Claude Ake

Economic Sectors – Not Complementary

Post author:Grimot Nane Zine
Post published:September 30, 2022
Post category:Corruption Governance Institutions
Post comments:2 Comments
Reading time:8 mins read

Economic Sectors – Not Complementary

No agreement today, no agreement tomorrow – Fela Kuti

Capable societies are those that have enforceable institutions of public value, while incapable societies lack them at national and local levels. Such nations are mainly in the Global North. It is easy to identify nations in the Global South as incapable of such enforcement. Public value can be economic or social. Accordingly, incapable societies cannot create public value by themselves. They can only extract it and thus live on dependency. If they have mineral riches, they become rentier states. Otherwise, they stand as highly indebted nations ever seeking technical help. Surviving on begging bowl economics. (more…)

Nigeria in Pieces

Post author:Grimot Nane Zine
Post published:November 11, 2015
Post category:Governance Institutions Social Relations
Post comments:2 Comments
Reading time:2 mins read

When Sir James Goldsmith in his book, The Trap, predicted in the mid-1990s that the nation called Nigeria will disintegrate in a similar manner to how Yugoslavia did, many Nigerian intellectuals dismissed it but with tacit concerns. They and many more were far more certain of the, reality or illusion, that Nigeria’s oil wealth would hold the nation together with firm unity regardless of the internal strife, differences and cleavages encountered between various “interest groups” and “ethnic groups” as predicted most notably by Claude Ake. However, Ake did imply that the end of oil may be the end of Nigeria. With major changes in the international oil market are both Goldsmith and Ake correct in their predictions?

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Nigeria was Designed to Be an Enduring Failure

Nigeria is Designed to Be an Enduring Failure

Post author:Grimot Nane Zine
Post published:September 3, 2015
Post category:Corruption Institutions
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Reading time:6 mins read

Nigeria is Designed to Be an Enduring Failure

Nigeria’s failing as a nation is not the work of God. Nigerian political economist Claude Ake, with conviction, said there was never any design for Nigeria or Africa to be successful as modern societies. Not in economic or political sense. So many scoffed at him. Yet, he was not just right; he was visionary. Colonial powers are not that generous. Nigeria’s design was to fail. And some of its intellectual and political elites, more than anyone else, have been at the forefront of negotiating and perpetuating this unstoppable failure. The Nigerian intellectual elite love the chains of failure. For they guarantee their society’s failure as they ever profit big with ease from it. (more…)

Origins of an Opintar

Post author:Grimot Nane Zine
Post published:May 5, 2015
Post category:Musings Social Crisis Social Relations
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Reading time:22 mins read

Origins of an Opintar

“Birds got something to teach us all; About being free, yeah; Be no rain… Be no rain…” – Gil Scott-Heron, from the lyrics, I Think I’ll Call It Morning

I proclaim myself an Opintar sometimes. Opinterity is the closest I know to freedom and joy. It is part aspiration, part practice. Many think Opintar is a fun name. Or of vernacular because they cannot google it. Or the vanity of one gnawed by rough illness many times. It is none of these. Opintar describes my lot in life and my journey compass. Ordinary is the life of an Opintar. (more…)