Wednesday, 27 February 2013

Poverty fuelling Boko Haram insurgency – Clinton



Poverty fuelling Boko Haram insurgency – Clinton

Former United States President Bill Clinton
Former United States President Bill Clinton  on Tuesday  canvassed ways through which Nigeria could effectively deal with Boko Haram insurgency and  other  forms of insecurity  in  the country.
 Among the ideas suggested by him are  poverty eradication, education, equitable distribution of wealth   and job creation for the nation’s teeming  unemployed  graduates.
Clinton, at  Thisday Newspapers awards   in Abeokuta,  Ogun State,   also  flayed what he described as Nigeria’s  failure  to efficiently manage and maximise  her  oil and human resources for the benefit of all.
Nigeria, he argued,   would do better if her  resources  were   efficiently managed by her leaders.
He said one of the ways the nation could eradicate her high level of poverty, especially in the North, was to   have  powerful state and local governments.
Clinton, who added that  programmes to check Boko Haram  violence and insecurity   were  desirious, advised  that deliberate efforts should be made by the three tiers of  government to give “economic opportunities” to Nigerians lagging behind .
 “You have to somehow bring economic opportunity to the people who don’t have it,” he  said,   “You have all these political problems — and now violence  — that appear to be rooted in religious differences and all the rhetoric of the Boko Harams and others, but the truth is the poverty rate in the North is three times of what it is in Lagos. ”
 He said that poverty remained the main driver for the attacks by Boko Haram and needed to be addressed by strong local and Federal Government programmes.
Pointing out  that “too much inequality” was capable of limiting growth and opportunities among the citizens of a country, he stressed that a redistribution of wealth would go a long way in addressing the  violence and insecurity in Nigeria.
 The former President  said, “You have about three big challenges. First of all, like 90 per cent of the countries who have one big resource, you have a number of ways with  your own money. It shows you have different ways. Now you are at least not wasting the natural gas, you are developing and selling it through the pipelines. You have to do better job of managing the natural resources.
 “Secondly, you have to somehow bring economic opportunities to the people who don’t have. This is not a problem specific to Nigeria. In almost every place in the world, prosperity is heavily concentrated in and around urban areas. So you have all these political problems for now even violence .
“There appears to be political and religious differences and now,  the rhetoric of the Boko Haram and all that.  You have to have both powerful state and local governments and a national policy that work together.
“If you just keep trying to divide the power if you will, into loosening strategy, you have to figure out a way to have a strategy that will help share the prosperity.”
He  advised that  education should be used as a tool to tackle poverty among Nigerians, saying that if citizens were well educated,  they would be economically empowered and hence have less inclination towards violence.
Clinton  said governments at all levels needed  to tackle graduate unemployment which, according to him,  is  as a source of instability across the world.
He  said   Nigeria, which earns billions of dollars from her  oil industry and is a major supplier to the US,  must not take a “divide the pie” approach towards attacking poverty.
“It’s a losing strategy,” the former President said. “You have to figure out a way to have a strategy that will have shared prosperity.”
Boko Haram killed at least 792 people last year in Nigeria, according to an Associated Press count.
A group, Ansaru, which  is  believed to be a  splinter group from Boko Haram, on Monday  claimed the kidnappings of seven foreigners — a British  , a Greek, an Italian, three Lebanese and one Filipino in northern Cameroon.
Analysts say that poverty, despite decades of military rule by leaders from the North, coupled with a lack of formal education has driven the region’s exploding youth population toward extremism.
On agriculture, the former US President called on  Nigeria and other African countries to maximise the  potential of  small farmers rather than dabbling in mechanised and commercial agriculture.
This, he said,  would ensure food security in the continent.
Also speaking on the occasion, Governor Ibikunle Amosun,  said that early contact of the people of the state with the Christian missionaries gave it a head start in Western education.
“We have the largest number of higher institutions in Nigeria. We believe education is the key to the fulfillment of our mandate. Indeed, educated people are easily governed,” he said.
Fifteen teachers and ex-teachers from primary, secondary and tertiary institutions from across the country were honoured with the Thisday Awards of N2m each. The Thisday Lifetime Awards were also given to others, including prominent industrialists, Oba Otudeko and Chief Razaq Okoya as well as the Osile of Oke-Ona Egba, Oba Adedapo Tejuosho.
Amosun and his Delta State counterpart, Dr. Emmanuel Uduaghan,  also won awards.
Amongst the dignitaries who attended the  event  were  former President Olusegun Obasanjo; the Chairman of Punch Nigeria Limited, Mr. Wale Aboderin; the Olu of Ilaro and Paramount Ruler of Yewaland, Oba Kehinde Olugbenle; the Alake and Paramount Ruler of Egbaland, Oba Adedotun Gbadebo; a former Governor of Ogun State, Chief Olusegun Osoba; Publisher of  Vanguard Newspapers, Mr. Sam Amuka-Pemu;  a former Vice- President of the World Bank, Oby Ezekwesili; Founding Managing Director, Guaranty Trust Bank, Mr. Fola Adeola;  ex-Managing Director, Daily Times of Nigeria, Dr. Yemi Ogunbiyi;  and Senator Olabiyi Durojaiye.
- See more at: http://www.punchng.com/news/poverty-fuelling-boko-haram-insurgency-clinton/#sthash.xQVwSvoz.dpuf

Monday, 25 February 2013

Obasanjo has broadened Africa’s democracy — Mandela


FORMER South African president, Nelson Mandela has said that former President Olusegun Obasanjo played a prominent role in actualising the survival of democracy not only in Africa, but also the world at large.
Mandela described Obasanjo’s outstanding leadership qualities as epochal, which he added, assisted him to restore democracy in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Cote d’Ivoire and Sudan.
The ex-South African leader made his stand known in the foreword he wrote in a two-volume book entitled Olusegun Obasanjo: The Presidential Legacy, 1999-2007 co-edited by Professor Oladipupo Akinkugbe and Ahmed Joda.
The book was made available to newsmen at a press conference addressed by the Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library, Centre for Human Security with the UNESCO Institute for African Culture and International Understanding in Abeokuta on Friday.
According to Mandela, “in the last four decades, President Obasanjo has demonstrated outstanding leadership qualities and courage on a scale I believe is epochal and destined to prove historic for all Africans.
“He has been at the forefront of championing the cause of democracy in his own nation, on the continent of Africa and, indeed, at the global level.
“Obasanjo’s initiatives are myriad and we can only highlight here his total readiness to commit peacekeeping forces independently or as part of African Union missions to help restore or establish democracies in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Cote d’Ivoire and more recently in confronting genocide in the Sudan”

http://www.talkofnaija.com/news/155486_obasanjo-has-broadened-africa-s-democracy-mandela

Sunday, 24 February 2013

Britain's colonial shame: Slave-owners given huge payouts after abolition


Britain's colonial shame: Slave-owners given huge payouts after abolition

David Cameron's ancestors were among the wealthy families who received generous reparation payments that would be worth millions of pounds in today's money




The true scale of Britain's involvement in the slave trade has been laid bare in documents revealing how the country's wealthiest families received the modern equivalent of billions of pounds in compensation after slavery was abolished.

The previously unseen records show exactly who received what in payouts from the Government when slave ownership was abolished by Britain – much to the potential embarrassment of their descendants. Dr Nick Draper from University College London, who has studied the compensation papers, says as many as one-fifth of wealthy Victorian Britons derived all or part of their fortunes from the slave economy.
As a result, there are now wealthy families all around the UK still indirectly enjoying the proceeds of slavery where it has been passed on to them. Dr Draper said: "There was a feeding frenzy around the compensation." A John Austin, for instance, owned 415 slaves, and got compensation of £20,511, a sum worth nearly £17m today. And there were many who received far more.
Academics from UCL, led by Dr Draper, spent three years drawing together 46,000 records of compensation given to British slave-owners into an internet database to be launched for public use on Wednesday. But he emphasised that the claims set to be unveiled were not just from rich families but included many "very ordinary men and women" and covered the entire spectrum of society.
Dr Draper added that the database's findings may have implications for the "reparations debate". Barbados is currently leading the way in calling for reparations from former colonial powers for the injustices suffered by slaves and their families.
Among those revealed to have benefited from slavery are ancestors of the Prime Minister, David Cameron, former minister Douglas Hogg, authors Graham Greene and George Orwell, poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and the new chairman of the Arts Council, Peter Bazalgette. Other prominent names which feature in the records include scions of one of the nation's oldest banking families, the Barings, and the second Earl of Harewood, Henry Lascelles, an ancestor of the Queen's cousin. Some families used the money to invest in the railways and other aspects of the industrial revolution; others bought or maintained their country houses, and some used the money for philanthropy. George Orwell's great-grandfather, Charles Blair, received £4,442, equal to £3m today, for the 218 slaves he owned.
The British government paid out £20m to compensate some 3,000 families that owned slaves for the loss of their "property" when slave-ownership was abolished in Britain's colonies in 1833. This figure represented a staggering 40 per cent of the Treasury's annual spending budget and, in today's terms, calculated as wage values, equates to around £16.5bn.
A total of £10m went to slave-owning families in the Caribbean and Africa, while the other half went to absentee owners living in Britain. The biggest single payout went to James Blair (no relation to Orwell), an MP who had homes in Marylebone, central London, and Scotland. He was awarded £83,530, the equivalent of £65m today, for 1,598 slaves he owned on the plantation he had inherited in British Guyana.
But this amount was dwarfed by the amount paid to John Gladstone, the father of 19th-century prime minister William Gladstone. He received £106,769 (modern equivalent £83m) for the 2,508 slaves he owned across nine plantations. His son, who served as prime minister four times during his 60-year career, was heavily involved in his father's claim.
Mr Cameron, too, is revealed to have slave owners in his family background on his father's side. The compensation records show that General Sir James Duff, an army officer and MP for Banffshire in Scotland during the late 1700s, was Mr Cameron's first cousin six times removed. Sir James, who was the son of one of Mr Cameron's great-grand-uncle's, the second Earl of Fife, was awarded £4,101, equal to more than £3m today, to compensate him for the 202 slaves he forfeited on the Grange Sugar Estate in Jamaica.
Another illustrious political family that it appears still carries the name of a major slave owner is the Hogg dynasty, which includes the former cabinet minister Douglas Hogg. They are the descendants of Charles McGarel, a merchant who made a fortune from slave ownership. Between 1835 and 1837 he received £129,464, about £101m in today's terms, for the 2,489 slaves he owned. McGarel later went on to bring his younger brother-in-law Quintin Hogg into his hugely successful sugar firm, which still used indentured labour on plantations in British Guyana established under slavery. And it was Quintin's descendants that continued to keep the family name in the limelight, with both his son, Douglas McGarel Hogg, and his grandson, Quintin McGarel Hogg, becoming Lord Chancellor.
Dr Draper said: "Seeing the names of the slave-owners repeated in 20th‑century family naming practices is a very stark reminder about where those families saw their origins being from. In this case I'm thinking about the Hogg family. To have two Lord Chancellors in Britain in the 20th century bearing the name of a slave-owner from British Guyana, who went penniless to British Guyana, came back a very wealthy man and contributed to the formation of this political dynasty, which incorporated his name into their children in recognition – it seems to me to be an illuminating story and a potent example."
Mr Hogg refused to comment yesterday, saying he "didn't know anything about it". Mr Cameron declined to comment after a request was made to the No 10 press office.
Another demonstration of the extent to which slavery links stretch into modern Britain is Evelyn Bazalgette, the uncle of one of the giants of Victorian engineering, Sir Joseph Bazalgette and ancestor of Arts Council boss Sir Peter Bazalgette. He was paid £7,352 (£5.7m in today's money) for 420 slaves from two estates in Jamaica. Sir Peter said yesterday: "It had always been rumoured that his father had some interests in the Caribbean and I suspect Evelyn inherited that. So I heard rumours but this confirms it, and guess it's the sort of thing wealthy people on the make did in the 1800s. He could have put his money elsewhere but regrettably he put it in the Caribbean."
The TV chef Ainsley Harriott, who had slave-owners in his family on his grandfather's side, said yesterday he was shocked by the amount paid out by the government to the slave-owners. "You would think the government would have given at least some money to the freed slaves who need to find homes and start new lives," he said. "It seems a bit barbaric. It's like the rich protecting the rich."
The database is available from Wednesday at: ucl.ac.uk/lbs.
Cruel trade
Slavery on an industrial scale was a major source of the wealth of the British empire, being the exploitation upon which the West Indies sugar trade and cotton crop in North America was based. Those who made money from it were not only the slave-owners, but also the investors in those who transported Africans to enslavement. In the century to 1810, British ships carried about three million to a life of forced labour.
Campaigning against slavery began in the late 18th century as revulsion against the trade spread. This led, first, to the abolition of the trade in slaves, which came into law in 1808, and then, some 26 years later, to the Act of Parliament that would emancipate slaves. This legislation made provision for the staggering levels of compensation for slave-owners, but gave the former slaves not a penny in reparation.
More than that, it said that only children under six would be immediately free; the rest being regarded as "apprentices" who would, in exchange for free board and lodging, have to work for their "owners" 40 and a half hours for nothing until 1840. Several large disturbances meant that the deadline was brought forward and so, in 1838, 700,000 slaves in the West Indies, 40,000 in South Africa and 20,000 in Mauritius were finally liberated.
David Randall



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