Newsletter No. 985
News-Analysis
April 21, 2008

 

The following newsletter has been contributed by John Edward Philips (Shingetsu Member No. 1). Philips is based at Hirosaki University.

JICA PROVIDES INFRASTRUCTURE FOR SCHOOLS IN KADUNA, NIGERIA

Significant amounts of Japanese aid have been going to providing basic education in Nigeria. The Nigerian government has been very anxious to expand educational facilities, especially for early years, not only to help develop the country economically but also to help solve the problem of idle youths who have no other occupation than begging. The problem has been particularly acute in the Muslim north, where the "almajirai" (youths who are ostensibly students, but who spend most of their time begging in the streets) have been a social problem of increasing proportions, nearly out of control during the Abacha regime (1993-98).

The almajirai (Hausa from Arabic Almuhajirun - exiles) were originally young students who had left home for studies, living and working with their teacher. With increasing urbanization they are often unable to work on their teacher's farm, and thus resort to begging to the neglect of their studies. This often works to the detriment of their education. As the traditional educational institutions have become increasingly dysfunctional, the government has attempted to incorporate traditional Islamic learning into the modern educational curriculum.

The Universal Basic Education Programme operates not only in the Muslim north, of course, but also the south. Even many Christian areas in the north were reached by mission education during the colonial era. The Western Region implemented universal primary education at independence, but it was many years before other areas of the country were able to offer elementary education to all those who desired it. Even today many Muslims remain suspicious of western education, despite the choice of Islamic Religious Knowledge (IRK) offered as an alternative to Christian Religious Knowledge (CRK) in Nigerian primary schools.

Through the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) the Japanese government has been funding the construction of schools in Kaduna State, a predominantly "middle belt" state which straddles the Christian Muslim divide in Nigeria, and where a Muslim majority has sometimes tense relations with a significant Christian majority, especially in the south of the state.

The Nigerian news service This Day writes: "Report of JICA Projects in aid of basic education in Kaduna state, include the completion of the construction of 195 classrooms, 3,657 pupil desks, 110 toilets, two headmasters' offices, as well as the construction of five deep wells and hand pump water schemes."

Nigeria has been asking the Japanese government to extend their aid to the construction of primary school classrooms in other states. Japan is continuing the construction in Kaduna State with the typical alacrity and efficiency of Japanese construction.

It remains to be seen whether the cooperation between Japan and Nigeria in education extends beyond the provision of infrastructure and extends to the training of teachers and the provision of aid in instruction as well as in construction. A good sign is that JICA has worked to provide maintenance skills related to the buildings to the teachers and communities benefiting from the construction, so that they could maintain the buildings provided them.

COMMENTARY

1) From Keiji Uchida, a businessman, on April 29, 2008:

Providing infrastructure for schools is quite welcome to the people in Nigeria, of course. But, as you may know, the fundamental problem of the country is based on its politics. I believe that everyone knows about the corruption of many government officials in that country.

The basic policy of JICA, however, is that they have nothing to do with the politics of the recipient countries. The more JICA is involved in the aid process, the more they must face the underlying problems in the political systems of those countries. As a result, JICA tries to avoid involvement in politics. In fact, I personally have some strong doubts about JICA and Japan's aid policies in general, which don't express views about the politics of recipient countries.

2) From John Edward Philips of Hirosaki University on April 30, 2008:

The fundamental problems of Nigeria involve far more than corrupt politicians, as I noted in my 'Review Essay: The Trouble with Nigeria' in African Studies Review (September 2005, pp. 133-139). After all, Chicago's infamously corrupt politicians never prevented it from becoming a great city. My mother used to live in Chicago, but even she was shocked by the gold bars found in the safe of a certain, late Japanese politician. I don't mean to minimize the ill effects of corruption, rather I want to point out that corruption isn't the only problem in Nigeria and that, within limits, it is not a problem which need permanently cripple a country from economic takeoff.

As inhabitants of a post-colonial state created by the British for their own purposes, Nigerians have had to feel and fight their way towards a common political culture. They still have a long way to go, but they have come far in the past few years alone, even in addressing the problem of corruption, which is no longer as acute as it was during the Abacha regime. Education can help that.

As for foreign aid, it is always given in the perceived interest of the donor country. The United States did not donate billions of dollars in Lend-Lease to the Soviet Union during World War II because we thought Joe Stalin was a nice guy who was doing wonderful things for his people and we wanted to help him. We did it because if we didn't then Adolf Hitler was going to take over the world. Likewise the United States didn't spend billions of dollars rebuilding Western Europe after World War II because we are nice people who wanted to do nice things. We did it because if we didn't then Joe Stalin was going to move in and we would have had very serious problems. You can call it enlightened self-interest or being Machiavellian if you want, but those were the motives.

Japan's motives in giving foreign aid may be enlightened but they are no less self-interested. At the very least the contractors involved in the construction of the schools are Japanese. Yes, Japan (and China and the US during the Cold War) care little about the internal politics of the recipients of their foreign aid. That does not mean that the provision of foreign aid is not intended to serve the political purposes of the donor country. It is in fact to Nigeria's credit that the Nigerian government has chosen to put Japanese aid into building schools rather than into less useful directions. It's hard to understand how JICA's donation of Japanese rice to Gambian 'civil servants and ruling party militants' was in the interests of the Gambian people. Providing aid to ruling party militants in particular suggests that JICA doesn't really avoid interference in politics.

But Mr. Uchida is right that official Japan couldn't care less about that one way or the other. Japan's interests in Nigeria include access to oil and support for a permanent UN Security Council seat. If providing schools in Kaduna State will secure those interests, then Japan will build them.

Good for them for building the schools, and good for the Nigerians for asking for them.