10 AFRICAWORLD NOVEMBER 1-15 2012
COLUMN / news
joe moore column The Irish language expression for a black person is “duine gorm” , the literal translation of which is “a blue person.” This always intrigued me since I was first taught it at primary school. How could black people be described as blue? A few years ago, while on a holiday in Mauritius, I came across a possible explanation. Mauritius has been in the news recently in Ireland on account of the media circus around the Michaela McAreavey murder trial. Michaela was brutally murdered while on her honeymoon. Because of the fact that she was the daughter of a high profile GAA official, her death and the subsequent murder trial received maximum media coverage. RTE the state radio and TV service even sent one of its senior reporters to Mauritius for the full duration of the trial, which ran for five weeks. In an excellent article in the Irish
Times (June 20th) Vincent Browne contrasts the media attention given to the McAreavey murder in comparison to that of a Limerick woman, Breda Waters, a mother of three young children. Breda Waters murder has been almost ignored by official Ireland. As well as the GAA connection, another reason for the focus on the McAreavey killing was where it happened. Mauritius is an island nation situated in the Indian Ocean, 540 miles east of Madagascar. It is much smaller than Ireland both in terms of its size and population. Over 95% of its population is of Indian and African descent. Therefore the Irish authorities for once were able to lord it over a smaller nation, the majority of whose citizens were dark skinned. One of its main industries is tourism, which is aimed at the higher end of the market. The coast of the island is dotted with 5-star hotels. (Just for the record, I spent three holidays in Mauritius, totalling 7 weeks in total. Not one
day was spent in a hotel. My brother had a Mauritian wife and all my time was spent in her family’s home.) The other dominant industry in sugar, with much of the island covered with sugar plantations. Despite that Mauritius is the 3rd most densely populated country in the world, with a population of almost 1.3 million. The majority of Mauritians are working class, most of whom cannot afford the prices charged by the hotels. The majority of tourists never meet or interact with the locals, except in their capacity as hotel workers, and therefore never see the levels of poverty that exist. Mauritius was uninhabited when it was “discovered “by the Dutch in the late 1600s and remained there for about 20 years. They first introduced sugar to the island. The French colonised the island in 1735, with the British taking control in 1810 during the Napoleonic war. Obviously neither the French nor the British laboured in the plantations to harvest the sugar. That work was carried out initially by Africans taken to the island as slaves. There they were literally worked to death, in order to make vast fortunes for the idle parasitic plantation owners, ship
owners, refinery owners as well as bankers and insurers. With the ending of slavery in the majority of the British Empire in 1833, the authorities looked to India as a source of cheap labour. During the second half of the 19th century millions of Indians migrated to the islands of the Indian and Pacific Oceans, the east coast of Africa and to the Caribbean as indentured labourers. Although nominally free, this system was slavery by another name. After arriving at their destination, these people were obliged to work for years without pay, in order that they could repay the cost of their passage. The conditions under which they worked were no better than those that existed under slavery. Mauritius finally became a free country in March 1968. This freedom however was not without a sting in the tail, because as part of the deal, the island of Diego Garcia was handed over to the US, and its inhabitants forcibly deported to Mauritius. They still live there today in abject poverty. So to return to my theory on the origins of the “duine gorm.” While in Mauritius I visited the island’s main heritage centre, L’Aventure
du Sucre, the history of sugar. This centre is situated in the north of the country, near to the world famous Pamplemousses gardens. The history of sugar is in fact the history of Mauritius. This is a must see for anybody visiting the country as it shows in full graphic detail the reality of life on the sugar plantations for those enslaved by the Europeans. As well as sugar, the cultivation of tea, coffee and indigo is also documented. The many uses of the indigo dye are listed. One such use was the painting of their faces by some African tribes before they set out for battle. The sight of these fierce looking warriors with blue faces struck fear into the hearts of their opponents. These fighters were referred to by their enemies as the blue men. That was my eureka moment. The connection was made between the duine gorm of my school days and African warriors. The only well documented interaction between African people and Ireland was the raid on Baltimore in west Cork in 1631. Perhaps some of those pirates used indigo on their faces. I cannot be sure, but for me, it provided one possible explanation of the origins of the term “duine gorm.”
dd’s cubicle
The Nigeria Vision 20:2020: Is It A Dream?
We start our article with an assertion made on Wikipedia: “By 2020 Nigeria will be one of the 20 largest economies in the world, able to consolidate its leadership role in Africa and establish itself as a significant player in the global economic and political arena.” Is this a dream or reality? Nigeria, by all indices, is the largest black nation on earth and has been endowed with natural and physical resources envied across the world. In spite of her endowments, however, she is like a baby learning to crawl and is thus a source of ridicule to Nigerians. A country of 167 million people living without even five hours of uninterrupted power supply; where 120 million live below N200 a day; where the national and subnational governments budget 80 per cent of resources on conspicuous consumption; where leaders are not ready to make any sacrifice for the sake of the nation; where everything is imported; where the stench of corruption in public places is high; where you cannot sleep with your two eyes closed; will become one of the 20 largest economies in 20:2020? I ask how a country with 167 million people, without a functional rail network and constant power supply, thinks it could be a global player by 2020? This is an aberration of sorts because two indices that are seen to spur national economic growth are good road networks and constant electricity. Even though President Goodluck Jonathan, through his erstwhile Minister of Power, Professor Barth Nnaji, made
bold stands in electricity and ushered in a new lease of electricity supply, most Nigerians in their different cities still say they have not seen the improvements in power supply. Therefore we ask, could a country be a world economic and industrial powerhouse without constant power generation and supply? From Lagos in the west to Kano in the north, from Owerri in the east and the largest market in West Africa, Onitsha market, no Nigerian could travel to these places on good road networks. Even within Lagos, which is the economic town of Nigeria and the most industrialized, one cannot boast of a functional rail network. Since we cannot boast of a functional rail network here, does it tell us all over Nigeria Nigerians boast of rail networks? Seeing this vision as a mere dream and writing on the Vanguard, Mr. Omoh Gabriel notes (like me): ‘’There is an economic dreamer out there. His name is Goldman Sachs. In 2004, he dreamt that Nigeria will emerge one of the 20 largest economies of the world in 2025. Another dreamer, Olusegun Obasanjo, then President of Nigeria, though, he did not dream this time around, said 2025 was too long, he said his own dream was 20:2020. So Nigerians were forced to accept the dream in the name of Vision 20:2020.” Eight years to the dreamed promised land, another dreamer, this time, Fitch Rating Agency, said that Nigeria can make it to the dreamland in the next eight years—not minding the poverty, lack of infrastructure, political bickering and insecurity in the land. In a recent presentation on Nigeria’s Debt Capital Markets, Richard Fox, Fitch Rating’s Head of Africa/Middle East sovereigns, had compared Nigeria’s current sovereign debt metrics to those of Emerging Markets (EMs) that have recently made the transition to investment grade (IG) and came to the conclusion that Nigeria is on the path of success. He said: “Since 2004, seven EMs have moved up the rating scale from Nigeria’s current ‘BB-’ level to the lowest investment grade ‘BBB-’ rating. The most recent was Indonesia in 2011; the others are Azerbaijan (2010), Brazil (2008) and Bulgaria, Kazakhstan, Romania and Russia (2004). Of the seven, four are oil producers to varying degrees. . .
Among the key indicators that Fitch uses to assess sovereign creditworthiness, three stand out as being well outside the range of experience of recent newly IG EMs: per capita GDP, reserve cover and governance (the latter measured by the World Bank’s governance indicators). These areas represent Nigeria’s biggest challenge to improving its rating, as highlighted in Fitch’s previous research. Of the three, reserve cover is the most susceptible to rapid improvement, particularly at current high oil prices. But although Nigeria’s reserves have risen by around $2 billion this year, they are not rising as fast as in the majority of big oil exporters. “Other external data such as the current account and net external assets are comparable to those of newly IG sovereigns.’’ Nigerians are proud and kind people. I must tell you that pride and kindness do not make a country’s people well off. For Nigeria’s economy to come close to the dream of Vision 20:2020, structural and political reforms must be planned and implemented in the electricity, roads, oil, and agriculture sectors. Then there must be a real definition in infrastructural development. Part of the poverty Nigeria faces as a nation is the weakness of her infrastructures. In the educational sector, if Nigeria is to attain the Vision 20:2020 national economic projection, concerted efforts must be made to improve the human capacity competence of Nigerian graduates. Since the Nigerian workforce will be the key players herein, poor human capacity development will affect the attainment of the Vision 20:2020 vision, due to the fact that Nigerian graduates are expected to constitute the pool of workforce from which the drivers of the vision would be chosen. Tellingly, Nigeria even imports toothpicks. Unless Nigeria reduces importation, its aspiration to rank among the world’s 20 most developed countries by the year 2020 will be a mirage. The world’s leading democracies and economies achieved such a milestone because they were pioneers in the Arts, Engineering, Science and Technology. To achieve success in this area, Nigeria should emulate the world’s leading economies by studying the vast opportunities in Science and Technology to solve Nigeria’s socio-political and economic problems.