My life at 60, by Danfulani

In writing the preface of my first book, completed in 1992 – Africa and Global Politics – Danfulani (1994), I attached great importance to where it was conceived, Sorbonne, Paris, France (1990). For the 2nd book, Danfulani S.A. 1996, I chronicled my experience from Cambridge USA, 1995 to Cambridge UK, 1997. In other words, the […]

In writing the preface of my first book, completed in 1992 – Africa and Global Politics – Danfulani (1994), I attached great importance to where it was conceived, Sorbonne, Paris, France (1990). For the 2nd book, Danfulani S.A. 1996, I chronicled my experience from Cambridge USA, 1995 to Cambridge UK, 1997. In other words, the book I started in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA, could not be completed until I got to Cambridge UK as a Visiting Scholar; 1996-1998. In Cambridge, I authored three books (2 English, 1 French) and three articles – all published. On my return from UK to Abuja, Nigeria, in 1999, several opportunities with extreme hardship came my way, 1999-2009 (10 years), during which I was fortunate to craft 10 books from different circumstances, conferences, workshops, and consultancies, etc.

Fortunately for me I have been learning the ropes but unfortunately for my French manuscripts – 3 major texts from my Dsc. (Law thesis), I was materially and financially hard put at re-working them for the larger intellectual community – within and outside Nigeria. My ‘progressive diplomatic rough ride’ – within the polity saw me through the State House as Vice Chairman (under H.E.Governor Rochas Okorocha/National Peace Forum NPF), to Cotonou (NAAUB) as Visiting Professor, to ABU as Associate Professor, to KWASU as Professor, through CISS as Chancellor Trustee, to arrive at the National Institute as the 9th Director General, NIPSS. It was at the Institute that the golden opportunity struck for a leave of absence that I quickly utilized for a Visiting Professorship – like that of Cambridge, UK – to return to IFE – my alma mater – after 30 years!! The fact is that it all started, first at UNIBADAN with a Bachelor’s  ‘Coat’; then at ILE-IFE, hanging a Master’s gown; to crown my beginning – (B.Sc, MPA), preparatory to greater heights: Sorbonne, Cambridge, Harvard, UNESCO, NAUB, ABU, NIPSS, and back to OAU!!!

So from the University of IFE, Ile-Ife, 1980/81, back to Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), 2010 (30 yrs), is more than a coincidence of life, rather, it is but a dream and destiny fulfilled – to enter as a student and return as a professor in the same beautiful place, hitherto separated by time and space. The 3 books (French texts) I came to re-work, update, etc., took their source from Ife, where, after the MPA 1980/82, I was trusted with a francophone – French Studies Scholarship. The 3 manuscripts from a Dsc thesis of 1238 pages have an earlier brother, another book – a Compendium – Danfulani S.A. (1999), published at Cambridge – Edwin Mellen USA/UK, a bilingual piece, for which a 2nd edition is already out, Light House Publisher, Ibadan, (2010). And so, from IFE to OAU provides me a tough test of joy and pain, that in the interval of 30 years, so much has happened at both the national and international stage: – Danfulani S.A, (1998, 1999, 2004, 2008, 2010). This piece to be meaningful will feature in each of the three books. All have been published, two by Editions SEPCA, Paris, (2011), the 3rd by Calagitta Press, Ibadan (2011).

I make bold to congratulate the reader, the academics and the general public to be as fortunate as to possess a copy of any of the books.  This boldness is not built on any presumptive pride, rather it is connected with the circumstances of the completion of the manuscript, started in 1984/85, finished in 1988, but could not be published before now in 2011.  In the first instance, the books are the bye product of my invaluable opportunity of being an alumnus of this very serious University, the OAU thirty years ago – 1981/82 session! Imagine the amount of water that has gone through all the bridges in this country (and abroad) enough to sink a city, the size of London!

Early in the Harmattan Semester of 1980/81 session, here we were at Ile-Ife – no GSM, no flyover, no highway, no Bank, no computer, no laptop, no CNN (DSTV), no Okada, no cultism, no bukateria, no certificate racketeering, no fake, no JAMB, no HIV, no cheating, and almost no nonsense!!! $ and £ were almost at par with the Naira whose French value was 1-13, at a time when a graduate salary was barely N200, and a Professor, under a thousand naira!! I met an Army General earning just a pittance of N700 then! Only of course, that small quantity of naira had a greater value than now – a good car – Japanese, Italian or French, cost barely N1,500 – N3,000! Nigeria, on its way to greater heights as a successful African giant was visited by a holocaust of no mean strength, from whence the badly managed oil boom soon turned doom, with the growing army of ‘town managers’ called statesmen in uniform, characteristically, hardly any better or different from their rapacious civilian counterparts. Research has dealt at length with what actually happened from 1960-2010, (50 years), which was badly summarized at the Eagle Square, Abuja, the FCT (50th Anniversary of our Independence), with a twin-bomb blast!! (2010), a serious threat to our national security.

The nostalgia that greeted me at the OAU main gate is better imagined by Scholars! Here was a young man, in his prime, barely 30, at one of the highly prized citadels of learning in Nigeria, where even though there was no GSM, nor Okada, the Halls and infrastructures were perfectly working, the Library was and still remain the richest – but far too poor in comparison to Cambridge, Harvard and Sorbonne. My salary was N200.00, which today could only offer me a taxi drop!! Then, dollar and naira were almost at the same exchange utility value. 30 years in other places would catapult a Centre of learning, like OAU into the 21st century citadel in perfect competition with Oxford, Cambridge and Harvard, BUT militarization and dictatorship – fall outs of cold war – painfully destroyed all our serious institutions and of course, scholarship is now on the street!!  The street – politics, has taken over from the school!!

On my 2nd arrival, as we passed through, (in the company of my Assistants ; Ahmadu, Peter, Zubair, J.J. and Naibi) from the OAU gate to the Auditorium, the Library, the Bookshop, the Faculties, the Hostels, the Staff Quarters, the Sports Complex, etc., I felt I should stop, talk to the Trees, standing beautifully and as ever tall; the grass still green, the buildings – strong, stout, but battered by time and lack of maintenance, with the infrastructures relatively crumbling. Of course, from barely 8,000 students in 1980, to 35,000 in 2010, without a corresponding increase in infrastructural refurbishing, nor a clear policy of matching the intake, the input with requisite material and financial wherewithal, the entire atmosphere is but a shadow of what I left 30 years ago. Sadly enough, the intellectual context, content and climate have all but been reduced to just another corner of the country in dire need of public funds. I feel strongly that we must get it right, because education will forever remain the bedrock of serious nations. Having been to several tertiary institutions abroad, I believe we need to massively invest in education, hard and software, so that we could with pride, join the league of powerful and successful nations in the global balance of power, force and influence in the 21st Century.

The return to my Alma Mater, is premised on its quality of ‘scholarship, on the fact that I returned home’ as a professor – a long nurtured worthy dream, and of course, the ONLY one to have taken such bold step among my classmates, of MPA students of 1980/81 at the Faculty of Administration – effectively then ‘witch-hunted’ intellectually by no less an erudite than the Emeritus Professor Oladipo Adamolekun!  This piece, written in French, owes its existence to my having passed through, and having been bitten by the IFE virus, during which I was fortunate to be the 1st candidate to have scaled through for the IIAP French Post Graduate scholarship in that year, later followed by two others: Bola and Rev. Akin (Vichy 1983/84 Diploma in French Programme). Again, I happens to be the first and only one in that set to have undertaken one Msc, and three MPhil: Diplome d’ Etudes superieuees Specialisees (DESS) and an LLM as follow: (Msc Diplomatic Relations (IIAP) ’84), MPhil: International Relations, (Sorbonne 84/85), LLM International Organisations, (Paris XI, Sceaux, 85/86), MPhil: Human Resources Management: (Paris-Dauphine, 1986/87), MPhil: Defence and Strategic Studies, (Paris II-Pantheon, 87/88) and finally PhD/Dsc Public International Law (Paris XI 1984/85 – 1988/89)!!  This is a testimony about God’s own mercy on me for which, in appreciation to the OAU, (my great Alma Mater), where it was all coded ‘ab-initio’, I returned to rework the three pieces that constituted my ‘Docteur d’Etat en Droit Public’ (Dsc Laws).

In appreciation of this great opportunity, I decided to write the preface and the acknowledgement in English, convinced that, with modern technology, scholars could use their ‘Lap-top Computer’ to obtain whatever part, in any language of their choice: Arabic, English, French, Spanish or other languages in the computer kitty.  At the presentation of my Dsc thesis, I was particularly fortunate to present a thesis of 1,238 pages – (971 text/plus references, annexes and bibliographic references). The Jury, five of them (Chantebout, Le Morzellec, Hacquani, Jouve and Edem Kodjo, (former OAU/SG), (all Professors) concluded that my thesis, in 3 different parts should stand as three PhD theses in one! (See the Chairman thesis report – Vous avez presentez trois theses: (You have presented three PhD theses), copies (Vol. I & II) available at the OAU, ABU, NIPSS & National Library & Crescent University, Abeokuta.

The first part is on Disarmament and International Security (330pp), the 2nd on Militarization and Human Rights (321 pp), the 3rd on Defence and Strategy (342pp). The Jury conferred a 1st Class, Doctoral D’Etat for which I could use a PhD/Dsc title and which I have since been using. I have the Jury’s report and could also be obtained from the University of Paris XI – Jean Moulin/Sceaux). Each of the three parts stands as a book, recommended for publication, inclusive of my extensive bibliography totaling 300 pages!  With the Jury’s verdict, I quite gratefully possess four publishable manuscripts before me.  Out of these, and in spite of my efforts to publish them at the University of Cambridge, 8 years later (1996/98) I was only fortunate to secure a Publisher – Edwin Mellen Press, Wales and New York for the bibliography, Danfulani S.A. (2001): A Source Book for Strategic Studies in Africa – Studies in World Peace, Volume 14, (2001): 270p.

My Doctoral thesis (Dsc Laws) in the three main parts will now be in three different books as earlier mentioned.  Based on the first class award which consists of three major components viz: (1) Verdict of Most Honourable; (2) Special congratulation by the Jury and (3) Authorization to publish,  I had sought for publication grant but could not secure one. My thesis director tried but we were told to pay 100,000FF. UNIDIR Geneva was approached through Ambassador Oluyemi Adeniji, but could not help either due to budgetary constraints, and it is due to the generosity of one of our distinguished statesmen, that I here undertake this publication, convinced of course that, inspite of the years gone bye, the facts then as canvassed, as well as the analysis made, were equally as sacrosanct, relevant and timely.

Professor Danfulani was Director-General of the Nigerian Institute of Policy and  Strategic Studies (NIPSS), Kuru, Jos.