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PASTOR GENERAL'S REPORT, FEBRUARY 11, 1983
PAGE 7
take place in the north: the Biafrans still long for a separate
state. A fall in the price of oil...has shown what havoc will
come when the oil runs out altogether....
Ghanaian journalists, writing anonymously in the African news
magazines published in London, give terrifying accounts of
murder, anarchy, looting, breakdown of all public services and
tribal hostility between the Ashanti and Ewe people, above all a
purge of the professional, educated class.
We may now be witnessing the first stages of post-colonial Africa's descent
into a new dark age of economic despair and political upheaval. The U.S.
NEWS AND WORLD REPORT, in its February 14 issue also took a look at what it
headlined "The Desperate Straits of Black Africa":
Nigeria's mass expulsion of more than � millio � alien workers
underscores the economic erisis that 1s ravag1ng black.-ruled
nations of Africa and setting the stage for an explosion of�
rest•.•• Many states that won independence
in
relatively pros
perous times after world War II lack the institutions or skills
to cope with intractable, seemingly permanent problems.
The
world Bank recently cataloged some. of them--corruption, ineffi
ciency, excessive government spending, overvalued currencies and
neglect of agriculture. By far the most pressing concern is the
cont1nentl"s foreign debt, currently topping 60 billion dollars
and way out of proportion to what African states take in from
abroad••••
A dispatch received over our UPI teletype on February 5 examined the
curious phenomenon of why the drastic expulsion of foreigners from Nigeria
has sparked so little reaction in the rest of the world.
Had the United States or any other western nation expelled
illegal aliens as abruptly as Nigeria just kicked out hundreds of
thousands of unwanted foreigners, there would have been severe
worldwide repercussions•...
But the exodus from Africa's biggest and most populous nation has
sparked little outrage either at home or abroad. Governments,
international organ1zat1ons ana political parties in the west
have had little to say about Nigeria's sudden expulsion of the
strangers in its midst, many of whom have been resident for
years.
"The voice of the liberal conscience is suddenly silent and
protest 1s mute,�aid one correspondent-re THE TIMES of London
who askea: ---.rrs it the international left-wing consensus that
only white states are racist? Or is there a deep-rooted racism
in the more vociferous of the anti-racists that causes them to
keep silent because they expect no better of Africans?"
Nor has the expulsion aroused protest in the West African nation
itself. rn a general atmosphere of xenophobia, newspapers have
either ignored or applauded it. The DAILY TIMES of Lagos called
on Nigerians to assist the government in identifying aliens.•..
[An article in that same newspaper, reported elsewhere, justified