Prof’s lecture on Tafki State politics

Maisani was recommended to me by a friend, a fellow retired civil servant. He advised me that it is good to hear from people with knowledge before commencing my campaign. Maisani described himself on his call card as Professor of Political Economy, Political Sociology and African Politico-cultural Systems. He also sent a separate business card […]

Maisani was recommended to me by a friend, a fellow retired civil servant. He advised me that it is good to hear from people with knowledge before commencing my campaign. Maisani described himself on his call card as Professor of Political Economy, Political Sociology and African Politico-cultural Systems. He also sent a separate business card which described him as Director, Centre for the Study of Native African Political Institutions and Contemporary World Political Thought.
When the Prof arrived, we noticed that he was so absent minded that despite the detailed description given to him, he drove past the hotel’s gate four times without seeing it. Tsinin Kusa stood on the road and flagged him down as he passed for the fifth time. When he entered the room, there were murmurs at the looks of this academic. He was tall, with large horn-rimmed glasses, very bushy grey hair, a rumpled jacket, tennis shoes and a large bow tie. He had with him a Toshiba laptop computer, two fat books, a packet of slides and a slide projector. Straight away, he announced that he was going to do a PowerPoint presentation. As he was setting up his equipment, one slide fell to the floor and the Prof said, “Oops!”  When he connected the projector and it initially failed to work he said, “Oh blimey!”
We sat in rows but before he started, Prof asked that we should sit in a semi-circle. He said, “In my years at the School of Oriental and African Studies of the University of London, I learnt that the use of the semi-circular seminar format makes for closer eye contact, audience response and optimal interaction between lead presenter and audience participation. This method was later adopted and refined at the University of Heidelberg in Germany, at the Swedish Academy of Sciences and also at the Sorbonne in Paris, where I was a visiting professor for a fall semester.”
Prof was now ready to start. He said, “I will divide my presentation into three parts. Part one, an analysis of the political economy of Tafki State and a dialectical analysis of its class structure and the resultant class struggle. Part two, a review of literature on African political attitudes and the dynamics of its political undercurrents with emphasis on contemporary realities. Part three, I will present an overview of a program for an issues-based campaign and the formation of focus groups in order to test certain postulations towards formulating a workable strategy for achieving a paradigm shift in Tafki State’s political and social architecture.”
Prof added, “That is the introductory part. Unless anyone has a question at this stage, I will like to proceed by elucidating on each point, relying on the works of Hegel, Immanuel Kant, Marx and contemporary scholars such as Habermas, Rodney, Ake, Usman, Nkrumah, Cabral, Dan Wadada Nabudere and Okello Oculli.”
No one spoke, so he said, “Let us begin with an exposition into the class structure of Tafki State society. As Marx rightly observed, the class struggle is the principal tool for the analysis of a society’s political superstructure which is underlain by its economic substructure. Tafki society is basically agrarian with pockets of industrialisation that has a huge peasantry, a nascent proletariat and a sizeable petty bourgeoisie. Sitting atop the class pyramid however is a small parasitic bourgeoisie and its comprador and feudal class allies namely the emirs, the top civil servants, the contractors, the top politicians and the kulaks, or what is called here the large-scale farmers.”
He added, “There is also present in this state an urban lumpen proletariat such as the thieves, armed robbers and drug pushers, as well as a rural lumpen peasantry which are the beggars, or what Franz Fanon described as the Wretched of the Earth. As Lenin rightly put it, imperialism is the highest stage of capitalism. Nkrumah also made an important theoretical contribution by stating that neo-colonialism is the highest stage of imperialism.”
Most of us in the room were either yawning or dozing. Tsinin Kusa was already snoring; his small notebook had dropped to the floor and I noticed in it a scribble he made about the money required by our Youth Wing, which plans to disrupt a rally that Goshin Bauna is holding next week. After an hour of blowing hot grammar, Prof stopped to sip some water then said, “Before I go to the next slide where I will examine the contemporary realities of Tafki State politics, I will like to know if anyone has a question to ask at this stage.”
Maikahon Karo immediately sprang to his feet. He said, “Professor, so this is the kind of thing you are teaching in the university. No wonder our boys come back home these days and they cannot get any job because what you are teaching them is useless. You go and open books written by White people and you start repeating what you see there. Who told you that this thing you are saying applies to politics in Tafki State? For this kind of useless grammar, every time you say government should increase your salary. If they don’t increase it then you people go on strike and send our children back home for many months. No wonder! You yourself, since you think you know, why don’t you come and contest for even councillor and see if this grammar will win even the polling station in front of your house!”
Prof was very upset and he began to pack his slides and his laptop. He said, “It is no use addressing unrepentant bourgeois politicians like you. Since you are bent on continuing to practice the backward and prebendal politics of primitive accumulation, I must warn you that you will ultimately be swept away by a people’s revolution and will be dumped on the rubbish heap of history.”