On neocolonialism and the victim-perpetrator narrative

It seems that we now live in a world where some fledgling scholars of African studies mostly domiciled in the West may well dismiss the works of individuals like Mao Zedong, Ho Chi Minh, Kwame Nkrumah, Sekou Toure, Amilcar Cabral, Walter Rodney, etc., as nothing but the victim narrative. The victim-perpetrator narrative is a well-known topic in social psychology. Perpetrators usually depict their victim’s behaviours as unnecessarily provocative. As victims portray incidents from the perpetrator’s actions in a long-term framework that carries permanent implications, especially of harm, loss and grievance, the perpetrators would not stop at casting those actions as closed, isolated incidents that have no permanent implications. Often, it is within this background that social conflicts arise, when a victim initially stifles anger and then finally responds to accrued series of provocations, while the perpetrator perceives (or pretends to perceive) only the sole incident and regards the livid response as an unwarranted overreaction. In the end, victim-perpetrator roles are associated with dissimilar subjective readings.

The ultimate goal of the modern coloniser is to encourage a selective reading of history and to categorise certain historical accounts as having little or no significance to the African predicament, and to also thwart any real opportunities for further research on the colonial past. Going by their research interests, African academics in the social sciences and the humanities who live in the West are living examples of the kind of narratives that can be put forward for their careers to advance. These tolerable narratives are those which typically stereotype Africa as a place of corruption, war, hunger, disease, etc. The narrative is always explicit and it does not encourage an attempt to revisit, say, why the peach fruit from the Devil’s Punchbowl on the banks of the Mississippi river is not eaten!

The fledgling scholars of African studies domiciled in the West often push narratives that seek to justify Africans as being the sole cause of their country’s woes. They tell Africans that there is no Western influence on African leaders sponsoring expensive weddings for their children or travelling abroad for medical reasons, all at the expense of the common man. Approved, Africa is complicit in many aspects of its own underdevelopment. But it is also illogical to assume that understanding the complicity of the other is to deny Africa’s own complicity. We must learn to discuss two or more issues that take a departure from each other, concurrently. All history is important and none can be said to be moribund or obsolete, and people study history because it is critical for them to understand societal transformations and how people developed into what they are today. The principle of uniformitarianism in earth sciences, which suggests the gradualist historical concept that the present is the key to the past seems prevalent in the social sciences and the humanities.

For example, Vanderbilt University professor of modern African studies, Moses Ochonu, argues that Ivorians may be blamed for the political conflict that led an armed rebellion to split their nation into two, but France, the former colonial power in the country cannot be cleared in reassuring the Felix Houphouet-Boigny to erect a Roman Catholic basilica in Yamoussoukro for an amount roughly comparable to his country’s annual budget. Similarly, Nigerians could be blamed for allowing politicians in the country to steal from the national treasury at the expense of realising moral universals such as persistent electric power and effective hospitals, but how do we acquit the complicity of Western banks and businesses in enhancing such classic corruption?

Several other examples abound. We may not be aware that Nigeria is one of the main target markets for universities in the United Kingdom. There is even some history to demonstrate how events in Nigeria could affect the survival of an institution of higher learning in the United Kingdom. Mrs. Elizabeth Ivase (1936-2019) was the first female minister in northern Nigeria. She was minister of education in the Second Republic. Because of the importance of her position, the University of Wales, where she once studied, invited her to Cardiff. There, she pledged that every year, the Nigerian government would sponsor a significant number of Nigerians to study at the University College Cardiff (UCC) where a variety of social science and humanities courses were undertaken.

From Ivase’s pledge, UCC administrators did the arithmetic. The funds they would receive from Nigerian students within a few years were so enormous that they incurred a huge debt to build and expand their facilities. They were so sure that funds from Nigeria would service the debt. But a certain military officer named Muhammadu Buhari was lurking in the shadows, ready to disrupt the Republic that pledged them an enormous amount in tuition fees. When Buhari disrupted the Republic, it was no news that UCC was on the verge of bankruptcy. To make matters worse for UCC, Buhari’s government came with a policy that the idea of government scholarships being utilised overseas was economically imprudent especially for degree programs that can be conducted in Nigeria. Thus, UCC was a UK university, which operated like a Nigerian university because they were so much accustomed to funds from Nigeria, until they learnt lessons out of experience.

To save what was left of UCC, the University of Wales Institute of Science and Technology (UWIST) merged with UCC so that they would have what was then to be called the University of Wales College of Cardiff (UWCC). This incident was reported in a paper entitled “Financial management in universities: The lessons from University College, Cardiff”, published in Financial Accountability & Management (1988 Jun;4(2):99-112). The paper describes the circumstances in which UCC reached the verge of bankruptcy, and it does refer to the relationship between UCC and Nigeria concerning international students. The article was detailed on the events that brought about the crisis and the actions that took place afterward, including the merger with UWIST. This institution is the present Cardiff University.

It is not in doubt that Western economies are still dependent on developing countries. The nature of African economies perfectly suits developed countries. If Africa were to process all its natural resources, many businesses in the developed countries may fail. Many businesses in the United States and the United Kingdom are failing as China is increasingly becoming the world’s manufacturing hub. It is also in the West’s economic interest for Africa to rely on imports and as safe haven for looted funds. These have been the arguments of Kwame Nkrumah, Sekou Toure, Amilcar Cabral, Walter Rodney, etc. The arguments are as relevant today as they were in the 1950s and 1960s. Remarkably, it seems that international development experts and practitioners rarely challenge these Western hegemonic influences within the current global economic system.

Mohammed Dahiru Aminu is an Assistant Professor of Petroleum Chemistry at the American University of Nigeria. He can be reached via [email protected]