This week marks the first anniversary of this column. Precisely a year ago, on 8 December 2014, I made my debut as a back-page columnist for this newspaper. Permit me, dear reader, to use this occasion to reflect on the series of events that led to the column and on my experience of writing it, every week, for the past one year. But I would like, first, to reminisce about my encounter with journalism, a profession for which I have great respect. I pride myself on having a multidisciplinary career – as a lawyer, political economist, academic and policy analyst. But that list must include a career as a journalist!
Many regular readers of this column already know about my early career as a magazine publisher in London. But, prior to that, I had studied journalism for two years, obtaining a diploma, at the London School of Journalism (LSJ), which trained many British and foreign journalists. I remember being at LSJ one day and seeing the then director of the Nigerian Institute of Journalism (NIJ), Dayo Duyile, meeting with the then director of LSJ, Patricia Butler, to discuss collaboration between the two institutions. I met him later and we talked about the prospect of a career in journalism. I was a member of the National Union of Journalists in the UK, and freelanced for the Voice newspaper before starting my own publication, Marketfinder International magazine, in 1991.
My visit to Nigeria in 1997 was a memorable journalistic experience. I visited the major newspapers: the Guardian, the Punch, Vanguard and Champion. I met all the editors, except Vanguard’s, who was not available when I visited. The Punch was generous. It interviewed me and splashed it across the centre pages of its Wednesday edition, which the editor told me was the newspaper’s flagship interview section. I remember taking several copies back with me to London. Champion also interviewed me, but the interview was published after I had left Nigeria.
When I returned to London, I kept the promise I had made to the editor of the Guardian and wrote an article for the newspaper. Friends in Nigeria who read the article called to say they liked it and urged me to make more of such intervention. But I never did – until about 16 years later, in 2014! That piece in August 2014 turned out to be a harbinger. It triggered the chain of events that led to the emergence of this column on 8 December last year.
Yet it was serendipitous, completely unplanned. I had attended a lecture given at the London School of Economics by Kingsley Moghalu, then deputy governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, on Africa’s development. I went to that lecture having no intention of writing about it. But after listening to the lecture and particularly Moghalu’s strident criticism of globalisation and his recommendations that Africa should adopt an inward-looking economic policy to develop, I knew it was time to make another intervention. So, I wrote a piece titled “Africa’s development: The fallacy of self-sufficiency”, challenging the notion that Africa could develop by isolating itself economically from the rest of the world.
I wanted the article to receive wide coverage. So I asked a friend, Muyiwa Akintunde, chief executive of Leap Communications, to help identify interested newspapers and send the article to them. Akintunde is himself an experienced journalist, who was a senior reporter/writer at the Guardian and Daily Times, and has held senior editorial positions, including as associate editor of Newswatch, Sunday editor of the Post Express and managing editor of Africa Today magazine. Thanks to him and to the editors he talked to, the article was published in the Guardian editions of 25 and 26 August 2014, and in BusinessDay on 26 and 27 August.
The article generated a lot of interest, as I had hoped it would. For instance, it was reproduced by AllAfrica.com and published on the websites of the World Bank and the Trade Law Centre (Tralac) in South Africa. At home, there were two critical rejoinders. The first, by Adewale Stephen, titled “Africa’s development: Time to abandon theory and confront reality”, was published by BusinessDay on 3 and 4 September 2014. Stephen essentially argued that the developed countries had to protect their economies to rise, so Africa should protect its economy too. Stephen’s article was intelligent but I disagreed with his logic, and still do!
Then, there came another rejoinder, from Ubohmhe Glenn Olowojaiye, titled “Africa’s development, globalisation and Fasan’s fallacy”. It was published in the BusinessDay of 18 September. Again, a well-written and clever piece, but, like Stephen, Olowojaiye railed against globalisation, arguing that Africa could not open its markets when the developed countries closed theirs. Then he said: “Dr Fasan is an adherent of the extreme form of market fundamentalism far removed from the real world”. A reader had also posted a comment in support of either Stephen’s or Olowojaiye’s article saying, “Well, when considering agent of globalisation like Dr Fasan, we must not forget the fact that he will use his position to advertise globalisation and all its trick to developing economy like Nigeria”.
This was all unsparing and hard-hitting! But, for me, the idea of a new phenomenon called “Fasan’s fallacy”, based on the proposition that economic openness would benefit Africa, was very amusing. “Fasan’s fallacy”? I emailed the article to a friend, who replied: “I think a sequel from you will be highly valued”, adding that, “Without a follow-up, it would appear that you are conceding the ground to the anti-globalisation proponents”. That was it! So, I wrote the long piece titled “In defence of globalisation: The moral and liberal case”. BusinessDay graciously published the whole article in its 22 October edition.
Lawyers often talk about a chain of causation, that is, a link of series of events that lead from cause to effect. While Moghalu’s LSE lecture triggered my first article in August 2014, it was Olowojaiye’s rejoinder that provoked the globalisation article in October. And that article was the proximate cause of the birth of this column.
After the article was published, I emailed the editor to thank him for giving the piece prominence in his newspaper. He replied, thanking me for such “an engaging debate” in the newspaper. He then said: “We would love to make you a weekly back page columnist”. That was like a bolt from the blue. I had least expected that my interventions would have such an effect. It was, indeed, a remarkable privilege to be asked to write for one of Nigeria’s great quality newspapers and undoubtedly the best in its specialised field. Although I asked to consider the offer, it didn’t take me much time to decide. My father-in-law, a very sharp-minded man in his mid-80s, had constantly needled me about returning to Nigeria to contribute to its development, and I would reply that I didn’t have to be in the country to do that. Surely, I thought, writing a weekly column for one of Nigeria’s most influential newspapers was another way I could make some contribution. So, I accepted the offer, and the rest, as they say, is history!
Now, the timing was particularly auspicious. The 2015 general elections were just around the corner, and provided rich column ideas and materials. Of the 54 articles in this column since 8 December 2014, about 20 were on the preparation, conduct and aftermath of the general elections. Throughout the period, I received emails from readers who said that my interventions had helped them to make up their minds on some of the issues, which was gratifying.
Of course, as a columnist, particularly one based overseas and not feeling directly the pulse of the nation and the mood of the people, feedback from the editor and the readers is like a tonic. The editor of BusinessDay, Phillip Isakpa, has been very generous, even too generous, in my opinion, with praise! In one touching email, he said, “People are following you and your articles are deep”, adding: “And you are contributing your quota to Nigeria’s development through your thoughts and insights”. Now, given that I became a columnist in the hope that I could make a modest contribution, that comment was very inspiring.
Several readers were also generous with their feedback. One “critical fan”, Martin Udogie, author of How to Read More, said: “You are one of the few columnists in Nigeria that I read regularly these days on account of the rigour and logic you bring to your writing”, adding that: “I have read a number of your articles and couldn’t help but keep nodding as I devoured them”. However, he then commented that my article “The Lee Kuan Yew exemplar for Buhari” should have focused not only on what Lee achieved but also how he achieved them. A point that I conceded in my response to him, to which he then replied: “Thank you for always keeping us well informed”.
But, truth be told, it has not all been lovey-dovey. My views on economic or trade openness have not always been popular with some readers, as comments, such as “Fasan’s fallacy” and “agent of globalisation”, have shown. Furthermore, any piece that appeared to be critical of Nigeria’s relationship with the West, or its place in the world, provoked an angry response from a few readers. One particular response is worth mentioning. In my article, “The world is right to care who heads Nigeria”, I had argued that the West’s unprecedented interest in the 2015 presidential election was justified, and posited that “apart from the need to avert crisis, the West also strongly believed that Nigeria needed a new leader, and their sympathies lay with Buhari, who they reckoned was a better alternative to the rudderless Jonathan”. A reader was so angry, he wrote me a long email full of diatribe. He said the article was “prejudiced” and “distasteful”, and suggested that “your forlorn sojourn in a foreign land has deluded your reasoning and your views of Nigerian polity”.
Now, a columnist must take the smooth with the rough, the praise with the criticism. I am highlighting this case simply to make a bigger point. I believe there is a form of romantic patriotism in this country that, generally speaking, makes us too suspicious of the outside world. Strangely, when we have challenges we run to the West for help, as President Buhari is currently doing seeking the help of every world leader on Nigeria’s problems, and as some Nigerians did during the Abacha years or the annulment of the June 12 1993 presidential election. But when the West complains about the way Nigeria is governed, about human rights abuses, about endemic corruption, about our dirigiste economic policy, about how we squander our resources, etc, we say “that’s none of your business, you are interfering and impinging on our sovereignty”! It’s an isolationist worldview that is incongruent with a world of greater interconnectedness.
Several years ago, I interviewed Kalu Idika Kalu, then minister of finance, when he stopped over in London on his way to an IMF/World Bank meeting. I asked him why Nigeria always had difficult relations with the West. His answer is as relevant today as it was then. “I think in Nigeria, we’ve tended to be almost isolationist,” he said, adding, “you know, somehow like the Americans that have this kind of tendency to just think of themselves and not think of others”. But this is not how to develop an influence relationship in international relations. As the American international lawyers, Abram and Antonia Chayes, said in their book The New Sovereignty, a country that lacks reputation as a reliable partner “jeopardises its ability to reap organisational benefits”, such as being a key participant in the international policy-making process.
The truth is that Nigeria is not pulling its weight in global affairs. The world sees Nigeria as a nation blessed with super-abundant human and natural resources, but whose leaders are squandering its resources, and so rather than being a leader in the world, we are going around with a “begging bowl” seeking the world’s help! When Nigeria is perfunctorily invited to international summits, such as the G7 or G20 meetings, it is usually as a country in need of help! South Africa is a member of the G20 and of the BRICS, Nigeria is not. Recently, I tweeted in response to another tweet and said “it’s anomalous that Africa’s largest economy, Nigeria, isn’t a member of BRICS”, and suggested the name be changed to BRINCS to include Nigeria!
Let’s be clear. Nigeria needs to stop being too defensive and self-referential. We should be more outward-looking and benchmark our policies and institutions against global best practices and learn from others. Some years ago, the British government sent a group of ministers to Chile to study its pensions system because Chile was believed to have one of the best pensions systems in the world. A developed country, learning from a developing one! But that’s how nations develop, by learning from and imitating others. The Buhari government must genuinely be outward-looking. Its ministers must look for the best ideas anywhere in the world and adapt them to the Nigerian situation. This is why globalisation helps, because it facilitates the diffusion of ideas, and it is why Nigeria should embrace economic openness.
So, it’s really been an exciting year writing this column. I am grateful to BusinessDay for the privilege to write it and to my readers for keeping faith with it. Of course, the biggest “thank you” goes to God Almighty for His grace. Every column should have a purpose. Mine is to provide information, to give advice, to provoke thought and, hopefully, move to action. And, as the name suggests, to bring an international perspective to the issues I discuss. I hope to continue to write it, and hope, too, that you, dear reader, continue to read it!
Olu Fasan
