved along with yours.

NL

[Alata]

Originally Posted by NextLevel

Eja,

Please show some restraint in dealing with Eluyera. He has posted to this thread and he should not have: he should have posted to the parallel thread. I will ask that an admin move/delete his post, depending on which you prefer. Since you have responded to him, my guess is that you would prefer that his post be moved along with yours.

NL

One option is to move the 2 posts together
Another option is to recognise that Bode might be one of the people Eja wanted to debate with, and so let the their discussions continue. if both are willing, I am happy to step aside.

Please do not delete the post(s)

[NextLevel]

Originally Posted by iyaalata

One option is to move the 2 posts together
Another option is to recognise that Bode might be one of the people Eja wanted to debate with, and so let the their discussions continue. if both are willing, I am happy to step aside.

Please do not delete the post(s)

That is a possibility, but in that case, it might be better if that is formally agreed to so that the quality of the debate can be maintained.

So Mr. Eluyera, are you willing to take over the debate from iyaalata and go toe-to-toe with Eja on this issue?

[Alata]

Bode and Eja and all of us
It is one thing to indicate a person has said or done foolish things; and another thing to say the person is a fool. Even if a debate involves presentation of opposing views or antagonistic personalities, there is usually some common ground to work with. We should still try to avoid (over) personalising the insults.

BTW, if Eja is obviously too thick to agree with me, the more fool me for not applying the whip!

[Eja]

Originally Posted by NextLevel

Eja,

Please show some restraint in dealing with Eluyera. He has posted to this thread and he should not have: he should have posted to the parallel thread. I will ask that an admin move/delete his post, depending on which you prefer. Since you have responded to him, my guess is that you would prefer that his post be moved along with yours.

NL

NL, I don't think the post should be deleted. If Bode Eluyera is willing to take over from Iyaalata, it can be left where it is, if not, it should be moved to the parallel thread.
_________________________
_________________________

Originally Posted by iyaalata

Bode and Eja and all of us
It is one thing to indicate a person has said or done foolish things; and another thing to say the person is a fool. Even if a debate involves presentation of opposing views or antagonistic personalities, there is usually some common ground to work with. We should still try to avoid (over) personalising the insults.

BTW, if Eja is obviously too thick to agree with me, the more fool me for not applying the whip!

[Alata]

adama50,
please remove your post #34 from this thread and put it, if you must, in the parallel thread.
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_________________________
I am pleased with the above contributions by Bode. His is a perspective that I feel is relevant to the original purpose for which Eja sought to have this debate. I issued invitations for more contributions in threads across the NVS website but the separatist propagators will not be joining us.

I will appreciate keeping Bode's advocacy for an independent and strong Oduduwa nation, for the record. His is a healthy indication of the latent power of ethnic nations in Africa. He has understandably declined to say how the required prior dissolution of Nigeria is to be accomplished. My contention in this debate is that it is sufficient for Nigeria and other colonial-remnant countries to be disintegrated in order to realise socio-geographical reform into a African National Confederacy. Oduduwa as a homogeneous ethnic state allied with others within an supremacist Afrocentric nation will provide a protective, competitive and cooperative basis for meeting the challenges that we face.

In my last post, I mentioned that Africa's solutions are problems for the international community. Our perennially-combative compatriots on Earth (the self-styled "international community") have the means and the motive to destroy us, but not the will. We have motive, but neither the will nor the means to destroy our compatriots. We need to protect our efforts to build the will and gain the means. To "sheath our daggers in smiles".

[Alata]

Eja and NextLevel,
This debate was proposed to offer a platform for debate to those focussed solely or primarily on dissolution of Nigeria into separate ethnic sovereign states. I have tried to encourage the debate. However, none of target ethnic separatists have come forward to our satisfaction.

My further contributions are likely to focus on perspective of a multi-ethnic African National confederacy. The emphasis is on strengthening of the African ethnicities as much as alliance into a super-nationalistic society, rather than solely on weakening or disintegration of the colonial-remnant countries such as Nigeria. This will take us beyond core relevance for this debate.

I suggest that we retire at this point, pending the submissions of more relevant contributions.