Reflection on Reflections

There are possibly scores of definitions of reflections in scores of dictionaries. But the one definition that almost equates my idea of reflections on topical labour, Socio-economic, Africa and global affairs over the years sees reflection as “Serious thinking or careful consideration: engaged in reflection on the problem”. Or better still as “A thought or an opinion resulting from such thinking or consideration”. The 54th birthday of yours sincerely comes up this Thursday, 8th of January in Ilorin. In addition to the usual annual fitness/jogging exercise which features cycling this year, the Committee of friends and well wishers have impressed on me to make my written reflections and interventions in the media (notably in Daily Trust) over the years available on book forms. Many thanks to Professor Dafe Otobo of the university of Lagos and the Malthhouse publisher who has indulged me and made my written words into 6 titles on Labour and Trade Unions; Good Governance and Development, Industry and Economy; Media and Gender Issues; Africa and Global Affairs; and, Friends, Comrades and Heroes. The selected articles on labour and development are almost some 70,000 word counts. It is interesting that the issues affecting the working class in the 80s and almost the same as the issues of the 90s and the new millennium. They include crisis of compensation; low pay, wage cuts, trade union rights, crisis of productivity, unemployment, strikes and pension crisis.

On Good Governance and Development, the recurring issues covered are constitutional matters; conduct of the presidency; conduct and performance of legislature and legislators; politicians and their political parties; elections and electoral institutions; explosive developments in specific state governments; and corruption and general development. It never occurred to me the quantity of weekly historical comparative analyses, have been made over the years on Nigerian narratives. As articulated in the preface “In this sense, barring differences in details, the narrative in Nigeria appears not have changed much over the decades, hence the continuous spectacle of hypocrisy, executive and legislators’ squabbles, everchanging political loyalties and alliances, the cant and materialism of legislators and political office holders, the judiciary and the uncertain fortunes of the rule of law, controversies trailing logistics and conduct of elections, dubious contracts privatisation of public property in the face of “due process”, the hotly debated budgets and corruptionridden budgetary process, the antics of governors, those sovereign and nonsovereign conferences, poorly performing aviation industry, distressed and distressing banking industry, meaning and content of celebration of Independence Anniversary and Democracy Day, and lots more”. The most intriguing is how my random thoughts on Africa and global affairs have turned to make sixty-seven chapters, touching on various issues and developments for the future. In West Africa, falling within his critical radar are politics in Liberia, salutary effects of elections in Ghana, constitutional manipulations in Niger, canons of Kwame Nkrumah, to reflections on Nigeria, such as the rise and fall of Nigeria’s diplomacy, and the import of Hilary Clinton’s assessment of state of governance.

In East Africa, those violent elections in Kenya, complexities of the Zimbabwe situation, and the person of Robert Mugabe himself come under focus. Southern Africa was dominated by events in South Africa, from the shocking wave of explosive manifestations of xenophobia, the inauguration of President Zuma, the centenary of the ANC, useful lessons from the life and times of Nelson Mandela, to bilateral relations with Nigeria after the politics of yellow fever which involved both sides denying entry to each other’s visitors for some weeks. North Africa and the Middle East understandably, too, had attracted attention: the return of Libya after abandoning its nuclear programme, Gaddafi political moves and antics, downfall and early post-Gaddafi developments; anti-democratic reactions to democratic victory of Hamas at elections, Iranian elections, the Iraq imbroglio, Israel’s badly-managed flotilla operation and self-image, Obama’s speech in Cairo, Mubarak’s manoeuvres and eventual displacement, to a wholesale review of Arab street protests in favour good governance. For the African continent, there are a variety of events, from developments in the European Union, Margaret Thatcher, lessons from Davos, American foreign policy, to the indiscretions of Horowitz and World Bank’s policies and ethical standards it advocates, to the dominance of Western media. Running through all these are concern for proper governance and development that should eliminate mass poverty, relative lack of critical and thinking and thus poverty of ideas among African political and bureaucratic policy makers.

Predictably for the North American subcontinent, the United States of America threw up more issues; from Reaganomics, issues dominating George W. Bush’s election; the suspect reliability of American intelligence reports over the years; the election of Obama, inauguration and first 100 days of his administration.

The contending publicly aired arguments over myriad economic challenges facing Nigeria since the 1980s have captured my imagination over the years; neo-liberal philosophy underpinning the IMF-driven deregulation and privatization policies, specific programmes subsumed under neverending reform agendas and out-of-reach goals (NEPAD, MDGs, VISIONS 2010 and 2020, Seven-Point Agenda, Davos Declaration, etc.), erratic supply and conflict-inducing pricing of refined petroleum products and incomprehensible computations and politics of fuel subsidy removal, neglect of non-oil sector, deliberations and recommendations of the Nigerian Economic Summit, states-federal government tussles over excess crude oil proceeds. How time flies and how written words proof information-overload!