AFRICA, NIGERIA AND THE NOBEL PRIZE

AFRICA, NIGERIA AND THE NOBEL PRIZE

The Alfred Nobel Prize, the world’s most prestigious international awards has being awarded in different categories for 109 years now. A Noble Gentleman Chemist, Alfred Nobel by his will instituted the Nobel Prize in five categories namely Peace, Medicine or Physiology, Literature, Chemistry and Physics and the 1st prizes were awarded in 1901, with the Prize in economics created in his memory in 1968.

By his will Alfred Nobel directed that the Prizes be awarded to those who during the preceding year shall have conferred the greatest benefit on mankind. In his words "The whole of my remaining realizable estate shall be dealt with in the following way: the capital, invested in safe securities by my executors, shall constitute a fund, the interest on which shall be annually distributed in the form of prizes to those who, during the preceding year, shall have conferred the greatest benefit on mankind. The said interest shall be divided into five equal parts, which shall be apportioned as follows: one part to the person who shall have made the most important discovery or invention within the field of physics; one part to the person who shall have made the most important chemical discovery or improvement; one part to the person who shall have made the most important discovery within the domain of physiology or medicine; one part to the person who shall have produced in the field of literature the most outstanding work in an ideal direction; and one part to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses. The prizes for physics and chemistry shall be awarded by the Swedish Academy of Sciences; that for physiology or medical works by the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm; that for literature by the Academy in Stockholm, and that for champions of peace by a committee of five persons to be elected by the Norwegian Storting. It is my express wish that in awarding the prizes no consideration be given to the nationality of the candidates, but that the most worthy shall receive the prize, whether he be Scandinavian or not."

However the prize for practical reasons would be awarded for a life’s work or work spanning several decades. A few individuals have won the Nobel which is seen as the greatest recognition for achievement in the selected fields in the world more than once and countries like the US and the UK have lost count of Nobel laureates. Even South Africa has won the Nobel 6 times, 4 for peace and 2 for literature but Nigeria with all its avowed size, intellectuals and human capital has only won the Nobel once, incidentally in an epoch making manner, when in 1986, Professor Wole Soyinka became the first African to win the Nobel prize in literature because Professor Wole Soyinka according to the Swedish Academy “in a wide cultural perspective and with poetic overtones fashions the drama of existence” following in the footsteps of ethereal literary giants – Albert Camus, Ernest Hemingway, Bertrand Russell, T.S Elliot comes to mind.

Why no Nigerian has won the Nobel in the intervening 23 years beats me silly. In literature for example, there is nothing left for Chinua Achebe to do to deserve the recognition. Some have argued that the literary prize is too Eurocentric and they may not be far from the truth, the 2009 Nobel prize for literature was awarded to Roman born German poet and novelist, Herta Muller with the Swedish academy describing Muller as a writer “who, with the concentration of poetry and the frankness of prose, depicts the landscape of the dispossessed”. Though she is relatively unknown, she has been celebrated as one of Germany’s best writers in a long while. American’s it has been reported were shocked at the choice of Muller. If American’s were shocked at the choice of Muller because no American has won the prize in a couple of years then African’s ought to be enraged. In its 109 years old history, only five Africans have won the Nobel prize for literature – Wole Soyinka of Nigeria in 1986, Naguib Mahfouz of Egypt in 1988, Nadine Gordimer of South Africa in 1991, J.M Coetzee of South Africa in 2003 and Iranian/Zimbabwean/British Doris Lessing in 2007.

At least two names I know and I am sure of are missing from the list – Nigeria’s Chinua Achebe and Kenya’s Ngugi nwa Thiong’o. These authors could and ought to have won the Nobel Prize for literature decades ago on the strength of the popular classics that brought them fame and fortune. In the case of the Nigerian “Things fall apart”, the Kenyan, “Weep not Child”. These books apart, the writers have shown durability over the decades, they were not merely flashes in the pan and these works and subsequent ones have stood the test of time. The style and messages of the two authors continue to burnish the world’s literary firmament and not corruption, globalisation, the web, ravages of time and decay has dimmed the fires of these authors and their works. Sure a continent that has produced countless brilliant poets and novelists – Wole Soyinka, Ngugi nwa Thiong’o, Ayi Kwei Armah, Leopold Sedar Senghor, Flora Nwapa, Mongo Beti, John Pepper Clarke, Kofi Awoonor, Buchi Emecheta, Gabriel Okara, Christopher Okigbo, Cyprian Ekwensi, Femi Osofisan, Niyi Osundare, Efua Sutherland, Francis Selormey, Camara Laye, Elechi Amadi, Aly Diallo, David Rubadiri, Bessie Head, Ama Ata Aidoo, Joseph Muthee, Atieno Odhiambo, Mariama Ba, Birago and David Diop, Aminata Sow Fall, Peter Abrahams, Dennis Brutus, Athol Fugard, Mazisi Kunene, Alex La Guma, Lenrie Peters, Okot p’Bitek, Frantz Fanon, Ferdinand Oyono, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie to mention but a few examples could not only have won a handful of Nobel prizes in literature if fairness were entrenched in the award process as it was the expressed wish of Alfred Nobel that in awarding the prizes no consideration be given to the nationality of the candidates, but that the most worthy shall receive the prize, whether he be Scandinavian or not.

The respected Peace prize is another category where only five African’s have won – South African’s Albert Lithuli in 1960, Desmond Tutu in 1984, Nelson Mandela with Fredrick De Klerk in 1993, Ghanaian Kofi Annan in conjunction with the UN in 2001 and Kenyan Wangari Maathai in 2004. No Nigerian has even come close in this category though the Foreign Policy Magazine believed that Ken Saro Wiwa did enough for peace in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria to win the Nobel peace prize. One other Nigerian many believe could well have won the Nobel Prize for peace is the late legendary lawyer Chief Gani Fawehinmi who in the estimation of many did much more than any other Nigerian dead or alive for the cause of law, human rights, good governance and peace in Nigeria and the African continent.

The only other time it was reported that a Nigerian was nominated for the Nobel Prize in physics was in 2002 when Mathematician Gabriel Audu Oyibo in what may well be a hoax was reportedly nominated for the prize in Physics on the strength of his work on the God Almighty’s Grand Unified Theorem (GAGUT). The genuineness of the theory is still a cause of debate in academic circles though. There is also the scientist Phillip Emeagwali, whose claim to fame was the 1989 Gordon Bell prize of which he was one of two winners but his eminence in Science is being disputed by many on account of the fact that for someone who dubbed himself the ‘father of the internet’ and who is said to have built the fastest computer, he has no patent registered in his name and he failed his PHD programme at the University of Michigan. Are these men fake? Otherwise they seem to have done enough to win a Nobel Prize. Do they remind any one of a Doctor Jeremiah Abalaka? Does anyone know whatever happened to the Doctor and his cure for AIDS? He seemed to have fallen off the radar?

But really how and when will a Nigerian win the Nobel prize again when our Universities are without books, there are no research tools and laboratories, there is even no electric power to do paper work to which all our Universities have been consigned, many Universities are nothing but breeding grounds for cultists and semi illiterates, University campuses have become hotbeds for political intrigues as people vie for Vice Chancellorship and other University principal posts in a do or die affair, many University graduates abound who cannot pitch two sentences together much less write decent letters. In the midst of this decay, Professorial chairs are still being endowed and people are elevated to the position of professors; you wonder what they are professing!

Now does this partly explain why no Nigerian has won the Nobel since 1986? Some have posited that Nigeria has too many charlatans posing/masquerading as intellectuals. Yeah there are intellectuals and there are intellectuals but I personally believe that for every charlatan our system throws up there are at least two genuine intellectuals strewn across our University campuses. There was the Mathematician, Doctor Chike Obi in recent memory and there still is the formidable Physicist, Professor Alexander Animalu of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. What is wrong with us has destroyed everything that should make us a proud people. Look at the Olympics for example – a nation of 150 million persons could not raise One Gold medalist at the last Olympiad in Beijing, China where a single American swimmer, Michael Phelps won eight Gold medals.

Just where are we getting it right in our national life? Answers anyone or is it me? I am so disappointed and disillusioned I doubt my generation will ever see our country on the part of sanity. We have made a show of fighting corruption since 1999, but it seems those who will dip their hands in the common till are unimpressed, they have carried on with unimaginable daring. Scamming, gaming and thieving involving gut wrenching and mind blowing sums are being reported everyday. How much of this can we really investigate and prosecute properly? People are getting away with all sorts, the security agencies are overstretched, and the EFCC and ICPC short of anything superhuman cannot be reasonably expected to adequately fight corruption in the especial circumstances of Nigeria, how will they cope with the several revelations of monumental corruption in high places everyday?

Inadequacies in the legal framework continue to provide barriers in the fight against corruption. As much as the courts try, in a tough environment, laws are not interpreted with consistency, delay in the administration of justice, the ease with which accused persons of power and means game the judiciary and the inadequate enforcement of existing laws mean that the fight against corruption will be a long and arduous task. The credibility and efficacy of the judicial system has been questioned by many in the past and many Nigerian’s have continued to express these sentiments. In general, many Nigerian’s perceives the judicial system as slow, corrupt, and not to be trusted.

Where does this all leave us? Some people it would seem have sworn that this country will never work and are positively pursuing that outcome with everything at their disposal. These people, it is becoming apparent by the day, have enough power and means to make good their threat. Now what are the good people doing as a counter force or counter balance? I dare say nothing. They have become like sheep without shepherd, like sailors marooned in an inaccessible island, like knight errands without sword and shield in inevitable skirmishes. Oh we have made such a public spectacle of ourselves in the committee of nations that only God can liberate us now.

Unfortunately we are here now and the reality is we are where we are. How we got here for a country that had so much promise at independence and even now is an unmitigated disaster in nation building and resource management and it grieves the heart so but still we must find practical ways forward and this way forward is what I have canvassed elsewhere thus “It is so bad now that we do not know where to start fixing Nigeria. If we try to do everything at the same time as we are wont to do and yet getting nothing done, we will fail yet again. Let us adopt a simple approach and do the simple things first. What to do is fix our Schools, invest heavily in education, provide basic infrastructure that will stimulate and engender job creation. The Nigerian government may well not have enough resources to do all that is required, but if the sleaze, waste and corruption that permeates most of our national life is halved by two and the resources thereby released dedicated to providing infrastructure such as electricity, roads and fighting disease, the day may not be far off when Nigeria will meet its development goals”.

STEPHEN O. OBAJAJA is a Partner at the Lagos Law Firm of Fountain Court Partners.