Allow me to respond to your column on the above subject. The candidacy of the presumptive Democratic Party nominee, Barack Hussein Obama has generated excitement within and outside the United States like no other since the candidacy of John F Kennedy. Mr. Obama, a former law professor has become in the eyes of many people, what is possible in America. His father came to the United States from Kenya as part of America's engagement with newly independent African countries. The idea was to expose young Africans to American democracy and society as a way to build relationships with those who would become leaders in these nations in future. Obama Sr. studied in the state of Hawaii and eventually earned a Ph.D.from Harvard University. Along the way he met and married a young woman who gave birth to Barack Obama.
Obama has become an unlikely symbol of the African American community and the fulfillment of the dream of Martin Luther King Jr. He was not born when the Rev. Martin Luther King organized the Montgomery Bus Boycott. When The Rev. King gave his famous I Have A Dream speech he was a toddler in the arms of his white mother. The civil rights struggle is now an academic subject to him taught perhaps by those who lived and witnessed the struggle. Little wonder that the old civil right generation was slow to embrace him. He is not a descendant of those who toiled under the injustice of slavery and of the Jim Crow laws that denied the blacks their humanity. Yet he is not immune to the social and political construction of race and the evils of racism. He saw the effects of racism and discrimination as he worked as a community organizer in the ghettos of Chicago where the poor blacks lived and died. Obama is not yet there and still has a lot of miles to go in a society where how you look carries more meaning than what you know. He still must convince the die-hard racists that all men are created equal in a nation where people assigned meaning to how you look.
Americans are not inherently bad and neither are Nigerians. Americans are not inherently good and Nigerians are not the devil that many writers and commentators make them to be. We both are humans with all of our brokenness. Americans have throughout the generations put away their fears and have stood up to human frailties by standing up to the tyrannies of class, religion, birth and power. As your column rightly pointed out, the southern states resisted integration and it took the coercive powers of the American federal government to force compliant with the laws. The social construction of race was born here, as a way to justify slavery and even science was co-opted into the race question. But America is struggling to overcome its demons through laws. There is nothing wrong with the Nigerian we too are humans like the Americans but in the face of tyranny our society is crumbling as many of us have been forced out to look for survival in distant lands. There is nothing that is wrong with us except we are powerless in the face of greed. Those responsible for making the laws do so for their own benefits like you have pointed out. Those at the top decide elections and make it a sham so that their cronies are put in office. Others propose useless laws as a diversion and use their positions to oppress those without power. The wife of the former secretary to the Nigerian government, Ufott Ekaette now a senator would like to tell our women how to dress but not how to survive. It does not matter to our eminent senator that the federalization of the police force, the prevalent of crime and the lack of good road networks are impediments to developments. No one has told our representatives that the rule of law and wealth go hand in hand.
There was a time when criminals controlled the apparatus of government in America and where the sheriff decided what happens at city hall but those days have long past and now no one is above the law. The Americans, my friend, are not inherently good they are just afraid of the consequences of breaking the law and in the process of staying out of trouble, no one will and power rise above the other. We too can reap the fruits of democracy in Nigeria. Decentralize our police force, take them off the hands of the corrupt politicians and growth and orderliness will come. Allow the states and local governments to have their own police and build their own prisons. Allow the clans to enforce the laws in their jurisdictions while giving the state police powers to investigate crime and corruption at the village and local government levels and the Nigerian will enjoy peace and prosperity. No one would steal the ballot box under such circumstances where there are checks and balances. No one would risk his or her freedom and steal from the public coffers. Nigerians are not inherently bad my friend, we just allow those who care for their self interest to make and guard our laws for their own benefits.
Prof. Ezekiel Umo Ette, Ph.D. Professor of Social Work and Community Development, Northwest Nazarene University, Idaho, USA