Patrick Wilmot's essay Nigeria In 2036 says more about the "Rotten Military History of Nigeria To 2006" than a prognosis of the future path to glory for the country. Even so, it remains a call to arms. In my humble opinion [IHMO]. there are three levels of re-orientation that need doing.
One, attaining country-wide literacy in writing, reading and speech in any popular African language as well as English. Literate people are able to communicate independently of the mechanisms of biased interpreters. Private citizens should organise themselves to provide the necessary education. I propose a mechanism for community-sponsored education. It attempts to be proactive in that it enables those who want to be educated to afford an education, by contributing useful services to the community.
Two, reducing IGNORANCE by widening the scope and access to information useful for building infrastructure and industry. It is telling that hardly any newsprint or broadcast medium in Nigeria deals with matters of knowledge-driven entrepreneurship or sciences. I know of very few crafts guilds or hobby associations or think tanks (whether private or corporate) or economic lobbyists. Please make it possible in 2007 for YOU to host a website that informs "ordinary" citizens of the statements and conduct of the "ogas", "aristos", "elites", "chiefs". De-mystify politics, economics, foreign cultures, and religion and observe how creative energies burst forth to create economically-sustainable industry and culture.
I will say here emphatically that for knowledge industries to thrive in Nigeria / Africa / Caribbean, effort must be made to destroy intellectual infantilism preyed on by organised religion. Man, all over the world, does improve or impose upon nature.
Three, striving to DE-COLONISE our minds. There is only one human race. What has been achieved elsewhere can be bettered by Africans. IMHO, colomentalism is the most crippling disease affecting people of African origin across the world. It appears to be fostered by the very education, religion and information that pervades African societies. Colo-mentalism manifests in many forms: why is it Africans have not had the courage to re-define their borders, institutions, or dress. What is happening with the heads of our women? Nigeria's military, chiefs and professional politicians feed on the colomental sense of inferiority-complex and enhanced-incapacity of the "masses". There is a core need for re-building education, religion, information and economy structures around African traditions and history. The military infestation is a result of people giving up their individual rights (certainly in Yoruba and Igbo traditions that I am most familiar with) to make and bear arms: this is a basic right to self-defense, even against bad government. No government should be tolerated that acts against the interests of its own people. De-colonise your mind.
By current trends, Nigeria should be re-constructed well before 2036. Dat one na tory for another day.
Tuesday, December 26, 2006
Thursday, December 07, 2006
FTfm: Nigeria could be next emerging gem. For who?
FINACIAL TIMES of UK,
Nigeria could be next Emerging Gem.
Now that the Central Bank of Nigeria [CBN] has shot-gun married Nigeria's 25 banks with foreign asset managers, FT drums that "the outlook for the country, and Africa as a whole, looks bright"
What does all this mean?:
- CBN has handed over control of internal money management to foreign interests. CBN continues the economic hitman assignment partnered by the Nigerian Ministry of Finance. Rather than improve bank relevance to local wealth creation, and increase the outreach and efficacy of financial services into the real economy, this dynamic duo forcibly concentrated bank power with conditionalities similar those that ensure other privatised national assets such as NITEL, NEPA, (and soon NNPC) do not fall into local ownership and control.
- MoF/CBN has already handed over control over Nigeria's foreign reserves, as well as over usd25 billion CASH MONEY as USD35 billion dubious debt buyback, to these same foreign banks. That is over 70 cents to the dollar, in severely distressed debt investment! How many foreign-sourced private equity investments has resulted? Can you say "odo"?
- Outlook looks bright for who? Local communities or foreign shareholders?? None of the foreign asset managers mentioned has a history of building community wealth. Have they been catalysts to "development" in USA/Europe's own urban and minority communities? As for Nigeria's banks, their most widely known and effective role in Nigeria is as agents of Western Union.
- Nigeria has the highest concentration of private investors/entrepreneurs in Africa. Taking over enterprise investment in Nigeria will mean taking down wealth creation in local communities across 'Africa as a whole'. Luckily, entrepreneurs in Africa are savvy about the "foreign investor good, local government/businesses bad" mantra of various do-gooders in Nigeria/Africa. They know that once money gets into the banks, CBN/FGN commandeers it to undermine domestic productivity. The longer they keep their money out of the banks, the more they are able to build and defend their homes and schools and other infrastructure.
- "Africa's markets have been growing at a phenomenal rate" as the article says. THIS GROWTH IS DESPITE the incompetence and conflicted interests of the CBN and Africa's other central banks. It is this growth that foreign well-wishers want to manage. Draw analogies from the minerals sector. For all the decades of 'capability-building' of 'foreign asset managers' like Shell, Exxon, Anglo-American and co in Africa's mineral resources sectors, how many African managers have they 'incubated' into maturity. Rather, the tendency is for increased entrenchment of these asset strippers.
- Nigeria/Africa can ONLY emerge if it builds domestic wealth from capabilities in production, refining, distribution, and financing/investment. No foreign investor/manager/donor can be expected to seek this outcome.
Nigeria could be next Emerging Gem.
Now that the Central Bank of Nigeria [CBN] has shot-gun married Nigeria's 25 banks with foreign asset managers, FT drums that "the outlook for the country, and Africa as a whole, looks bright"
What does all this mean?:
- CBN has handed over control of internal money management to foreign interests. CBN continues the economic hitman assignment partnered by the Nigerian Ministry of Finance. Rather than improve bank relevance to local wealth creation, and increase the outreach and efficacy of financial services into the real economy, this dynamic duo forcibly concentrated bank power with conditionalities similar those that ensure other privatised national assets such as NITEL, NEPA, (and soon NNPC) do not fall into local ownership and control.
- MoF/CBN has already handed over control over Nigeria's foreign reserves, as well as over usd25 billion CASH MONEY as USD35 billion dubious debt buyback, to these same foreign banks. That is over 70 cents to the dollar, in severely distressed debt investment! How many foreign-sourced private equity investments has resulted? Can you say "odo"?
- Outlook looks bright for who? Local communities or foreign shareholders?? None of the foreign asset managers mentioned has a history of building community wealth. Have they been catalysts to "development" in USA/Europe's own urban and minority communities? As for Nigeria's banks, their most widely known and effective role in Nigeria is as agents of Western Union.
- Nigeria has the highest concentration of private investors/entrepreneurs in Africa. Taking over enterprise investment in Nigeria will mean taking down wealth creation in local communities across 'Africa as a whole'. Luckily, entrepreneurs in Africa are savvy about the "foreign investor good, local government/businesses bad" mantra of various do-gooders in Nigeria/Africa. They know that once money gets into the banks, CBN/FGN commandeers it to undermine domestic productivity. The longer they keep their money out of the banks, the more they are able to build and defend their homes and schools and other infrastructure.
- "Africa's markets have been growing at a phenomenal rate" as the article says. THIS GROWTH IS DESPITE the incompetence and conflicted interests of the CBN and Africa's other central banks. It is this growth that foreign well-wishers want to manage. Draw analogies from the minerals sector. For all the decades of 'capability-building' of 'foreign asset managers' like Shell, Exxon, Anglo-American and co in Africa's mineral resources sectors, how many African managers have they 'incubated' into maturity. Rather, the tendency is for increased entrenchment of these asset strippers.
- Nigeria/Africa can ONLY emerge if it builds domestic wealth from capabilities in production, refining, distribution, and financing/investment. No foreign investor/manager/donor can be expected to seek this outcome.
Tuesday, December 05, 2006
WTO Announces Formalised Slavery Model For Africa
THE FOLLOWING WAS A SPOOF BY The Yes Men who reportedly impersonated a WTO respresentative and delivered the article, at the said event. It is included here for educational purposes.
November 13, 2006
WTO Announces Formalized Slavery Model for Africa
This sold out event was sponsored by Daimler Crysler (makers of Mercedes Benz), Coca Cola Company, Goldman Sachs, McKinsey & Co, Merrill Lynch (three international banks / advisers on Nigeria's US$25 billion debt re-purchase), World Bank / IFC, Macquarie Bank (Australia's infrastructure bank), Microsoftamong others.
= = =
Philadelphia - At a Wharton Business School conference on business in Africa, World Trade Organization representative Hanniford Schmidt announced the creation of a WTO initiative for "full private stewardry of labor" for the parts of Africa that have been hardest hit by the 500 years of Africa's free trade with the West.
The initiative will require Western companies doing business in some parts of Africa to own their workers outright. Schmidt recounted how private stewardship has been successfully applied to transport, power, water, traditional knowledge, and even the human genome. The WTO's "full private stewardry" program will extend these successes to (re)privatize humans themselves.
"Full, untrammelled stewardry is the best available solution to African poverty, and the inevitable result of free-market theory," Schmidt told more than 150 attendees. Schmidt acknowledged that the stewardry program was similar in many ways to slavery, but explained that just as "compassionate conservatism" has polished the rough edges on labor relations in industrialized countries, full stewardry, or "compassionate slavery," could be a similar boon to developing ones.
The audience included Prof. Charles Soludo (Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria), Dr. Laurie Ann Agama (Director for African Affairs at the Office of the US Trade Representative), and other notables. Agama prefaced her remarks by thanking Scmidt for his macroscopic perspective, saying that the USTR view adds details to the WTO's general approach. Nigerian Central Bank Governor Soludo also acknowledged the WTO proposal, though he did not seem to appreciate it as much as did Agama.
A system in which corporations own workers is the only free-market solution to African poverty, Schmidt said. "Today, in African factories, the only concern a company has for the worker is for his or her productive hours, and within his or her productive years," he said. "As soon as AIDS or pregnancy hits—out the door. Get sick, get fired. If you extend the employer's obligation to a 24/7, lifelong concern, you have an entirely different situation: get sick, get care. With each life valuable from start to finish, the AIDS scourge will be quickly contained via accords with drug manufacturers as a profitable investment in human stewardees. And educating a child for later might make more sense than working it to the bone right now."
To prove that human stewardry can work, Schmidt cited a proposal by a free-market think tank to save whales by selling them. "Those who don't like whaling can purchase rights to specific whales or groups of whales in order to stop those particular whales from getting whaled as much," he explained. Similarly, the market in Third-World humans will "empower" caring First Worlders to help them, Schmidt said.
One conference attendee asked what incentive employers had to remain as stewards once their employees are too old to work or reproduce. Schmidt responded that a large new biotech market would answer that worry. He then reminded the audience that this was the only possible solution under free-market theory.
There were no other questions from the audience that took issue with Schmidt's proposal.
During his talk, Schmidt outlined the three phases of Africa's 500-year history of free trade with the West: slavery, colonialism, and post-colonial markets. Each time, he noted, the trade has brought tremendous wealth to the West but catastrophe to Africa, with poverty steadily deepening and ever more millions of dead. "So far there's a pattern: Good for business, bad for people. Good for business, bad for people. Good for business, bad for people. That's why we're so happy to announce this fourth phase for business between Africa and the West: good for business—GOOD for people."
The conference took place on Saturday, November 11. The panel on which Schmidt spoke was entitled "Trade in Africa: Enhancing Relationships to Improve Net Worth." Some of the other panels in the conference were entitled "Re-Branding Africa" and "Growing Africa's Appetite." Throughout the comments by Schmidt and his three co-panelists, which lasted 75 minutes, Schmidt's stewardee, Thomas Bongani-Nkemdilim, remained standing at respectful attention off to the side.
"This is what free trade's all about," said Schmidt. "It's about the freedom to buy and sell anything—even people<."
November 13, 2006
WTO Announces Formalized Slavery Model for Africa
This sold out event was sponsored by Daimler Crysler (makers of Mercedes Benz), Coca Cola Company, Goldman Sachs, McKinsey & Co, Merrill Lynch (three international banks / advisers on Nigeria's US$25 billion debt re-purchase), World Bank / IFC, Macquarie Bank (Australia's infrastructure bank), Microsoftamong others.
= = =
Philadelphia - At a Wharton Business School conference on business in Africa, World Trade Organization representative Hanniford Schmidt announced the creation of a WTO initiative for "full private stewardry of labor" for the parts of Africa that have been hardest hit by the 500 years of Africa's free trade with the West.
The initiative will require Western companies doing business in some parts of Africa to own their workers outright. Schmidt recounted how private stewardship has been successfully applied to transport, power, water, traditional knowledge, and even the human genome. The WTO's "full private stewardry" program will extend these successes to (re)privatize humans themselves.
"Full, untrammelled stewardry is the best available solution to African poverty, and the inevitable result of free-market theory," Schmidt told more than 150 attendees. Schmidt acknowledged that the stewardry program was similar in many ways to slavery, but explained that just as "compassionate conservatism" has polished the rough edges on labor relations in industrialized countries, full stewardry, or "compassionate slavery," could be a similar boon to developing ones.
The audience included Prof. Charles Soludo (Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria), Dr. Laurie Ann Agama (Director for African Affairs at the Office of the US Trade Representative), and other notables. Agama prefaced her remarks by thanking Scmidt for his macroscopic perspective, saying that the USTR view adds details to the WTO's general approach. Nigerian Central Bank Governor Soludo also acknowledged the WTO proposal, though he did not seem to appreciate it as much as did Agama.
A system in which corporations own workers is the only free-market solution to African poverty, Schmidt said. "Today, in African factories, the only concern a company has for the worker is for his or her productive hours, and within his or her productive years," he said. "As soon as AIDS or pregnancy hits—out the door. Get sick, get fired. If you extend the employer's obligation to a 24/7, lifelong concern, you have an entirely different situation: get sick, get care. With each life valuable from start to finish, the AIDS scourge will be quickly contained via accords with drug manufacturers as a profitable investment in human stewardees. And educating a child for later might make more sense than working it to the bone right now."
To prove that human stewardry can work, Schmidt cited a proposal by a free-market think tank to save whales by selling them. "Those who don't like whaling can purchase rights to specific whales or groups of whales in order to stop those particular whales from getting whaled as much," he explained. Similarly, the market in Third-World humans will "empower" caring First Worlders to help them, Schmidt said.
One conference attendee asked what incentive employers had to remain as stewards once their employees are too old to work or reproduce. Schmidt responded that a large new biotech market would answer that worry. He then reminded the audience that this was the only possible solution under free-market theory.
There were no other questions from the audience that took issue with Schmidt's proposal.
During his talk, Schmidt outlined the three phases of Africa's 500-year history of free trade with the West: slavery, colonialism, and post-colonial markets. Each time, he noted, the trade has brought tremendous wealth to the West but catastrophe to Africa, with poverty steadily deepening and ever more millions of dead. "So far there's a pattern: Good for business, bad for people. Good for business, bad for people. Good for business, bad for people. That's why we're so happy to announce this fourth phase for business between Africa and the West: good for business—GOOD for people."
The conference took place on Saturday, November 11. The panel on which Schmidt spoke was entitled "Trade in Africa: Enhancing Relationships to Improve Net Worth." Some of the other panels in the conference were entitled "Re-Branding Africa" and "Growing Africa's Appetite." Throughout the comments by Schmidt and his three co-panelists, which lasted 75 minutes, Schmidt's stewardee, Thomas Bongani-Nkemdilim, remained standing at respectful attention off to the side.
"This is what free trade's all about," said Schmidt. "It's about the freedom to buy and sell anything—even people<."
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