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Of Manipulation And Illusion By Reno Omokri
It is no longer news that President Bush has nominated United States Deputy Defense Secretary, Paul Wolfowitz for the position of President of the World Bank. Mr. Wolfowitz has a very long history in U.S. Republican administrations and is widely described as a neo-conservative, which are those ultra conservatives who seem to hold a lot of sway in the administration of George W. A major hawk in the cabinet, Mr. Wolfowitz is the first man who called for military action immediately after 9/11 against Iraq and ultimately got his wish. This is a man who has consistently believed in a robust display of America’s military might and has served in various capacities in the defense department, and was undersecretary of defense under Dick Cheney (now the Vice President) under George H.W. during the first Gulf war, a man who according to the BBC (U.K. edition 17 March at precisely 13:42 GMT) called for the “spreading of American power and influence” and for advocating the forceful propagation of democracy through war. This man is now to head the World Bank.
Now even the term ‘ World Bank’ is a misnomer, because there is nothing global about the institution. This is one more example of an exploitative body, given a deceptive name to cover up its intentions for global control. If the World Bank is truly a world bank, then how come in true fascist manner, it is controlled by only a very few of the world’s governments. Indeed it may surprise some to note that the bank has shareholders, of which the largest is the U.S. followed by some Old European states. I would like to ask third world leaders, how much of a share they have in this bank?
And indeed again, it is an indicator of the function for which its owners intend for this bank, that it is customary to place former American Defense dept. bosses at its helm. This was also the case when President LBJ appointed former defense secretary Robert McNamara as the bank’s president in the late 60s.
So it is something of an irritation to me, when I read about leaders of third world countries sometimes whining that the World Bank is not sympathetic to their reforms or their problems. I saw President Lula on T.V. the other day carrying on pretty much along those lines. Now I understand Gen. Yudhyono of Indonesia making appeals because of the recent Tsunami that devastated his country, but it does not make a difference. The idea that other nations should expect sympathy and empathy from the ‘World Bank’ is foreign to business, and the bank is a business. A typical banker does not want you to whine to him for sympathy, it is like ‘give me my money you borrowed, or I’ll take it’.
It is vexing for me when I see the Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo (whom I have a great deal of respect for as shown in my earlier writings) complain about the World Banks lack of understanding and lukewarm ness to Nigeria’s reform programme. Even further baffling, is his dogged insistence on debt cancellation. That these bodies are lukewarm is a good sign. Had they been enthusiastic about the reforms in Nigeria, it is then I would have been bothered, because by careful study of the World Bank and the IMF, I have come to the conclusion they only get excited about what and where they can benefit from.
I am very skeptical about the campaign for debt relief. The dominant countries of the world keep dilly dallying on the issue of debt relief, and this is a polite way of saying it is not going to be granted. To keep going after them for debt cancellation will only amount to needling them and is embarrassing for such leaders concerned. If they want to do it, they don’t need prompting. Evidence how easy it was for them to write off Iraq’s debt with a wave of a pen. I don’t want to dwell on this issue, but if you have sold your soul to Satan, he is not going be bullied or goaded to giving it back to you, because he feeds on your soul.
Countries are invariably like individuals. It amounts to foolishness to expect an individual no matter how much religion he/she professes to be utterly selfless, or to prefer others to himself. So also with countries. No country has in its constitution a section that it must help another country grow. Why should it? So that that country can come and compete with it? It is in a country’s interest to pursue policies at home that help her citizens grow, her corporations flourish and her armed forces to become stronger. It is precisely for these reasons that such a country would pursue policies outside her own borders that are against the growth of foreign citizens, impoverish their corporations and render their armed forces powerless against them. We should remember that humans are basically animals and as such it is a game of survival of the fittest. The fittest don’t assist the weak in the wild, they EAT them, and anyone in doubt that this holds same in the world we humans live in, should just consider what happened to Rev. Aristide in Haiti and Saddam Hussein in Iraq. These two leaders had to leave power not by the desire of their people, but through the instrumentality of a higher power. A strong man may rule over his house, but then someone stronger comes and wrestles him and binds him and becomes the master over where he once ruled.
A typical scenario would be like this. American corporations like say Enron, WorldCom, or Delphi takes a loan. Through some corrupt acts of the executives, or through some bad business decisions, the companies go bust, what does it do? It files for bankruptcy and is no longer liable for its debts. But when the IMF and World bank and their poodle associates The Paris Club and the Breton Wood institutions lend you money as a developing country and such a debt can not be repaid (some claim such debts are designed never to be repayable), then not being able to repay the principal, these countries pay the interest and keep paying, till one day they wake up and have paid debt servicing of $15 Billion on a $10 billion loan and have still not cleared the principal meaning they still owe the $10 Billion. When you as a country try to declare bankruptcy as Argentina recently did, you are isolated by the powers that be and your government starved of funds.
Or imagine the scenario where countries like Argentina, Nigeria and Egypt are bullied to adhere to World Trade Organisation rules in the pursuit of ‘Free Trade’ (another example of Western powers coming up with a term that implies something, but means the direct opposite). These countries cannot after joining the WTO take steps to protect their industries from foreign competition, and cheap foreign goods mean that their manufacturers will never be able to copy the technology. But these first world nations did not create the WTO today. They had reached the stage where their industries were so strong they could be allowed to compete favourably, which is why the WTO was allowed to exist.
These countries are not doing anything wrong or necessarily evil by doing those things outlined above and many more which to the discerning are obvious. It cannot be wrong to protect your own interest. The thing is, they have employed manipulation in so sophisticated a way as to deprive other governments and people of their God given self will. Governments are manipulated to believe they are being helped when they are actually being strung along. They know that if they come out and say, ‘you guys we are here to rip you off’ no one will buy them, and their plans will be forestalled. So they come out with psychological warfare. They give their agencies of brain washing subtle names like U.S.AID, Department For International Development, and CARE etc. The thing is that if not for the herd mentality of the masses and the mental laziness of third world leaders, we would have since realized that bodies as The World Bank, IMF, The Paris Club and the Breton Woods institutions are the instruments which the West uses in promoting its own selfish agenda and that these bodies previously mentioned along with the State Department, the Foreign Office and co. are to divert our attention with a smoke screen. Diplomacy is used to sell us a hard sell, more along the lines that an illusionist like David Copperfield employs to trick his audience that the tricks he is performing are actually real.
A typical scenario would be like this. The U.S.AID office in say Uganda, would launch a project that on the surface seems to assist peasant farmers. They would claim to bear 80% of the cost of the project and as a way of involving the Ugandan government, require it to contribute a token of 20%. Their 80% comes by way of providing training, livestock and machinery. The trouble is the Ugandan government does not have its 20%, and so as a means of moving the project, the World Bank steps in and saves the day by lending Uganda the 20%. The only thing is that as a condition for guaranteeing the loan, Uganda has to agree to use only U.S. contractors. The catch however is that the machinery provided by the U.S.AID is surplus machinery over produced by say General Electric and of no use in the U.S. and would have had to be destroyed. The livestock are surplus livestock that would have had to be destroyed anyway because they would affect the market and unknown to the peasant farmers in Uganda, these livestock have been bred for climate different from theirs. Finally the training given the farmers is geared towards making them used to the American machinery without the know how, so they would always be dependent on the Americans for machinery, thus providing the manufacturers with a steady market for their products.
Contrast this with the way a drug peddler gives free doses of crack cocaine to kids until they are so dependent on the substance and are willing to do any thing for a fix. When they are addicted, it is then they become a market, no more freebies!
Third world leaders must be aware that there is no free lunch, there is no aid and the only gift is a Greek gift. Our leaders must ask the question, which country has the IMF or the World Bank helped out of poverty? Is it Argentina, Brazil or Indonesia? Conversely, these leaders should ask how Southeast Asian countries like Singapore, Korea, Malaysia and Thailand came out their economic mire?
Several people who I’ve discussed this with as well as myself believe that these countries achieved what they did by looking inwards. They realised the age-old secret, that nobody will come and crack your nut for you. I noticed that these countries became what they are by taking stock of what they had and developing it. They developed their intellectual manpower, plugged capital flight and ignored international trade rules that did not augur well for development.
Third world leaders like Chief Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria and John Kuffour of Ghana, have to develop their ability to discern. And by this, I do not mean in a religious sense. I mean using our instruments of discernment, like our intellect and instincts and particular our experience and the experience of others. A discerning leader would soon come to the realization that after a global tour to the powers that be on a crusade for debt forgiveness, achievement of such a goal is not any nearer, nor is it feasible. These people never let go! Monies that have been identified as looted by Nigeria’s Gen Abacha and placed in Western banks have not been repatriated. This should tell Chief Obasanjo that there is no real interest in ever canceling debt. Actions speak louder than words and the action of Western leaders to chief Obasanjo is one of ‘we take we don’t give’ or have you heard of a man who became rich by giving out his wealth, however it came by?
Nigeria’s Obasanjo has been a leader in Africa and the non-aligned world. He has promoted democracy in Nigeria and in the West African sub region (most recently in Sao Tome and Principe and Togo). He has brought the conflict in Liberia to an end. He is on first name basis with Western leader and has a permanent observer status in the G-8 meetings. Is it obvious to only me that if he cannot get debt relief, then probably no one can?
I think President Obasanjo should not even waste his energies on such a pursuit. He should concentrate on things within his sphere of control. A particular problem facing Nigeria is capital flight. The west pretends to be against money laundering, but will only fight it when it is against their economic interest. As such they would do next to nothing about deposits in their jurisdiction even though it is so obviously of criminal origin. And Nigerians including those who make their money from non-criminal sources are engaged in capital flight to the extent it is suspected that citizens of Nigeria hold deposits of some $170 Billion away from Nigeria.
Perhaps Obasanjo should check himself and I believe he is clean, but nevertheless, he should do a thorough self purge as a prelude to checking others. He might want to consider working with the National Assembly to passing a law granting amnesty to all treasury looters for a certain period of years on the condition that they repatriate their loot back to Nigeria, not to the government, but for themselves and to be placed in Nigerian banks to service the Nigerian economy. After the period of grace, Obasanjo may want to consider first dealing with all those members of his government who have not taken advantage of the amnesty. From here the President may want to consider moving against former leaders and their cronies. He should know that the public would be on his side if he does this.
A good way to get people who loot and refuse to return their loot to Nigeria, is to strengthen the Federal Inland Revenue Service to be independent and strong and with enough powers to come down with tens of black suit wearing operatives on anybody suspected of living beyond their declared income. The FIRS must be under the leadership of a Nuhu Ribadu like personality who is so zealous about the task at hand and is not a respecter of persons (its at times like these that I miss late Gen. Tunde Idiagbon). The FIRS can not expect respect from the ordinary man on the street if it can not react when a former Military ruler brings in an American R’n’B star to perform for his sons new wife or that his son can send his beloved Polo horse to Europe for check up. Such wasteful expenses in a country as desperately poor as Nigeria should not be over looked! We must start from somewhere and we must sooner than later begin to plug the loopholes and leakages in Nigeria. We must begin doing little things right and continue doing so.
If I were President Obasanjo, I would pick a Nuhu Ribadu behave alike and hand him the FIRS and say to him ‘every week buy ovation magazine and go after all those doing owambe parties in London and paying 350,000 Naira to buy a page spread in the magazine’
Nigeria must begin to tax its elite and continue to do so, so that there is a more equitable distribution of the wealth of the Nigeria nation. There is a very serious leakage in the tax regime in Nigeria. Banks falsely declare their income and their staff salaries to pay less tax. Churches build unnecessary flamboyant structures amidst grueling poverty often of its members, people go to launchings and donate over 50 million Naira and the state run N.T.A carries this, people go to parties and spray dollars and pounds in a Nigeria where the legal tender is Naira and yet Nigeria has a tax body? No! What it has posing as FIRS, is only a body to collect alms on behalf of the Nigerian state. And the truth is that a people who don’t pay tax, have very little incentive to demand good leadership from their leaders, they have no reason to bring their leaders to account, because they have no stake in the government. Proper taxing is so important, because from the experiences of several countries, it is found that when people pay tax, they want to see results or heads will roll!
The other day, I was reading that the World Bank had kept aside a loan facility of over a billion U.S. Dollars for Nigeria. President Obasanjo are you still collecting loans? I thought you wanted debt relief. I thought you wanted to divorce the debt. If I wanted to divorce my wife, I would move out of my bedroom, I wont still be sleeping with her. If I keep sleeping with her, I am sending conflicting signals. A debt is like a lie, one lie is never enough, to cover it up, you need to tell another lie. And then another. And then another. It is a vicious cycle, hard to break, but not impossible!
Mr. President the World bank and IMF are only modern symbols of the overseers of the slave plantations of the Americas. Slavery never ended, it was only refined and modernized. Look at the modern slave traders, World Bank, IMF, Paris Club and co and who are their Shareholder? The United States, Great Britain, France and Germany. Now who were those who ran the slave trade?
Consider that according to the BBC, of the 1500 doctors trained by Zambia over seas with government funds, fewer than 50 still practice in the country. The rest are practicing in the West, yet there is a grinding need for doctors in Zambia. In Nigeria, there is less than 1 doctor per 50,000, yet there are over 20,000 Nigerian doctors in the Diaspora. You apply for a visa to visit the West and are turned down, but there are agencies all over who specialize in poaching doctors, nurses, care personnel, teachers and such like from third world nations. You apply for green card lotto and if you don’t have the education standards the U.S. wants from you, you are turned down automatically, told ‘don’t even bother’. Does this not remind you of the eighteenth century when European traders came to the West African coast and bought only the hardiest, sturdiest, sharpest and most productive slaves to take back with them?
President Obasanjo needs to plug the brain drain problems in Nigeria. Only Nigerians and particularly her intellectuals have the desire to develop the country. Chief Obasanjo may want to devote a larger share of the country’s wealth to remunerate professionals like Doctors, Engineers, Teachers/lectures, IT professionals etc. If people must be paid little, let it not be these people, you can pay your senators and representatives little, but you need to cater for your skilled workers and force the private sector through legislation to remunerate properly these people. It is our professionals who will build Nigeria the way they have done in India putting places like Lahore and Bombay on the world map and terms like Outsourcing in our lexicon.
Chief Obasanjo should save his energies from the crusade for debt cancellation. He should concentrate on what he has. He should silence his critics who say he is pursuing a Western agenda, by declaring a moratorium on further borrowing on the federal level and work with the legislature to pass strong laws preventing the federal government from guaranteeing loans for state governments. Rather than stockpiling $20, Billion in our external reserves to guarantee (as the C.B.N puts it) 18 months of export, perhaps Nigeria should use the money to pay off most of its debt so she can start off on a clean slate. If this is not done and we invariably do not get debt relief, then we would keep paying about $2 Billion dollars to service the debts we owe and never reducing the principal. And also, Chief Obasanjo knows that Nigeria has looted funds in the vaults of several Western countries, I suggest that rather than repudiate the national debt of Nigeria like the Nigerian House of Representatives wanted, and the repatriation of the loot that Obasanjo wants, that these looted funds should be kept by the countries which hold them and used to reduce Nigeria’s debt to the degree that such debts can be reduced. As a matter of fact, legislation may be passed to the effect that any funds looted from Nigeria and identified in a foreign (read Western) bank should be used towards reducing Nigeria’s debt. An asset law may also be passed in Nigeria, that allows host western countries to seize and sell off properties proven to have been bought with looted funds by corrupt Nigerian public officials and used to reduce the countries debt.
Then comes the troubling angle. Nigeria is a poor country and needs money. It has oil, which is currently very much in demand, yet Nigeria allows itself to be limited on how much oil it can sell, though the money is urgently needed. It may surprise some to note that though Nigeria professes to be an independent sovereign country, neither the amount of oil she is allowed to produce nor the price it will fetch are made in Nigeria. I can understand the part about the price fixing, some pimply-faced boy on Wall Street acting under instructions does that and Nigeria has no control over it. But is it to be believed that Nigeria cannot stand up to OPEC and must take instructions from the cartel on how much to produce?
OPEC is only limiting Nigeria. In the attempt to escape Western domination, Nigeria moved to the other extreme of Middle Eastern dominance. How much does OPEC allow Saudi Arabia to produce? The truth is that OPEC does not allow Saudi Arabia anything, rather Saudi Arabia allows OPEC. If Nigeria leaves OPEC does she no longer sell her crude at the market prices? No! So why is Nigeria still limited by OPEC? Is this another instance of mental laziness on the part of leadership? It is commonly said that Nigeria is the seventh largest oil exporter in the world. Rather than be a source of pride, this is only another instance of when Nigerians should have a sober reflection. This is another ‘fact’ written for Nigeria to pigeonhole her in the role forces outside Nigeria want for Nigeria. Has Nigeria ever considered that it can triple or even quadruple her oil production if it seriously wants to and the world would not end? Oh no, Nigeria cannot because she is in OPEC! Wrong! Nigeria can and should do anything that is in its own best interest because she is a sovereign and independent country and should ideally only take decisions that are beneficial to her and her citizens. Nigeria does not have money but has oil, is it not being foolish in not using what she has to get what she wants? The dummy sold to the leadership is that they need to manage their resources. The truth is that Nigeria has over 35 Billion barrels of proven reserves, and before she can diminish this, more will be discovered at the present rate of discoveries. But that is not even the issue. The issue is that before then, Western nations would have found an alternative energy source that is cleaner burning than fossil fuels and cheaper too. If this sounds far fetched, it may perhaps be necessary to note that already most public transportation systems in the U.S. and Europe are run on electric. Also research and development in the automobile industry is highly skewed into developing non fossil fuel burning engines leading to cars like the smart cars. Already these smart car and a limited number of other cars are commercially available.
The sad truth is that oil may not be the commodity it is fifty to a hundred years from now, just as happened to coal. This tells us that now is the time to sell oil and Nigeria must sell as much oil as she possibly can while she can and use the income as seeds to boost other sectors of her economy to take over from oil when that is no longer a factor in national income.
But all these observations would still come to naught if the population of Nigeria in particular and Africa in general keeps increasing in geometric proportions while our food production is dwindling or at the very best remains static. A lot of third world leaders do not seem to understand the correlation between population and prosperity. The other day I was reading the comments of Mr. Bukar Ibrahim, the governor of Yobe state in Northeastern Nigeria and he said he was going to assist Bachelors and spinsters in his state to get married and so have children so as to increase the population of the state as population growth is progress. But the question begging to be asked is if he sponsors marriages, is he going to sponsor the rearing of the children that will come? The issue is that what we can learn from the West is that quality is to be desired above quantity. A thousand well-brought, well-nourished and well-educated kids have a greater potential than a million malnourished and illiterate kids. Invariably these million kids will grow up without enough to eat and this will lead to tension and when kids grow up in an atmosphere of tension, there is a greater likelihood that as adults they will engage in physical violence on a large scale such as fighting wars. I hazard a guess that if there where enough food and educational opportunities leading to viable employment in Northern Nigeria, the region would not be as prone to violence as it were.
But population control is not a mistake, it is something planned. Chief Obasanjo and his successors must have a policy to control population growth to match the resources of Nigeria. It is not going to happen by chance. They should not rely on AIDS to do the job for them, neither should they rely on poverty. Scientific studies have shown that actually people tend to have more children when they are poor, than when they are affluent. This maybe because, having nothing to do, their only form of recreation is sex, often unprotected sex, thus an increase in the birth rate and spread of STD’s means multiple births and preventable deaths. That is not how to control ones population growth.
The government through legislation for people to have fewer children can give incentives. If an effective tax strategy can be undertaken, the government may for instance offer tax breaks for couple having under four children, and subsidize the children’s education by legislating that not more than three children from a family will be educated in the public school system. Health benefits in the public and private sector should be made by legislation to cover a family of three kids with the parents having to cater for any number above three from their pockets. The government may further wish by public enlightenment campaign and by examples from the leadership and celebrities, promote the idea of a compact family. It must be known that Eastern countries like China (of the one child per family fame) and India (of the get a vasectomy and we’ll pay you fame) did not start to experience the tremendous growth they are now enjoying until they began to tackle the problem of their excessive population growth.
Not to over emphasize the matter, but there would continue to be wars and conflicts in the poor countries of the world, for the most part because there are too many people fighting for very little resources, and excessive poverty in childhood often leads to excessive greed when the poor child has a chance as has been shown time and time again in Bokassa’s Central African Republic, Idi Amin’s Uganda, Mobutu’s Zaire and Babangida and Abacha’s Nigeria.
But perhaps more than anything I have previously written above, Third World leaders have to take steps towards forming genuine nation states out of their people. Forget about the time worn excuse that these are artificial countries created by colonial masters. The truth is that they have come to be and nothing short of a very fratricidal war (like the Biafran rebellion in Nigeria from 1967 to 1970 in which an estimated one million people perished) will be able to undo these countries. So the government and the people owe their kids to begin to forget about things that divide them, whether it is tribe or religion. Tribe, religion or castes are really of no basis in this digital age. In Nigeria particularly that is so divided between North and South, the government there may consider only tolerating ethnic bodies like Afenifere, Ohaneze Ndigbo and Arewa Consultative Forum, preferring to deal with only those leaders amongst them who have nationalistic thoughts and behaviour. Constitutionally, there can be a legislation that provides that membership of a regional body automatically disqualifies any one from the office of the presidency. Hack writers and internet bloggers who are so one sided and spew hatred for the other side of the divide should take perhaps a day to really meditate and listen to their own inner voice and see if they can really justify the “us and them” stuff they spew out. If I was a foreigner and I read only Mohammed Haruna’s writings, I would probably be forgiven if I thought there was a war between Northern and Southern Nigeria. Thank God for people like Sanusi Lamido whose broadmindedness and objectivity in issues of religion and ethnicity shows that not all Northern Nigerians are antagonistic towards Southern Nigerians. In the same vein when one reads stuff written by some Southern Nigerians say Sesan Koyejo or Peter Opara, one would begin to imagine that the North of Nigeria is full of Koran quoting, dagger brandishing savages. Thank God for Mobolaji Aluko and Reuben Abati who neutralize these writers.
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