In the business of observing Nigeria one encounters without remission a certain attitude. Just about every single Nigerian public intellectual thinks himself ‘’a world historical genus.’’ In other words there is nothing new that he does not already know.
Farcically, this typical Nigerian scholar will not tolerate any possibility of his ever being in error. To him – despite evidences to the contrary – the Nigerian thinker – himself that is – is the top cream of world intellection. But is 
he?
Well, that’s big subject matter. But let us concern ourselves with little things. And one of those is that in the Nigerian media space – including television talk shows – the preponderance of ignorance, purveyed magisterially, by authors and pundits, is overwhelming. While the television pundits are easy to let off the hook – evidence is tortuous to crosscheck – matters are a little straight forward for newspapermen. With newspapermen, matters are really in ‘’black and white.’’
Let’s begin with one such newspaperman’s quote.
‘’One scholar who just stepped down from a Niger Delta development agency… was so seminal in his submission… on his analysis of how the General Aguiyi Ironsi’s Unification Decree of 1966 actually set the tone for destruction of our paradise called ‘restructuring’ we are struggling to regain. He read copiously from the provisions of that obnoxious Decree No. 34 that set the pace for General Ali’s concept of the ‘Federal Republic of the Nigerian Army’ we have also been struggling to dismantle.’’ By Martins Oloja. https://guardian.ng/opinion/behold-the-monster-has-returned/
Next, a question. Did General Aguiyi Ironsi’s ‘’Unification Decree of 1966 actually set the tone for destruction of our paradise called ‘restructuring’ we are struggling to regain’’?
The answer is no. Therefore, the assertion by Oloja and partners is pure historical bunkum. However, the tragedy is not really their ignorant-revisionist assertion. The real tragedy is what that reveals. The revelation points to a tragic reality. It is that Nigerians don’t or can’t think. If Nigerians can think there is no way they would have allowed this nation wrecking fabrication, claiming that what didn’t happen, happened.
Before we go a step further, the following.
Certainly, the mother of all sciences is mathematics. Importantly, mathematics need not be a numerical science. Mathematics is a way of thinking, of inferences. The Indian sage, Panini, is proof enough. In other words, mathematics, if creatively understood is about deploying insights to tease out nature as is and not just as it appears.
To help fix these challenges mathematics has developed concepts, like direction, scalar and vector quantities etc. What is important is that these categories are not otherworldly. They are very much valuable to understanding life and its essences as keyboard is to a writer’s job. Perhaps, Eugene Wigner, Nobel winning physicist, has the sharpest wit on this: ‘’The unreasonable efficiency of mathematics in science is a gift we neither understand nor deserve.’’
For instance, not many of us know – I have just been educated on this by my Russian retainer, Professor Ivan Ivannon – that an object in constant circular motion is accelerating. The details need not detain us but that is the fact as is. So, if a Nigerian poet or puppy denies acceleration of constant circular motion, well, the best you can do is to send him back to school or Ivannov.
Thus, in mathematical terms, if you went from A to B and back, the net distance displaced is zero. The key insight here, is to have a base, a reference point. Of course, nothing exists outside of references. So, to admit to one and so state is pure genius. Any other thing, mon ami, is entertainment. That is to say, that once you have chosen a reference or an axiom or a base, those must serve through the length and breadth of the universe of your logic. You cannot be choosing and be retiring references or axioms with alacrity.
Now, If you took to recent Nigerian history, the following in broad outlines happened. Ironsi an Eastern/Igbo General took over via a ‘’default coup’’ and enacted the unification decree. General Gowon and group – Hausa/Northern – fought back on the basis of repudiating that very decree etc. And they won. In mathematical terms for instance, this is a change of reference, of axioms, of directions. That is to say, Gowon and group have chosen a new reference or basis. They cannot next take readings from the old, now overthrown Ironsi’s axioms of unitarism. This is fact, because one of the axioms of Gowonistic counter-coup, which by the way included Northern Araba/secession, is that Nigeria cannot endure as a unitary state. Those were openly stated axioms, references and standards.
It therefore follows in life and logic, that the perpetrators of that anti-unitary counter-coup, cannot take inspiration, axioms or references, from the selfsame unitary government that they aborted. The point is that a simple mathematical sense, would have solved this heedless revisionism of ‘’thinkless’’ Nigerians. With that done, the origin or provenance, of the present Nigerian unitarism would have been returned to where it belongs, to its authors. And these authors are Gowon and group of putschists.
To repeat, the Ironsi phenomenon was violently repudiated by Gowon and troupe. Therefore, Gowon and group, including their sympathizers, researchers and sages, cannot next return to Ironsi, who they repudiated, as a source of their inspiration or wickedness. That is the equivalent of peddling incomplete knowledge as scriptures, as psalms.
Next, the following is historically instructive. After the Muslim takeover of Arabia something developmentally instructive happened. Arabia’s historians and public commentators – mostly Iranians, who by the way ‘’founded’’ the Arab empire intellectually – formally cut history as they knew it into two. [A] Before Mohammed was the period of darkness and [B] From Mohammed was the period of light. The implication is not just literary or historical. It is the same mathematical concept of direction, of scalar and vector quantities etc. that is at play here.
The greater point in this Muslim ‘’mathematization’’ of history is that it ‘’alone’’ accounts for the flourishing development of Arabia during its golden ages. The collapse of Arab civilization today is in part in their repudiation of all things mathematical, for poetry, for piety. For instance, you can’t do great mathematics and endure the fraud of monarchy, save as comedy.
Importantly for us, neither Mohammed nor his caliphs and faithful took recourse to pagan Arabism for any of their [successor and present] acts. The singular point here is that it is this attitude of mathematicized understanding of affairs that accounts for all developments in human history.
And it explains why present day American white supremacists are not invoking past slavery in the South as a justification or inspiration for counting black men as worthy of being slaves. Americans who still do, so do in their own names, not out of inspiration from their repudiated past. That is, Americans like the old Arabs, but unlike Nigerian intellectuals, think mathematically of their affairs. And that explains why they are prospering, while Nigerians righteously are immiserated.
Perhaps, one can declare in justice, that development amounts to little other than the mathematicization of human affairs. Plato wasn’t in error when he declared mathematics as the cornerstone of all human capital development. In other words, Nigerians have failed because their historians can’t think mathematically, and their poets can’t admit to their ignorance. That leads to the environmental pollution of the Nigerian public space, with toxic farces and shipwrecked rhetoric.
Point is, poetry and such literary arts etc. as presently practiced in Nigeria is injurious to national and human development. Nigerian poets should scale up like Panini and get mathematical or allow Nigeria to be damned. Maybe, just maybe, we did be more blessed in hell than in Abuja. That’s all I have to say, for now.
Full disclosures: More details on these are available in our books: ‘’Why and How the Yoruba Fought and Lost the Biafra Nigeria Civil War’’ and ‘’The University Media Complex…’’ and others. We know Oloja. We are Oru, not Igbo, and retired Colonel, Biafra Army. We have heard el Rufai, etc. mouth similar revisionist nonsense but never bothered. These are largely ignorant or power drunk somnambulists. But for a scholar to be ‘’making seminal contributions,’’ on ignorance, that is another matter. Ahiazuwa.
‘’Healthy Kids are Happy Kids’’ for presentation
A brilliant young doctor is set to make sure we get the whole hang of great health. For her, it got to start with the kids. Delectable Dr. Mrs. Anirejuoritse A. Chima-Oduko, will be presenting her latest book: ‘’Healthy Kids are Happy Kids: Health Education for Children, Parents and Teachers.’’ All book and health lovers are adjourned to
be there with the kids in tow. Date: 16th November 2019. Venue: Terrakulture Centre, Tamiyu Savage, Victoria Island, Lagos State. Time: 3.00 pm.