“AFRICA NEEDS BIGGER, NOT SMALLER COUNTRIES” – AN INTERVIEW WITH TOPE FASUA, ECONOMIST

Tope Fasua is an economist, accountant, columnist, author and a consultant. A fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria (ICAN), Tope studied economics at the Ondo State University where he finished as the best graduating student in his department, faculty and university at large in 1991. He had his second degree, Msc Financial Markets & Derivatives, from the London Metropolitan University, United Kingdom. He started his career in 1992 with the defunct Citizens Bank. He later worked with Standard Trust Bank and Equatorial Trust Bank where he rose to the position Principal Manager/ Regional Director (Abuja). With executive education courses from the London Business School and the Harvard University, Tope is a regular economic and financial markets analyst on television. He is the author os the books, CRUSHED! (2011) and THINGS TO DO BEFORE YOUR CAREER DISAPPEARS (2013). The former banker is the CEO of Global Analytics Consulting

In this PART TWO of our 4-part interview Tope shares his perspectives on African political economy. Read PART ONE here.

3. As an economist, you prefer to look at issues from a pan-Africanist perspective. This is evident in your book, THINGS TO DO…BEFORE YOUR CAREER DISAPPEARS, and in your Social Media interventions. In fact, you have been touted as the Malcom Gladwell of Africa. What informed this?

An energetic session by Tope Fasua, FCA, CEO, Global Analytics, at the JarusHub Career Conference, Lekki, Lagos, September 2013

Well, I don’t know who tagged me that but it felt good. And reading through Gladwell’s books, I found that what he did was to always have a fresh, unusual perspective to things. That is a real modern philosopher. He doesn’t swallow dogma. Like me. He challenges the status quo and asks ‘do things have to be this way? Is this correct even though we’ve always thought it was?’. That is the same way I ‘roll’. This demands not only a clear, open mind, but also a reliance on statistics, logic, evidence. People like us don’t make very religious people because we would not willingly and meekly queue behind an idea because someone said it is true. It’s a good place to be.

And what would I be if not a pan-Africanist? I believe Africa needs bigger, not smaller countries. I see what they’ve achieved in say the Eurozone, and the fact that other regions are cooperating, from north America, to the Gulf Region, to South-East Asia, to South America, and just agonise that Africans seem not to see that it’s either they cooperate, reason together, help each other, or they die. Simple. And I see that we have no heroes. I am not the hero, could never be, especially since our people don’t appreciate heroes. In fact, they kill them once they show up. But once in a while, I speak up for the greater good of Africa, of Nigeria – being the big brother – because no one else will. It’s a noble thing to do and spiritually, it is worth the trouble. Why not? I believe being created in these parts, in spite of all its challenges, is a privilege. Being created at all, is a privilege. We’ve got to live up to the billing and take responsibility. Otherwise God will be angry with us on judgment day. I am also propelled sometimes, by a saying credited to George Orwell, the man who wrote ANIMAL FARM. He said, famously, “A people are able to sleep peaceably at night, because of rough men, who keep vigil, ready to do violence on their behalf’’. I look around many times, and realize that Africa, Nigeria’s rough men, sometimes collaborate with the rough men of other countries, to do violence against the people whom they are meant to protect. That cannot be right.

4. You also like to look at issues from the flip, sometimes contrarian, side. In fact, you’re the only Nigerian intellectual I read that argued, through a Facebook post, that it is not sufficient to dismiss the “salt and bitter kola solution” to Ebola by anyone, without coming up with a proof to the contrary. You also appear to hold ousted Libyan leader, Muammar Ghadafi, in high regard, based on what I read from your book, just as you appear to subscribe to a number of anti-Black conspiracy theories. Could you shed more light on what influenced these perspectives of yours? Or do you just like playing the devil’s advocate?

Look my brother. We went to school and were taught from one perspective. We read English and American books and so on. Don’t you think when we graduate, we should also try and see what the other side is saying? That is what is called education. Luckily for me two things; among the books I said I read growing up, I recall reading a lot of rich Russian plays. I can’t remember some of the titles. But I know that the Russians are every inch as advanced as the other guys who try to tell us they are savages because it is only their TVs that beam into our living rooms. It’s about open-mindedness. The other luck is that I am a social scientist, and while in university for my BSc, I used to write a lot in exam halls. Because if I have an idea that is compelling, I just cannot stop in exploring all the angles and convincing the examiner. Luckily, it worked for me. I cannot now be in the open terrain where no one is breathing down my neck, and be afraid to explore the pros and cons of every idea.

So on the matter of Ebola, I too initially felt the call to bathe with salt was farfetched. But I kept my ears open. When people explained where that may be coming from, I said well, Okaayyyyy. But when people were merely dismissing such calls, posing as ‘intellectuals’ while not adding anything new or creative, I felt it was they – the so-called educated – that were backward, and not those who were trying to disparage. Those people – the traditional people – did not have any point to prove but the fact that they were trying to stay alive. It is those who said they were wrong, who went to school, that should have mounted laboratory experiments which will disprove the traditionalists. I felt these educated people were not students of history. We couldn’t have been here today, except our forefathers had ideas about self-preservation. They may not have precision, but they had some knowledge. I also noted that Coca-Cola and Pepsi-Cola had Kolanut as a major ingredient when they were first made in the USA as medicines.

As per Muammar Ghadafi, I ain’t playing no devil’s advocate. Do I look to you like I know who the devil is? I’m on the side of angels. Look, you can see what has happened to Africa since he left. I have decided to keep quiet about most things today. I stay on the sidelines and just watch. There is probably nothing I’ve predicted since I started writing that hasn’t come to pass. And I’m not TB Joshua. I think it’s all about respecting logic, history, and understanding the psychology and motivation of men and women. The killing of Ghadafi, by no less than our Brother Barack and his cohorts Sarkozy and Cameron, was a decapitation of Africa. With the nuisance called Ghaddafi, Africa had some ideas about independence and even a greater tomorrow, but look at us now. Firstly, how could Nigeria not have known better than to act in negation of its own best interest by signing off on the Resolution 1973 with which the UN eventually killed Ghaddafi? How did we not know that the arms from there will trickle here and kill thousands of our people? Why was Nigeria the first to support the decapitation of Africa and a staunch supporter of the destruction of this continent all through? Well, I realized that most of those who don’t see my point are usually the very selfish type. So I rest my case. Let anyone believe what they want. After all, we are now all on our own.