Frantz Fanon and Nigeria at 50

Frantz Fanon was a man of African bloodline who became involved in African affairs while fighting German soldiers during the occupation of France in the Second World War. Fanon fought bravely against these Germans and was decorated for being a great warrior for France. Born in 1925 on the island of Martinique in the Caribbean, Fanon would enter medical school; graduate in psychiatry, and be posted to work in a hospital at Blida in Algeria at the height of Algeria’s war to expel French colonists.

In his book ‘The Wretched of the Earth’, it is clear that after seeing the mental convulsions manifested by wounded French and Arab patients, as well as the wounds inflicted on Algerians from brutalities by French officers, forced Fanon to abandon his French citizenship and his job and join the Front de Liberation Nationale (FLN), the movement fighting for Algeria’s independence. This led him to attend the historic All-Africa Conference in 1957, convened by Kwame Nkrumah one year after Ghana’s independence. Fanon would remain Algeria’s ambassador to Ghana and other countries of West Africa.

'VIOLENCE IS A CLEANSING FORCE'

Of interest here are the medical cures that Fanon fed into his political theories for development in post-colonial African countries. One element of his thinking could have been provoked by a letter written in 1959 to the Emir of Bida by one M.J.E. Babatola, the parliamentary secretary to the Premier of Western Region in Nigeria. The main body of the letter is a condemnation of the use of ‘hooligans’ by the Northern Peoples Congress party (NPC), to ensure that all other political parties were ‘expelled by force from exercising their political rights’ to address campaign rallies in Bida. Babatola hoped the Emir would ensure the ‘civilization’ that Frederick Lugard had brought to his emirate when he conquered the land would seep into the political culture of his officials and politicians. That punch line was a snub and a derogation whose power would prove hurtful.

Whether it hurt fiercely or not at all, it was symptomatic of a framework of mind that would poison relations between ruling groups in the north and the south of Nigeria. Fanon had collected data on similar relations between French colonists and Algerians. And that is almost certainly what provoked his medical prescription:

‘At the level of individuals, violence is a cleansing force. It frees the native from his inferiority complex and from his despair and inaction, it makes him fearless and restores his self-respect.’

With reference to Nigeria in 1966 it can be asked if the widespread killings and attacks on Igbos across northern and southern Nigeria could be blamed on impulses to overcome inferiority complexes and earn self-respect. And if Fanon is correct, it is worth considering in what ways becoming ‘fearless’ and full of new ‘self-respect’ affected the conduct of Nigeria’s affairs in subsequent decades.

Looking at Nigeria’s affairs in 2010, one wonders if the new splash of self-respect and fearlessness gave leaders an opportunity to re-think how they developed their respective regions. The logic used to be one of competition among the one another. We can speculate whether the explosive anger that came out of Maitesine’s religious incidents in Kano (and as far afield as Yola) in the 1980s, inter-ethnic killings in Kano, Kaduna, Lagos, and ‘Boko Haram’ between 2000 and 2009 , could be traced to historic escapes by leaders into prolonged indifference to the needs of their communities.

BIAFRA AND THE NIGER DELTA REGION

Fanon was not too concerned about the curative medical value that the violence by Algerians against French soldiers and officials had on their victims (at least, not beyond their shocked recognition that Algerians were also human beings). In Nigeria the victims of the 1966-67 war were driven into fighting for a home and a sunrise of their own in a space they called ‘Biafra’. The drive to build Biafra is widely acclaimed for releasing new waves of creativity and scientific inventiveness among its new citizens.

From the 2010 perspective, one wonders if the triumph of violence and loss of group self-confidence which followed the pogroms (and later the defeat of Biafra) left a condition of ideological uncertainty that would be seized upon by a succession of hustlers and lone kings rolled from cocaine pushers, political godfathers, human traffickers and kidnappers. The unemployed lumpen-proletariat that infests growing urban slums and on which Fanon put high hopes to eat away the roots of the tree of failed African countries may be undermining the very fabric of Nigeria’s society without offering a hope in unity.

'ORGANISED AND EDUCATED' VIOLENCE THEN AND NOW

Fanon could not possibly have anticipated the conflict that spread across decades in the Niger Delta region. The following medical prescription that he offered from his Algerian and French war experiences may not have fallen into the creeks of the Niger Delta and died inside fishes and crabs. He wrote:

‘Violence alone, violence committed by the people, violence organised and educated by its leaders makes it possible for the masses to understand social truths and gives the key to them.’

There is a vital condition that the violence he is talking about must be ‘organised and educated’ by leaders of the people that are using violence to achieve political aims. We have evidence that Samora Machel in Mozambique, Amilcar Cabral in Guinea Bissau and Cape Verde, Agostinho Neto in Angola, Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe, Sam Nujoma in Namibia and Oliver Tambo in South Africa took Fanon’s prescribed medical drugs. They showed evidence of having led and disciplined the use violence to achieve liberation. Cabral wrote that the political wing must always control the military wing of a liberation war. In the Niger Delta, however, there has probably been more evidence of non-educated violence that ignored control by elders, community leaders and politicians in the region. There is evidence that rebel commander Government Ekpemupolo (alias Tompolo) did inject valuable political education into various groups of militants but there was nothing resembling the political giants like Cabral, Neto, Machel or Mugabe ensuring the education of a liberation movement.

For example, the liberators in Mozambique and Angola owed much of their success to military victories on the ground, political re-education, the release of captured Portuguese soldiers and their return to Portugal. Young soldiers captured and released by African fighters went home and told stories that contradicted Portuguese state propaganda meant to whip up support for the war in the colonies. Dead bodies repatriated to Portugal unleashed terror among university students who feared being drafted to fight in Africa, and provoked increasingly angry student protests in cities. The resulting military coup led to a relaxation in the war as well as a radical move to accept the notion that these countries were NOT provinces of Portugal and had inalienable rights to be independent states.

In 2010, the equivalent of this in the Niger Delta was a growing fatigue at official federal levels with the costs of violence on the Nigerian economy and political culture. The radical and bold offer by President Umaru Yar’Adua of ‘unconditional amnesty’ to militants in the Niger Delta was the equivalent of Portugal severing sovereignty links with African lands.

And just as the violence against Igbos may have been at the cost of leaders using political power to accelerate the development of two regions, we might ask if the seeming military victory by the Niger Delta militants will become empty and betray benefits to the masses at the bottom in Niger Delta.

FANON THE SCEPTIC

Fanon remains unhelpful in offering guides to those used to spraying violence and blood across creeks and mangrove swamps. In Millennium Development Goal language, it is worth speculating if in the next 50 years leaders at all levels will ensure ‘smart investment in education, infrastructure, the environment, infrastructure and health of women and children’. Fanon is useful as a sceptic for those willing to face the task of undertaking social imagination.

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* Okello Oculi is the director of the Africa Vision 525 Initiative
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