By Gabriel Ewepu
WITH Nigerians trooping out of the country to other countries on daily basis for different reasons, a Co-Convener of Uyi Rachael Lawani, URL, Foundation, Prof Uyi Lawani, weekend, said, ‘Japa’ is not the solution to the problems they are running away from but decolonization is the panacea.
Lawani stated this while speaking with Vanguard on the sidelines of the ‘Inaugural Lecture of the Lawani Series on Decolonization, LSD,’ with the theme ‘Talking Decolonization Beyond Symbolism’ that was organized by the Uyi Rachael Lawani, URL Foundation in collaboration with West African Transitional Justice Centre.
The main objective of the Lawani Series on Decolonization, LSD, is to contribute to the reorientation of the masses of Nigeria and Africa, particularly the teeming youth.
It is also to basically provide a platform for sensible conversations in the process of deconstructing the modern colonization of Nigerians.
The LSD is to reconstruct the minds of African citizens that they have the same ability even better capabilities to achieve the dreams of the country they want in their own perspective and not to copy the people and places they feel have the solutions to their problems, hence is to ‘Japa’ for greener grass while they can also grow the same greener grass for better consumption based on their ideas and Innovations to achieve it.
According to him the essence and idea of the inaugural lecture, “Is to get our youth to begin to understand that the solution to our problems are actually is within us to solve, in other words, you cannot start solving the problem from a place of feeling inferior and it is not an agenda.
“I am not a conspiracy theorist. I am not saying that there is a grand design to perpetuate our problems in this part of the world. I am saying that the people who you are looking to solve your problems also have their own problems and they are satisfied with grabbing the resources you have to solve their problems.
“If you do not understand that you have the capacity and the resourcefulness to solve your own problems and the beginning of that in my mind is to get the minds of our youth completely liberated, completely unshackled so that they can look inward to solve their problems.
“And I came to this because I felt ebbed when they started glamorizing emigration, you know, the concept of ‘Japa’, I know that we find we bring humor, this comic relief to our problem, so that that way, you are not constantly in despair.
“But in reality, has actually percolated in a way where the sense of hopelessness in ourselves and in our nation is not ebbing, is getting entrenched even more. And I believed in both cultures and as a matter of fact, I am a good example to tell people that where you are going to is not really the solution.
“I have studied, taught in their classrooms, and I know I have competed with them at any level, and I know that they are very happy when we think we will feel inferior, we think that the solution to the problem is to emigrate because then we go and subsidize their own economies, and we don’t end up not solving problems.
“So the problem remains perpetuated, we remain where we are getting poorer by the day because the value of what we have diminishes with time.
“So I became a mandate that I put before myself to start this conversation. Our problems are not linear, they are complicated and intricate problems.
“So what we are looking and doing is just to pull a strand out of maybe one variable of multiple variables to deal with.
“So the subject of decolonization is just one tiny, teeny aspect of how much work we have yet to do. So that is what we bring to this.
“My Foundation in collaboration with the West African Transitional Justice Center, my wife and I, our Foundation, in collaboration with the WAJ center, decided to start this conversation around decolonization with the inaugural today, and then hopefully make this an annual event.”
He further stated that, “But the truth of the matter is, we have the capacity and potential to solve our own problems. If there are problems in the US where do they ‘Japa’ to? If Britain has a problem where do they ‘Japa’ to? Which they had in history is not to find in the past, we know that they dealt with their own problems, not with the whole idea that there is an escape route to England or to the US where there is greener grass, so to speak, but that they had to solve their own problems, and until we agree as a people to do that we cannot hold our leadership to hostage and forced them in the direction that that we all should go.”
According to Uyi, people say Nigeria’s problem is that of leadership, “but the leadership first and foremost evolves out of followership, so the people can only deliver out what they have, your politicians are corrupt because the people are corrupt.”
However, he urged Nigerians who have ‘japa’to return, and he pointed out that the futility of most Nigerians is to ‘Japa’ and that never solves the problems they are running from.
Meanwhile, his message to young people and leaders: “We have the potential, capacity to solve our own problems. We must realize that the people who we are looking to for help have issues they have to contend with.
“First of all, make them limit their ability or their willingness to just be completely to helping us.
Now, if they want to help us because it is in their interest to do so, then the level of bargaining is already compromised because they negotiate with us from a position of strength relative to us, and so you have to prepare yourself to be developed within to have the mindset that you don’t need them and then that way you can engage them as equals on the negotiating table.
“If someone realizes that you really don’t need them, and you mean it, you’re not just calling their bluff they come to you begging, when they know that you have a comparative advantage over them.
“But now we have multiple comparative advantages over the multiple, not only in terms of natural endowments in just in terms of the cheapness of our labor, and how we can transform that into being heavily industrialized, relative to these places.
“What do we need? Why do you have to build your road and paved the way they do in Germany? Who says we have to do that?
“And because our minds were shackled, we completely lost it and that’s where we still ask say European Union has to write the report to authenticate our elections, because we don’t trust ourselves, and the people who are supposed to be educated saying we should call the international community must come and intercede on this matter. I never heard that phrase anywhere.
“I have just come to start the conversation around decolonization as one tiny aspect of all the variables we have to deal with.”
Meanwhile, the Guest Lecturer, Prof Sola Olorunyomi, who lectures Cultural and Media Studies at the Institute of African Studies, University of Ibadan, delivered the maiden lecture titled ‘Talking Decolonization Beyond Symbolism’, explained that, “The issue of decolonization is at the heart of our future and that is why I thought it should not be trivialized through about just a few gestures which I call symbolisms.
“Symbolism is part of mankind and we can’t run away from it but then we should ensure that those symbolisms are rested on something that is substantial underneath them.
“The orientation human being has is what he or she will give to another person. So the orientation we had during colonialism was one that was given to us.
“It calls to question after all of this period, are there things to do urgently to own the process of development because the part of development they deposited here we’re also interpreted by their own cultural preferences as it is anywhere in the world, and it is not a blame game.
“There is a lot of wastage in our culture and it is self abusive taste because we have chosen only the colonial option as our option of development.
“We should promote our local foods like the kulikuli, it should be used during our meetings, in schools instead of biscuits to grow our economy but when we have these foreigners and when we want to buy something for them usually we but things imported. But nothing says you can’t partake in those economies but then you have to start your own.
“If we maximize what we have it would reduce dependence, maximize our ability to mine and explore all the resources around us to the fullest and ways that are sustainable. That is what China largely did.
However, he lamented that Nigeria signing various treaties was “signing up the sovereignty of the nation.
“When you take so much debts from foreign countries you are risking your own sovereignty, that is why you become a slave to them willingly, so that is part of the problem and then they decide your policies for you and that is dangerous, and is not the best.”
He also commended Prof Uyi Lawani and Rachael Lawani for organizing the lecture, and added that they conversation they brought up in conjunction with West African Transitional Justice Centre has gotten the cloud,and expressed optimism that with the discourse a process of change has been set.
Earlier, the Co-Convener, Uyi Rachael Lawani, URL Foundation, Rachael Lawani, in an address of welcome explained why the Foundation focused on the issue of decolonization as its inaugural lecture series.
“We set up the Foundation with the aim of creating conversations centered on youth orientation, and reorientation.
“We believe that a well educated, astute youth can mobilize the social development of the African continent.
“The launch of the Lawani Series on Decolonization, LSD, is an intuitive component of this goal. This year, which is our inaugural coincides with the golden jubilee of my husband, our Co-Convener (Prof Uyi Lawani), and we believe that a landmark moment like this should be harnessed towards our goal”, she added.
Source: Vanguard