Over two dozens of intellectuals of statecraft around and about the National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies, (NIPSS) held a session today in honour of its departed Director-General, Prof Habu Galadima. Prof Galadima died in December 2020 after brief illness.
Although the invitation cum the link to the half virtual/half on site occasion came late, Intervention was still able to catch much of it. This was notwithstanding the weak internet connection, ceasing completely at certain point and making it difficult to catch what many of the speakers were saying.
The list of attendees is one of who is who in that space, defined by some scholars of critical geopolitics as those located within the government apparatus as well as universities and think tanks, and who “offer a map of the world as a collection of particular kinds of places, … narrate the dominant story of the nation’s place in that world”. It is this particular definition which makes intellectuals of statecraft a crucial power resource for the materialization of a nation in world politics, especially those such as Nigeria which have remained potentially great permanently and needs to actualize that greatness. It is the basis of concern that think tanks in Nigeria are too consensual if not rather servile for comfort instead of being ‘the mad houses of officialdom’.
Originally planned as a major national thinking space
Some of the names sighted on display at this occasion include Prof Olu Obafemi, a former Director of Research at NIPPS; Prof W. O. Alli, a former Director of Research also but at the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs, (NIIA); Dr. Julie Sanda of the National Defence College, Abuja; Amb Usman Saraki, a NIPSS resource person; Prof Istifianus Zabadi of Bingham University, Karu; Prof Abimiku; Dr. Beatrice Nelima; Joseph Itse of NIPSS; Dr. Nanzing Haruna; Engineer M O Ibrahim; Dr. Saliu Momoh; Dr. Major Adeyi; Dr. Abubakar Sokoto Mohammed, a former Head of Publications at NIPSS; Dr. Kole Shettima, Africa Director of MacArthur Foundation; Mr. Sam Israel from Shafa Abakpa who acted as the representative of Prof Galadima’s community; a diplomat from the Chinese Embassy in Nigeria and a few other development partners, especially those who were working with the institute and, therefore, with the late Prof Galadima. There were many more others whose names on the screen were either incomplete or not showing at all.
When Intervention joined the zoom session, Prof Augustine Ikelegbe of the Department of Political Science at the University of Benin was rounding off his share of time on the podium. Shortly afterwards, Prof Sam Egwu, now serving time with the Independent National Electoral Commission, (INEC) was called in. He was lucky he came clear most of the time. For those who did not listen to Prof Ikelegbe, it may be preposterous to say that Prof Egwu took his task to a serious level. He was certainly at his professorial best although it is not clear if his illustration of the fluidity of identity is merely an appetizer or what he served for public consumption. He had a rich repertoire of Prof Habu Galadima whom he met as a final year student at the time he joined the Department of Political Science at the University of Jos. And then Habu Galadima became his colleague in the Department. Egwu’s argument is that Galadima could not have been recruited if he weren’t an academically tough breed at a time the Department of Political Science at UNIJOS had scholars such as Prof Jonah Isawa Elaigwu, Aaron Gana; Bala Takaya; Lukat, (I hope I got that name right). So, if we follow Egwu, the quality of training required to get into academia in those days when the Department of Political Science, in Egwu’s own words, “represented the best of social sciences” was the defining evidence of Galadima’s intellectual promise.
To add to the checklist of pedigree, Galadima chose Prof Elaigwu as his own model. Not only did he do so, he also learnt to speak the language of Political Science peculiar to Elaigwu and Ali Mazrui, masters of coinages. As far as Egwu is concerned, it was no surprise that Galadima made a publishing outing in Publius which he calls the most remarkable journal regarding Federalism. Galadima did not stop there. He was delving into ‘Human Security’ within the context of re-imagining security from the state-centric stress of neorealism to human beings. Many would thank Prof Sam Egwu for the information because it can be inferred from what he said that Prof Galadima might have been the one Nigerian to take the ‘Human Security’ argument to the next level in theoretical terms from the Japanese who promoted it not as a critique of neorealism as such but as a geopolitical move at the United Nations. Others such as the United Nations Development Programme, (UNDP) tried to buy into it. It is doubtful if they made a success of it, partly because that was also when the stronger current of ‘broadening and deepening’ of the concept of security was also sweeping academia and global policy mill. So, Nigeria missed something else in Habu Galadima’s death.
A batch of a rather silent intellectuals of statecraft with President Buhari
Prof Egwu said a few more things, some of which did not come clear enough. But he was heard loud and clear celebrating Prof Galadima’s humility and level headedness and a high level of moderation and morality, someone who was never pedestrian. He ended his roughly 19 – minute performance with an adaptation of the last sentence of Engel’s funeral oration at the burial of Marx in 1883. It would be interesting to know which variant of Marxist Prof Egwu might still be, having said that we all needed to re-read Marx in the aftermath of the news of the crash of the Lehman Brothers hitting the headlines in September 2008.
Prof Pam Dung Sha, NIPSS’s incumbent Director of Research and another ABU, Zaria product who landed at UNIJOS like Egwu, took over. It was from his salutation that it became clear that Prof Yemi Osinbajo, the Vice-president, was a participant at the occasion. The highlight of his intervention was the idea of raising resources for the sustenance of those left behind by the departed DG. He spoke of this effort as something that transcends tribe, religion, ethnicity, region and race. It turned out to be something the family of Habu Galadima is already appreciative of. Mrs Mary Galadima, the obviously unassuming aunt of the late DG expressed the hope that Galadima’s family would not be forgotten. She was making a speech at the occasion on behalf of the family. It is not easy to stand here to talk about Habu, she said, explaining how it is all as if the late Professor is still around. She described his life as short but very meaningful. She resorts to the wisdom about a time to be born and a time to die, concluding it was Habu’s time to go. But she expressed gratitude to God ‘for the life he lived’ before wishing everyone safe trip back to wherever they came from.
Before her, many had been called to the High Table or from their virtual sites. Ahmadu Oga Anawo, the Aondoma of Doma was one of them. Referencing Prof Ikelegbe several times in his speech, the traditional ruler who is himself a graduate of Sociology from the University of Jos was all out interrogating the Nigerian paradox of great achievers all over the world but dismal performers at home. A strong believer in ‘Nigerian Exceptionalism’, Anawo argues that if only those in-charge at all levels of governance would privilege the survival of the ordinary man, all would be well with Nigeria. In a language syndromatic of the prince radical, he believes Nigeria has everything by way of resource endowment to embrace greatness.
It was a whole long succession of speakers, each of whom added value to the subject, including the speaker who wishes that the successor Director-General would be a replica of Prof Habu Galadima, a man whose leadership, according to Prof Olu Obafemi, was characterized “by compulsive and propulsive industry, ingenious drive, entrepreneurial leadership and capacious intellect”. As a former Director of Research at NIPSS, Prof Obafemi should know, the Director of Research being the engine room of such a place.
