On Social Science and African development
"One of the most critical tasks ahead of us namely to recognize and take very seriously our obligation to promote the scientific advance of the social sciences in Africa. Of course what we want is not the scientific development of just any science but rather that of a social science that will bring social. Happily there is no dilemma here, for it is the firm commitment and vigorous pursuit of this type of Social Science that we are most likely to advance the Social Sciences scientifically. Our creativity as social scientists will get the most stimulus when we are in the front-line of our people's struggles to find themselves and to master their destiny."
The Social Sciences in Africa:
"The Social Sciences will serve the well-being of humanity to the extent that Social Scientists decide to commit themselves firmly and concretely to popular interests in their practice. This commitment will provide the greatest stimulus to the development of Social Science".
On Democracy and Development in Africa
"The contemporary world is not a favorable environment for democracy. We have always preferred the reputation of being democrats to the notorious inconveniences of practicing democracy. Now, we can enjoy the reputation without the inconveniences because we have trivialized democracy to the extent that it is no longer threatening to those in power or demanding on anyone. Democracy spreads because it has been rendered meaningless and innocuous without losing its symbolic value. while it spreads, our world is more repressive".
"Is it not better for Africa to seek development rather than democracy? why should we care about the democratization of Africa? Does it really matter? Particularly at this time when the development crisis has left many of us impoverished. undernourished and starving, our infrastructure decaying, our social consensus. Fractured irredeemably, unleashing stress, conflict and violence everywhere? The answer is that this crisis is precisely a crisis of politics. especially a crisis of anti-democratic practices. We hear repeatedly that development has failed in Africa. The point however is that
it just never started in the first place because of inclement political conditions. More than anything else, it is politics that is under-developing African."
"…….the most decisive issue in Africa today is the prospect of democracy.
Democracy is not merely desirable, it is necessary. It will not solve all the problems of Africa but none of the major problems can be solved without it.... "
On the Ogoni crisis
"l don't think it was purely an ethnic clash, in fact there is really no reason why it should be an ethnic clash and as far as we could determine, there was nothing in dispute in the sense of territory, fishing rights, access rights, discriminatory treatment, which are the normal causes of these communal clashes".
On the military and democratic transition
"The military can never engender democracy because it is the anti-thesis of democracy in regard to its norms, values, purposes and structure. The military addresses the extreme and the extraordinary while democracy addresses the routine; the military values discipline and hierarchy, democracy, freedom and equality; the military is oriented to law and older, democracy to diversity, contradiction and competition; the method of the military is violent aggression, that of democracy Is persuasion, negotiation and consensus building. Against this background it is hardly surprising that the Nigerian military has never succeeded in designing and implementing a transition to democracy; it is unlikely ever to succeed "
"Nigeria is reeling from the antics of a political elite which is as allergic to democracy as it is neurotic in pursuit of power. While posing as champions of democracy, they readily collaborated in an anti-democratic transition program, a highly complicated subterfuge which ended, predictably, in confusion. When the people revolted in June 12, 1993 voting against ethnic, regional and religious parochialism - all those things which the elite use to divide and to manipulate them - a monumental crisis ensued. visibly shaken to the point of incoherence, the incumbent military regime annulled the elections"
On the New World Order
"Is there anew world order? A new world
order presupposes an older one. but it is unclear whether there was an old order as opposed to an uneasy truce or an absence of disorder. To posit a world order is to assume a political arrangement which is able to "minimize violent conflict among state, reduce injustice among and within states, and prevent dangerous violations of rights within them,,. We have no such arrangement. What we have is an implausible idea of collective security resting on a false analogy between delinquent states and delinquent individuals. It is false because there does exist at the international level, institutions for effective imposition of sanctions; coercion is impossible against the more powerful actors and usually counter-productive against the weak ones.
On the Development Paradigm
"People so often mistake the word for the thing. When we use phrases such as the "state in Africa," we immediately give it the content of our own historical experience. Indeed, having named it and given it this content, we feel we have already settled the question of what it is, beforehand. We conflate experience and reality, form and content because our knowledge is so tied to our language"
