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Samuel Zubby Duru - My Blog
Samuel Zubby Duru - My Blog


Ahead of Nigeria's 2011 Elections

Dear Fellow Paradigm Shifters,

As we prepare to enter a fresh page of our nascent democracy in 2011, it is our onus to cast our votes wisely–to the right candidates and work on all cylinders to ensure credible polls. The hanker for true democratic experience and good governance in Nigeria is a true wake-up call, sounding an alarm about the need to jettison old patterns of political and democratic processes and make a transition to a new era of ideal politics and true democracy–devoid of lobbying, rigging, gerrymandering, looting of ballot boxes, dearth of electoral logistics, shenanigans and other forms of political skullduggery. In addition, we have to raise standards against vices such as: bloodshed, abduction, sabotage, thuggery, among others.

“Change, yes we can!” has become the slogan of not only a successful campaign but also a message of hope at a time of national and global crisis. Of course, change for the sake of change is not enough. The goal and direction of that change is far more important. Youths must bring their wisdom to bear on the great problems facing Nigeria. There is a place for us in the lineup that is happening right now.

Youth participation in issues of national and international concern means: “recognizing and nurturing the strengths, interests, and abilities of young people through the provision of real opportunities for youth to become involved in decisions that affect them at individual and systemic levels.

You may think because you are just one person, there is nothing you can possibly do that will make a difference. You may think you are too insignificant to matter. You may think you do not have enough time or money to do something worthwhile. You may think that there are powerful forces out there that control everything, and that you are too small to make an impact–you are probably right. But–when you become part of a movement, things change and anything is possible.

Young people are not only the leaders for tomorrow–they are important to be taken seriously today. I am glad that the National Youth Network on Nigeria Elections (NYNNE) has given us a platform to contribute our quota in the promotion and advancement of democracy in Nigeria. Big or small–our contributions to this end can make the difference and help create positive change. “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” - Margaret Mead.

With team work, we can turn off the tide of indifference and inaction in our polity. The changes that are happening in our country and globally, call for a large number of people to get involved and help create a new vision and put us on a new path toward positive change. That means getting active and bringing lots of other people into the process.

We should figure out that the very fact of community and cooperation is a sine qua non for a more equitable, prosperous and sustainable future. With synergy, we can carry out meaningful projects which will result to positive and enduring changes that improve lives and communities around the nation.

“Sustainable development" connotes the processes by which people satisfy their needs and improve their quality of life in the present while safeguarding the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. We have a stake in the political and democratic processes in our country, Nigeria.

Big Brother will not take care of it all for us. There are some people who believe that the government will do all that we need to do. That means leaving the course of our future to politicians–to special interest groups–and to government workers. Have you noticed any one of these groups taking a stand for what you want to have happen in this country or in the world? Do they care about the things you care about? Do they want the same solutions that you want? Government workers want their jobs to go smoothly and to get their pay and their benefits. Some care about the issues and support specific efforts–but most get into trouble when they speak out.

In his last book before he was assassinated, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote:
"One of the great liabilities of history is that all too many people fail to remain awake through great periods of social change. Every society has its protectors of status quo and its fraternities of the indifferent who are notorious for sleeping through revolutions. Today, our very survival depends on our ability to stay awake, to adjust to new ideas, to remain vigilant and to face the challenge of change."

"The ultimate test of man's conscience may be his willingness to sacrifice something today for future generations whose words of thanks will not be heard." ~ Gaylord Nelson, former governor of Wisconsin.

When you are part of a group of concerned people, I can assure you–anything is possible! Get organized! Get going!

July 11, 2010 | 10:18 PM Comments  0 comments



Leadership and Good Governance in Africa: “Questioning the verity and efficacy of modern democracy in Africa.”
Related to country: Nigeria

Translations available in: English (original) | French | Spanish | Italian | German | Portuguese | Swedish | Russian | Dutch | Arabic

While emphasizing on the increased sense of efficacy of man and his ability to fulfill his needs, theories of modernity are also concerned with the systems in which men of the modern times rule themselves. Among other systems, worldwide most cherished system is democracy. Today, most nations of the world believe that it creates a great positive impact on governance, national growth, development and solidarity, even though it is not itself an elixir to all societal maladies. Since these which democracy is believed to ensure are indispensable in a world that has become a global village, democracy becomes considered as the measure of international integrity of national communities.

Also, many people are convinced that democracy is a tool that liberates the masses from oppression and exploitation – i.e. serves as an ideological testing ground for the application of the modern definition of some cherished principles like the rule of law, fundamental human rights and freedom.

In a romantic but significant manner, Abraham Lincoln defined democracy as the government of the people, by the people, and for the people. In another development, Appadorai defined it as “a system of government under which the people exercise their governing power either directly or indirectly or via representatives periodically elected by them.”

Democracy is a system of government that promotes and encourages the right of citizenship such as freedom of speech, of religion, of expression, of association, the assertion of the rule of law, majority rule accompanied by respect for the rights of minorities. “Democracy recognizes the inherent worth of every individual or group, and strives for political order in which all could live with a measure of dignity”, remarked Rev. Fr. Dr. Jude Uwalaka.

The continent of Africa has been bedeviled by abject misrule. Leadership in Africa leaves a lot to be desired. Over the years, African politics had been characterized by unhealthy tussles and skullduggery. In fact, “a polity of anything goes”, is the veritable clause to explain the leadership fiasco in the continent. The hanker for re-election and continuity, is apparently the villain of the piece, as far as leadership in Africa is concerned. Sad enough, Africa has witnessed avalanche of political instability to this end. In December 2008, a political turmoil erupted in Kenya, East Africa, sequel to the re-election of Mwai Kibaki. Ugly developments like this get in the way of national, regional and continental progress and productivity. Thus, it cannot be improper to say that Africa is a continent of democratic experiment.


However, just like the case with every other concept and practice, democracy has come under censure over the years. In recent times, one of such criticism was proposed by Professor G. Onah. Prof. Onah’s major problem with democracy is the polarity of its ideal values and the vulnerability of its real practice. According to him, if one is to follow the popular Lincolnian definition, while it promises to be a government of the people, democracy does not and cannot address its whole people, or else, as Rousseau would suggest, it would be a human government no more. By saying this, Onah does not however imply that democracy must be ideal to be real, he rather exposes that in the modern practice of democracy, the yawning gap between the real and the ideal has so much been extended to the extent that one will start to argue if democracy means anything at all.

There is no place this estimation of modern democracy is more vivid than in its experience in Africa. To be factual about it, “Africa’s experience of democracy has been horrendous, and the gist of the problem is that in Africa no process has ever been set in motion taking account of the continent’s specific context”.

As a matter of fact, there is no reason why Professor Onah’s diagnosis of the African political problem, would not appear plausible to any responsible mind. For more than two decades, Africa has been incubating a grave leadership crisis within her frontiers. The nature and level of this crisis is such that it has affected the whole gamut of African attitude to religion, politics, economics, education and even technology. For some time now, politics in Africa has meant nothing less than wide and prolonged social belligerence. For instance, in just the sub-Saharan part of the continent, there are no less than six countries in persistent territorial turbulence. These socio-political outbursts have left at their wake in Dafur, Angola, Liberia, Rwanda, Sudan and Nigeria, scarce means of livelihood, morbid economic standards and moral decay.

It is not only this; most unfortunately, governance in Africa has paid little or no attention to the intellectual growth of her citizens and the survival of the civilization in general. This is easily evident when one compares the face of education and industry in Africa to what obtains in most Western countries. Unlike in Africa, almost all Asian countries have invested much time to the collective activation of their education sector, which has preeminently resulted in their most recent experience of industrial revolution. In all these perplexities, one thing is clearly evident: Africa cannot be like it is and yet claim that nothing is wrong with her governmental structure. Perchance, it is also for this evident quagmire in African leadership that she has always been left behind as an underdog in matters of global development.

It may however be quite interesting to comment that unfortunately enough, a lot of pundits who have diagnosed the African leadership malaise have not given it a fair trial. This is definitely the reason why around the 1990s, many people started to prescribe the so-called democracy as the ultimate Rx to leadership in Africa. No doubts, these people while venerating the conceptual virtues of democracy and its relative success in some Western countries, never considered the predisposition of Africa to a genuine democratic practice. And it will be scarcely illogical to think along with this discourse that the long experience of crises in African leadership is a quick response to such an inept embrace of democracy.

It must be called to mind that Africa inherited a very ugly complex from her imperial overlords – that of dominance, unhealthy competition, egocentrism and egotism. The nature of colonial government in many African nations was such that African people were divided and merged against one another, and this gave room for wide competition in different African parliaments. During those hey days, a lot of people who were not favoured, fought doggedly for independence and this really accounts for the kind of political struggle witnessed in many African countries immediately after independence.

It was indeed not a surprise that people who finally found themselves at the corridors of power in many African countries after post independence struggles, like their colonial models, held tacitly and parasitically to power for donkey’s years. In some African countries like Nigeria, military rule had to be enthroned in a checkered manner in an attempt to bring former strangers to live together as one people. Where military incursions were not possible like in Zimbabwe, many interested bloc zealots merely saw the victory of leadership as an opportunity for the practice of the lessons of imperialism. In fact, it is not untrue that no African country was really ready or could have been ready for democracy by 1989.

This historical analysis assumes much relevance if considered alongside what one might call the professed prerequisites for democracy. Supposedly, democracy should be a kind of government that respects the dignity of all human persons regardless of race, colour or class, restoring to everyone in the human family certain inalienable rights.

Indeed, such factors as “high literacy rate and higher education for more persons, a large and influential commercial or industrial middle class, dispersion of political and economic resources among the populace, higher living standards for more persons, consciousness of basic human rights founded on the dignity and equality of all citizens, a virile and stable society, some form of cultural homogeneity or at least a non segmented cultural heterogeneity and the rule of law”, should mark out a democracy in the modern state (R.Dahl, Democracy and Its Critics, pp.316, 344-364).

Matter-of-factly, it will be overlabouring the fact to state that practicing such a kind of government demands a level of collective exposure, experience and maturity (which took Western Europe many centuries to develop); these, no African country ever had before embracing their version of democracy. Democracy had to become one of those psychological gadgets Africans adopted by imitation from the Caucasoid and so unfortunately, its critical adoption remains one major modern political mistake in Africa.

Alas, one very big problem with the so-called modern practice of democracy is that just like modernism itself, it has so much been expanded by excessive freedom to fit almost every human caprice. Its field of operation is such that it is no longer discernible what is really democratic and not. Though pointing out this divide is supposed to be the function of law, modern law has most times lacked proper specification, giving space for a lot of manipulation. This lack of proper specification even in global politics is often most felt in international relations between democratic nations and in the administration of hydra-headed international democratic organizations - (under the cover of the jargon of diplomacy.)

Truly, if one matches this general problem with the practice of modern democracy together with the ordinary historical ineptitude of most African governments, one will understand why crisis in leadership is assuming unimaginable proportions in Africa. Little wonder, African democratic politics has been a sham; elections are massively rigged, party politics are left secure for the enslavement of the polity; the rule of law has lost every capacity of redress (and this has survived for long.)

Sensitively enough, for the very many reasons that appertain to her unique history, Africa is not in the best position to manage this problem while professing to be democratic. She needs first to acquire all or some of what it takes to be a democracy. It is only regrettable that if Africa does not shed away the coat of democratic pretense and unreality now, she will continue to experience obnoxious reviews and counter reviews of her constitutions, individual privatization initiatives, wild marginalization and torrential wars.

This is the most pressing challenge of modern African politics. Considering what options are available and deciding from which alternatives to choose, will be determined by very many variables whose discussion lie outside the scope of this construction.

Nevertheless, Africa needs men with credible and superlative profile like Nelson Mandela, former President of South Africa; “Papa Africa”, who doggedly championed the freedom of South Africa from imperialism, and eventually romped to victory amid torpedo and confinement. Subsequently, he ruled South Africa with the ideals of a true democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and equal opportunity. After his tenure, he relinquished power, and never sought a re-election.

Conclusively, at this present political dispensation, nothing is as paramount as a responsible, accountable, sensitive and transparent leadership to Africa.

October 6, 2009 | 11:05 AM Comments  0 comments

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Proposals to stop global warming
Translations available in: English (original) | French | Spanish | Italian | German | Portuguese | Swedish | Russian | Dutch | Arabic

"When two Englishmen meet, their first talk is of the weather", so quipped the famous writer Samuel Johnson. In recent years, the weather has become more than just a conversation starter. It has become a matter of grave concern to people all over the globe. Why? Because the weather seems to be increasingly erratic. The earth is our home. We all dwell on the planet earth; thus, its destiny is ours. Contemporary man has spewed billions of tons of pollutants into the air, in his quest for comfort, speed, and commercial gain.

Global warming per se is as old as industrial revolution. It refers to the rise in average global temperature that our planet has undergone, since the inception of industrial revolution in the eighteenth century. This warming is largely due to an atmospheric blanket of heat-trapping pollution that grows thicker as we burn fossil fuels, to produce electricity and power our vehicles. Certain potent greenhouse gasses are responsible for this excess trapping of heat in the atmosphere. For example: water vapor, carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, sulfur dioxide and methane. Without these gases, heat would escape back into space, and earth's average temperature would be about thirty-three degrees Celsius colder.

Admittedly, this nightmarish phenomenon runs amok on the planet earth today. It is an environmental challenge that faces mankind - hence, I think, the governing bodies of nations that dwell on this earth, ought to brace up and zap this challenge. Though, taking efficacious preventive actions, may be far easier said than done - ignoring it either, is at man's peril, because, it is a portent of grave danger to posterity.

Actions towards alleviating the pollutants that gives rise to warming have to be global, since pollution is a global problem. To this end, I think, the best-intentioned leaders of indigent nations, should be obliged, and duty-bound to merge with other poorer nations, who simply cannot afford antipollution measures single-handedly, because of the cost. With this synergy, I think, they will make headway in ameliorating global warming pollutants.

Furthermore, I think the government of the First and Third worlds, should sign international treaties compelling them to reduce their pollutants emission. Economically wealthy countries, ought to take the lead in mitigating these pollutants, not using scientific uncertainty, about some aspects of climate change, as the cause of their dilatory approach in giving an immediate response. Clearly, entente cordiale is a sine qua non for addressing this global threat. To achieve this amity, the government of the sundry countries on the planet earth, should ratify international agreements; pass legislations, aimed at ameliorating greenhouse gas emissions.

Moreover, the government has to work overtime with its resources, to encourage alternative means of cleaner energy generation. To this end, the government should see it as its mantle, to fund sufficiently any emerging technological breakthrough - such as, fuel cell. This newly born technology needs to be refined for more down-to-earth uses. In essence, the government should encourage the development of this emerging technology, since it could replace the internal combustion engine in motor vehicles; produce electricity for commercial and domestic buildings; power small electric devices, such as: mobile phones and computers.

As a matter of necessity, the government should take major part in pollution management, by providing sewage pipes and refuse dumps far away from human habitation. The government should also set up a task force, which will ensure that pollutants from houses and factories are properly disposed of. Similarly, the government should set up a monitoring team that will visit the industrial areas and bring their reports and findings, as regards to the industrialists' allegiance to the existing environmental laws. In addition, individuals and corporate bodies wishing to open up companies and factories must be legally registered. Laws ought to be enacted, as regards to limitation of pollution emissions. The emitters of these pollutants must have mandatory limitations.

Attention and funding should be given to all environmentalists, to enable them work overtime with their ingenuity, and come up with more lasting technological solutions to environmental threats, such as: warming. More so, the government should prohibit the use of any machinery, engine, etc., capable of sprawling greenhouse gases - like: fairly used vehicles, aircrafts, industrial plants and generators, hydroplanes and ships, motorboats and motorbikes, refrigerators, air conditioners, etc.; and encourage the use of those that are chlorofluorocarbon(cfc) free. There should also be funding by the government for the development of energy-efficient mass transit - and by extension, encouragement of urban planning that alleviates urban sprawl of toxic, and radioactive wastes.

Since charity begins at home, the government should enlighten the general public, via the media, on how to make less-polluting choices - like: walking, biking, carpooling, and using mass transit, as well as limiting travel by using communication technologies. Secondly, planting of deciduous trees to shade houses, since trees can remove fifty pounds of carbon from the air each year. Thirdly, replacing incandescent lights with energy efficient fluorescent bulbs or light fixtures. Fourthly, purchasing energy efficient appliances that display the Energy Star Label. Fifthly, turning off lights, televisions and other electronic devices when not in use. Sixthly, purchasing a fuel-efficient car or alternative fuel vehicle, like fuel cell vehicle; and persuade them to model these practices by committing to a life of voluntary simplicity and earth stewardship.

Finally, the government should expedite actions intended for the mitigation of these pollutants, bearing in mind that action is of the essence. If we knowingly continue to live in a manner, which harms and jeopardizes life, we will continue to transgress the hallowed web of existence. An ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure.

April 4, 2008 | 9:29 PM Comments  0 comments





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