Elnathan john, p.10
Elnathan John, page 10
against Africans who give you a bad name. Embassies should be able to read that you are of the
opinion that dangerous Africans who try to settle do not represent you. Say occasionally that Africans
who have somehow settled abroad should come back home and stop embarrassing the rest of us good
Africans who need to travel for conferences and training and medical treatment and short holidays.
A good African always comes back home
No one can read your mind. You must prove that you will return home by swearing that you have
strong family and economic ties to the country where you belong to for life. It is nicer if you have a
wife and many children who you could never abandon because you are a child of God. And a nice
bank account that shows that you are not poor or anything. Sometimes, however, coming back home is
not sufficient. Depending on what country you travelled to, you may be required to write to the kind
embassy that granted you the privilege of travelling, telling them that, as you swore in the beginning,
you are truly back in your country avoiding all temptation that may have come from bad Africans
abroad. The temptation was great, but you had given them your word. And the word of a good African
is their bond.
SAVIOURS LOCAL AND INTERNATIONAL
Our donors, who art abroad, hallowed be thy purse. Thy aid come in dollars and pounds. Thy will be
done in our countries, as promoted by Bono. Give us this day, our yearly funding. And lead us not into
self-reliance. But deliver us from ourselves. For thine are dollars, the pounds and the euros, forever
and ever. Amen
HOW TO RUN A NIGERIAN NGO
The world is full of ungrateful people. People who cannot see beyond the small mercies to the big
picture. People who are unnecessarily critical when they should see the bright side. Such people
question the efficacy of NGOs, for example, and criticise them for standing in the way of real
solutions. They say that government should provide services like health and education and that
government should be held accountable when it doesn’t do that. Why waste time on social struggles
and accountability from government when you can just start an NGO? You must never listen to those
people who question the existence of NGOs. What Nigeria, and indeed Africa, needs is an increase in
projects. The best time to start an NGO is yesterday. The next best time is now.
The rules of the hustle
As a Nigerian you know the deal, everything is a hustle: government, politics, religion, all a hustle.
The Nigerian God only helps those who help themselves. The key to survival is to understand the
rules of the hustle so that by strategically positioning yourself, God can meet you at the point of your
need and bless your project.
This is where the NGO comes in.
You hear that millions of dollars have been set aside by foreign governments and donors for
development in Nigeria. Smile. It may be a hustle for them too, but the fact is they are really doing it
because they love you. Don’t wait to hear on radio or TV how this money is being spent. This will be
unwise. You need to strategically position yourself now.
Get a lawyer to register your NGO at the Corporate Affairs Commission. Do your research
before you do this. Find out what major donors such as the European Union, DFID, the UN and
USAID have agreed to fund for the next few years. Avoid things that have received much funding in
the past few years. Donors can be like children, they get bored with one thing and without warning,
move to another. Plus, there is that evil thing threatening to truncate Europe’s hustle called a
recession. Although God is faithful and will protect your hustle from truncation, God also helps those
who help themselves.
Millions of dollars have been set aside by donors. Smile.
You will need to take proactive steps to avoid being left with a redundant NGO due to lack of
funding. Do one of two things: One, give your NGO a broad name that can cover two or more areas.
The more the merrier. So instead of registering HIV/AIDS Alliance, register Health Watch Alliance.
Instead of registering Alliance against Torture, register Alliance for the Protection of Human Rights.
That way if there isn’t much torture for you to benefit from, you can benefit from other human rights
abuses.
On the other hand, you can register multiple NGOs. With this you can never go wrong. Always be
willing and able to change the dance as soon as the donors change their tune.
Funding value
When building the foundations of your NGO, you must be careful about the kind of people you invite.
You don’t want the type who will suddenly become wild when the aid dollars start flowing in. Make
the Board of Trustees your relatives and the parents of your close friends who are too busy, too old or
too rich to care how you run your NGO. Include one neutral, fairly well-known person who has
funding value: someone donors can respect. This person will be on the face of all your proposals.
Invest in media equipment: cameras, video recorders, projectors. Have pictures and videos to go
with your proposals and letters of introduction. People need to see that you have been working hard,
donating things and doing campaigns in your chosen field. Make sure you get lots of pictures of poor,
sick-looking children you have helped. Or homeless people you have given blankets to.
Make friends with guys who work in donor agencies. Networking in the NGO world is important.
Many times, crucial information about funding and projects slips out at social gatherings. This is how
you know who is funding what and when.
A good proposal is everything
Take your time to work on proposals. A good proposal is everything. Seventy percent of the job of an
NGO is paperwork — proposals and budgets and retirements and press releases. If you are not sure
how to package an NGO proposal, learn. If you can’t do it, don’t be stingy. Pay someone to do it. Pay
for a beautiful website with lots of photos showing things you are committed to. Foreign donors get
tickled by nice functional websites. Make sure you visit the website of your donor and follow the
guidelines strictly.
Usually a career in one of the big international donor agencies or NGOs will prepare you for all
of the above. If you have the patience, look for a job with one of the UN agencies, DFID or USAID.
Study their processes. In a few years you will be ready to become a big local consultant or start your
own NGO.
Running an NGO can be tricky. You rely on the hustle of foreign and local donors. You can
suddenly run dry. You do not get a pension. So, you must save for the day when donor rains cease to
fall or you are too old to get another job. You must learn how to weave in extra items into the budget
and inflate project costs. Anyone who calls this stealing, God will swiftly truncate their hustle.
When you spend donor money, you need to show that you really deserve it. So, if money is left
over, you need to find a way to spend that money, otherwise the following year, you will get much
less than you ask for.
Freedom of Information
As you run your NGO never assume that you will spend most of the money on actual causes. Don’t get
ahead of yourself. Preparation is key. Best is to spend up to 70% arranging meetings, paying admin
and other overhead costs that will make sure that some of the remaining 30% of the funds you have
goes to the cause where your hustle is domiciled.
Am I too technical? Let me give you a practical example. Say you run an organisation called the
“Freedom of Information Alliance.” Donors give you 100,000 dollars to promote Freedom of
Information in Nigeria. Instead of squandering the whole amount actually promoting Freedom of
Information in practical ways, thus wasting the money of kind donors, you must set aside considerable
amounts for advocacy meetings (lunch and tea breaks included), a conference or seminar to discuss
the issue, capacity building (I’m not sure what that means but you shouldn’t think too hard about it
either) and admin costs (some of the money should go to offsetting your rent in the heart of the city
where rent is super expensive). With the rest, you can promote Freedom of Information. You can, for
example, make a nice glossy booklet that says that Freedom of Information is important.
Cooperation
Now, say there is another NGO that does the same thing. Yes, that happens. Sometimes another
person, somewhere, is thinking the exact same thing you are thinking. Or maybe they just overheard
you in a barbershop or hair salon talking about your interests and decided to copy you.
You must never work together. I know sometimes donors will require coalitions on some issues.
In those instances, endure it. Join the coalition for the purpose of accessing funds and looking good.
But when it comes to your day to day work, ignore the rival NGO. Nothing good can come from
sharing ideas or working together. People just want to steal your ideas and get all the money from
donors.
People should understand that you can’t risk clashing with your donor.
Sometimes, a situation may come up that needs you to look outside the narrowly defined grants
that donors give. Well, it is not your fault that people’s problems don’t align with the specific
proposal you made to the donor. The thing is, God can see your heart and you really want to do what
is right. Of course, you would like to help people with real problems, if you could. But people should
understand that you can’t risk clashing with your donor. How will you be able to afford rent for your
nice office?
People need to be reasonable in their expectations. You are, after all, the only alternative to
corrupt, inefficient government. What would anyone do without you?
Gratitude
Remember that the local people you are trying to help have no idea what they want. If they did, they
wouldn’t need you in the first place. If you say they need Freedom of Information, then that is what
they need. If you say they need a borehole, then what they need is a borehole. There is no need to
spend time asking the people on the ground how they would do things. Often, they will be too grateful
for what you have done for them to bother about the effectiveness of your intervention. And that is all
that matters: their gratitude.
Because NGO people are jealous, it is important that as God blesses your NGO hustle, you do
not draw attention to yourself. You don’t want fellow NGO people reporting you to the Economic and
Financial Crimes Commission. Wear casual shirts (preferably sewn with kampala fabric) on jeans
unless you are attending donor meetings or meetings with government counterparts. No need to
advertise all the money you are making from saving your fellow countrymen.
Never miss dinners and meetings organised by embassies and donors. These people are an
important link to funding. It doesn’t matter if you do not get a personal invitation, once there is ‘civil
society’ in the program, polish your shoes, take your glossy complimentary cards and get going.
Get some street credibility
If you are into human rights, try to get arrested. Foreign donors get excited when they meet human
rights activists who have actually been locked up or who have gory tales to tell. Take advantage of
popular protests to boost your activist CV and the reputation of your NGO. You don’t want to take this
too far however. The idea is to get attention, not get killed or locked up indefinitely. Be smart.
Do television, radio and newspaper interviews. Pay to get interviewed if possible. It is for the
cause. Do press releases. You must not only do work but be seen to do work. The more visible you
are, the more NGO points you get. The more NGO points you get, the more funding you are likely to
continue to have.
One final thing: when in doubt, remember the three W’s:
1. What would the donors do?
2. What do the donors want?
3. What can the donors fund?
If you follow my advice, before long, you will be flying from one all-expenses-paid foreign
conference and seminar to another. All for the cause. May you continue to receive funding and may
God, through your NGO, bless your hustle.
HOW TO BE A BLACK SAVIOUR
Look, I have been reading all the woke literature and websites (so you don’t have to) and I can tell
you, white saviours are a travesty. They are everywhere in your face from international NGOs to lead
characters in movies that should be about black people. Let me quickly say before you begin to think
of a solution that involves any sort of reform of these bad individuals: White saviours are beyond
redemption, as useless as a pot that has been used to boil pepper soup to a person who wants to boil
bathing water. No matter how much you wash that pot, you will still feel the pepper in your eyes and
privates.
You must look inward, to discover the saviour in you. You must become a black saviour, the
single most important tool in the fight against the scourge of the white saviour complex. (In this piece
of advice I will use “BS”, “the black saviour” and “black saviours” interchangeably). God bless the
black saviour.
Allow me to introduce the black saviour to you.
Relative to the average hopeless, poverty-stricken citizen, the black saviour stands in a position of
privilege. They live abroad, shielded from typhoid, malaria, fuel queues, too-hot-for-sex weather,
state sanctioned homophobia, shameless politicians and killer soldiers. Some have recently returned
from living abroad following epiphanies of how desperately the country needs their expertise, talent,
and superior foreign currency. Some might maliciously imply that, of these returnees, most are fleeing
harsh economic conditions, foreigners they have impregnated or defrauded, taxes or the law, but it is
wrong to judge the intentions of Man. That is the work of God. And God does not treat usurpers
kindly.
The easiest identifying characteristic of the black saviour is an intense hatred for the white
saviour. The black saviour would beat the white saviour with a tree trunk if he caught him in a forest
where assault was not against the law. More importantly, the black saviour has as the singular goal in
life; protecting the black man from the white saviour.
Some black saviours, after being persecuted on the basis of their political beliefs or sexuality,
have gotten asylum in white countries. Some others, all thanks to their parents, were born in white
countries and are citizens of those countries. They are in the vanguard of the protection of black
dignity and rights. Like when that blue-eyed busybody went and (some say “innocently”, but like
black saviours I don’t care) raised millions of dollars to fight an African warlord (Kony of the Lord’s
Resistance Army) that we had all forgotten about. For all we know Kony could be pining away from
syphilis in some forest. Thank God that black saviours jumped in and criticised that white madness.
Next time he will think before trying to save black people from themselves.
The black saviour usually writes from abroad, taking the time out of a busy schedule comprising
two to four jobs, to moan about how bad the country is, how things must change, how we must reject
the influence of white saviours in our insane countries. I imagine BS hunched over laptops, iPads and
tea (or coffee, I hear they all love coffee once they go abroad) and ridiculously fast internet
connections typing furiously about the state of the nation, human rights, our ‘inchoate’ publishing
industry or bad white guys. This isn’t easy. I salute their courage.
Once in a while, black saviours may even brave the cold and hold a placard outside the Nigerian
embassy in their sane country of residence. Now it is important to note that just like Jesus warned
about imposters who would perform miracles in his name, not everyone carrying a placard in the
name of Nigeria in a white country is a black saviour. We must be vigilant. Now, how do we know
who is a real one? Sometimes, after returning from a long stay abroad, the black saviours may have
what I have christened Sane Country Withdrawal Syndrome (SCWS). This is a serious ailment and all
decent people must show empathy. The Sane Country Withdrawal Syndrome (SCWS) is an
imperceptible bastard that creeps up on the true black saviour without a big announcement. I have
however studied the symptoms. After a few years of returning, (during which time the foreign accent
may or may not be lost, this depends on how early the parents intervened to save their child from the
insane nation of his or her birth) the black saviour is still shocked at how things are done “in this
country”. You will hear things like “When I was in Cincinnati”, “This how we used do it in Brussels”
or “This is tosh! The British would never do this” in every bit of conversation. SCWS does not allow
