My Deductions from Nigeria’s Envoy to Sudan and the Future Politics of the Seceding Country

There are just too many things happening around me here in Sudan that I don’t even know which is supposed to be the topic of the day. I started writing about the serious cracking effect the southern secession left on the well being of northern Sudan. I suddenly realized that southern Sudan needs more attention from any serious African writer than the northern part of the country especially that the region has only recently seen the light of freedom and independence and has to deal with the hazy future of the oil, power and foreign interest games. But with that, I am most likely to postpone that issue to the edition of the next week in favor of the meeting that took place between the envoy of the Nigerian Arabic village, Ngala which include the Director in person of Professor Tijjani Al-Miskeen, the Registrar and a host of their staff members with the Director of the Center of Researches and African Studies, a branch of the International University of Africa in Sudan.

It took place on the evening of Wednesday 13 January, i.e. four days after the referendum which determines the fate of the southerners. Before I go into the details of what transpired in the professorial negotiations, let me very quickly digress a little to draw the attention of my reader to the fact that the meeting coincided with the presence of the board members of the International University of Africa, the schedule of whom include a tour in the university buildings, attending convocation of the university and a courtesy call to the President Omar Al-Bashir in his presidential villa. That is apart from their main reason why they are in the Sudan which is the Board Meeting of the university. The board consists of members who are very important personalities mainly drawn from the vanguard African countries with Nigeria claiming more than the lion share of the board members. From Nigeria, we have both successful university professors, high profile politicians, experienced retired generals, members of the diplomatic copper and businessmen whose names have already become trademarks in their various fields as members and whose presence in Sudan at this defining moment means a lot to the future politics of the country. Les I forget, let me remind my reader that a few weeks ago, the International University of Africa ( the unofficial diplomatic machine of the country) co-organized an international conference on the African-Arab solidarity which was solely funded by the ruling party of the country. The highly politicized conference (will analyzed in a separate article) was effectively used to reemphasize the position of Sudan in the Pan-African struggles.

Well, having said all these, let me now come back from my little digression to tell you all that took place in the meeting between the delegates of the Nigerian Arabic Village, Ngala and the Director of Center of Researches and African Studies of the International University of Africa. Maybe to your uttermost dismay, the discussion was dominated by Professor Abdurraheem Ahmad, the director of the Center Researches and of African Studies who did everything possible to make known to the Nigerian envoy how many academic achievements he credited into his account especially when it comes to African scholarship. He made sure to make a display of some of his works about Nigerian culture especially those to do the nomadic Fulani known as bororo.

Naturally, the meeting became a survival-of-the-fittest game with the Nigerian envoy, on one hand, trying to deliver their massage to him; the very reason why they spent public fund to visit his institution for the possible academic by-lateral mutually beneficial agreement in some specific areas while he was seriously trying to suppress his ego to listen to them and the ego sometimes overcomes him to chip in and hint them about some of his successful students in the USA and elsewhere, or how he feels imprisoned by the administrative responsibilities which became an obstacle against his normal tradition of publishing 7 books a year. All these took place after long minutes of waiting for him in his prestigious office reception at the centre. Many other details of what went on there are withheld for space management.

Well, what do all these symbolic presences of the sub-Saharan African big men in Sudan at this material time supposed to mean? I don’t claim to have known the answer or even provide it in this short piece. But it looks to me very much like trying to symbolize to the world the solidarity between Sudan and Africa. Assessing the conference of the Arab-African solidarity and its themes, it seems to me very much like the Sudan government is trying to place more claim to Pan-Africanism than the sub-Saharan Africans. The irony of the matter is that the whole issue sounds like they are making all these efforts to convince themselves rather than anyone else in the international community that they are Africans at last.

By now, you must have found it difficult just like I do, to comprehend this Sudan-vs-Africa issue as if to say that the country called Sudan doesn’t fall within the continent called Africa. It a real contradiction. What solves my trouble and hope will solve yours too, is my discovery that of Sudanese, Africa should be defined by race rather than geographical location and may be the common economic dependency.  That is exactly what creates the 50 long years of unrest between southern Sudan and southern Sudan. This made General, Dr John Grang to rebel against the Khartoum government and fought for the right of his southern people, the struggles that eventually claimed his life and which only attained its fruition last Sunday. Garang might not have chosen the option of secession for the nationalistic feelings he maintained throughout his life. He died hoping to be able to create a united Sudan capable of recognizing the rights of Sudanese regardless of the colour of their skins and part of the country which they came from. But his disappointment, secession is where his struggles ended up several years after his death.  

The southerners, black-skinned of negro origin as they are,  are regarded as Africans and the northerners, mostly white skinned Nubians mixed up with the migrant Arabs are termed Arabs in the Sudanese context.  The Arabs being what they are with their long history of racism and domineering spirit, enslaved the southerners. And now that they are exposed, they are trying very hard to not lose the whole African continent and especially black Africa and the international community at large, after the referendum. They are trying to convince the world that they love Africa and Africans, they have a lot in common with Africans, in short, they are Africans. But to do all these, they need to, first of all, convince themselves about whether they are what they claim or they are just trying to deceive the international community. It is not surprising, therefore, that we see the parliamentarians of the country few months before the referendum debating over whether they should retain the name Sudan (which means blacks) after the referendum for the fact that the name will not aptly describe the conglomeration of the new Sudan. Just like they have the right to name their country whatever suits them the best, one also has the right to remark that this move symbolized the worst model of racism in the modern history. What on earth, does the name of a country has to do with the skin colour of the people of that country? When do the citizens of countries in the world start choosing the name of their countries based on the criterion that the name aptly describes the people? I wonder where this kind of racial puritanism leads to. I am never surprised at this, not at all. Those of Sudanese who are courageously blunt and who do not find it civilized to be polite in public make it easier for me to understand for they can always go straight to the point. Sometime around a year ago, the chairman of the prestigious Sudanese newspaper Intibaha was hosted on Aljazeera program titled: Al-ittija el-mu'akis to discuss the possibility of the unity or secession of Sudan. In that program, the chairman who happens to be the uncle of the president Omar El-Bashir said it all in unmistakable terms: that southern Sudan is cancer on the body of Sudan and must be amputated. With these kinds of statements from the opinion leaders in the country, I find it very difficult to believe that an average Sudanese has any genuine feelings that he is an African nor has he any remorse when the people of any African country are suffering for whatever reason. Congratulation southerners for the secession. Happy freedom. Happy independence.