TUE, JANUARY 15 2019-theG&BJournal–Jimanze Ego-Alowes, author of 7 major books, is undoubtedly one of Africa’s most insightful scholars. His pioneering works are in the sociology of power and stability in nations, especially as it concerns minority sub-nations. His Minorities as Competitive Overlords is now considered one of the most original contributions to thought in Minority studies. And it has changed the way we think.
A much sought after speaker, Ego-Alowes, is the founding Director of The Brace Institute, a Lagos based think tank. To this he has now added a new task. In his words it is of ”warning and helping to guide Nigeria out of the dangers of mismanaging her minority assets and sub-nations.” He accomplishes this under the aegis of a new civil society advocacy group: Minority Rights Defense Initiative, MRDI. Government and Business Journal engaged him. Excerpts:
Can you tell us about the MRDI, what differentiates you from other civil society organizations?
With due respect to extant Nigerian civil society organizations, MRDI is very different. As far as we know we are the only civil society organization that is founded out of current research. MRDI is driven by the desire to advance the outcome of a new research. So, MRDI’s advocacies and templates might not be very familiar to our citizens. Thus, a great part of our mission is in first letting in the general public into the body of this research and secondly warning on the dangers of neglecting its prognosis.
In other words, MRDI is more like the environmental rights advocacy in its founding years. Perhaps we should remind ourselves that all environmental rights initiatives and actions derive from the pioneering research of Rachel Carson. Her magnificent work, Silent Spring, is the Book of Genesis of all Environmental advocacies. Those who vilified her in the beginning have now come to the urgency of her conclusions and prognosis.
Which research works are driving the minority rights defense?
In our case they are really two. The first is Minorities as Competitive Overlords. And it is followed by The University-Media Complex as Nigeria’s Foremost Amusement Chain. And I happen to be the author.
The key insight from the books taken together, is that in every composited society, that is in every majority-minority segmented society like Nigeria, the minorities are the critical ligaments and tendons that drive both sustainable movement and stability of the majority parties and thus the whole.
The insight comes with a warning. It is that though the minorities look vulnerable, and easy to attack or contain, the majorities are better advised to beware, in their own best interests. If the minorities, for any reason are routed in a composited society by any or all of its majorities, that society will as a whole come to grief, if not ruins.
In other words for the majorities to best love themselves and save their union, the majority sub-nations or parties must first pamper the minorities, literally. If the majorities destroyed the minorities, who are buffer-like existences, the majorities will come to death row blows. And perish.
In other words?
Let us take the South-South minority states generally and Akwa Ibom state more specifically. A defunct governor, spoke of Akwa Ibom being turned into a Poland. And that is in the metaphor of merciless, thuggish and inhuman bombing and subjugation of Poland by the Nazis under Adolf Hitler. And as if that was not enough, the wife of President Muhammadu Buhari visited Uyo and what happened? A defunct first lady of Akwa Ibom State, who had no reason being around, thuggishly broke protocol and embarrassed Nigeria before the civilized world.
The point lost to many in the shameful drama is this. The word protocol is both a figure of speech, a synecdoche, and has a literal meaning. It comes from a French root. Protocol in governmental relations is not so much the order of things as a synecdoche for civilization itself. It is the French that founded the international system we use today. That is why many of the external relations lexicons bear the imprimatur of the French who were the epitome of civilization as it was then known. So what protocol signifies is not just the order of doing things. No, more importantly, protocol is a placeholder for civilization. That is, to want to abrogate protocol is to want to abrogate civilization. That was what the defunct first lady was up to, a threat to our common inheritance and civilization. And her game was to start from a low hanging temptation of a South-South or minority state.
But it was a mere airport incident?
It is the larger implication we are pointing out. To annul protocol is not just a standalone act. It is a threat and present danger to civilization. And we should never allow those who are desperate for power, to destroy Nigeria as we know it. And we shall explain.
Please do
Their choice of target, of the South-South zone is not random. It is a studied move. All through history emerging dictators and local collaborators have always started with low hanging temptations. And these come in the form of weak or minority states or sub-nations.
But the same history warns us that all attempts to seek empire by subverting the minorities and weaker sub-nations have led to unmitigated disasters.
Are there examples?
They abound. The Second World War for instance, was started by the Nazis wanting to wipe out the Jews, a minority German sub-nation. And after that the Nazis began to invade and seize the minority powers and little nations like Poland etc. The rest is history.
So our great fear is that the defunct state first lady and her husband are acting in cohort with other remorseless parties to blow up civilization, to blow up Akwa Ibom and the greater South-South. Their delusion is that a Nigeria will still remain for them to be overlords with their sponsors.
Is it not politics?
If it is, it is one that imperils our nation and may sack and unravel her. Perhaps it needs repeating the minority peoples are like the ligaments and tendons that tie up the mighty ones, the bones, together, and prevent them from crushing themselves.
What historical research reveals is that if you compromised or destroyed these tendons and ligaments the very strength of the bones, the majorities, will collapse on their own now conflicted weights. This is an iron lore.
So in consonance with our research we are calling on the federal government to rein in the thugs who are using their former or present high offices to threaten our civilization. And they claim they are working on the behest of the federal government.
What are you views on the present issues of the Chief Justice of Nigeria, Walter Onnoghen?
Well the progressive lawyers are all agreed that the processes and procedures are wrong. We are not lawyers, though we have lawyers amongst us. Our concern here is that the CJN is a target because he is taken to be a minority man – a man who is politically defenseless as it were – a low hanging temptation. It is here again that we warn, that sociologically this is the equivalent of playing with a nuclear Chernobyl. The minorities remain the weakest persons and parties in all composited unions. But that is on paper. In reality they are placeholders and delivery channels for our shared stability. You destruct you destruct the whole. This again, we warn is the iron lore.
Are you from the South-South minorities, why the special attention?
Let me repeat. MRDI is a current research driven social advocacy group. I am only the Chief Advocator. Our members come from all over the country, including the South-South. But what drives us is not region. It is that MRDI is built on the plank of the finest traditions of scholarship and research. And the finest minds of any age think beyond borders, from Euclid to Einstein.
For instance, the man who ”invented” modern agriculture is Fritz Haber, a German. Truth is that the Germans were in no immediate threat of famine at the time of his invention. Today, that the Chinese are able to feed their billion plus population is due to the genius of the Haber.
Even more important, our love and dedication to the minorities is for the sake of the larger whole, not just the minorities themselves. We can tell, that if the Akwa Ibom and other minority states elections are rigged, Nigeria may cease to exist as we know it. This we warn is not because of the threat or fear of the militants. This is because of the ”molecular” nature and balance of all composited societies and the role of minorities sections in them.
And it serves to remind ourselves that the codification and protection of the minority peoples is one of the working secret of America. In fact the American constitution, if understood as we have made clear in our latest work, is a tribute to minority powers as it is to freedom.
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