TRUTH OR CHAOS and ISE KEKERE OWO NLA
Professor Sam Aluko’s Socio-economic Thought And Resolving Nigeria’s Existential Crises
.. Chidi G Osuagwu..
Truth! Truth is Bitter, some say. Truth is Life!
Dele Farotimi; Patriot and Social critic had, recently, spoken a certain kind of TRUTH that moved a number of people, across Nigeria, in Nigeria to strong affirmations of the essentiality of Truth to social or institutional cohesion, development and well being. Along the line, the distinguished name of Professor Sam Aluko was brought into the discourse. Like I had, privately, intimated Professor Bolaji Aluko a few years ago, whenever Professor Sam Aluko’s name comes up, I pay due attention. The reason is that it was Professor Sam Aluko who, in 1993, first drew my attention to the fact that differences in the conception of Truth, as well as Socio-Economic Models, are at the heart of the intractable Nigerian national Crises. A crisis recently manifested in the phenomenon of many Nigerian refugees earning Olympic medals for their adopted alien lands while Nigeria came home empty handed. Not a single Bronze medal while Nigerian girl won Gold medal for Germany. Some Nigerians even talk, happy-go-luckily, of profitable ‘Talent-exports’. Slave trade by other names?
The autochthonous Nigerian peoples, as I now understand and frame the phenomenon, do not conceive Truth or society the same way as the immigrant or creolised native peoples who now dominate and rule Nigeria. Those born and bred at Ode-Ekiti, like Sam Aluko, or Avutu-Obowu, like Sam Mbakwe, don’t see the world the way scions of ‘international trades and diplomacy’ with slaving Arabs and Europeans see it. Professor Sam Aluko met me at the November 1993 Ota Africa Leadership Forum. I had disagreed on a number of points with, then General Obasanjo, the converner (One of the discussions with Obasanjo, later influenced the creation of NDDC. There was no quarrel as such). But, Professor Aluko and Chief Olu Akinfosile, who felt the Truth had been with my position, called me aside after one plenary session and told me a few things that changed so many things for my mind till this day. I must have sounded like the rural born and bred chap I am, and he understood. From him I, particularly, realised the partly fake or creolised Ethnic identities, as Igbo and Yoruba, that exist in Nigeria, and indeed across Africa, today. For instance, till then I had not heard of what the Ooni of Ife mentioned in 2019; that the autochthonous peoples of Western Nigeria are related to the autochthonous Igbo in the East (Note that the Olugbo of Ugbo says the Igbo in the West, including his Ikale people, are Igbo while those in the East are Ibo. On the other hand, some Onitsha people on the Niger claim to be Ibo while those East of them, from where I come, are Igbo. People are still constructing identity narratives from the more thousand years long West Eurasian invasion of Africa). And that these autochthonous peoples (whether Ekiti and Ikale in the West or Isuama or Ibibio in the East) see Truth differently from the now dominating immigrant settlers with alien worldview exposures. He said that was part of the problem I was having with, then, General Obasanjo. It took me ten years to work out an explanation (And thanks to a critical intervention by Professor Femi Osofisan with a magical rejection of Fufu by a husband who, indeed, ate it Tale). Autochthonous peoples believe in TRUTH-AS-FACT as these others, like the Whiteman that share their worldview, in part or whole, believe in TRUTH-AS-INTEREST. This, of course, has serious practical consequences. All the distractive ethnic quarrels Nigerians engage in are but noise part of the conflict between these different worldviews. For example, it is those ruling settlers who linked with either the European or Arab slavers to establish the Slave Empires in Benin, Oyo, Arọ, Borno, Sokoto, etc. They still wield disproportionate influence in Nigeria. Whenever the impoverished autochtons want to protest, as happened recently, they are the people the High Overlords invite to pacify. Some are threatening to throw autochthonous peoples into lagoons named after their Portuguese slaving allies. But, the autochthons don’t know that they are being gamed. Then, fake identities, in empty stomach join the noise-making fray.
I had invested much time to understand the phenomenon of Truth and Falsehood. I had always heard my Igbo people say lies are best told in English. But, after my encounter with Professor Sam Aluko and Chief Olu Akinfosile, I decided to study the phenomenon systematically.
In 2003 I published a Booklet titled TRUTH AND CHAOS. It turns out that the whole foundation of sustainable society is SYNERGY that comes from Truth-loving and telling on a mass scale. Synergy is tied to coordinated/ predictable behaviour. Truth and Justice create Order and Civilization. Ancient autochthons of Nigeria whether Ugbo, Igbo or Ibibio had realised the fact. Falsehood, even ‘Holy’ ones as Farotimi points to in the ‘Taqqiya’-bound Nigerian Judiciary, negates coordinated/predictable behaviour…yielding CHAOS. That’s what Nigeria finds herself in today.
In his major lecture, a day after we talked, titled ‘ECONOMIC FUTURE FOR AFRICA’ at the 1993 African Leadership Forum, Professor Aluko advised Africa to, for Economic Progress ever, emulate the economic ways of four Peoples of the World:
1. Quakers of America.
2. Hassidic Jews
3. Jains of India
4. Igbo of Africa.
He, also, enjoined Africans, to at all costs, avoid the Yoruba socio-economic doctrine of ISE KEKERE, OWO NLA; Minimum Effort, Maximum Reward; Monkey de work, Baboon de chop (He had implied this was not shared by the Ekiti or Ikale and other autochthons, which is why, he told me, he first took job at Nsukka on return from Overseas). Hunger and Austerity for the people; Yatchs and Jets for the president, with minimum efforts to tackle existential duties facing the country, as the doctrine presently manifests is there for all to see. Ise Kekere, Owo Nla!
Certified true copy of Professor Aluko’s seminal paper should be available at the Obasanjo Presidential Library, Abeokuta (perhaps online). That is the kind of paper the Black Race, to whom it was addressed, should hold Symposium after Symposium to master and work with. Why did both Professor Sam Aluko and the Haitian Revolutionists choose the Igbo model for African Liberation and Economic development? Pattern or coincidence? Why did Mbonu Ojike die after campaigning for the “Boycott the Boycottables”? Why is Havard, ‘listening to Sam Aluko’, studying the Igbo Apprentice system, while Nigerian Universities are not? Why did the British plan war, before or by 1958, to destroy the Model, as revealed in their declassified documents? In whose interest is it to treat the Igbo African Archetype as Sampson at Gaza that Dele Fatorimi is complaining about?
To start with, what is The Igbo Model Aluko referred to. What are the alternative Models (Quakers, Hassidic Jewish, Jains) and other paths to African survival? The world is on the verge of World War III to decide the next World HEGEMON. In this scheme, West Eurasians presume the Black as eternal Slave? The Whiteman dominates by, conscious and vigorous, effort to understand self as well as competitors. Understand even enemies. That is how (as Meyer Fortes told Alex Egom and Ibrahim Tahir at Cambridge) that Igbo are different and how…which recommended them for destruction.
The path to eternal servitude is to neither know self nor know other. Facts win arguments, nobody wins a quarrel. The Nigerian and elite can’t afford the distraction of quarrels at a time of existential threat to the Black Race as this. Luckily, it seems, better informed and WOKE African Youths, are not so distracted. When the woke Forces from Kenya meet those from the Sahel at Abuja, some fake elites might pay the bitter price of undue Distraction from ESSENTIAL EXISTENTIAL DUTY.
