The Nation Newspaper

Category: Brian Browne

  • Do I see what I see?

    Do I see what I see?

    The prudent cultivates wisdom but the fool dons folly for a crown.

    Year 2015 is gone and irretrievable. It can only be remembered, revered or regretted, but never relived. What we did or failed to do stays where and as it is. Action lies in the future. The past may guide but never again can it serve as the canvas upon which we paint our lives.

    We invest a deep importance to the end/ beginning of a year that defies ethics andempirical evidence. Across the great sweep of history, these annual exit and entry dates loom no more important than any other moment. They are not weighted by the crush of great events more than another point on the calendar. Yet, weinject them with a mystical quality as if the portal from one year to the next has an inherently different impact on the course of human affairs than the portal from any day to the one that next follows it. The dynamics of physics and astronomy are turned into a rush of heightened religious expression. The remnants of paganism still drag behind us. In some ways, we have not graduated from Stonehenge and those ancient monuments deifying that which moves about in the firmament.

    As the year ends, prophets become flush with prophesies and preachers declare the coming year will be the year of this or that marvelous happening.  The lay crowd is counselled to take stock of their ways and to pledge to correct that which is bad or in disrepairregarding their personalities. None of this is inherently bad but all of it is terribly incomplete.

    If one waits until year’s end to perform these rites, then one has waited too long. Unless these exertions are persistent throughout the year, delaying until one instance infused with a dramatic but artificial climax will prove an inadequate device. To strenuously examine your moral compass once yearly is to subject it to erroneous disuse. By the time you view it, you may be so severely misplaced that the assessment may no longer be of any curative utility; at that point, it may only serve as a crying towel to weep regret for adhering too firmly to a path too incorrect to follow.

    The passage of a year is merely the track of the earth’s revolution around a sun which itself is slave to movement through the universe. It is a physical event. The correlation between the movement of these orbs and the interactions of social man is tenuous. It has no more bearing on the quality of our social relations, how man treats his fellow man, than if we elect to measure time by how long it takes a tethered goat to walk backwards around a pole.We waste the better part of a year waiting until the end of the year to be our better selves.

    Though no more imbued withmoral significance than any other moment, I admit the end of the year is a good time to take stock. It is consensus and convenient accounting measure, but one not to be infused with any greater cosmic or spiritual elevation than we would give the annual financial audit of a business firm. It is the action and quality of the auditing itself not the timing of it that is of import. Here, we must gauge whether, on the winepress of human strivings, we have advanced, fallen by the wayside or remained in place.

    Globally, 2015 was a year of regression. The world became a more dangerous habitation as the West angled closer to direct confrontation with Russia over Syria-ISIL. America and its European and Asian allies nearedthe completion of comprehensive treaties creating economic blocs that seek to isolate Russia and China. Establishment of these intimidating blocs and the transfer of traditional aspects of sovereignty from the state to the private sector the enabling treaties portend will likelyburden African efforts to industrialize. Meanwhile, Africa sits poorer due to falling commodity prices.

    Geopolitics and skewed economics conspire against all but a small portion of mankind. With few exceptions in 2015, the machinations of power and might suppressed the entreaties of justice and compassion.

    The exceptional occurred in Nigeria.Despite the bitter gruel of venal governance they had been fed down the years, Nigerian people clung to their faith that life can improve; they voted in a new government. For this reason, the Nigerian voter is my person of the year.This new government must now perform under conditions of steep adversity. There are signs of promise as well as concern as this government takes shape. It must not faint but it must not bluster.

    Governance is a most human endeavor. There is no infallibility in it. The lone act a man perfectly consummates is but death. All else is a fluid admixture of success and setback. The best thing this government can do is work to better the lot of the people. The second best thing is to recognize that it is imperfect; some of the programs it tries will not go as intended. That is no disgrace nor a sign of godly disfavor. The people have for a long time withstood the onslaught of bad government purposefully trying to wrong them. They can well stomach the errors of a government that sincerely intends their wellbeing.

    Government should not cover its missteps or stubbornly adhere toa failing course. If something does not work, jettison it.Create another program. Wed not itself to preconceptions but to desired results. The best policy is empirical success not political excuse. Unlike other governments, do not attempt to defend something that is manifestly wrong or indefensible.

    Do not try to distort reality to fit with your program. Make your program fit reality. This is how an organic connection between government and the people is created. Given the resilience of the Nigerian people, there is nothing that government can explain that the people will not accept. The people will stick with government as long as government is square with them.

    As such, the Nigerian change of government provides potential solace. The rest of the year’s landscape is rather dismal terrain. A partial reason for this sorrowful state is the bankruptcy of moral leadership in most nations. The clergy worldwide has abetted and not fought this decline. With the visible exception of the Pope, most Christian leaders have chained themselves to the ways and thoughts of the establishment as if in voluntary servitude.

    The behavior of Nigeria’s Christian leadership during the election is of record. Many embarrassed themselves, revealing themselves more as vessels of prejudice than piety. Others became outright mercenary, their behavior the stuff against which all ethical proverbs and aphorisms give stark counsel. As many clerics here accepted the illicit coin, their frocked brethren throughout the world fared no better. Most clerics sheepishly tracked behind the Western establishment on two vital issues – economic policy and foreign affairs – issues that will determine the destiny of billions of people.

    All claim to emulate Jesus. If so, I must be reading the wrong bible. The Jesus of my Bible did not march in lockstep with the masters of the city. When he entered Jerusalem for the last time, he did the unthinkable. He openly challenged their avarice. He entered the temple, upending the tables of the moneychangers and chasing thecorrupt from his Father’s house. The priests and the moneymen had turned the holy place into a waystation of usury and exploitation.

    The temple had been turned into Wall Street. Jesus more than occupied it; he turned the Street on its very head. That the moneychangers plied their trade in the temple compounded their infraction. Their commerce was wrong regardless of place. He called them “thieves” not pragmatic businessmen who set up proper shop in an improper place. The economic system they led was unjust.

    That economy is no more unjust than today’s. Man has harnessed the power of nature and knowledge to press forth unprecedented levels of wealth and goods. Yet, the number and percentage of people rendered poor and hungry by the artificial constraints of the economic system -and not by the imperatives of objective lack – is unprecedented.

    The Evangelical community says nothing about this. It does not rail against such injustice. It accepts the merciless capitalist system as somehow ordained from above even though no heavenly voice ever proclaimed such a thing. This clergy beckons to this congregations to enlist in a sort of divine lottery. Accept the system as it is. Just supplicate.More importantly,make sure you pay your obligations to the corporal church and you may be one of the few who are blessed beyond measure.There is no talk of making the world better or striving to inject compassion, mercy and justice into the life of mankind at large. The message is make sure you pay your religious dues and you may get a blessed payday, a divine dividend. Sadly, there is a sense of the casino in all of this.

    No major Pentecostal leader questions the debt-laden nature of our economic and financial structures, although it is this quality that has brought the global economy to serial crises and has impoverished hundreds of million who ought not to be. These leaders have wedded themselves to the system and its inequity. They support it. They love Jesus; yet they bank and banquet with the devil. Thus, they never upend the tables. They just watch intently to assure they get their fair cut. They even pay honor to people of great money and power before the congregation of ordinary men who are made to gawk in awe at the venal display.

    There is no rich man ever embarrassed out of church or publicly rebuked for the stained origins of his trove. Money and power are made blessed regardless of the origin and manner of their accumulation. These clerics assert that they preach the gospel. That might be true. They just don’t live it. Words are sonorous; they also are mostly air.  Deeds and work are the bedrock, the hard evidence, of belief and faith.

    When it comes to casting aside the yoke of poverty from the people, the message these leaders give adds greater burden. They ask people to give more and more in offerings but fail to question why the people earn less and less. The people are cajoled to make more bricks with less straw as if this is the way of Providence instead of that of Pharaoh. These men are today’s Pharisees. So closely glued to the establishment, they cannot see how they have replaced the ways of the gospel with those of greed. The Jesus they claim to follow more closely resembles mammon from this vantage point. Better to hold firm to a boulder cast into the sea than follow these people who delegate one eye on the Bible but plant both eyes on the till.

    The other unfortunate gap is in the area of foreign affairs. Too many Christians took perverse enjoyment denigrating Islam as a religion of violence due to the existence of vile Boko Haram, ISIS and Al Qaeda. Candidates in American presidential primaries even speak of banning Muslims, including American citizens, from entering the country.

    While libeling Islam as a religion of death and violence, these people seem blithely ignorant of the wanton violence done by leaders of nations supposedly guided by Christian principle. Perhaps these clerics should spend less time ridiculing Muslims and more time cleaning the scarlet corridors of their own house.  They would find a rogues gallery camouflaged in the attire of statesmen, prime ministers and presidents.

    Christian George Bush launched a massive war against a sovereign nation that was not a threat to his. He did so based on a lie. Hundreds of thousands perished needlessly. The decade before that, western sanctions against that same nation, Iraq, materially contributed to the premature deaths of over 200,000 children and likely many more. For over a decade, American drone bombs,ordered by born-again Christian presidents,have slain untold numbers of innocent, unarmed people who never lifted a finger against the West. Their deaths have been perfunctorily dismissed as collateral damage or as those of presumptive terrorists simply because they were in physical proximity to suspected terrorists.

    The term collateral damage sounds clinical. It is a euphemism mounted atop a deep brutality. There is nothing clinical about an exploding bomb. The incendiary may be the product of man’s most advanced technology; but the fury unleashed precipitates a carnage of rare dimension. The bomb may be smart; it is also intrinsically savage. Such ordnance pierces bodies and burns internal organs, ripping off limbs and decapitating heads so as to render victims unrecognizable. More often than not, this orgy of fire and force leaves bodies so pulverized that they cannot be segregated from the rubble of buildings and the dust of the earth. Too often loved ones are left to bury a portion of a corpse, a solitary bone, or just the idea of the departed.

    If we were to compute the numbers of innocent people the West has killed in its war against terrorism over the past twenty years, the numbers would exceed a million. At their present rate of carnage, the dreadful terrorists would need several centuries to equal the death toll that America and its league have achieved.

    Yet there is no cry from the main Pentecostal leaders who claim to have severed their ties with denominationthat they may more freely and completely commune with God shorn of the distraction of empty ritual and bias. They may have shunned denomination. But they seemed to have replaced it with another unseemly bias. For them, nationalism and cultural prejudice trump spirituality and objective fairness.

    In the West, those who committed this massive death are garlanded with praise although the sum total of their work has been to inch the world closer to mass disaster. Perhaps the hard-heartedness would be excusable if it resulted in peace and stability. But it has not. Iraq is a hot iron. Libya has combusted into anomie. Syria is a cauldron of misery and Afghanistan slips once more into chaos and fratricide. These are the fruits of their deadly labor. This tree cannot be allowed to further grow lest its blossoms consume us all.

    I know not what to make of all this except that slaughter is now regarded as warfare, depravity as courage and evil as necessity. Imperceptibly, our humanity escapes from us like droplets of precious water evaporating under the midday heat. The problem is not that we are in the desert. The problem is that we have become the desert.

    The truth be told, I hesitated a good moment before writing this piece. My flaws and transgression are manifold. I must ask forgiveness on an hourly basis. I write this not to appear as if I stand atop a moral promontory. To the contrary, we all are in the pit, walking through the valley of the shadow of death.

    This piece is not an indictment but a plea, an entreaty to those who claim moral leadership to exercise that leadership as never before. The world edges closer to mayhem of frightful proportion. Persistent economic crisis is nigh inevitable so long as the system evades reform. War freighted with global repercussions is likely if powerful nations continue their hawkish ways. We need to step back from the abyss. There is no better time for the messengers of God to answer their calling than now. May they speak the truth before it becomes too late. Happy New Year.

     

    08060340825 (sms only)

  • America’s 2016 elections: black in the nick of time

    America’s 2016 elections: black in the nick of time

    Hatred in the guiding light of those who choose to be blind

    Race and the prejudices associated with it are the mill and grist of American history. Racism is the single greatest factor shaping American society. In America, the color of a person’s skin paints their life experiences. To understand American politics, is to first understand the country’s racial dynamics. Trying to decipher American politics without seeing race as a dominant factor is likened to baking bread with neither flour nor leaven.

    Strangely, although its impact will be publicly understated, race will likely be more decisive in the 2016 elections than in the 2008 election that brought the country’s first Black president into office. In 2008, the election was about the race of one man. The election pivoted on whether Obama could prove to enough Whites that he was not the stereotypical Black they loathed and feared. That people would vote for him did not mean they were not prejudiced. For many, it meant Obama was a rare exception to the general bias they still held as valid. That he had to convince so many people that he was unlike those other Blacks meant the stereotype was still accepted social and political fact.  That is was untrue mattered not; in politics, belief is stronger than truth, the established myth of the majority outweighs any objective fact owned by a minority. Those who heraldedObama’s election as the advent of a post-racial society allowed the joy of the moment to eclipse their better judgment. They were akin to a first time visitor coming to someone’s during the moment of a solar eclipse. It would be a leap of naivetéfor the visitor to expect a reoccurrence every visit subsequently made. However, many people were taken by such naiveté by the Obama elections.

    Obama was more the Pied Piper than the True Deliverer, more political impresario than biblical Moses. Yet, Black people adorned him in deified garb which ultimately proved ill-fitting. From the outset of the Obama tenure, they determined to seal themselves mute regarding public advocacy of issues specific to the Black community. There was a nearly universal albeit informal pledge not to openly confront the first Black president with matters of racial discrimination of the Black community.  They would come to withhold all criticism on all aspects of domestic and foreign policy. This restraint would prove injurious to American itself. Black America had always served as the progressive conscience of the body politic. With that conscience placed in deep freeze, principle and morality were lost to politics. The nation more cynically to the right.

    Blacks’ lone benefit was the psychic uplift of knowing one of their own had become the head of the political host. They were lulled into false comfort by the mellifluous rhetoric of the president. Black people walked into a fog of their own making, thinking they would debouch into a new, better America at the end of the misty trip. Sadly, the fog was but in their eyes only. The new America in which they found themselves was the same America they had left. In ways, it was worse.

    For the first six years of his tenure, the artful president was sufficiently nibble to dodge matters of a racial nature. Black America had suffered worse than any other part of American during the Great Recession of 2009. However, this greaterpoverty was steady and undramatic. Since Whites too suffered,Blacks would not get any special sympathy. They never did during economic downturns. It is an expected outcome of economic contraction that America’s Blacks would suffer more, just as they enjoy economic booms less than their White counterparts. Just as Blacks came out of the Great Depression comparatively worse, they would fare no better seventy years later in 2009. Blacks being the first to get fleeced and the last to the dinner table remains an abiding tenet of the American political economy.  The moderate Obama was not going to lift a finger to alter this secular commandment.

    However, in 2014 events began to happen that would not allow themselves to be hidden. While Black people had basically accepted their beleaguered economic station, they thought their basic civil rights were to be honored.  They were no longer to be tormented by law enforcement or to be shot or killed simply for being who they are.

    In 2014, it became apparent that even this minimalpromise was not categorical. It could be promptly revoked by any police officer, at any time, for any reason or for no good reason at all. Michael Brown was shot in Missouri.  Eric Garner was choked to death by a posse of White cops for peddling s few cigarettes in New York City. Garner was only trying to make a few dollars for his poor household. Yet these cops would never dare choke any of those New York bankers who trafficked billions of dollars and brought the global economy to the point of chilling disaster during the 2009 recession. Twelve year old Tamar Rice was killed for playing with a toy gun by White cops who shot first and yet could not be bothered with asking questions later. Walter Scott was shot in the back fleeing a White cop in Charleston who claimed he discharged his firearm because Scott had placed him in mortal danger. How the back of a scared, unarmed middle-aged Black man poses such a danger escapes me. A few miles from that site, a disturbed White supremacist would weeks later walk into a venerable Black church, sit among those in Bible study then shoot dead the Black people who had just befriended this stranger in their midst.

    While driving to her first day of work, Sandra Bland was stopped and harassed by a White policeman in Texas. Arrested for the most minor traffic infraction, she was later found dead in her jail cell. Her death was ruled a suicide. The truth will likely remain a mystery. Yet, it remains difficult to believe a 28 year old Black woman would end her life by hanging herself with a trash bag. Suicide fortunately is an uncommon thing;even rarer is that a woman would take her life because of a traffic infraction; even rarer is that a young black woman would choose hanging as her method of self-destruction; even rarer would be that she would come to the point of imagining a trash bag as the instrumentality of her demise and have the ability to convert the bag into a hanging tool. Although possible, the official account does not ring true.

    In Ohio, a police officer shot an unarmed Black driver claiming that the man was trying hit and drag him with the car. But evidence shows that the man was driving away from the officer.The harassment goes from the deadly to the ridiculous. In Michigan, a police man recently stopped a Black man, giving him a traffic violation. The reason for the stop was the officer was incensed that the man, when driving past the officer, did not look at the officer with the deference the officer thought he was due.  The list goes on. In the south, there are few Black men who cannot tell you of someone they know who has not unjustly suffered death or serious harm at the hand of the law supposed to protect them.

    These incidents, though isolated to one person at a time, have awaken the Black community from its “Obama coma.” While willing to tolerate their weakened economic status, many Blacks became incensed by what seemed to be a return to police behavior redolent of the years before the Civil Rights Movement.

    Even in this regard, Black people had lived in false comfort.  Police behavior had not suddenly grown worse. These incidents as are integral to America as hot dogs and baseball caps.  It is just that these injustices were covered. The system would always take the word of the police, even when patently wrong. However, technology has achieved what years of moral entreaty could not. Mobile phones and even police cameras have caught officers in intentional lethal error. They could no longer lie their way out of criminality in every instance. A picture is worth more than a thousand words and a real-time video is worth much more than a single picture.

    In response to these injustices, BlackLivesMatter was born as a grassroots movement mostly among young Blacks. Again, they could countenance their economic diminution under the Obama administration. However, they because alarmed that there was no such thing as a routine encounter between the police and a black man. Death spied on each such meeting. The people had not yet graduated from poverty but they thought they had graduated from living in fear. That fear had returned and they were made angry by it.

    But BlackLivesMatter could not remain solely an expression against police brutality.The rough treatment by the police was not the cause of Black degradation. It was one of the consequences. Such maltreatment is a form of control and subjugation. The brutalized never prosper and the prosperous are rarely brutalized. Gradually the movement is expanding from its narrow focus to encompass the political and economic issues enchaining black America. This is timely. It will factor into the 2016 elections.

    The Obama term nears conclusion. Blacks no longer have to tamp their collective aspirations to ease the job of one man. They can speak without fear of damaging Obama’s political future. They are beginning to do so. Moreso than in the past eight years, they are asking potential presidential candidates to explain what they will do for the Black community.

    BlackLives activists have commandeered the stage at rallies of Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders. They have openly booed Sanders and other Democrats for lack of empathy. This would never have occurred against Obama despite the fact that he openly and frequently shied from addressing issues of social and economic discrimination germane to Black America.

    BlackLives have put the Democrats on notice that their next candidate will not be given the same blank pass handed Obama. Democrats not assume the strong voter turnout essential to Obama’s victories. Here, the movement faces several dilemmas. They have largely written off the Republican Party due to the staunch conservatism of their candidates. This makes sense given the oceanic policy difference between Republicans and the bulk of the Black community. However, it also forfeits significant political leverage against the Democrats. The Democrats realize they are the only game in town for Black America. If Blacks want to play, then it will be on the Democrats’ turf.

    The only leverage Blacks have is to threaten not to play unless the Democrats better respond to the policy concerns of the community. The great majority of Black voters will go Democratic. The question will be how many Blacks will vote. The Democrat’s path to victory requires a high Black and Latino turnout to overcome the Republican edge among White voters.

    The other dilemma Blacks have will be who to support in the Democratic primaries. Objectively, the policy stance of Bernie Sanders on economic issues advance Black interests more than the positions of any other Democratic candidate. Unfortunately for Sanders, he has no well-known Blacks around him; he does not speak in a language and cadence familiar to the people. Hillary Clinton has deep ties to the Black political establishment and is better versed at speaking in ways comfortable to the average Black person. She also has her husband Bill.

    Bill speaks in the tenor of the south. He knows how to sugarcoat his words to make the bitter taste like the best honey. The man remains widely popular among Black Americans despite the fact that policies he enacted in the criminal justice system, education, social services reform, financial deregulation, and economic trade have been severely inimical to Black America. If Clinton is the friend of Blacks, we would fare better by having more enemies. However, Blacks still dance at the mention of his name. We seem to be mesmerized by showmanship instead of taking the time to analyze whether the performer is doing what is good for us.

    Thus, Clinton will call forth Bill and the old Black political guard to appeal the community. However, her real ties are to the corporate establishment that likes the status quo just fine. By delving into politics, BlackLifesMatter will pit themselves against their political leaders. If they remain true to their professed cause, this also included president Obama.

    This potential collision may not only influence the presidential sweepstakes but may alter the nature of Black leadership in ways unanticipated just a year ago. The 2008 election was about the race of one man. The 2016 edition may be decided by the political action or inaction of one race, those who have returned to being Black just in the nick of time.

    08060340825 sms only

     

  • The global economy – The weakening tide

    The global economy – The weakening tide

    Woe to the player who takes to the field after the final score has been written

    The economy is a game that is not a game. It is a matter of numbers and competition wherenumerical figures are more than mathematic abstractions; they speak of the real lives of flesh and bone human beings. Competition is all about, ceaseless and unrelenting. Much of it is unfair, its results mostly precooked if not preordained. The largest teams select and arrange the field of play, keep score, and amend the rules during the game as they see fit. Initial advantage is made compound and then turned perpetual. An initial disadvantage multiplies itself to become permanent setback. As things are, affluence begets affluence; poverty begets poverty.

    The current structure of the global economy tends to exacerbate not alleviate disparity. The game is less than a game because weaker nations have not a fair chance to win. Even when they gain, their gain is never sufficient to close the gap between them and the affluent. When they lose, they lose in chunks much bigger than the piecemeal benefits earlier attained.

    That the wealthy control the game does not mean they always win as they would like. This is because the game is more intricate than human mental processes. The economy is too complex to outthink and completely master. It can only be guessed at and approximated. Moreover, this is a game where avarice often supplants skill and greed exceeds acumen. The affluent may overshoot their mark by overestimating their ability to control the uncontrollable complexity. Sometimes, events take place none could foresee and the consequences thereof none could prevent.

    Yet, even when they guess or guide wrongly, the big dogs remain atop. They may lose or not profit optimally. The affluent derive their solace knowing that if they are at a loss, poorer nations and people have lost even more.  This is the turn that the global economy is currently taking.  It has entered a period where all may be losing; however, the losses of the poor damage them much more than wealthy’s losses hurt them.

    The global economy partially recovered from the 2009 financial crisis but was never rehabilitated or restructured to prevent a similar event. Today, the world economy now tailspins because it refused to break old habits. This current downturn will not erupt into the major calamity that was the 2009 breakdown. However, the current slowdown will be painful to many nations, including Nigeria.

    Moreover, it is a warning that something more bleakly profound could be in the offing if the game continues to be played as it is.  This warning will be ignored by all save a small few. Sadly, today’s stumble will likely be an insufficient alert for the world to protect itself from itself and a greater fall. That the world will recover from this brief clip will boost the confidence of those at the helm who have but scant knowledge of what they are doing.  They will act even bolder; their ignorant boldness will push the economy into the realm of deeper risk and a plunge that may rival the 2009 meltdown. Fortunately, that major global major meltdown lies sometime in the future. Sadly, that future may be less than a decade away.

    While today the international economy may not be suffering a major slump, it undergoes a painful slowdown. Aggregate demand is weak throughout the world.  America, the world’s largest economy, has experienced modest growth but of an uneven, unsustainable variety. Due to loose monetary policy, money has flowed to the rich who used the influx to purchase financial assets not invest or spend in the real economy. This dynamic elevated financial asset prices and fueled the excessive speculation in commodities that has helped lead to the current downspin.

    America’s economic growth has been one of the affluent class enjoying an appreciation of their assets. However, wages for the majority of Americans have stagnated since the 2009 recession. Thus, they do not have enough new spending power to fuel a robust recovery of the productive economy. Although the American government fortunately did not indulge in fiscal austerity during the last few years, it also did not undertake a fiscal stimuli of the dimensions needed to jumpstart the economy.

    The European economy has fared worst. With governments chaining themselves to the burning pyre of austerity, the Eurozone has languished in or near recession the past five years. The two main drivers of global consumer demand – America and Europe – have tapered.  Tapering of these economies has undermined the export-driven model of the Chinese economy. The dominoes have started to fall.

    China’s unprecedented growth was built on a neo-mercantile strategy of exporting manufactured goods and suppressing local demand for those goods as well as for imports. This export model worked well until the economies of the North Atlantic went tepid under cataracts of private sector and household debt. The Chinese were slow to recognize the changed environment.  They continued to pump too much investment into manufacturing, real estate and construction. The government also encouraged investment in the stock market. As a result, the market mushroomed by over 250 percent from mid-2014 to mid-2015. This steep growth ran contrary to underlying economic reality. Both the world and Chinese economies were slowing. This climb of stock valuations was nothing more than an exercise in mass irrationality, a classic bubble. It busted.

    While all this was happening, the Chinese government took modest steps to boost internal consumer demand to compensate for slack external demand. These steps were too small and came too late. China had erred into overreliance on an economic model that needed readjustment and had engaged in overinvestment in manufacturing and related sectors.

    The slowdown of the Chinese economy and crash of its stock market would cascade globally.

    The damage to the Chinese economic model would spread damage to those nations and other economic actors that relied on the Chinese model if not directly relied on the Chinese economy itself.  These nations had gotten used to high commodity prices, mainly driven by China’s appetite for commodities, including oil, to fuel its manufacturing sector. Nigeria and other African commodity producers have been scarred by their unwitting reliance on the durability of this neo-mercantilist model. Until the last half of 2014, Nigeria enjoined the flush of currency caused by high oil prices exceeding $100 per barrel.  It was thought that the price level would be sustained as the world economy put more distance between it and the 2009 recession.

    But the economy does not always travel in straight lines. Like the world itself, sometimes the economy rotates. Moving in an erratic circular fashion, the economy often returns to where it has been without most people understanding that they have been there before and would not have returned but for the arrogance of those who deem themselves the masters of world and all that is of economic worth.

    Thus, Nigeria and other African nations allowed themselves to become too reliant on the economic prowess of the Chinese to sustain their economic model. This in turn made Nigeria and other nations dependent on the spending patterns and debt levels of the American consumer. As always, Nigeria’s economic fate would be decided in locations thousands of miles from its shores and by people with only a passing idea of where Nigeria is located.

    Other important factors compounded this process. Technology even conspired against the nation. America was able to commercialized the ability to extract oil from shale rock formations. With this development, America quickly ended its tryst with Nigerian crude. With both China and America looking for less oil, global demand grew slack. However, Saudi Arabia refused to reduce production. Despite the short-term injury to its economy, the Saudis appear to be chasing a political objective of which Nigeria seems painfully unaware. Saudi Arabia wants to retain market share by keeping prices down so that American fracking becomes unprofitable and Russian production is also brought to heel.  Saudis understand that market share gives it global political clout otherwise unavailing.

    The Saudis also want to revamp or scuttle OPEC so that it can claim greater leadership. The Saudis believe OPEC has become unwieldly and leadership too diffuse within the organization to suit Saudi national interests. Thus, while Nigeria prays for higher prices, the Saudis work the opposite side of the street.

    This latest downturn is another warning that Nigeria and other African commodity producers need to revamp their economic strategies. African nations have been too easily lulled into a false euphoria when commodity prices rise, only to go into a recessionary swoon when the prices collapse. The worst part is that African nations have little influence over price trends. They remain at the mercy of economy forces they cannot command.

    The truth is that the rise in commodity prices witness the past few years was the yield of speculative impulses fueled by lax American monetary policy. Lax monetary policy put money in the hands of affluent investors. After the real-estate driven 2009 recession, they were reluctant to sink too much money too fast back into the real estate market. They turned to commodities. Speculation in commodity markets approached historic levels.  This helped pump prices higher. But this speculation became divorced from economic fundamentals over time. A contraction was inevitable. The inevitable is now here.

    Oil prices are half of last year’s. Given the sluggishness of the global economy and America’s embrace of fracking, this modesty of oil prices promises to last for some time. The Nigerian economy has already felt the severe sting. Their federal allocations reduced, state governments were unable to pay salaries or service their debts. The naira has devalued. Import prices have climbed. Economic activity has slowed. Hot money invested in the stock market has fled back to America or Europe, causing the stock market to jettison significant value. The banking system is not as strong as it portrays itself.

    Nigeria faces an economic challenge that, because of secular changes in the international oil market, may be more momentous than the 2009 downturn. Nigeria weathered the prior downturn with emergency measures such as establishing AMCON to salvage the financial sector. However, the nation did not restructure the economy.

    The warning and challenge are here again. This downturn shows that reliance on oil revenues is becoming an increasingly uncertain risk with returns diminishing after each successive economic crisis.

    Nigeria has a fateful choice. Does it crawl into a recessionary ball and seek to outwait the storm of economic reduction or does it take fiscal measures to avert the worst of recession’s consequences?  The braver and more logical course is to engage in fiscal activity to bolster the real economy by funding projects that will put the able jobless to work in rebuilding critical infrastructure so that business activity is made more efficient and less costly.  If this mode is chosen, it should not be just as a temporary emergency measure to bridge the gap between boom periods in commodity prices.

    These measures should be part of a larger-term plan to transform Nigeria into a nation with a manufacturing and industrial sector that services domestic as well as export demand. There is a psychological component to this. Historic incident lulled Nigeria into falsely believing it held a secured place in the global economy. For a long period of time, it had oil for which the world was willing to pay a high price. This convinced the nation that the world would buy whatever Nigeria had to sell. Nigeria was needed.

    However, technology and the geo-political considerations of others have dashed this false comfort. Nigeria now has to learn that it must make itself needed. This comes not by what Nigeria can pull from underground but by what it can fashion with its hands and ingenuity. Nigeria must alter its economic mind to see that prosperity does not lie in simply selling what it might have by reason of geographic incident. Prosperity is found in making and selling what the world is willing to pay the seller’s price for.

    This is the challenge of Nigeria today. In the midst of economic challenge will the nation undertake the steps required to begin the structural reform needed to transform the economy into what the present and future requires?Or will it stay mired in the past and succumb to the reduced future that awaits all nations that fall to realize the diminishing value of their once precious chief commodity? The decision is nigh and so much is at stake.

     

    08060340825 (sms only)

  • Buhari: From Washington with dignity

    Buhari: From Washington with dignity

    It was an official visit that attracted not only national, but also international attention. President Muhammadu Buhari was going to visit the United States of America for four days, on the invitation of President Barack Obama. Was this going to be just another jamboree, or truly an event that would reset the buttons in the relationship between the two countries?

    Sure, there had been some cooling of passion between the two erstwhile allies during the dying days of the Goodluck Jonathan administration, and American experts sent here to train our military had even been asked to leave. She had also refused to sell us Cobra helicopters and other armaments, which could have made a lot of difference in our fight against insurgents in the North-east of the country. America had cited some reasons, including alleged human rights violations. The then President  Jonathan was thus forced to look towards South Africa for arms. He loaded millions of dollars in a private jet as if going to Oyingbo market, and got his fingers burnt in the process. South Africa seized the cash, and also impounded the aircraft for some time. The Nigerian government could only huff and puff for a while, and then licked its wounds quietly.

    No doubt, the kiln of passion needed to be kindled anew between Nigeria and America, and the invitation extended to President Buhari during the G7 Summit in Germany in June, was a much needed elixir. The Nigerian leader accepted the offer, and so was in Washington between Sunday, July 19 and Wednesday, July 22.

    But another whiff of controversy had presaged the meeting. America, through its Supreme Court, had recently legitimized same sex relationship. A man could marry a man if he wanted, while a woman could also marry a woman. It was against the laws of God, but heck, what did America care? God was either dead due to old age, or now belongs to the old school.  What matters now are rights, and people with homosexual or lesbian cravings must have their rights protected under the law.

    It was into the eye of this storm that some Nigerians felt President Buhari would be flying, on his trip. True, he had been asked to bring a ‘wish list’ by his host, but is there ever free lunch in America? Yes, your wish would be granted. America would help you decapitate Boko Haram, would help you trace and repatriate billions of dollars salted away in foreign banks by past rulers, would help boost your economy and generate employment, but at what price? At a price of endorsing same sex marriage, which would be contrary to our laws as a country, and to the laws of the God that majority of Nigerians believe in, and serve? Would President Buhari capitulate simply because America would help him fulfill promises he made during election campaigns?

    To America we flew last Sunday, arriving after a voyage of 12 hours. Our President was accommodated along with some members of the entourage at the historic Blair House, just a peeping distance from the White House. A good number of meetings were to hold at that Blair House in the next four days.

    You would be permitted if you had jet lag after 12 hours in the air, punctuated only by a one hour technical stopover at a Portuguese island called Santa Maria, to refuel your plane. But President Buhari was still spry enough to settle down to business immediately. We have heard of the work rate of former Army General and later civilian president, Olusegun Obasanjo. Now we see another retired Army General now civilian president, exhibiting the same horsepower work ethics. Could it be true that they give them some injections in the military, which makes them go on and on? Well, I did not say so. I only heard of it.

    After a briefing of what was to come in the next four days by Professor Ade Adefuye, Nigerian Ambassador to the United States of America, the President played host to former American Ambassador in Nigeria, Thomas Pickering and Professor Jean Herskovits. The man who has been quite outspoken about Nigeria, and who had doubted if the country would survive the 2015 general elections, Ambassador John Campbell, also came, among other people.

    The day was not done until Madeline Albright (remember her? A large number of people across the world were mad about Madeline years back when she was American Secretary of State. She did the work admirably).  Well, Madeline came to dinner with our President. She has aged, but rather gracefully.

    Day 2 was the day the world had been waiting for. Day of meeting with the world’s most influential president, Barak Obama. But not so fast! First, breakfast with the Vice President, Joe Biden. Venue was the Naval Observatory, which is the official residence of the American number 2 man. What did he tell our President?

    Biden gave an overview of the objectives of the entire visit,assuring Nigeria of the goodwill  and support of America. He shared perspectives on the terror war, drawing from America’s experiences after the September 2001 assault, in which thousands were killed by Al-Qaeda inspired terrorists. He said Boko Haram, which has now pledged loyalty to ISIS, should not be battled with just military option. There was also the need to combine the war with strong socio-economic programs. He said the U.S would be ready to work with Nigeria in that direction.

    On the Nigerian economy, Biden bade the leadership to tackle the issue of corruption, strengthen the institutions, and appoint tested hands to man critical sectors. If all these were done, he assured that investors would flood Nigeria in droves.

    President Buhari thanked his host, and added that the role played by America prior to general elections, sending Secretary of State John Kerry to convey that America would not tolerate the subversion of the people’s will, went a long way to guarantee fairness and justice.

    Having served as Minister for Petroleum Resources for over three years in the 1970s, President Buhari did not forget to mention the oil sector. He said between 10 to 20 billion dollars may have been lost to oil theft in the past one year, and pledged to sanitize the sector. He welcomed American assistance.

    The much awaited meeting with President Obama came up a while later at the White House. American leaders have been known to be fairly parsimonious with praises, particularly when talking about leaders of other countries. But Obama was effusive. He described President Buhari as a man of integrity, needed for such a time as this in Nigeria. He congratulated him for winning the March 2015 presidential election, adding that Nigeria was very important to Africa. The destiny of the continent was tied to Nigeria’s, he said, pledging that America would continue to support, as long as Nigeria does the right things.

    Every patriotic Nigerian must have stood several feet taller, as Obama eulogized our President. It served to rekindle confidence in our country. With the right leadership, Nigeria can, and will get there. Sure.

    The American president charted the same course as his deputy on the issue of Boko Haram. According to him, economic and social programs must run concurrently with military option, to conclusively defeat insurgency.

    Obama said the diversity of Nigeria, rather than be a centrifugal force, must be a centripetal one. The disparate parts of the country should be harnessed to become source of strength, adding that no part of the country should be left behind, or alienated.

    Buhari, the American president observed, was hugely popular, judging by the enormous goodwill that surrounded his election. He urged him to use the goodwill to serve Nigeria, alongside the governors that accompanied him. The governors are Rochas Okorocha, Imo, Adams Oshiomhole, Edo, Tanko Al-Makura, Nasarawa, Kashim Shettima, Borno, and Abiola Ajimobi, Oyo.

    Speaking on behalf of the governors, Okorocha assured Obama that the states’ helmsmen would back up Buhari to bring enduring change to Nigeria.

    President Obama made pledges. America would help Nigeria in diverse ways: checkmate insurgency, train and equip her military, recover monies siphoned out of federal coffers, and many others. And with no strings attached.

    The bilateral meetings/ audiences with the Nigerian president at Blair House, and other venues, were worth their weight in gold. The American Secretary of Commerce met with the Nigerian team, so did Loretta Lynch, U.S Attorney General, Jack Lew, Secretary of the Treasury, the Barker Group, potential investors in the Agriculture and Power sectors. There was an interactive dinner hosted by U.S Chamber of Commerce and Corporate Council for Africa, and captains of industry from Nigeria and America were there, among others.

    What of the meeting with Dr Pate of the World Health Organization (WHO), representatives of the World Bank, and  of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation? Refreshing. WHO unfolded plans to spend 300 million dollars to fight malaria in Nigeria, while the World Bank, subject to ratification by its board of directors, will make available the princely sum of  2.1 billion dollars for the rebuilding of infrastructure in the North-east, a region beleaguered by insurgency in the past six years. The fund, under the auspices of International Development Agency (IDA) will be made available as loans for Nigeria, at very low interest rates. The first 10 years would be interest free, while an additional 30 years would be granted at rates lower than that of the capital market.

    A delighted President Buhari said priority would be given to the resettlement of more than one million internally displaced persons (IDPs), and directed that a team be set up on the side of the Federal Government, which would meet and harmonize plans with the World Bank team as soon as possible.

    The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation also disclosed plans to work with the Dangote Foundation to ensure that Nigeria gets a clean bill of health on polio. Already, no case of polio has been recorded in the country for a full year, and if the position subsists for another full year, Nigeria would be declared polio free.

    Cheery news also from the session between the Nigerian team and the American Attorney General. The host country would track illicit money from Nigeria in all their jurisdictions, including the U.S, while training would also be provided for our judicial officers, prosecutors, police, and other security agencies, to track and recover stolen funds.

    There were other bilateral meetings with John O. Brennan, Director of the CIA and Deputy Secretary of Defence, Robert Work, and Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen Martin Dempsey.

    Oh, the courtesy call by the Class of 1980 of the United States War College, in which the then Col Muhammadu Buhari participated, and got glowing recommendations. It was a time to go down memory lane.

    Same sex issue enters the scene. On Tuesday afternoon, President Buhari was in his right elements, as he attended a joint session by the Senate and House Committees on Foreign Affairs at the Capitol Hill. Many issues came up for discussion, ranging from foreign relations, to growing democracy, human rights, and many others. Then a senator brought in the clincher. What does Nigeria think of the rights of homosexuals and lesbians.

    Sodomy or anything of such kind is against the laws of Nigeria, and, indeed, the Nigerian society abhors such practices, the President declared. Pastor Tunde Bakare of The Latter Rain Assembly was in the audience, and from the delight on his face, he could have carried the President shoulder high, if protocol had permitted such.

    To cap that delightful day, the president headed to the Chancery, Nigeria Embassy. He had two assignments there. A Meet and Greet session had been packaged by Mo Abudu of Ebony Life TV, in which Nigerian youths, who are professionals, had been invited from across America to greet President Buhari, and share their dreams of a greater country with him. The young people were really happy to have their president and father figure in their midst.

    Next was the meeting with Nigerians in Diaspora, who also came from across America. Biodun Ogunjobi had driven 12 hours to attend the event. He alo had waited for four hours outside the Embassy gates, till the program commenced. Such is the fervor Nigerians in America have for their country, and for a president they see as symbol of change. For about two hours, the President interacted with them, answering all the questions.

    The night did not end without the president meeting with the All Progressives Congress (APC) members in USA and Canada. The previous day, the party members had massed at the gate of Blair House, bearing different placards hailing President Buhari. When he saw them, he got down from his vehicle to greet them. The gesture drew sustained applause.

    On the final day of the visit, it was an interactive event at the United States Institute of Peace (USIP).  It was jointly organized by the National Democratic Institute, International Republican Institute, Centre for Strategic Studies and Atlantic Council. Ambassador Johnny Carson, who coordinated the session, described the guest as a man of honour and integrity. The event included a question and answer session, a round table discussion, and a presentation by the Nigerian president. And did the man sparkle? In fact, so remarkable was that outing that Pastor Bakare told this writer: “He obviously left the best for the last. That was simply brilliant.”

    President Buhari went to America, he saw, and he conquered. As I watched him signing the Visitors’ Register as he attempted to leave that historic monument called Blair House, I wondered how many people in the world would ever have such privilege. Not many. An American official had given him a pen, and the president wrote for about three minutes. He also must have been effusive in his appreciation. When he finished, he read over what he had written, put the pen back in its casing, rose, and handed it to the American official. That one collected it, and solemnly handed it back to the Nigerian president as a gift. Very solemn. And moving.

    As President Buhari strode out of Blair House for the last time, with his entourage in tow, one could see that an invisible Nigerian flag had been hoisted in the Amrican sky, and it was fluttering proudly. The Nigerian president had come with dignity, attended all the sessions lined up for him, not missing a single one,  and was returning home with an enhanced reputation, not just for himself but also for about 170 million of his country men and women. Who says change will not come to Nigeria?

     

    • Adesina is Special Adviser, Media and Publicity, to President Buhari
  • What money should do for a nation

    What money should do for a nation

    He who waters a stone has received his yield in full but he who waters a field may yet receive a bounty.

    Last week’s article asserted that money does not answer everything. In the wrong hands, it is more apt to complicate things than to resolve them. Today’ piece identifies some good money can bring to national development if guided by adroit fiscal policy.

    Poverty is the greatest single challenge for Nigeria and Africa. Thus, the intelligent deployment of money to spur growth in the political economy is of keen interest to Nigeria and Africa. Where inordinate poverty exists, pervasive unemployment and idle capacity will also be found. Sage fiscal expenditure is essential to reducing poverty by bringing idle capacity into the productive stream. This is important given current trends in the global economy.

    Most African economies depend on the export of natural resources for two essentials that are interrelated yet actually distinct. First, exports are vital to procure foreign currency through which the nation may satisfy its import obligations. Given that our currencies are not considered hard currencies readily traded in the global market, this function is vital and inescapable.  The second function is more important but less inevitable. Nations then tend to use the amount of foreign currency received from imports as the basis for determining the amount of its sovereign currency it shall release into the domestic economy.  This mechanism is a significant determinant of the activity and employment in an economy so constructed.

    Currently, this mechanism augurs poorly for most African nations due to the global decline in commodity prices, particularly of oil.  The lower oil prices result from more than a transient downturn in the business cycle. These lower prices threaten to be long-term or secular in nature.  The advance of technology has severely undermined the model upon which Africa’s fragile economies are based. Shale oil fracking technology has swiftly catapulted America to being an oil and gas producer of such a magnitude that it can now satisfy its own needs. This self sufficiency has reduced the American appetite for Nigerian oil from a flood to less than a trickle. The prosperity and activity we hoped would be spawned by the deep sea wells of the Nigerian coast has now moved to the oil fields of the American heartland.

    China and other Asian nations have taken up the some of the slack but they cannot completely cover the hole left by the American shift in consumption. Moreover, China now invests tens of billions of dollars in alternative, renewable energy. At some point in the near future, those investments will begin to bear fruit for that nation just as investment in fracking gave the American economy a fount of newly available, affordable oil that had nothing to do with importing from Nigeria or other nations.  When that day comes, the Chinese economy will have added another buttress to its long-term development and diversity. It is will be a fine day for China. For African nations, it will be the opposite. If the two largest economies in the world lose appetite for a nation’s primary exports, the model upon which that nation’s political economy falls under assault by these harsh realities.

    The nation is faced with stark choices. Either it holds course in hope that other consumer nations will increase their demand or that nation must adapt to the new reality. To hold course is to rest the fate of the political economy on the graces and goodwill of another sovereign nation with its own interests and objectives. It is a thin and slender reed upon which to anchor a nation’s future.  Even if another nation or a group of them increase consumption, the relief to the exporting nation would be a trembling one.  Given the pace of technology and the gradual diminution of oil as the lifeblood of the global economy, the exporter cannot assume the new consumer will align with them forever. Just as America rapidly changed its consumption patterns in the brief span of a few years and as China invests in oil-independent technologies, others nations might well follow either the American or Chinese path. That would leave the exporter in the cold.

    This tenuous circumstance calls for a restructuring of the exporter political economy. Such a change cannot be done on the cheap and without government policy leading the way. Herein, the dilemma lies.

    Just as the nation is coldly shaken by harsh economy reality into recognizing it must change, the nation now receives even less money than before to accomplish the great change. One setback becomes inescapable.  With fewer buyers purchasing reduced amounts of the commodity, the nation earns less foreign currency.  The nation will be forced to modify its imports or place great pressure on the domestic economy to answer its foreign import obligations instead of its own internal challenges and imperatives. This will place a visible burden on the national currency’s exchange rate. This would not be so onerous if the nation had considerable industrial capacity. The lower exchange rate would render its manufactured goods more affordable and thus shift export earnings from raw material to the manufacturing sector.

    Over the long-term, this feat must be done. At some point, African nations hoping to establish a strong manufacturing base will likely have to endure some of the pain associated with lower exchange rates. However, it can only capture the benefits thereof through government policy filliping the development of nascent industries.

    Without such policies fueling a more benign industrial level, the exchange rate drop will be a nearly absolute economic detriment. The weakening exchange rate is only the most visible effect. The hidden costs levied against the productive economy are even more injurious because these costs combine to both suppress economic activity – increasing unemployment of human labor and productive capital. The hidden costs also inflate prices through an external shock while bringing none of the salutary benefits of a reasonable level of demand-driven inflation.

    The new economic reality requires a new industrial policy and a new industrial policy cannot be had without the wholesale rebuilding of the national infrastructure ranging from roads, ports and rail to electricity and potable water.  To achieve this, will cost money, more money than the government currently produces based on the mechanism of using export dollars to determine the amount of naira the government issues.

    Thus, the government of a natural export-driven political economy faces an existential choice in this harsh environment.  Retaining the mechanism of basing the quantity of local currency on the amount of foreign currency derived from exports is to consign the nation to the lower rungs.   There shall be no escape from national poverty except greater national poverty.

    There is no need to retain this anachronism. It is a throwback to a global financial currency regime that no longer exists. Whatever utility this mechanism once had, is long gone while the harm it imposes gets compounded by the day.

    To achieve full employment of our human and material capacity, Nigeria must eschew this vestige of a day long past. We must question why Nigeria continues to peg the amount of naira government issues and spends to the quantity of export dollars earned.

    To do so abnegates our national economic sovereignty at a time when freedom of decision is most needed. It is to allow the fuel consumption appetite of the leisure vacationer in California, the London cabbie and warehouse owner in Shanghai  to determine the level of economic activity in Nigeria, more so than any Nigerian, even more so than the  government itself. Few successful nations have given themselves over to the whims of foreign consumers to such a degree. There is no reason why Nigeria or any other African nation should abandon its destiny in this manner.

    How government now distills naira is a function of the gold standard. But that system was abolished forty years ago because it proved untenable under modern conditions. This currency regime had a built-in defect. It tended to brief eruptions of exuberance followed by longer periods of deflation. For example, the growth of money supply for the overall system was not dependent on the level of economic activity. It was dependent on the continuous mining and supply of gold, the rate of growth of which may not have been consonant with the rate of growth of the real economy. This asymmetry was a cause of dysfunction sending many an economy into unnecessary recessions and curtailing growth and employment that might have been. Nigeria now experiences a similar turn with the decrease in dollars caused by declining oil prices.

    All this means that, instead of chaining the naira to gold as in the former currency regime, Nigeria ties enchains its currency to the dollar. Nigeria has “dollarized’ the economy in such a way that economic and monetary policies decisions an preferences made in America hold undue influence over this economy. While not stated as such, by limiting naira issuance to the amount of export dollars earned Nigeria has imposes a dollar standard on its economy. This denigrates the status of the naira to that of an ordinary tradable commodity, thus forfeiting its rare utility as an instrument of sovereign national power.

    Enslaving itself to this mechanism means the nation has inadvertently converted exchange rate management into the primary goal of economic policy. This mistake in policy is tragic given the coarse and steep poverty afflicting so many Nigerians. Nigeria’s economic policy imperative should be sustainable growth derived from the full employment of the people and of the national assets. To focus so much on exchange rate management will be to sacrifice the imperative of growth.  In sacrificing growth, maintenance of the exchange rate too becomes unavailing.

    We must comprehend that the amount of foreign currency earnings is a good indicator for only one thing: how much the outside world wants a nation’s products and services. The amount of foreign currency earned in no way should be the final arbiter of how much domestic currency is needed to sustain optimal growth.

    We must convert ourselves to a different view of what money is.  From last week, we now know what it is not. It does not answer all things. We also must not treat it as a finite item, a commodity. Money is nothing but a social construct, a human invention to help us improve our material well being and reshape the world to our betterment. It is an agreed symbol of economic value so that value can be better transferred over space and time to accomplish economic goals that mere barter could not even comprehend. Money is way of attaching economic value to people, goods, services and even ideas.

    As such the primary objective of government in exercising the sovereign right to issue currency is to deploy enough money and do so in a manner that allocates a just sum to all productive factors of the economy. As a priority, this includes the vast reduction of poverty and joblessness by allocating funds to people and assets heretofore left idle due to suppressed, inefficient levels of economic activity. Wisely using this sovereign right to allocate value, government can minimize unemployment and begin to construct infrastructure capable of hosting a modern industrial sector that will further tackle joblessness and idle capacity by bringing more people and equipment into productive endeavor.

    At some point, the nation will have to full face the bitter medicine of exchange rate adjustment that positions the nation to be export competitive at level of manufacturing. To get to that point, government must spend funds to create an environment with the requisite infrastructure conducive to enhanced industrialization. To be able to make such expenditures, government must ultimately sever the de facto dollar standard now imposed on fiscal policy.  If Nigeria does not make this break, the economy will always function at less than capacity. Unemployment and poverty rates will always be too high. The exchange rate will continue to face a permanent downward trajectory characterized by disruptive fits and jolts that reflect the search of other actors for their economic high ground while Nigeria stands as passive backdrop to its own economic reduction.

    Nigeria should exchange reliance on the dollar peg with a lever of greater collective purpose and ingenuity. It would help the nation and the legions of poor and jobless people if government fiscal expenditure would be based on a calculation of how much money was needed to lessen joblessness and idle capacity while ensuring that inflation did not climb to unacceptable proportions and the exchange rate did not suffer too steep a decline in too brief a period. In this manner, government can allocate sufficient funds to build the infrastructure required for a non-oil based economy. Government will thus have the funds to develop a social safety net as well as provide meaningful jobs for many. At the same time, government must assertively implement an industrial policy that expands, modernizes and makes competitive our manufacturing as well as agricultural sectors. As Nigeria deepens economic activity, the resultant growth and enhanced diversity of the nation’s export strength will give the nation better leverage to manage the exchange rate than it now has.

    Nigeria must face the fact that its current unemployment and idle capacity hover have sunk to what other nations would regard as those of a depression. What is now considered normal in Nigeria would be bemoaned as a disastrous depression in other nations. History shows that rescue from such a dire state is not found in the private sector. Government must do the heaviest lifting or the lifting will not get done.  In assuming this rightful status, government will become the main driver of economic development. This is the path that every nation has taken that has escaped from depression without losing a generation over to the economic calamity. It is up to Nigeria to decide whether it will have the courage to try to break the old chains that will bind it to newer depths of poverty and economy dislocation or will it meagerly seek to live within the current confines and try to manage the increasingly bleak consequences of this supine poise.

     

    The clock is ticking. Nothing can stop it.

  • Money does not answer all things

    Money does not answer all things

    Worst than poverty is the abundance of money coupled with the lack of wisdom for the good use of it.

    It is more advantageous that you understand a dangerous thing than have that thing understand you. It is a far wiser thing to comprehend a saying than to memorize it.

    While attending various church services, I have witnessed something curious. Seeking to cajole their congregations toward placing liberal offerings in the collection plate, pastors have favorite Biblical passages they tend to recite. On many occasions, I have heard men of the cloth quote a portion of Ecclesiastes 10:19 – “money answereth all things.”

    I flinch when I hear the phrase used in this way. Although well intentioned, these clerics turn the passage into something it is not. Perhaps lending themselves over to the economic poverty of our times, they commit themselves to an impoverished interpretation of that phrase. So focused on getting the generous offering, they distort the core of the very message they should preach and undercut the morality of the Gospel they profess to love and project. As such, they make the words say the exact opposite of what was intended. It is a gamble to focus on a portion of one sentence. One runs the risk of using the quoted notion outside its apt context. The risk is doubled when committed against a text like Ecclesiastes that is in some parts poetic, other parts sardonic.

    If they would but read the oft-quoted line in proper context, those who cite it to spur collections would feel ashamed. The phrase is part of a passage when the writer extols august leadership then takes hard aim at its narrow, venal opposite:

    “17. Blessed art thou, O land, when the king is the son of nobles, and thy princes eat in due season, for strength and not for drunkenness.

    18. By much slothfulness the building decayeth: and through idleness of the hands the house droppeth through.

    19. A feast is made for laughter, and the wine maketh merry; but money answereth all things.”

    The phrase about money does not emanate from the description of the wise leader. It is one affixed to the foolhardy.  The good leader acts with temperance and restraint; their conduct is geared toward high purpose. But the foolish leader is a glutton of all things and guardian of none. The building or nation is left unattended and allowed to decay. They do nothing save cosset themselves. While everything falters, they feast and are made merry by it.  To them, nothing appears to be wrong. They feel they can toss money at every problem and everyone and all shall be well. Thus, the statement that “money answereth all things” is not intended as a statement of sage advice. It is meant as ridicule. Only, the slothful and wrong believe such a thing.

    How else could it be? How could money truly answer all things yet also the love of it be the source of evil? If money were the comprehensive answer, then the love of it would be in all ways beneficial. Loving the true answer could never be wrong let alone stoop to being the fount of all wrong.  Yet, since money is not the genuine answer, the love of it can author great evil. If you seek evidence of this, look no further than Nigeria’s just concluded election and the quality of its outgoing administration.

    The past administration exhibited the type of behavior against which this passage cautions. For years, problems mounted. Inattention and errant policy afforded that which is malignant to become its own wide manufacture. Insecurity and violence increased. Economic inequality grew. Corruption enshrined itself as a national institution. The poor seemed to become mute and inundated by grinding poverty.

    Oil prices were high during this period. Money came and it went. Yet, the life of the average person did not feel its presence. Far from answering all things, money could not even answer how it was spent and where did so much of it go.

    Those who had money soon came to have too much of it.  They feasted and feted amidst famine. Because all was fine with them, they believed all was fine throughout. They need not worry about anything. Whatever was to come, they held the purse string. They had enough money to toss at any problem. For them, there was no tomorrow, because money answered all things. It would keep the party going and keep their party in power.

    The election came. The administration and the party behind it sensed a problem.  They had grown unpopular. In an electoral democracy, that would seem to be a grave problem. For them, it seemed but a nuisance. They would toss money at the election and make it theirs through cunning purchase. The funds that should have been used to build the nation would now be released to buy it. This cynical but attractive strategy would be deployed with rigor. After all, money answereth all things.

    Cataracts of money poured into the body politic. Not one national institution was insulated from the blandishment of vast liquidity. Many people fell to the inducement. For those whose wont is to sell their soul, they could at least be proud that they did so at an inflated price. However, something uplifting happened during this wholesale attempt to commerce in the souls of the people and the destiny of the nation. Lean as their pocketbooks were, the bulk of the people stood against the wash and flow of misdirected currency.

    The people had enough of not having enough and this fed them with desperate bravery. Fueled by such courage, they voted for their better futures and for greater nation instead of succumbing to present and visible blandishment. The manipulators thought that the daily lack the people faced would make them susceptible to money. The truth is that the impoverished state of affairs and the perceptible implosion of the nation made the people reject the vulgar tender. Money would not be allowed to purchase their ransom. They would barter their votes but only for a chance at a democratic and just political economy. Money power had bankrupted itself. A large-scale miracle had taken place in a land that seemingly had been overrun by greed and misery.

    In the end, President Buhari won the election but the people had won even more. The humble and modest people withstood the silted convergence of greedy ambition, money, and might. They reclaimed the sovereignty of their will over those who pretend to rule but not govern them. They rejected being defined as people who could be purchased as if a cheapened commodity. From the bowels of collective despair, they summoned the strength and faith to call forth democracy. Despite all the unfairness they had seen and suffered, they arose to hold claim to a better-lit day rather than surrender to the dark belief that things could get no better than they now are. They believed in something better and stronger than money: that the best of the human spirit is stronger than the worst of it.

    Because of this, they won for this nation a strong reprieve. They won obtained a chance strengthen the foundation, repair the roof, buttress the walls and, most importantly, anneal the national spirit. These things money cannot buy.

    Money is but a tool and not the answer. If an answer, it would tell us how to use it wisely. On this key matter, money is deadly silent. In the hands of a good builder, money can finance the construction of a fine home. In the hands of wrong and destructive, money will destabilize and ruin the good neighborhood. Money helps when in the right hand but also hinders when in the wrong.

    A new day in a new Nigeria is here.  Its coming was neither by purchase or mortgage. Nigerians owe nothing to anyone save God and themselves for this chance.

    Do not squander this chance that Providence has kindly placed in the hollow of your hand. This election has shown you the limits of Money Power.  You have placed it below the collective good and justice where it belongs. Do not forget this lesson lest it emerge once again as a false and misleading god. To believe that money answereth all things is to turn it into a god. Those of who believe in God must realize that only God answereth all things. Everything else is incomplete and uncertain. The past administration believed in this primacy of money. It led them to serial mistakes in policy and, ultimately, to electoral defeat. This nation must not go that way again.

    Nigeria, make the most of the future now before you. Let those in power govern for the public’s best cause and never lord over the nation they are meant to serve. Let it be that the welfare and good of the people becomes the vocabulary of leadership. Having so recently traversed the great divide between errant rule and responsive democracy, Nigeria now holds forth the torch of human progress. Keep that torch high that it might shine in every heart and home that is Nigerian. Keep that torch high that it may light the way for the rest of the Black race. Keep that torch high to show all the world that we have just begun to make the contributions to mankind that destiny calls for Nigeria to achieve. May God Bless this land!

    (08060340825 sms only)

  • Obamas, Clintons join Vice President Biden at son Beau’s funeral

    President Barack Obama and his family joined a host of U.S. political figures including Bill and Hillary Clinton on yesterday to mourn Vice President Joe Biden’s son, Beau, who died last week of brain cancer at the age of 46.

    One thousand people filled the St. Anthony of Padua Catholic Church in Wilmington for a funeral Mass for Biden, a former Delaware attorney general who also served a year-long term in Iraq as a member of the Delaware Army National Guard.

    The vice president processed into the church with his family at the beginning of the service.

    Beau Biden was diagnosed with brain cancer in August 2013 and underwent surgery, radiation and chemotherapy. It recurred in the spring of this year.

    His death was another tragic chapter in the life of the vice president, who lost his first wife and his daughter in a car accident shortly after winning election to the U.S. Senate in 1972. Beau and his brother Hunter were injured in the crash but survived.

    Beau Biden, who was married with two children, has been praised over the last week as having lived a life of exemplary service. His death has drawn wide U.S. media coverage and an outpouring of sympathy for the vice president.

    Obama, whose family is close to the Bidens and who had a personal relationship with Beau, was asked by the vice president to deliver a eulogy.

  • Death toll in Malaysian earthquake reaches 13

    Rescuers recovered the bodies of 11 climbers from Malaysia’s highest peak on yesterday, a day after it was struck by an earthquake that has killed at least 13.

    Six people remained missing on 13,435-foot-high Mount Kinabalu in eastern Sabah state on Borneo, where a magnitude-5.9 earthquake sent rocks and boulders raining down and blocking trekking routes.

    Five Americans were believed to be among more than 130 trapped on the mountain as authorities struggled to drop food and clothing from helicopters after the Friday quake.

    ‘This is a very sad day for Kinabalu,’ Sabah’s tourism minister, Masidi Manjun, said of the deaths.

    Nine of the bodies found yesterday were flown out by helicopter, while the other two were brought down by foot, said district police official Farhan Lee Abdullah.

    Most of the other climbers made it down the mountain in the darkness early yesterday, some with broken limbs and one in a coma.

    The two dead retrieved Friday evening were a 30-year-old local guide and a 12-year-old Singaporean student, Farhan said.

    Police said earlier that they were looking for 17 other people, including eight Singaporeans and one each from China, the Philippines and Japan. The rest are Malaysians.

    Singapore’s Minister of Education Heng Swee Keat said yesterday that teachers and students from a primary school in his country were among the missing, according to CNN.

    The nationalities of the 11 dead recovered yesterday were not immediately clear.

    Daily Mail Online has reached out to the US Embassy in Malaysia for comment.

  • Money does not answer all things

    Money does not answer all things

    Worst than poverty is the abundance of money coupled with the lack of wisdom for the good use of it.

    It is more advantageous that you understand a dangerous thing than have that thing understand you. It is a far wiser thing to comprehend a saying than to memorize it.

    While attending various church services, I have witnessed something curious. Seeking to cajole their congregations toward placing liberal offerings in the collection plate, pastors have favorite Biblical passages they tend to recite. On many occasions, I have heard men of the cloth quote a portion of Ecclesiastes 10:19 – “money answereth all things.”

    I flinch when I hear the phrase used in this way. Although well intentioned, these clerics turn the passage into something it is not. Perhaps lending themselves over to the economic poverty of our times, they commit themselves to an impoverished interpretation of that phrase. So focused on getting the generous offering, they distort the core of the very message they should preach and undercut the morality of the Gospel they profess to love and project. As such, they make the words say the exact opposite of what was intended. It is a gamble to focus on a portion of one sentence. One runs the risk of using the quoted notion outside its apt context. The risk is doubled when committed against a text like Ecclesiastes that is in some parts poetic, other parts sardonic.

    If they would but read the oft-quoted line in proper context, those who cite it to spur collections would feel ashamed. The phrase is part of a passage when the writer extols august leadership then takes hard aim at its narrow, venal opposite:

    “17. Blessed art thou, O land, when the king is the son of nobles, and thy princes eat in due season, for strength and not for drunkenness.

    18. By much slothfulness the building decayeth: and through idleness of the hands the house droppeth through.

    19. A feast is made for laughter, and the wine maketh merry; but money answereth all things.”

    The phrase about money does not emanate from the description of the wise leader. It is one affixed to the foolhardy.  The good leader acts with temperance and restraint; their conduct is geared toward high purpose. But the foolish leader is a glutton of all things and guardian of none. The building or nation is left unattended and allowed to decay. They do nothing save cosset themselves. While everything falters, they feast and are made merry by it.  To them, nothing appears to be wrong. They feel they can toss money at every problem and everyone and all shall be well. Thus, the statement that “money answereth all things” is not intended as a statement of sage advice. It is meant as ridicule. Only, the slothful and wrong believe such a thing.

    How else could it be? How could money truly answer all things yet also the love of it be the source of evil? If money were the comprehensive answer, then the love of it would be in all ways beneficial. Loving the true answer could never be wrong let alone stoop to being the fount of all wrong.  Yet, since money is not the genuine answer, the love of it can author great evil. If you seek evidence of this, look no further than Nigeria’s just concluded election and the quality of its outgoing administration.

    The past administration exhibited the type of behavior against which this passage cautions. For years, problems mounted. Inattention and errant policy afforded that which is malignant to become its own wide manufacture. Insecurity and violence increased. Economic inequality grew. Corruption enshrined itself as a national institution. The poor seemed to become mute and inundated by grinding poverty.

    Oil prices were high during this period. Money came and it went. Yet, the life of the average person did not feel its presence. Far from answering all things, money could not even answer how it was spent and where did so much of it go.

    Those who had money soon came to have too much of it.  They feasted and feted amidst famine. Because all was fine with them, they believed all was fine throughout. They need not worry about anything. Whatever was to come, they held the purse string. They had enough money to toss at any problem. For them, there was no tomorrow, because money answered all things. It would keep the party going and keep their party in power.

    The election came. The administration and the party behind it sensed a problem.  They had grown unpopular. In an electoral democracy, that would seem to be a grave problem. For them, it seemed but a nuisance. They would toss money at the election and make it theirs through cunning purchase. The funds that should have been used to build the nation would now be released to buy it. This cynical but attractive strategy would be deployed with rigor. After all, money answereth all things.

    Cataracts of money poured into the body politic. Not one national institution was insulated from the blandishment of vast liquidity. Many people fell to the inducement. For those whose wont is to sell their soul, they could at least be proud that they did so at an inflated price. However, something uplifting happened during this wholesale attempt to commerce in the souls of the people and the destiny of the nation. Lean as their pocketbooks were, the bulk of the people stood against the wash and flow of misdirected currency.

    The people had enough of not having enough and this fed them with desperate bravery. Fueled by such courage, they voted for their better futures and for greater nation instead of succumbing to present and visible blandishment. The manipulators thought that the daily lack the people faced would make them susceptible to money. The truth is that the impoverished state of affairs and the perceptible implosion of the nation made the people reject the vulgar tender. Money would not be allowed to purchase their ransom. They would barter their votes but only for a chance at a democratic and just political economy. Money power had bankrupted itself. A large-scale miracle had taken place in a land that seemingly had been overrun by greed and misery.

    In the end, President Buhari won the election but the people had won even more. The humble and modest people withstood the silted convergence of greedy ambition, money, and might. They reclaimed the sovereignty of their will over those who pretend to rule but not govern them. They rejected being defined as people who could be purchased as if a cheapened commodity. From the bowels of collective despair, they summoned the strength and faith to call forth democracy. Despite all the unfairness they had seen and suffered, they arose to hold claim to a better-lit day rather than surrender to the dark belief that things could get no better than they now are. They believed in something better and stronger than money: that the best of the human spirit is stronger than the worst of it.

    Because of this, they won for this nation a strong reprieve. They won obtained a chance strengthen the foundation, repair the roof, buttress the walls and, most importantly, anneal the national spirit. These things money cannot buy.

    Money is but a tool and not the answer. If an answer, it would tell us how to use it wisely. On this key matter, money is deadly silent. In the hands of a good builder, money can finance the construction of a fine home. In the hands of wrong and destructive, money will destabilize and ruin the good neighborhood. Money helps when in the right hand but also hinders when in the wrong.

    A new day in a new Nigeria is here.  Its coming was neither by purchase or mortgage. Nigerians owe nothing to anyone save God and themselves for this chance.

    Do not squander this chance that Providence has kindly placed in the hollow of your hand. This election has shown you the limits of Money Power.  You have placed it below the collective good and justice where it belongs. Do not forget this lesson lest it emerge once again as a false and misleading god. To believe that money answereth all things is to turn it into a god. Those of who believe in God must realize that only God answereth all things. Everything else is incomplete and uncertain. The past administration believed in this primacy of money. It led them to serial mistakes in policy and, ultimately, to electoral defeat. This nation must not go that way again.

    Nigeria, make the most of the future now before you. Let those in power govern for the public’s best cause and never lord over the nation they are meant to serve. Let it be that the welfare and good of the people becomes the vocabulary of leadership. Having so recently traversed the great divide between errant rule and responsive democracy, Nigeria now holds forth the torch of human progress. Keep that torch high that it might shine in every heart and home that is Nigerian. Keep that torch high that it may light the way for the rest of the Black race. Keep that torch high to show all the world that we have just begun to make the contributions to mankind that destiny calls for Nigeria to achieve. May God Bless this land!

     

    (08060340825 sms only)

  • Ukraine: The containment policy revisited

    Ukraine: The containment policy revisited

    The well-fed is foolhardy to fight a hungry man over a slice of bread.

    n the human mind, fantasy and myth can hold the same place of respect as ascertainable fact. Man can believe what he ought to reject with equal force as what he should embrace. While myth may becloud the mind and distort the eye, it does not alter reality’s landscape. That the leaders of a nation believe a fable does not mandate that reality distort itself to fit the false tale. Herein, the seeds of folly are sown.

    While leaders may chart their course by myth, the real world is not obligated to fit nicely into their design.  A powerful nation may try to impose its will on reality. However, the brash ultimately finds that, at best, they occupy the weaker side in a sobering negotiation.  Reality will have its way. The closer you align your thoughts and policies to it, the wiser you are.  The more the outcomes of your actions will accord with your purposes.

    After two years of bumbling in Ukraine, America and its NATO allies should have learned this lesson in its fullness. Instead, they persist in arm-wrestling with a reality they seem unable to comprehend or to match it in strength. Should they continue in this way, they may do irreparable harm to Ukraine, Europe and beyond. Through their error, the Cold War may escape the past to break upon tomorrow.

    This results from a dire misreading of history, primarily by American leaders and their NATO allies.  These leaders have become inebriated on the myths they crow about themselves. Unilaterally or through platforms like NATO and the EU, they believe their role is to impose their version of the political economy on the rest of the world.  They seek to liberate the world by bringing it within the grip and embrace of American power and ideology.  Nations should be governed through electoral democracy, through representative elections that only feature servants of the rich contesting as candidates against each other. No matter the outcome, the deck is stacked that the rich shall win. The economy should be in the hands of the local financial elite, themselves satellites of global Money Power. A person may be elected president or prime minister. But on all accounts, the dollar shall be king and the American military its muscle, its strongly armed underwriter.

    This was how America bullied the Caribbean and Latin America during the last century. During that period, America intervened militarily in numerous countries. Many of these occupations lasted several years with American economic interests taking control of prostrate governments’ revenues and economic policies. In addition to direct intervention, the United States government authored coups and funded insurgencies against governments deemed hostile to American hegemony. Haiti is the nation that came under the American lash the harshest and for the most years.  We can see how awfully Washington’s assistance has benefitted that nation.

    Feeling the full breadth of its status as the lone superpower, American conservatives seek to export American hegemony to the four corners of human civilization. Before, the Monroe Doctrine was a rationale for supremacy limited to the American continents. Now, the conservatives who define American foreign policy hope to share the Monroe Doctrine with the rest of the world.

    This gives rise to a few sticky problems. The histories of other regions have given rise to actors with significant wealth, power and interests. These actors are great nations in their own right. They see no need to cohere to Washington’s designs.  Just as Washington does, they have their designs some of which include measures to protect their traditional spheres of influence from Washington’s encroachment.

    Nowhere is this clash more poignant and dangerous than in the standoff between America and Russia concerning the Ukraine.

    America continues to instigate conflict in Ukraine although an objective mind would find itself at a lost to identify America’s vital interest in this nation that once belonged to Russia. If Ukraine were suddenly stricken from the map, Ukrainians would deem it an extreme act of ill-humor. They would be sorely put off. European economies would be hurt and Russia would be crippled. America would merely yawn.

    Consequently, America action in Ukraine has no connection with how nations traditionally define their interests. Instead, it has more to do with how America defines its status as a global superpower and self-appointed leader of the both the free world and the rest of the world that needs to be freed. For Washington, Ukraine is about putting Russia in its place. The sad thing is that Russia already is in its traditional place. It is the policies of the United States that have become disjointed.

    In mid-February, Russia, Ukraine, Germany and France executed the second Minsk Protocol. Among other things, the plan established a cease-fire that tentatively holds and paves the way to a political solution.  While America eagerly funded the 2014 Maidan take-over from the elected Yanukovych government, it refused to participate in the Minsk agreement. While the Minsk quartet talked peace, the hawkish Washington establishment was urging the Obama administration to provide lethal military equipment to the Kyiv government.  (Rest assured America is already handing weapons to this client government under the table. The current debate’s portrayal as a decision whether or not to originate arms is inaccurate.  Arms have been provided for some time. The real issue is whether America now equips Kyiv openly or continues to do so in the hidden places that everyone already knows exist.)

    As long as the fighting is stalemated or leaning toward the eastern Ukrainian federalists that Russia supports, America hopes to prolong the battle until the tide turns. This is dangerous. At American insistence, the Kyiv government launched an offensive against the federalists. Government forces suffered grave defeat and lost ground. The more they fight, the more they seem to lose. Yet, American hawks believe they can will the losing side to win.  This is the hubris that locked America into Vietnam.

    Without measuring the possible costs before entering the dangerous gambit, America believes the battle over Ukraine is the Cold War in miniature. If they won the historic Cold War, they can easily take this small dustup. They strap themselves to the wrong historic analogy and will likely get a result reflecting this error.

    Current American leader thump their chest that their nation defeated the USSR to end the Cold War. In reality, the U.S. did not defeat the USSR as much as it outlasted it.  The USSR fell of its own internal inconsistencies. The Soviet empire had extended its reach beyond its ability of sustain the heavy costs of a far-flung empire. In truth, the Soviet Union lost the Cold War at the inception of the rivalry. Apart from Germany, the USSR was the nation most devastated by WWII. Such a broken economy had no business entering into a global race with the American economy that was the by far the most powerful in human history and which had emerged unscathed and more robust than ever after the war. It was a feat of obdurate pride that the Soviets maintained the competition for so long. It would cost them in the end. All America had to do was to have its economy keep pace with the aims of its war machine. That war machine would become an integral part of the economy without deflating the rest of the economy. This would assure the Soviets could never make up the vast space separating the two economies as long as it focused on geopolitical and military expansion. Due to the relatively modest scale of the Soviet economy, it could not expand the empire and sustain domestic prosperity at the same time. Trying to do both, its leaders ultimately achieved neither.

    The Cold War erased the USSR just as it gave rebirth to Russia. Russia’s worldview is more compact and defensive than the Soviet version.  Moscow’s geopolitical strategy is to establish a “near empire,” insulating the heartland by creating a buffer zone of friendly client states whose primary relationship is with Russia.

    This stance is derived from equal parts ambition and apprehension. As with most strong nations, Russia seeks to shape the way of adjacent nations. But fear also informs its actions.  Since the days of Napoleon, Russia’s existential military threat has been invasion from the west. Russia suffered the most civilian and military casualties of any nation in both World Wars, again due to conflict with nations west of it. In WWII, it lost roughly 25 million people. America lost approximately 500,000.  Despite the array of Hollywood movies extolling American heroism (such heroism was authentic), the brunt of that war was fought on the eastern front by the Russians.

    Based on this history, Russia will go to extreme lengths to protect its western flank. It will pay a high cost for this objective because it fears a higher cost will be exacted should that flank is left unattended and visible to the hostile eye.

    For American foreign policy to discount this history and to discount Cold War pledges not to expand NATO eastward is a dangerous thing. It abuses its economic and military superiority to heighten tensions in an area where its vital interests are absent yet Russia’s are foremost. This unnecessary display of supremacy tramples traditional notions of geopolitics and balance of power.  Herein resides the great danger of the Ukrainian escapade.  It is an attack that would alter the European balance of power at a time when that balance accurately reflects the politico-military and economic realities on the ground.

    To adjust the power equation would require the American government to invest more in Ukraine’s military than America’s interests should allow.  It would also call for Russia to underestimate its interests in the matter. This combination of decisions is unlikely to occur. If America begins to openly arm the Kyiv government, a fretful dynamic begins. The conflict then becomes a patent test of wills between Washington and Moscow. National pride and international credibility would be at stake. With the world watching, neither side would be willing to blink first. In such a scenario, accident or error might result in fiery calamity.

    We should never forget the presence of nuclear weapons. Russia inherited the Soviet arsenal. While inferior to America’s, the damage it can still cause remains unbearable. That one side has the ability to destroy the other three-four times over is of no solace when the other side can also annihilate the first. In the game of utter destruction, once is as effective as thrice.

    The current machinations over Ukraine bring to remembrance the Cuban Missile crisis over fifty years ago.  The crisis brewed when the Soviets recklessly parked nuclear weapons in Cuba. A dagger was pointed at Washington’s throat. It was an intolerable breach of the American security curtain. Invasion of Cuba was threatened. A blockade was instituted. At the eleventh hour, the crisis was averted when the Soviet leadership accepted a face-saving measure allowing it to pull the nuclear warheads from the island nation.

    During this crisis, a naval incident little known to most people occurred.  But for the courage of a single Soviet naval officer, the fate of mankind might be different.  After the American blockade was established, a tense encounter took place between an American destroyer and a Russian nuclear submarine. With depth charges exploding around his vessel, the Russian commander concluded that war had begun. He prepared to launch his nuclear payload. Only the calm, wise counsel of a fellow officer prevented him from an act that would have forever made his name a proverb for catastrophe.

    Events in the Ukraine are not nearly as intense as the Cuban Missile scare. Yet, as that historic example teaches us, mistakes in policy can cause things to spin quickly out of control.  Events can take on a momentum so strong that decision makers become more slave to, than shaper of, them.

    We all should pray this dynamic does not take hold between Washington and Moscow. While Ukraine is far away, policy moves regarding that nation have already affected Nigeria and Africa. The drop in world oil prices is, in part, an instrument meant to punish oil-producing Russia. The harm to Nigeria’s economy is counted merely as collateral damage to those who evoked this policy.  While the economic damage to Nigeria may be collateral to them, it is of central importance to you. Yet, even greater harm may be in store unless America stops this radical breach of traditional geopolitics.

    More than which side holds greater influence in Ukraine could be at stake. No nation has the right to increase the risks of major conflagration when the only interest it is pursuing is an overinflated view of its role in the world. Reducing the exaggerated role will reduce global risk and maintain the greater peace. This is the right path if a nation truly wants to be a leader and have the rest of the world respect and just not fear it. The other way is fraught with risks and dangers to mankind that are better left unexplored.

     

    08060340825 sms only