Richard A. Joseph, director of The Program of African Studies at Northwestern University, is usually credited with first using the term prebendalism to describe patron-client or neopatrimonialism in Nigeria. Since then the term has commonly been used in scholarly literature and textbooks.
The Catholic Encyclopedia defines a prebend as the "right of member of chapter to his share in the revenues of a cathedral."
Joseph used the term to describe the sense of entitlement that many people in Nigeria feel they have to the revenues of the Nigerian state.
Elected officials, government workers, and members of the ethnic and religious groups to which they belong feel they have a right to a share of government revenues.
Joseph wrote in 1996, "According to the theory of prebendalism, state offices are regarded as prebends that can be appropriated by officeholders, who use them to generate material benefits for themselves and their constituents and kin groups..."
As a result of that kind of patron-client or identity politics, Nigeria has regularly been one of the lowest ranked nations for political transparency by Transparency International in its Corruption Perceptions Index.
Other results include the corruption investigations into the activities of 31 out of 36 Nigerian governors, the frequent comments in the Nigerian press about the problems of corruption (for example, Victor E. Dike's article in the Daily Champion of Lagos, "Nigeria: Governance and Nigeria's Ailing Economy" and the common defenses of prebendalism as necessary for justice and equality in government funding (for example Oliver O. Mbamara's editorial, "In Defense of Nigeria: Amidst the Feasting of Critics" at Africa Events.
A Prebendalist State is a primitive state in which tribes send representatives to loot the Central authority for a region. The region functions as a state, even when it lacks natural cohesion other than that being vaguely defined in the aftermath of Colonialist rule.
Prebendalism is acknowledged as being active in post-colonial states like those of Nigeria and India.
Obama's 1) Identity Politics, 2) his allegiance to Union cronies, and 3) the vote-buying system he uses to push his agenda, have turned America into a Prebendalist State.
Given Obama's obsession with the evils of American Imperialism and "Colonialist" abuse, is it surprising that Obama's model for a working state is Africa?
It is possible, maybe even likely, that Obama sees minorities in America as being the victims of American Colonialism, just as much as Africans are.
Therefore, because Prebendalism is a means for such victims to obtain "Justice" thought payment of something very much like Reparations, Obama seems to be instituting exactly the same kind of system, as if by design.
Whether it is intentional or not, the course we taking, into African-style Prebendalism, is absolutely frightening.
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