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Atlanta Presidential Dialogue: Here we come
 

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 Saturday, September 2, 2000
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 Banjo Odutola
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In recent years the verb sense of dialogue meaning �to engage in an informal exchange of views� has been revived, particularly with reference to communication between parties in institutional or political contexts. Although Shakespeare, Coleridge, and Carlyle used it, this usage today is widely regarded as jargon or bureaucratese. And, if the eponym of the Nigerian Consulate in Atlanta is deserving then the dialogue is Obasanjo�s and it is neither a conversation between two or more people; particularly, a formal conversation in scholastic exercises, an engagement in an informal exchange of views, nor a written composition in which two or more persons are represented as conversing or reasoning on some topic; as, the Dialogues of Plato.

But, should a misguided descriptive tag destroy this historical opportunity? There is no intention to provide a view to this enquiry. It is hoped that the explication herein is timely, persuasive, germane and the reader forms a positive opinion as to the essence of the dialogue with our president.

So, what about the dialogue is historic? Is it because it is holding in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S.A, where Booker T Washington polemicised on ways to emancipate black men? But, Nigerians are not in bondage and no emancipation is required. Really? Though, we are not physically in bondage, our freedom and wealth have shackled our spirits and well being because of the choices we have made since independence.

It recognised that we are a free people in bondage and the evidence show in ��. the deplorable state of the nation, debilitating poverty, widespread illiteracy, collapse of national infrastructure, endemic corruption, moral degeneracy, ethnic tensions and religious intolerance which have resulted in Aguleri-Umuleri; Sango-Otta-Kano; Kaduna-Sharia I; Kaduna-Sharia II; OPC-Alaba; OPC-Ijaw; Ijaw-Itshekiri; Ijaw-Itshekiri-Urhobo; Ijaw-Ilaje; Ife-Modakeke. Then there are the countless deaths that have occurred as a result of the pipeline fires, that have brought the blazing infernos of hell to an already impoverished, oppressed and pulverised people: Jesse; Adege; Ovire; Ifie; Ijala�.�� (Malcolm Fabiyi �A Squandered Hope�)

Therewith is the need to examine and be instructed in the person and purpose of Booker T. Washington who was an educator and reformer, first president and principal developer of Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute and the most influential spokesman for black Americans between 1895 and 1915. He was born in a slave hut but, after emancipation, moved with his family to Malden, West Va.

Dire poverty ruled out regular schooling; at age nine he began working, first in a salt furnace and later in a coal mine. Determined to get an education, he enrolled at a college in 1872, working as a janitor to help pay expenses.

Washington believed that the best interests of black people in the post-Reconstruction era could be realized through education in the crafts and industrial skills and the cultivation of the virtues of patience, enterprise, and thrift. He urged his fellow blacks, most of whom were impoverished and illiterate farm labourers, to temporarily abandon their efforts to win full civil rights and political power and instead to cultivate their industrial and farming skills so as to attain economic security. Blacks would thus accept segregation and discrimination, but their eventual acquisition of wealth and culture would gradually win for them the respect and acceptance of the white community. This would break down the divisions between the two races and lead to equal citizenship for blacks in the end.

In his epochal speech of Sept. 18, 1895 to a racially mixed audience at the Atlanta (Ga.) Exposition, Washington summed up his pragmatic approach in the famous phrase: "In all things that are purely social we can be separate as the fingers, yet one as the hand in all things essential to mutual progress." The epoch Atlanta exposition is tangentially relative to the mark that, Nigerians, as a people and particularly our president will inscribe at Atlanta in the sand of nation building. It must be emphasised that the writer does not necessarily agree with Washington. Regardless, the threads of his propositions are instructive.

What is relative in Booker T. Washington�s speech is not in the purpose for which he desired the freedom of an emasculated people. It is the periscopic view of slavery that sensitised him to advance his theories as solutions to the problems of the Blackman. Through foresight he adjudged that freedom would come to the black man through education and commerce. His theory was not from a dialogue with fellow slaves but a foresight of a man before his time.

President Obasanjo must have taken a view from Aso Rock and concluded that Nigerians in Diaspora can play a part in the emancipation of our people. Our president�s interaction at Atlanta to listen and grant a prominent place to Nigerians in Diaspora to contribute to our national effort in rebuilding our nation is not because our fellow countrymen in Nigeria are unable to do the work. There are more than enough hands, eyes, legs, brains and heads in Nigeria to propound all sorts of advices. But, a vast majority of those at home are not as uniquely placed as those in Diaspora.

The Atlanta event will be the first by any Nigerian head of State. It should be remembered that our leaders have always neglected the views of those in Diaspora. Now that we have a man who is exemplifying to his government, the need to engage ideas and connections of these uniquely placed Nigerians, the questions that ought to be posed are not those of �what Obasanjo did or did not do during the Biafran war or whether Obasanjo took a loan to build his farm at Otta or whether he vetted his ministers or whether he is prepared for a monthly debate with members of the National Assembly in order to foster a check on his government or whether there is a justification for appointing Jibril Aminu to an Ambassadorial position considering that he is an extremist and likely to perpetuate policies of vindictiveness or whether there was no other qualified northerner for this position or is his presence the wish of a particular interest group i.e. a lingering of a previous administration or whether as a born again Christian, when will you apologize to the Ibos for your role in the civil war of yesterday and begin to work to heal their wounds instead of appointing to federal office men and women who do not truly represent the Ibo agenda of structural and economic development but rather symbolize self-aggrandizement and hypocrisy?�(Ejike Onuogu). These types of questions, as important as they are, must be set aside for another day and another place.

The Nigerians in diaspora have an opportunity in this historic event to propel their prosperity in the host nations at which they reside and our nation to dizzy heights by making available the services of the institutions that have engaged them to build their host countries.

So, after history, here come the opportunities and they are on four levels.

Foremost, the uniqueness of Nigerians in diaspora is in their class of people. They are generally the best of Nigerian brains that drained out of the country to utilise their skills in ways and manners by which they have been frustrated at home. Also, there is the avoirdupois in their numbers. These are the imperative reasons to utilise the presidential dialogue, not only as a forum to converse with Obasanjo and his ministers but also, as a forum to converse with each other, in order to make new friends and acquaint ourselves to our fellow country men and women, who like themselves are far away from home. In so doing, a cord that was strengthened by sub-continent Indians and Asians for their communities in foreign countries will be a cue to Nigerians in diaspora. The cord is to identify and assist each other to succeed in a foreign nation.

Take the example of the Indians in the United Kingdom. They are owner-managers of convenience stores, which they have built within their own community through the assistance that they afford each other. Despite their disparate cultures and religions they assist each other when they are in a foreign country: to build economic security that gives political dividends. Nigerians can do the same and we can do it better because we have better skills than any other groups of immigrants.

Secondly, the dialogue could be turned into a backward integrating process, whereby Nigerians in diaspora with their commitments to nation-building begin to carve out places for themselves back home.

How possible is that?

The contacts available through the people who engage the services of Nigerians in diaspora are mammoth and we must begin to tap into the opportunities of encouraging expansion of their wares and services to our nation. This is only achievable after we prove ourselves worthy of reposed trust.

This dialogue should be a forum of frankness, not only with Obasanjo but with each other. We should be frank with ourselves about our image and the untrustworthiness of a few of fellow countrymen and women who tar the rest of us. We must dialogue and resolve to attack the attending frustrations of a deferred or lost hope that drive some of our fellowmen and women into such affiliations that they would not have considered were they back on the Nigerian soil. It is for this reason that this dialogue must renew, not only the hopes of those that are opportune to attend, it must do the same for all Nigerians at home and aboard.

Thirdly, this is an opportunity, which coincidentally (I believe) will actualise the dreams of an eminent Nigerian, who has made a name in the United States. Let me tell you a little bit about this eminent Nigerian. He is Philip Emeagwali. When he was a boy in Onitsha, Nigeria, Philip Emeagwali told his father he intended to become a doctor of philosophy. "He told me to shut up because he thought I was bragging," Emeagwali recalls. Today the 35-year-old Nigerian has his PhD --- plus a graduate degree, three master's degrees and one of America's most prestigious awards in computing, the $1,000 Gordon Bell prize. To win the Bell award, Emeagwali programmed a supercomputer to work faster than ever before --- 3.1 billion calculations per second --- to help solve crucial problems of underground oil recovery. Emeagwali's classmates may have known him better than his own father when they nicknamed him "Calculus" in the seventh grade of his school back home. "They considered me a genius," Emeagwali told American reporters, "but that's a relative term." At 14 he dropped out of school because his father could no longer afford fees for all his nine children. But studying on his own, the eldest son won a scholarship to Oregon State University at the age of 17. After receiving a college degree in mathematics, Emeagwali earned a master's in civil engineering at George Washington University; he specialized in dam construction because of its applications in the Third World. Two more master's followed; one in mathematics and the other in marine engineering. Thereafter he became a doctoral candidate at the University of Michigan in 1987 following two years as a civil engineer in Wyoming. A relative newcomer to the field of scientific computation, Emeagwali raised eyebrows when he choose to work on the Connection Machine, a supercomputer made by Thinking Machines Corporation in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Speed is the key to using the equations and Emeagwali dramatically enhanced a work-rate, which on ordinary computers would be measured in years. The results surpassed even the theoretical peak speed of the widely used Cray Research Inc supercomputers and when Emeagwali talked to colleagues they doubted him. "When he told me about the results, I thought he had made a mistake," said William Martin, director of the University of Michigan's Laboratory for Scientific Computation. The prevailing scepticism prompted Emeagwali to enter for the Gordon Bell prize, awarded each year by the US Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers and known as the "supercomputer Olympics. " The competition is considered the annual high point of supercomputer research. "I wanted to see if the judges agreed with me," Emeagwali said. "Now all of a sudden the award gives me scientific credibility." It also got him that long-envisaged doctorate, in civil engineering and scientific computing. Emeagwali was the first solo winner of the prize, which is usually taken by teams from corporations and national laboratories. He chose to apply his work to the problem of recovering oil because "to have the most impact, you have to work on the most serious problems." Currently engineers can recover only about 30 per cent of the oil in an underground petroleum reservoir. By using simulation models to manage a group of oil wells economically, they can recover more oil.

Herewith, is a newspaper article about Emeagwali: �Philip Emeagwali of Nigeria, known by many as the "Bill Gates of Africa," outlined his native country's economic advantages Saturday at Alabama State University. More than 100 spectators, ignoring a steady drizzle, attended a cultural gala and symposium at the school.

Sponsored by the Association of Nigerians-Montgomery, the event was highlighted by Emeagwali's speech. A computer scientist, Emeagwali is often compared by his countrymen to Gates --- the American billionaire.

Emeagwali discussed Nigeria's economy and emphasized that more of the nation's funds should be spent on education.

"Education is the only way to escape poverty," said Emeagwali. "According to the (U.S. Census), Nigerians are the most educated ethnic group in the United States." Emeagwali said that 96 percent of Nigerians in the United States have high school diplomas and 64 percent of them have one or more college degrees. He said science is the wave of the future and the key to increased development in his native country. He also said Africa is giving developmental assistance to the United States and Europe when it should be "taking care of home." Besides medical doctors, we need professionals with other skills," he said. "It makes more sense for us to invest in science education and not rely on the assistance of other countries." Emeagwali won America's most influential prize for computing skills --- the Gordon Bell Prize --- for writing a formula enabling a computer to make billions of calculations per second. His formula helped American oil interests to tap into huge reserves of underground oil and contributed billions to the government's oil exploration programs.

Emeagwali has received degrees in five fields, and his wealth has enabled him to bring 18 relatives to America from Nigeria. He said his country continues to struggle with keeping Nigerian experts at home, but it is a challenge because many realize they can make more money abroad --- particularly in the United States. "We need to have profiles of Nigerians outside the country and give them adequate compensation to keep them in the country," he said. "They have the skills we need to develop the continent." Montgomery activist Gwendolyn Patton agreed that Nigeria should invest in its own future, saying the African country has been in turmoil for the last 35 years.

As a result, Patton said, "Nigeria tends to be a very closed country." Patton, known for her involvement in the civil rights movement, is a director of the National Political Congress of Black Women. She was recently appointed historian for the Alabama New South Coalition� Are these not the antecedents for which we can be proud as Nigerians? Surly they are. And do you know that there are many other Nigerians in diaspora who have reached dizzy heights of excellence?

So, why is Emeagwali highlighted. The reason rests in one of his interviews. Hear him: �The primary cause of external brain drain is unreasonably low wages paid to African professionals. The contradiction is that we spend four billion dollars annually to recruit and pay 100,000 expatriates to work in Africa but we fail to spend a proportional amount to recruit the 250,000 African professionals now working outside Africa. African professionals working in Africa are paid considerably less than similarly qualified expatriates. We also have internal brain drain when people are not employed in the fields of their expertise. For example, many military officers are politicians in uniform and some medical doctors are moonlighting as taxi cab drivers.

Lastly, this is an opportunity for us to set aside our differences and roll our sleeves to make an indelible mark in the United States and other parts of the world, where Obasanjo continues his dialogue: an opportunity to set timely objectives for the outcome of these historic events. Furthermore, we must embrace this opportunity and not allow the event to descend into a harangue of crapulous men and women.

My dear friends, I salute your patriotism, your willingness to assist our motherland to establish her nationhood, your self-denial to grant Nigeria, the most precious gifts: your time. And, beyond all else, for those who can comfortably afford the trip to Atlanta and the subsequent one in London and those who will have to borrow and beg to be counted as patriots, equally, you make us proud to be Nigerians.

As I jet out of the United Kingdom in my bow ties to join all of you in Atlanta and return to be at the London dialogue, I look forward to a dialogue of hope and victory. Also, I look forward to connect unashamedly with the Hausas, Igbos, Efiks, Ibibos, Itshekiris, Ijaws, Ilajes, Fulanis, Nupes, Okirikas, Yorubas ��et al. This is only because in our diversity, we shall find strength and as a people we are determined to celebrate and respect our differences.

As you set out to the dialogues, may the good Lord grant you travelling mercies as you pursue the highest call for our great country � Nigeria.

God bless you and Long Live The Federal Republic Of Nigeria!!

Banjo Odutola

The writer is a solicitor of the of the Supreme Court, England and Wales and a Lawyer at a Firm of Solicitors in London, England







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