Over a decade ago an English judge opined that ‘the more educated the Nigerian, the more dangerous he is’. From Lord Mansfield to Lord Denning, English judges have been known for their decorum, equity and fairness. The infamous obiter by this particular judge amounted to no less than the wholesale calumniation of an entire country and its people.
Naijaphobia, I am afraid, is becoming a world-wide trend. On the international conference circuit, one often has to muster a rather thick skin to endure the admixture of wariness and barely-concealed sneers that sometimes greet one each time one is introduced as a Nigerian.
The problem is surprisingly worse among fellow Africans than it is with Asians and Europeans.
I find Arabs actually friendlier to Nigerians than the others. This is not only on account of our oil wealth; it is due to the manner in which we carry ourselves -- with a bravado and panache which resonates with desert dwellers.
There is also the fact that some of our best footballers made their marks in the Arab world, where the likes of Tijani Babangida, Emmanuel Amuneke, Rashidi Yekini and Julius Aghawowa remain heroes to this day.
I was a pan-Africanist in my younger days, although I have been cured of the disease. When I later went to Europe for post-graduate work and encountered several African students, my pan-Africanist faith began to waver. It got worse when I became an international banker and travelled through much of the continent.
As it happens, I was a rapporteur at the First International Conference of Intellectuals of Africa and the Diaspora which took place in Dakar, Senegal, during October 2004. Among the participants were renowned figures such as Samir Amin, Amadou Mahtar M’Bow, Théophile Obenga and Joseph Ki-Zerbo. The discussion soon turned on how ‘dangerous’ Nigerians are. In that large amphitheatre of le Meridien President Hotel -- amid the throng of a thousand intellectuals, I have never felt a loneliness that drove me to tears.
It has been said that General Colin Powell, former US Joint Chief of Staff and former Secretary of State, once described our country as a land of crooks. Oprah Winfrey allegedly followed suit with basically the same invectives. For the umpteenth time, foreign intelligence services have planted stories in the global media prophesying, with absolute certainty, our future doom. Then there was the recent Sony PlayStation advert which portrayed us as a country of gangsters, with the phrase, “You can’t believe everything you read on the internet, otherwise I’d be a Nigerian millionaire by now”. More shocking is the recent South African film, District Nine, which portrays us as criminals, cannibals and prostitutes, with our former president Olusegun Obasanjo being portrayed as the leader of a gang of criminal bandits.
When I was at the Central Bank of Nigeria, 419 letters began to appear on the Internet purportedly from me requesting for cooperation to launder humongous amounts of money abroad. Some of these Internet letters were traced to places as far away as Austria and Lebanon. You would not be wrong to suspect conspiracy against our country on a global scale.
I am the first to concede that there are some ‘ugly Nigerians’ out there who are into all sorts of financial shenanigans. We must not gloss over some of our national failings out of a misguided patriotism. Our films, widely watched throughout the continent, regularly depict ritual killings, criminality and mindless violence. Our country itself seems trapped in a fearful vortex of existential evil - assassinations, kidnappings and ethno-religious killings; a scenario akin to what the philosopher Arthur Koestler described as Darkness at Noon.
The problem with Naijaphobia is that it picks on the follies of a misguided few and magnifies it as the reality of the whole. They totally do not want to know that we are still the land of Achebe, Soyinka, Christopher Okigbo, Phillip Emeagwali, Gani Fawehinmi and Olikoye Ransome-Kuti.
Whether our enemies accept it or not, we are still the best - still the most generous and most gifted people in Africa. Merely insisting on an apology as the Honourable Minister of Information Professor Dora Akunyili has done is only a partial solution.
We must, in future, inflict effective punitive economic sanctions. We must also re-work our foreign policy and ensure a ‘Nigeria First’ policy based on the litmus test of national interest and the welfare and survival of our country. Naijaphobia will only end when we set our face resolutely on the path of national rebirth, honour, democracy and progress. That is the ultimate challenge for statesmanship in our age.
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