PHILOSOPHY
AND CULTURE:
Interrogating the Nexus
Felix Ayoh’OMIDIRE 
Jare Oladosu 
Gbenga Fasiku 
Victor Alumona
SEGUNDO
SELO
UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY
Editors
©  2 0 2 0  by  Se g u n d o  Selo
Conselho editorial:
Ana Lucia Silva Souza
Cleber Lazaro Juliao Costa
Elisangela dos Passos Mendes
Jorge Augusto de Jesus Silva
Lanuza Lima Santos
Livia Maria Costa Sousa
Maria Dolores Sosin Rodriguez
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Silvana Carvalho Fonseca
Silvio Roberto Oliveira
Tatiane Pereira Muniz
Ubiraneila Capinan Barbosa
Vanessa Silva dos Santos
Zoraide Portela Silva
A983 AYOH’OM IDIRE, Felix; OLADOSU, Jare et al.
Philosophy and culture; interrogating the nexus. 1. ed. 
Felix Ayoh’OMIDIRE, Jare Oladosu, Gbenga Fasiku and 
Victor Alumona. Salvador: Editora Segundo Selo, 2020. 
381 p.: il.; 14x21 cm 
ISBN: 978-659905663-5
I. Philosophy 2. Culture I. Title
II. Ayoh’OMIDIRE, Felix III. OLADOSU, Jare.
IV. FASIKU, Gbenga V. ALUMONA, Victor
CDD: 306
UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY
///
M  PHILOSOPHY
f  AND CULTURE:
Interrogating the Nexus
Felix Ayoh’OMIDIRE 
Jare Oladosu 
Gbenga Fasiku 
Victor Alumona
SEGUNDO
SELO
UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY
Editors
9 H  Philosophy and Culture: Interrogating the Nexus
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Acknowledgments..................................................................... iii
Preface..........................................................................................vi
Introduction...............................................................................vii
CHAPTER ONE
1.0 Culture and The Burden of Being and Development in
Africa -  Dele Layiwola.........................................................1 -32
1.1 Abstract ..................................................................................1
1.2 Some Historical Pream ble................................................  1
1.3 The Rise of Political Culture and Political Structure ... 11
1.4 Political Culture................................................................. 14
1.5 Cultural Secularization .................................................... 15
1.6 Structural Differentiation ...............................................  16
1.7 Modernization. Technological Development and the
Collapse of Globalization......................................................  19
1.8 Conclusion: Cultural values, Cultural Institutions and a
Return to the Fu ture ................................................................ 26
1.9 References ........................................................................ 31
CHAPTER TWO
2.0 Philosophy, Culture and Indigenous Knowledge Forms -
Benson M. AKINNA WONV & Ucheoma C. OSUJI.... 33 - 67
2.1 Abstract ...............................................................................33
2.2 Introduction.......................................................................  33
2.3 Nature and Scope of Indigenous Knowledge ................ 36
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2.4 How Do Africans Acquire Knowledge? ......................  38
2.5 Do Africans have Theories of Justification of
Knowledge?...............................................................................48
2.6 The Problems of Indigenous Knowledge .....................  60
2.7 Conclusion / Recommendations...................................... 62
2.8 References .......................................................................... 64
CHAPTER THREE
3.0 The Hard Problem of Cultural Consciousness - Gbenga
FASIKU ............................................................................. 68 - 89
3.1 Abstract ...............................................................................68
3.2 Introduction......................................................................... 68
3.3 Some Definitions of Culture ............................................69
3.4 The Hard Problem of Cultural Consciousness ............  79
3.5 Conclusion........................................................................  87
3.6 References ........................................................................  89
CHAPTER FOUR
4.0 The Limits of the Communitarian Cultural Community
- J. O. Famakinwa & O.V. Olanipekun ...................... 93 -121
4.1 Abstract ...............................................................................93
4.2 Introduction......................................................................... 93
4.3 Main Tenets o f Communitarianism.................................94
4.4 The Communitarian Cultural Community ................. 102
4.5 The Limit o f the Communitarian Cultural
Community/Norms............................................................... 112
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4.6 Conclusion......................................................................  118
4.7 References ......................................................................  121
CHAPTER FIVE
5.0 Beyond Thoughts and Words: Meanings, Contradictions 
and Contexts in Yoruba Value System - Abimbola Omotayo
Adesoji ........................................................................... 125 -158
5.1 Abstract ............................................................................125
5.2 Introduction.....................................................................  125
5.3 Meanings, Contradictions and Contexts: A Discourse 127
5.4 The Yoruba and their Value System ..........................  133
5.5 Yoruba Sayings: Making Meanings, Explaining
Contradictions and Understanding Contexts.....................  137
5.6 C onclusion......................................................................  154
5.8 References ......................................................  156
CHAPTER SIX
6.0 Being African; Being Human: Questioning the African 
Humanness - Richard Taye OYELAKIN .................. 159 - 178
6.1 Abstract ............................................................................. 159
6.2 Introduction.....................................................................  159
6.3 Africans First Being Humans before Being Africans 160
6.4 Africa’s Humanness and the Historical Epochs......... 162
6.5 Colonialism and its Effects on Africa's Consciousness:
The Source of the Misfortunes ...........................................  164
6.6 Counter Balancing the Narrative..................................  171
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6.7 Conclusion.......................................................................  175
6.8 References ......................................................................  176
CHAPTER SEVEN
7.0 A Critical Analysis of the Interconnection of Culture and 
Philosophy of a Yoruba Folktale - Taiwo Opeyemi
ARAROBA .....................................................................179 - 199
7.1 Abstract .............................................................................179
7.2 Introduction.....................................................................  179
7.3 Obedience, Disobedience, Trouble, Evil....................... 181
7.4 Philosophical Thoughts in Yoruba Culture: An Overview
of a Yoruba Folk tale ............................................................  182
7.5 A Comparative Analysis of the Yoruba Philosophical
Thoughts and Students’ Attitudinal Approach to Higher 
Education...............................................................................  188
7.6 Conclusion......................................................................  196
7.7 References ......................................................................  198
CHAPTER EIGHT
8.0 AN AFRICAN SOCIETY: REFLECTION ON 
“IYAWO OLELE” A SONG BY ORLANDO OWOH - 
Ayotunde TITILA YO, Adeyenti G., KONIGBAGBE. & Ajibike
O.ANUODO ..................................................................200-218
8.1 Abstract ............................................................................ 200
8.2 Introduction.......................................................................200
8.3 Music as a cultural identification ..................................203
8.4 Patriarchy: Conceptual Clarification...............................204
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8.5 The R eview .....................................................................  206
8.6 Further D iscussion.........................................................  209
8.7 Conclusion......................................................................  212
8.8 References ......................................................................  214
CHAPTER NINE
9.0 Cultural Narratives, Africanist Philosophy and the 
Question of Knowledge Productioni n Africa - Olugbemiga
Samuel AFOLABI ........................................................219-250
9.1 Abstract ............................................................................ 219
9.2 Introduction....................................................................... 219
9.3 Of Coloniality in A frica.................................................. 220
9.4 Culture and Cultural Narratives in Africa ................... 223
9.5 Race, Class and S e lf ........................................................225
9.6 Intellectualism and Knowledge Production in Africa .....
228
9.7 O f Truth, Identity and African Philosophy ................. 231
9.7 Africanist Philosophy: O f Ubuntu, Ethnic Philosophy
and U jam aa............................................................................. 234
9.8 Communalism as a Form of Knowledge Production:
Ubuntu and Ujamaa in Focus ............................................... 237
9.9 C onclusion......................................................................  243
9.10 References.....................................................................  245
CHAPTER TEN
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10.0 African Traditional Medicine and the Question of 
Patients’ Presumed Consent in Difficult Medical Conditions
- Akinmayowa AKIN-OTIKO .....................................251 -273
10.1 Abstract ...............   251
10.2 Introduction.....................................................................252
10.3 Review of Concepts.......................................................255
10.4 Methodology ................................................................. 257
10.5 Findings ........................................................................  258
10.6 Discussion ......................................................................262
10.7 C onclusion......................................................................269
10.7 References ......................................................................271
CHAPTER ELEVEN
11.0 Was There Political Thinking in Nigeria Before 1900? - 
Akin ADEJUW ON ........................................................ 274 - 312
11.1 Abstract .......................................................................... 274
11.2 Introduction................................................................... 274
11.3 Political Thoughts and Visual Representation in Nigeria 
 276
11.4 Pre- colonial Nigeria and Political Philosophy .........279
11.5 Conclusion....................................................................  305
11.6 References ....................................................................  306
CHAPTER TWELVE
12.0 Comparative Philosophy as Intercultural Dialogue: A 
Prolegomenon - Anthony OKEREGBE & Abdul S. 
OJOCHOGU .................................................................313 - 343
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12.1 Abstract .......................................................................... 313
12.2 Introduction...................................................................  313
12.3 The Road to Comparative Philosophy........................315
12.4 The Idea of Dialogue of Civilizations ......................  321
12.5 Comparative Philosophy and the Dialogue of
Civilizations........................................................................... 332
12.6 Conclusion....................................................................  339
12.7 References ......................................................................341
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
13.0 Justice and The Problems of Development - Chris Tasie 
OSEGENWUNE........................................................... 344 - 375
13.1 Abstract .......................................................................... 344
13.2 Introduction...................................................................  345
13.3 Development ..................................................................354
13.4 The Problems of Justice and Development .............  362
13.5 Conclusion....................................................................  371
13.6 References ...................................................................... 373
Note on Contributors .............................................................  376
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CHAPTER ONE
CULTURE AND THE BURDEN OF BEING AND 
DEVELOPMENT IN AFRICA
Dele Layiwola
Abstract
This plenary chapter seeks to interrogate two conceptual issues behind 
the problems of cultural and political development either in Africa as a 
continent or in any of its disparate parts or countries, whether it is Nigeria, 
the Sudan, Gambia, Kenya, Zaire or Zimbabwe: culture and 
development. In so doing, it politically situates the context by adapting 
two definitional keywords: structure and culture. In the exposition on 
culture, society and development, I shall borrow arguments and 
definitions from Claude Ake's theory of political development, Peter 
Ekeh's theory of social development and cultural theorists like Sule Bello 
and lshola Williams. The chapter will point out how culture and political 
events have not worked together in Nigeria and Africa as it should to 
produce anticipated development; why Nigeria must engage creative 
thinking and basic praxis to overcome the problems of 
underdevelopment; and concludes on whether development is still 
possible under the present political structure and culture. The chapter 
concludes on the grim question of whether the present debacle in Nigeria 
and Africa is not already a closed predicament. Though it closes on a 
pessimistic note, the chapter indicates that the only ray of hope is to 
continue to interrogate our human condition as the existential movement 
does. This being that existence not only precedes essence but that 
concrete human action for development is almost always preceded by 
historical anguish and disaster such as we presently have. That a closed 
predicament amounts to where we are now on a continent so blessed with 
human and material resources and yet much abused and thoroughly 
managerially bastardized.
Keywords: Culture, Development, Burden, Being, Political Culture.
Some historical Preamble:
In espousing culture as a multi-dimensional phenomenon, I shall 
like to draw on The Burden o f Being in Africa in the 21st century
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and its implication for culture and philosophy. The emphasis is 
not on the noun, burden, but on the verb phrase, 'Being in 
Africa', and more essentially on the infinitive, to be. That is, to 
live, to exist; to be alive or active in a geographical space called 
Africa through the agency of its present participle, being. But 
again, in conjugating the infinitive, to be. one is led into a 
Cartesian conundrum; 1 think, therefore I am; I think, I live, I 
exist, because I am in Africa. And then the rider: but this is a 
burden! Now. if we consider the nominal or normative case and 
the gerundival, Being: existence; substance; essence: any 
person or thing existing, then we are drawn far beyond the 
Cartesian considerations alone into so many other 
considerations which do not exclude the fields of history, 
archaeology, anthropology, performance, literature, politics 
and. perhaps, statistics. However, as in all things great and 
small, let us start with considerations o f history and the past 
before those o f the future in the present.
Africa, in the consideration of its land mass, is the second largest 
continent after Asia. Its oldest civilization - that o f Egypt - had 
emerged from the 4th millennium BC. By 2000 BC, Egypt had 
opened up trade with the rest of the world. Since it is 
impractical, even unscientific, to discuss the whole of Africa in 
one single chapter, I shall just take a representative nation state 
- Nigeria - and trace, for the purpose of intellectual analysis, its 
debacle from about the 15th century. This should be sufficiently 
representative as the history of the various post-colonies show a 
marked similarity in form, in content and in tendency.
It was in late 1472 and early 1473 that Messrs Fernaodo Po and 
Pero de Cintra first navigated the Bights of Bonny and Benin 
(Crowder, 1978: 49). A decade after this, about 1481, the
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booming slave trade caused rivalry between John II of Portugal 
and Edward IV of England over trade rights and monopoly in 
West Africa, particularly around the Atlantic coast of present- 
day Nigeria and her Niger delta creeks. Thereafter began the 
notorious expropriation of labour and human cargoes known as 
the Slave Trade.
The point I seek to emphasize here is that trade, travel and 
exploration had discovered the peoples o f Nigeria either on the 
coast from the Atlantic sea or from the Sahara Desert with Arabs 
as middle men. The direct and indirect contacts with Europeans 
started with trade as articles of production and labour. The 
various cultures and civilizations that are now re-invented, and 
identified as Nigeria have always been in existence under 
separate forms o f cultural organizations and governance. From 
available data and evidence, those nations evolved social 
structures and networks which guaranteed their survival. There 
was evidence of internal trade, conquests and colonization but it 
was the eventual opening to the outside world that gave rise to 
the development of the idea of a corporate nation invented as a 
country called Nigeria, four and a half centuries after the 
Spanish and Portuguese traders first began frequenting the coast 
of West Africa.
As early as 1483, John II of Portugal declared himself Lord of 
Guinea even though that country' did not exist at the time and his 
treaties were signed with local chieftains along the coast. The 
Portuguese merely established strategic posts and settlements 
along the coast. For instance. Portugal had a small settlement 
on the Island of Sao Tome, which had no indigenous population. 
It was from there that it traded with the kingdom of Benin from 
about 1485. Apart from the trade in pepper from Benin, the
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Portuguese outsourced labour from there to work the plantations 
in Sao Tome. The Portuguese effectively colonized the Island 
and the Benin labourers were joined by deported Portuguese 
Jews, exiles and convicts. This instance of slave trade was 
second to a first phase when African slaves were first sighted in 
Lisbon in 1441.
Ewuare 'the Great', as he was known, might have been the first 
indigenous monarch to encounter a European explorer, Ruy de 
Sequiera. when the latter arrived in Benin in 1472. but there are 
other accounts which claimed that Joao Affonso d'Aveiro was 
the first Portuguese explorer to reach Benin in 1486. Whichever 
is correct, the entry of Europeans hinterland marked a major 
turning point in Nigeria's history and politics. Hitherto Benin, 
Ife and Oyo had always traded among the various ethnicities 
indigenous to Nigeria away from the Atlantic coast to the north. 
External trade came from across the great Sahara Desert. The 
homelands of Ife, Benin. Oyo. Nri and Calabar were the last 
depots for the caravans across the Sahara and the Sahel regions 
of Northern Nigeria. There were trade interactions between 
kingdoms of Kanem Bornu, Nok, Idah and those o f Southern 
Nigeria. The Portuguese arrival in Benin and the national and 
economic resources they saw encouraged further adventure 
hinterland along the river to the creeks of the Niger Delta. This 
robust trade eventually led to the establishment of British 
Protectorate over Northern Nigeria between 1900 and 1906. 
This marked the end of the trans-Saharan trade and the 
beginning of export of goods by road and rail to the Atlantic 
Coast. That was the real birth of Nigeria.
It is necessary to point out at this juncture that much as 
exploration leads to trade and prosperity, wealth in society
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generates crime, corruption, kidnapping and brigandage. I shall 
like to cite an instance of very early incidence of kidnapping of 
expatriates before alien traders began cultural and material 
expropriation of which the Benin expedition of 1897 was a 
prime example. In 1830, Richard and John Lander, the 
successors to Mungo Park, who had earlier met his death in 
Bussa in 1806 trekked from Badagary to Bussa. Mungo Park 
and his contingent tried to trace the course o f River Niger to the 
Sea. This would eventually open up the country for access and 
trade. The Lander Brothers arrived to continue with his work. 
At Bussa, they secured two canoes. They sailed dow'n via 
Lokoja through to Asaba. When they arrived in Asaba, they 
were kidnapped by local Igbo vigilantes. They later negotiated 
to deliver them to the master of an English boat anchored at 
Brass on the estuary of River Niger (See Crowder. 1978:10).
Their indigenous captors took them downstream to Brass where 
they were happy that they had at last discovered the mouth of 
the Niger River. Here, the captors released only Richard Lander 
to go on board the British boat to negotiate the payment of a 
ransom after which John Lander would be released. Thomas 
Lake, the captain o f the ship, hesitated to pay up the ransom. 
The Igbo men held on to John Lander as hostage. Later, he 
agreed to pay only on John’s release. He tricked the local 
captors. As soon as he secured John Lander's release, he set sail 
without paying the promised ransom. The kidnappers had thus 
suffered a double jeopardy because they not only helped the 
British to navigate the Niger from Asaba to Brass; they lost out 
on their expected dividend of an illegitimate trade by barter. 
This unusual trade became an epidemic in the lives of Nigerians 
nearly two centuries later. We all know what the governors of
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Edo and Imo states have recently done to stem the tide of that 
menace called kidnapping. My strong point here is that the 
menace had emerged as a game and a pastime feature of trade 
in the Niger Delta a long time ago. What we now see as an 
irritating menace in Nigeria is a recurrence o f the trade game 
invented in the 1830 encounter with two British explorers.
The discovery of the connecting route o f the Niger from the 
hinterland to the Sea thus opened up awareness for access and 
trade -  legitimate and otherwise. I should emphasize that it also 
led to the conquest of Nigeria and her re-invention as a nation 
rather than as a mere natural and geographical expression. This 
has not only led to greater interaction with traders across 
continents, it has also begun a process o f consensus building as 
a comity of nationalities within a pluralist nation. Thus began a 
profound interaction of cultures especially through trade, 
linguistic interaction and renegotiation o f mores, in a 
historically verifiable and a geographically diverse space. In the 
last one hundred years -  a long century indeed -  the trial period 
ought to be over, so that national growth may translate to 
national development. Let us now talk more about Nigerians 
than about Europeans who have left us to govern ourselves from 
about 1960.
Nigeria as a nation has lived for a century, half o f it under the 
rulership of her own citizens. By all standards, a century old man 
or woman is a very old person indeed. But in the lives of nation 
states, a hundred years is not quite as long, though it is 
considered long enough to give a demographic, fiscal or 
historical account. This is why in a December 13, 2013 edition 
o f The Punch, the columnist, Ayo Olukotun, taking a cue from 
the 2013 Human Development Index (HDI) reports as follows:
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'that though Nigeria's growth rate of 6.5 per cent suipasses the 
global growth rate of 3.2 per cent; we have not made any 
impressive strides in terms of human development. In fact, this 
report rates Nigeria below hitherto embattled nations such as 
Liberia. Sierra Leone, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of 
the Congo. This indicates that in spite of the quantum growth of 
the economy and our natural resources, human and 
infrastructural development is still very' low. Some other global 
league tables such as the Failed States Index (published annually 
by the Fund for Peace) and the Corruption Perception Index of' 
Transparency International have rated Nigeria as a failed state. 
Nigeria continues to witness reports of widespread cases of 
intolerance, w'anton homicide, ethnic cleansing, kidnapping and 
insurgency. If there were arrests and apprehensions, the laws 
have an auto immune system against convictions and 
constitutional deterrents. In spite of the long century the country 
has witnessed, it has emerged as a weak state and an unfulfilled 
nation. It is the only nation o f its size on earth (about 170 million 
persons according to the 2013 issue o f the Population Reference 
Bureau) with such a history of dismal performance and 
dysfunctional statistics’. The logical question is; what do we do 
to achieve a better performance index?
From the critique and analyses in the Press and the social media, 
two basic principles are discernible. The first is that there is a 
major discrepancy between political systems and political 
development in Nigeria. That is, there is neither concrete 
agreement nor social contract between the leaders and the led; 
that is if we assume that we already have the right calibre of 
leaders. The second is that the component o f the resources 
belonging to both strata of society is so badly managed that the
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two parties in the game o f governance live in great poverty even 
as their leaders ostentatiously wallow in vulgar riches and 
conspicuous consumption. The nation has failed a major theory 
of political development:
Political development entails an 
increase of one or more o f the 
following attributes: structural 
differentiation. cultural
secularization, equality and
capacity (Ake, 2009: 1).
I shall not bother to go into definitions on culture, nationalities 
and the nation state as these are already given in our present 
understanding and theme but it is imperative to assert that 
culture makes human and technological development happen. It 
is patent from the lessons of history that cultural development is 
sine qua non for technological development. In other words, for 
technological, social and political development to take place 
there must be cultural development. That is why advancement 
rapidly takes place in settled societies rather than in dispersed or 
war-torn communities. Put in a different context, culture, in all 
its ramifications, is indispensable for development. A history of 
cultural development is a history of civilization. It is, however, 
clear from my preamble that the history of sustained cultural 
development had not been in our favour. We have been a nation 
and a continent labouring under conquest. It is, therefore, not 
only necessary to understand that conquest and subjugation but 
to also circumnavigate it.
One innate quality that differentiates humans from the lower 
animal kingdoms is that inalienable capacity to create; to culture
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and to nurture. Creativity is key to adaptation and cultural 
development; from the invention of logic to that of craft-making 
and architecture. It is also clear that no creativity is possible 
without the capacity for reasoning. That is why the reasoning 
capacity is crucial to memory, innovation, culture and 
technology. Physiologically as we know, the human brain or 
mind is more highly developed than that of other mammals. 
Another intriguing factor of culture is that it is always 
contextual, unique and prototypal. The natural habitat is always 
in the particular modes of expression, the flora, the fauna and 
the landscapes of the geographical area. This is what provides 
the historical and evolutionary basis of the technological 
development we have had in diverse parts o f our world. Each 
civilization, if given a fair chance, will produce its own art and 
technology. Before I provide an empirical illustration, let me re­
echo the question raised by a former executive Director o f the 
National Council for Arts and Culture. Sule Bello:
Can African cultures provide a basis, 
a frame o f reference, some examples 
and possibly models, in short u 
paradigm, for the development of 
technology in Africa and Nigeria 
today? (1998: 6).
The truth is that with the level o f development of our art, craft, 
performances and literature, there is clearly enough civilization 
base and capacity to evolve a technology that is home grown 
and can also be exported. I shall like to draw attention to the 
memoir of the Nigerian novelist, Chinua Achebe, There was A 
Country (Penguin, 2012: 1571 where he described the 
technological ingenuity of the defunct Biafran state:
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The first Biafran "tanks" turned out 
to be steel-reinforced Range rovers.
By their third incarnation these 
armoured fighting vehicles, or AFVs 
had become quite sophisticated, with 
rocket launchers added....
We were told, for instance, that 
technologically we would have to 
rely for a long, long time on the 
British and the West for everything.
European oil companies insisted that 
oil-industry technology was so 
complex that we would never ever in 
the next five hundred years be able to 
figure it out. We knew that wasn't 
true. In fact we learned to refine our 
own oil during the two and a half 
years of the struggle, because we 
were blockaded. We were able to 
demonstrate that it was possible for 
African people, entirely on their 
own, to refine oil.
In the same place, Achebe told another story o f how a Biafran 
aircraft crew landed on a French African territory. The people 
of that country did not believe that there was no single European 
among the crewr. They first arrested the Biafrans thinking that 
there was a mutiny on board until they discovered that the pilots 
were full-blooded Biafrans. Whilst Nigerians can pilot their own 
jets, if their country had an airline, and refine their own crude 
oil, it is a marvel that half a century after that civil war, Nigerian
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crude is still being sent abroad for refining. If  a secessionist 
00011117 . under the doctrine o f necessity was able to manufacture 
her own weapons - tanks and rocket launchers, why is it that a 
fully-fledged country, outside of war time is not able to 
manufacture her own weaponry’? Why does a country twice the 
land mass of Thailand and three times Thailand's population 
wait on Thailand to feed her with rice? Is this a failure of 
leadership or a failure of followership? Is this a failure of vision 
or a failure of culture or civilization? To borrow a common Igbo 
phrase, where did the rain begin to beat us so that we can make 
efforts to dry our bodies and protect ourselves?
The Rise of Political Culture and Political Structure
It is clear from Claude Ake's passionate analysis of western 
political systems that though there are comparative structures 
for political development when the historical context is linear, 
autonomous and secular, it becomes a little more complex in 
societies which are not only amorphous, diffused and under 
different ideological orientations. The subtle point he makes in 
identifying predominantly secular cultures and predominantly 
magico-religious or traditional cultures is very crucial (1991: 7 
- 8). The performance or capabilities o f these two types of 
political systems on service delivery is markedly different. This 
distinction, in spite of colonization, neo-colonization and the 
generation o f modem capital and ideas, explains why the Asian 
Tigers have moved ahead of African nations in the 20th and 21 st 
centuries. For this justification, I shall like to cite the quotation 
that Ake borrows from Almond and Powell:
It is through the secularization of
political culture that these rigid.
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ascribed and diffuse customs of 
social interaction come to be 
overridden by a set o f codified, 
specifically political, and 
universalistic rules. By the same 
token, it is the secularization process 
that bargaining and accommodative 
political action become a common 
feature of the society, and that the 
development of special structures 
such as interest groups and parties 
become meaningful (Almond and 
Powell, 1966:60; Ake, 1991:8).
This issue o f secularization will always re-occur when we 
discuss what constitutes the political structure and culture of 
allegiance in 'godfatherism' and prebendalism; two key factors 
in 20th century Nigerian politics. It will also form the basis of 
the foreshadowing of this phenomenon in two literary texts by 
two o f Nigeria's major authors: Chinua Achebe and Wole 
Soyinka. The two literary works are: A Man o ft he People (1966) 
and Madmen and Specialists (1971). Since the ultimate goal of 
political culture and structure is to engineer political 
development, it is necessary to discuss the views of present 
political scientists on what constitutes political development and 
how it occurs. For Almond and Powell, development occurs 
when the structure or culture of a political system is unable to 
cope with the problems and challenges confronting it without it 
resorting to further structural differentiation and cultural 
secularization. A list of such challenges is:
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a) State Building: this occurs when a political elite creates new 
structures and organizations which are meant to regulate 
behaviour or draw huge resources from society. This is 
usually a means of establishing control and adjusting present 
conditions.
b) Participation'. This is the attempt to cope with group 
pressure for political participation or decision making. This 
often has to do with representation.
c) Distribution and Welfare: This is always concerned with the 
domestic redistribution o f income, opportunities, privileges, 
positions, gains, wealth or largess. This is akin to what, in 
vulgar Nigerian parlance, we term 'the national cake'.
d) Nation Building: This generally has to do with rallying the 
citizens behind a leader, political party or inspiring loyalty 
for the nation.
There is an alternative classification of the crises of political
development by Lucian Pye as follows:
a) Identity Crisis: Where there is the problem of ethnicity, 
social and linguistic groups or classes, castes and creed, 
there is always the problem of translating loyalties to the 
level o f the state or nation.
b) Legitimacy Crisis: This is connected with the problem of 
reaching an agreement on the nature and exercise of 
authority and the responsibilities of government. This is 
sometimes connected with constitutional crisis or the 
conflict and interpretation of laws.
c) The Penetration Crisis: This has to do with reaching down 
to the grassroots and effecting basic policies.
d) Participation Crisis: This crisis is envisaged when there 
might be loss of control over influx and movement of new
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a) State Building-, this occurs when a political elite creates new 
structures and organizations which are meant to regulate 
behaviour or draw huge resources from society. This is 
usually a means of establishing control and adjusting present 
conditions.
b) Participation: This is the attempt to cope with group 
pressure for political participation or decision making. This 
often has to do with representation.
c) Distribution and Welfare-. This is always concerned with the 
domestic redistribution of income, opportunities, privileges, 
positions, gains, wealth or largess. This is akin to what, in 
vulgar Nigerian parlance, we term 'the national cake'.
d) Nation Building: This generally has to do with rallying the 
citizens behind a leader, political party or inspiring loyalty 
for the nation.
There is an alternative classification of the crises o f political
development by Lucian Pye as follows:
a) Identity Crisis: Where there is the problem of ethnicity, 
social and linguistic groups or classes, castes and creed, 
there is always the problem of translating loyalties to the 
level of the state or nation.
b) Legitimacy Crisis: This is connected with the problem of 
reaching an agreement on the nature and exercise of 
authority and the responsibilities of government. This is 
sometimes connected with constitutional crisis or the 
conflict and interpretation of law's.
c) The Penetration Crisis: This has to do with reaching down 
to the grassroots and effecting basic policies.
d) Participation Crisis: This crisis is envisaged when there 
might be loss o f control over influx and movement of new
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participants within and between institutions. In Nigeria, 
there have been continual instances of carpet baggers 
between political parties.
e) The Integration Crisis: This deals with the problem of 
integrating offices and agencies o f government institutions 
and then among the various groups seeking to make 
demands on these institutions. This classification is 
superfluous in regard to the previous one on participation.
f) The Distribution Crisis: This is usually in connection with 
how government power and machinery is to be used to 
influence or control the distribution of goods, services and 
values across the nation or society.
Claude Ake succinctly helped to present the theory of political 
development as analyzed in the context of western societies and 
political institutions by affirming that the concept o f political 
development is crucial for the understanding o f political 
systems. It lays out the peculiar characteristics of the systems in 
ways that help us evaluate their levels o f performance and 
development. In granting preference to the analysis of Almond 
and Powell, the development of 'higher levels o f system 
capabilities is dependent upon the development of greater 
structural differentiation and cultural secularization’ (Almond 
and Powell, 323; Ake. 15).
1.4 Political Culture
In a political system, which is always co-terminus with a nation 
state, a nationality, a kingdom or any polity, a political culture 
(or patterns o f political culture) is always evident. There are
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established idiosyncrasies which give room for predictability. 
Claude Ake obviously agrees with the definition of Almond and 
Powell which can be summarized as follows:
a) Political culture consists of individual attitudes or outlook 
towards politics in a political system;
b) This set o f attitudes gives meaning to political action, moves 
and motives;
c) Political culture consists of at least three psychological 
components:
i. Cognitive orientation or the knowledge of political 
objects, action or belief
ii. Affective orientation or the feelings and tendencies of 
attachment, involvement or rejection o f political 
objects and motives
iii. Evaluative orientation which involves the application of
values, judgments and opinions on political
objects, motives and events (cf. Almond and 
Powell. 1966; Ake, 2009; 18).
In my humble opinion, and with all due respects to the 
prevailing authorities in this field, it is sometimes impossible to 
clearly separate or differentiate these parameters as events 
happen rapidly in a complex political space. Besides, values and 
nuances of the greater cultural milieu often superintend 
particular historical moments.
1.5 Cultural Secularization
In considering the main bastions of political development, I 
shall now discuss the process of cultural secularization and 
structural differentiation. These being parameters that will help
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establish the context o f politics as a tool for social capacity and 
social development. There are three main considerations of 
cultural secularization. The secularization o f political culture is 
the condition where men have become more rational, more 
analytic and empirical in their political thinking and action. This 
■is clearly a far cry from the concept o f amala politics or that of 
stomach infrastructure. These terminologies were invented 
across social and intellectual divides, irrespective of their 
implications. A second similar definition o f cultural 
secularization goes thus: that it is a process in which traditional 
attitudes and orientation change and give way to radical and 
dynamic decision-making processes. There is thereby greater 
emphasis in the gathering and analyses of information, 
exploration o f alternative sources of action and a more rigorous 
policy and data analysis. The essence o f political culture is to 
have the bases by which we could all relate to institutions in a 
rational, logical and systematic way so that it is useful for the 
trust and participation of all and sundry.
Structural Differentiation
Political structure always refers to political roles. For instance, 
the court is a political structure consisting of a hierarchy of 
related roles as in that o f the judge to that o f an attorney; the role 
of a litigant to that of a court clerk or registrar etc. It is also 
within this structure that we identify those of the elected and 
their electorate. Political differentiation refers to change in 
political structure or roles. Role differentiation refers to change 
or adaptation of roles within a political structure. All these point 
to the fact that we expect that no political system is ever static 
and that differentiation may occur at any point in time or within 
various political structures whether it is ad-hoc or statutory. In a
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way this helps to explain that human societies are never static 
and are always in a dynamic flux. New roles will always emerge 
and older ones will atrophy. The more important phenomena in 
political differentiation will not be in the social and political 
changes, which are inevitable anyway, but in the emergence of 
new roles and the changing interactive patterns among the roles, 
structures and subsystems (Almond and Powel, 1966: 23). The 
process of structural differentiation can thus be listed as follows:
a) role change
b) role specialization
c) role autonomy
d) emergence o f new roles
e) creation o f new structures or organs
f) creation of new subsystems
g) transfonnation of older roles
h) intra-systemic changes within and between roles, structures 
and subsystems
i) the death or transformation of old roles (Ake, 2009: 26).
Barring some of the stylistic differences over which Ake takes 
on Almond and Powell, these can be safely taken as 
development variables in a political and cultural system. We 
must take full responsibility for assuming and understanding 
that the complexities of roles and societies differ and that each 
society differs on role ascription and their ideological 
differentiation. Societies also vary on whether they are more 
religious or more secular depending on the economy of scale 
laid out in each cultural system. But the point is well made in 
our historical experience that societies change, transform or 
develop based on the interactive scale of these processes.
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Much as a major theorist like Claude Ake dwelt on the theory of 
political development as a comprehensive tool, he rightly 
observes that this model does not have the third world or 
developing economies in focus. For that reason, he believes that 
it is an ideology of imperialism. But I should have liked to ask 
him a few questions were circumstances kinder to his welfare 
and survival:
a) If a developing economy like Nigeria cannot benefit from 
western theories of development, why did she retain the 
apparatus of western governance that colonialism had 
foisted on her?
b) Or better still, when is she going to reinvent herself and 
propose a new theory of development best suited to her 
peculiar conditions?
c) More than half a century after independence, can she trace 
her roadmap to where the rain started to beat her? But even 
more crucial;
d) Can we invent a new theory of modernity or modernization 
which will help to gestate an organic political process 
relevant for our own growth and development?
But for what will continue to be a profound and deafening 
silence from Claude Ake, there are African, indeed Nigerian 
intellectuals, who have recently proposed that Africa must be 
modern for it to get on the development train (cf. Taiwo, 2011). 
The scope of this chapter does not permit an open philosophical 
response to this divergence or heterodoxy but it can make do 
with another perspective on the question of modernization in 
Africa vis-a-vis her indigenous cultures and the peculiarities of 
our colonial experience. 1, at my intellectual peril, do believe 
that the inertia of colonialism is bad enough but that the stigma
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of slavery had been most debilitating. Between colonialism and 
slavery is the nagging phenomenon of conquest. I have 
selectively adopted the term, conquest, because it is often tied 
to technology. The fact remains that Africa was conquered and 
enslaved because she succumbed to inferior technology. From 
the purview of history, a conquered people are a technologically 
inferior people. There is virtual science and there is empirical 
science. At the end of the day, the latter tends to attain 
superiority. This is why the attainment of technological 
development will, most likely, speed up emancipation than a 
thousand manifestoes and treatises on development. Let us 
reconnect to the earlier technological independence similar to 
that of the Nigerian civil war that Chinua Achebe listed. This 
time, 1 shall engage the ideas of a scholar from the culture 
industry - Sule Bello.
Modernization, Technological Development and the 
Collapse of Globalization
Both Olufemi Taiwo (2011) and Sule Bello (1998, 2011) agree 
and assert that the contemporary concept of modernization in 
Africa essentially equates westernization and what constitutes a 
view of the world through the lenses of western world; its 
intelligentsia and ruling elite. This is true; unfortunately so! To 
quote Sule Bello:
The most important assumption of 
the concept of "modernisation" is 
that it is the opposite of the inherited 
traditions and indigenous practices o f 
other peoples on the one hand and the 
approximation of the traditions of the
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West on the other. For our purpose 
here, it is enough to show that 
virtually all our perceptions of 
progress politically, economically 
and socially, approximate to the 
imitation of the West or the adoption 
of its abstract values and practices.
This is particularly significant 
because it is done, not on the basis of 
our own needs, peculiarities, 
initiatives and culture, but rather in 
opposition to them (2011: 12-13).
Bello goes on to discuss that colonialism assumes that African 
culture and modes of organization and living do not exist and, 
where they are acknowledged, they are simply displaced and 
discounted. With that kind of attitude, development drives do 
not seek to adapt indigenous knowledge or to modernize 
existing institutions and values so that they are suited to modern 
or contemporary needs. The ideal is that development should be 
a cumulative and organic process where the past grows 
seamlessly into the future. He exclaimed that: 'What is today 
peddled as 'development' and 'modernity' in Africa is the total 
neglect and abandonment of Africa's historical experience, 
creative dimensions and useful traditions' (13). It is true that 
there are indigenous practices, especially in the fields of 
medicine and pharmacy which are completely ignored in spite 
of the fact that they have proved extremely benevolent in China, 
India and Southeast Asia. This is understandable because 
modem pharmaceutical industry has a strong global economic 
network and a grand monopoly. The question of mastery in the
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post-industrial world is predicated on finance capital and 
economic domination. It is only a weak nation that will fail to 
promote her products and protect her currency and trade. What 
is being re-packaged and re-exported in the names of TIANSHI 
or KARGASOK are traditional medicines and therapies re- 
appropriated from the African subsoil. 1'his amounts to the third 
phase o f enslavement since the horror of the middle passage; the 
first two being colonialism and neocolonialism.
We must expect that to keep developing nations as underdogs, 
their viable historical experiences and their creative potential 
must be subjugated. This leads to three main implications of 
modernization theory:
a) It makes complete irrelevance of indigenous and 
independent creative accomplishments and knowledge 
of Africans.
b) It arrogates the development of Africa to exogenous 
initiative and agencies.
c) It strips the African o f his God-given self-confidence and 
ideologically classifies him as inferior. This appertains 
also to the persons of African descent in the Americas 
and the new world.
It is evident that both Claude Ake and Sule Bello have identified 
that western based academies such as the Princeton 
Development Study Series and the Chicago based Economic 
Development and Cultural Change Group would have no 
relevance to the politics and culture of African societies except 
as imperial organs. They feel that in the attempt to modernize 
Africa, these academic and Cultural agents,
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conceal the ethnocentric nature of 
their studies...sought to present 
development not as a socio-cultural 
phenomenon but the result of certain 
"natural laws" which conveniently 
enough, are derived from, and 
reflect. Western tradition and values 
as well as serve their interests and 
companies (Bello. 2011: 14).
The observation of these scholars need no emphasis especially 
in the light of our experience with such modernization policies 
as 'Structural Adjustment'. 'Mass Mobilization for Social and 
Economic Recovery' and the so called 'Poverty Alleviation 
Programmes' that Nigerian bureaucrats have so willingly touted. 
The striking irony, however, is that though the propositions are 
made by foreign agents, the real midwives are Africans or 
Nigerians! We have been regaled with such nerve-racking 
stories of Nigerian neveaux riches, some of them former 
university teachers, who became millionaires by defrauding 
their own country as 'executive7 officials o f these agencies. My 
gentle warning in the service of worthy scholarship, indigenous 
knowledge and civic wisdom is that there is hardly a fraudulent 
transnational act without its local agency. Our own 
underdevelopments start and end with us.
Another ideological platform for failed development is 
technology’ transfer. 1 make bold to say, without fear of 
contradiction that each creative impetus in art or in technology 
grows on its own indigenous soil. There may be imported 
components but they cannot be wholly imported. If they were to 
be. they would not be sustainable and would not be, sui generis,
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its own model. This is why the humanistic efflorescence of 
Greece preceded the technological advancement of Rome 
(Layiwola, 1994: 147). Many African nations, Nigeria 
inclusive, have dissipated hard-earned resources on the 
wholesale importation o f manufacturing plants and finished 
products hoping that this would automatically result in the 
transfer of technology. The result has always been a foregone 
conclusion evident in the myriad of white elephant projects and 
abandoned initiatives. Not least among them are the several 
automobile and steel plants dotting the landscapes of our nation: 
Ley land. Peugeot, Volkswagen. Rover. Mercedes truck plants 
and steel rolling mills. Why have the imported industries in 
Africa disappeared and those of South Korea. India, Brazil and 
Taiwan still stand strong? Resources internally generated were 
thus reversed and put to flight. Each environment will 
determine, by its craft and artifice, what technology it can 
produce and adapt to such environments.
On the whole, modernization theories would seem to have 
dumped local initiatives for the imposition of foreign interests. 
This is why a host of the multinational establishments and stores 
which abound have subsumed local entrepreneurs and are 
carting away huge capital across national borders at the touch a 
button or the use of a media application. It is clear that 
modernization in its present configuration will promote neither 
technology transfer nor industrialization. A more recent 
outgrowth of modernization is globalization or globalism. 
Colonialism and its aftermath had not only exploited the 
economy of developing nations and integrated them into the 
world's capitalist system; their cultures had undergone some 
measure o f hybridity having come in contact with a challenging.
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overbearing culture seeking to subjugate or subsume indigenous 
cultures. These tendencies persist in the current wave of 
globalization. Though globalization appeared, by its current 
definition, to be an innocuous merging of cultures and 
civilizations, it is indeed a new extension and an intensification 
of global capitalism with its economic value systems of profit 
making, bargaining and labour exploitation. The consequence of 
class distinction, inequalities and social conflicts were 
inevitable. To draw a historical correspondence, colonialism 
pushed many African nations from their pre-capitalist eras but 
did not develop them into modem capitalist economies as in 
western nations. They continued to remain the sources for the 
exploitation of labour and raw materials and the expropriation 
of capital. In the case of Nigeria, railways were laid from the 
north to the coast for the export of raw and agricultural 
materials. Some of which were re-imported for consumption 
and trade. Colonialism as a stage of imperialism could not 
achieve a horizontal harmony among the political, social and 
economic spectrum within and across nations. Perhaps we 
should not forget that the purpose of colonialism was not to 
develop but to govern the host nation and to exploit her 
resources for mutual economic gains. Bluntly put, it is a master- 
servant relationship.
Again, as remarked above, the full responsibility for 
development rests with the leadership and citizenry of a post­
colonial or developing nation. The economies have worsened 
since the end o f colonialism because the emphasis is usually on 
one or two commodity export, for example crude oil or cocoa 
unlike the colonial government which focused on a diversity of 
economic crops - cocoa, palm oil, rubber, groundnut, cotton.
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coffee etc. The result for us had been growth without 
development. Manufacturing had dipped and there is increasing 
food and material insecurity and poverty. This has resulted in 
the menace of robbery, insurgence and kidnappings. This is how 
a sociologist and a political economist at a globalization 
conference describe it:
For Nigeria and most African 
countries the tools for proactive 
participation in the global...arena are 
sorely lacking. While world exports 
have increased, Africa's share o f world 
trade has never been more than 2 per 
cent for raw materials and zero for 
manufactured goods. Indeed its small 
share of world trade is further 
declining due to reliance on backward 
technology, inappropriate
development policies particularly in 
relation to agriculture and, above all, 
the barriers imposed by the developed 
countries, especially the United States, 
whose farmers are protected from the 
unpredictable vagaries o f the market 
through direct emergency aid, export 
premium and guarantees against 
falling prices of commodities 
(Kiipoye. 2001: Abdulrahman, 2004:
303).
Nigeria's globalization inequality is further compounded b> 
poorly motivated skilled workers; emigration of skilled worker?
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and experts; and lack of employment for the unskilled. This, of 
course, is bad statistics for global competition. Perhaps in 
Nigeria as in most of Africa, globalization, as a phenomenon, 
has increased horizontal as well as vertical inequalities between 
groups and classes in society. It has thus become a tool of 
developed nations for exploiting weaker societies within the 
global network. This is why globalization, as a concept and as a 
tool for development has collapsed and failed.
Conclusion: Cultural values, Cultural Institutions and a 
Return to the Future
What 1 intend to do by way of conclusion is:
• to identify a fundamental decline in the status of our 
cultural values and institutions which also indicates a 
decline in the influence of philosophy.
• to identify the bane of this decline as corruption and 
violence, and
• to ask whether our culture can hope to overcome 
corruption as Ishola Williams had earlier asked 
(Williams, 2007).
• Finally, to illustrate these with two imaginative works: 
Chinua Achebe's A Man o f the People (1966) and Wole 
Soyinka's Madmen and Specialists (1971).
In his book, African Cultural Values (1996), Kwame Gyekye 
affirms how importantly the African takes the value of social 
morality and rejects or condemns ethical egoism. He 
emphasizes the pervasiveness o f fellow feeling as a primal and 
primordial communal value. These are sustained by artistic 
institutions as in the power o f folk tales and stories as the
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institutional flagship for memory and morality. The returns to 
the philosophical basis o f imaginative and fictional works 
constantly remind the living that the legacies o f morality must 
be sustained and upheld at every crossroad of experience. He 
affirms, among other things, that an illustrative tale 'clearly 
demonstrates the worthlessness and rational inconsistency of the 
doctrine of ethical egoism' (1996: 60). In addition, he affirms 
that seeking one's own interests to the total disregard of the 
interests o f others leads to self-destruction. The UNESCO 
Courier published the same year warned that the central 
problem of politics since classical antiquity has been how to 
control individual and groups who are inclined to put their own 
interests before the common good. I shall presently reiterate the 
same phenomenon in the works of the two Nigerian authors 
cited above.
The first, A Man o f  the People is a narrative on the rudiments of 
politics and the polity debacle in a postcolonial state, a few years 
after political independence. It is a practical illustration of 
Almond and Powell's as well as Pye's crises of political 
development namely those of: identity, legitimacy, penetration, 
participation and distribution. The relative economic scale is 
drawn out by an old school teacher turned politician. Chief 
Nanga and a bright, idealistic university graduate who was his 
former pupil, Odili Samalu. Odili stands for the upcoming 
intelligentsia waiting to overthrow the old order. The interesting 
point is how statesmanship degenerated into bathos and the 
sensual generational tussle whereby the game is determined by 
who wins the heart of a mutual lover. The symbol of lust and 
moral decay is not lost on the reader and on the social setting of 
the narrative. Politics is relayed as a brutish game on the struggle
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for scarce resources in rural, prebendalist environments. There 
were values but there were no social institutions or a 
sophisticated elite corps to sustain them. Lives were lived as 
they came -  raw. nasty and brutish. Tradition, in its encounter 
with modernity, completely lost its head. At the end of the novel, 
violent crisis was inevitable and the military terminated the first 
republic with a coup d'etat. The novel turned out to be a 
prescient road map to the demise of Nigeria's first republic. Not 
a few politicians and the military marveled at the delicate co­
incidence of the virtual, imaginative coup and the real, evocative 
coup a few months later. The technicality of the narrative or 
'social story', as Victor Turner would have called it. is such that 
only a prose narrative could have done justice to it.
The second work of literature. Wole Soyinka's Madmen and 
Specialists is a dark piece of Existentialist drama which he 
conceived during his intense period of solitary confinement at 
the time of the Nigerian civil war. The drama was centred on a 
philosophical contrivance known as the "AS' philosophy. The 
dramatis personae were victims of a holocaust who had lost their 
soul essence on account of extreme trauma and psychological 
distortion. The laboratory which became their stage was 
managed by a demented father, known simply as an ‘old man' 
and his doctor son. Dr Bero. The old man is an identity block, a 
robotic figure remotely controlled by his son. 'the specialist'. 
Apart from the disabled players, there were two women 
herbalists, Iya Agba and lya Mate. They represented primordial 
tradition at its meeting point with the post-modern. The Doctor 
and his father promote cannibalism through a wasting war. And 
they propose games where the characters put to stake whatever 
is left of their body parts. The play ends with an apocalyptic fire
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which totally destroys the landscape. The play is an existentialist 
endgame which is cyclical in conception and ends in a liturgical 
cul-de-sac:
As - Was - Is - Now - As Ever Shall Be...
Bi o tiwa
Ni yio se wa
Bi o ti wa l'atete ko se... (pp 39 - 40)
This has prompted my question: Is the present condition of 
Africa a closed predicament? Would we ever get out of this dead 
end? If the answer is yes. then how? Retired General Ishola 
Williams, in a recent publication titled Can Our Culture and 
Traditions Overcome Corruption? (CBAAC, 2007) made a few 
suggestions which I shall precis here. He believes that we have 
subverted and abused the four key components o f culture, 
namely: values, norms, institutions and artifacts. Our values are 
largely contingent on our moral and material priorities. Norms 
are codes of etiquette and accompanying sanctions. Our 
institutions help to sustain our values and norms. Our artifacts 
are tangible and intangible materials and objects; both aesthetic 
and spiritual which have been inspired by our culture, 
philosophy and conditioned by our historical experience.
It is clear both from our historical as well as our political 
experience that we must creatively engage modernity in a way 
that is empirical and rational, and perhaps shed some of our 
gregarious norms for more individualistic ones. Asian countries 
that have made technological breakthroughs are known to have 
imbibed these values. Above all. our corrupt tendencies are 
fuelled from two fronts, intangible and tangible: first we have 
not institutionalized our traditions, philosophies, ethics, law and
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medicine so that they can be practiced as science rather than as 
myths ; second, we take pride in accessing wealth that we 
neither earn nor work for. Hence derived wealth is theft. 1 have 
not said like the Marxian scholar. Proudhon, that private 
property is theft but derived, unearned wealth is theft, with a 
capital T. The restructuring of the country and the economy will 
allow for genuine federalism and direct, productive derivation 
rather leaving unearned wealth concentrated in a few hands in a 
fluid centre where public servants can be tempted by the sheer 
quantum of such resources stacked in their purview. The Local 
Government or grassroots level is where infrastructural 
development should concentrate and be expended. The most 
competent hands in the public service should be at the local 
government level where much development is needed.
Finally, I believe that the rule of law should be uniform to all 
citizens without exception. No one - no matter his or her position 
- should live above the law. But above all. we must consciously 
train and develop an elite corps with an elite consciousness and 
core values to uphold our moral and material institutions. Once 
these recommendations are effected, we would be on the way to 
turning our predicament to virtues.
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............ .............. . 2012. There was A Country: A Personal
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