The Nation Newspaper

Category: Jide Osuntokun

  • Agenda before the Constitutional Conference -1

    I have said this before and I will say it again that it really doesn’t matter whether President Jonathan and his government are genuinely serious about the constitutional restructuring of Nigeria. But whatever end result comes out of the impending national conference would be on record as the decision freely agreed to by leaders of thought in Nigeria. I also personally believe that once the genie is released from the bottle it may be difficult to put it back. In other words, the conference may gather its own natural dynamics and it may be difficult to stop it from moving towards an unplanned end. It is an act of political sagacity for the APC to reluctantly allow participation officially by states under its control. This was the point Governor Kayode Fayemi was making during the announcement that the APC States will participate even though the APC as a political party is totally against the conference because it does not believe that those behind the conference are genuine and honest. Having said this, what should then be the national agenda before the conference?

    Politics is based on association with others to advance individual, group and national interests in that order. No country can be great if it tramples over individual and group rights of its citizens. A country based on coercion and force is built on shifting sand. We therefore need to design an architecture that will ensure the building of a solid house under whose roof we can all find shelter. This is why the issue of fundamental human rights must be the first grundnorm of whatever constitutional agreement arrived at, at this conference. We will need to spell out in a justiceable form the right to life, liberty, free political association, freedom from want, freedom of religion, and freedom from all kinds of persecution and freedom from all those things that are not in consonance with human rights and that are repugnant to good conscience. The Americans call this “the right to the pursuit of happiness”, under this rubric can be found rights to gainful employment and to education. All these rights must be guaranteed even though they may not be totally realisable. But the rights to freedom from persecution and arrest must be justiceable and the principle of Habeas Corpus must be adhered to as part of the judicial process. This would be at the individual level then we must move to the group level or nationality level. Within the state of Nigeria, we have linguistically distinct groups that number depending on whose definition between 250 and 350. Within this cluster of linguistic groups are to be found three large nations of the Yoruba, Hausa and the Igbo. These are nations on their own each numbering well over 30 million and inhabiting distinct territories and can survive on their own as independent countries. Other reasonably large nationalities that number over a million are the Kanuri, TIV, Ibibio, Izon (Ijaw), Fulani, Urhobo, Edo, Nupe, and the Igala. The remaining groups fall between a few hundred thousand and a million, or slightly more. Of all the groups mentioned, the Fulanis are in a unique situation because they are not associated with any particular territory. In the last few years, the Fulanis have found their way into almost every state of the federation. But most of the other ethnic groups in Nigeria can be identified with certain territories. All Nigerians, whether large or small, must be protected on their own lands. Even though people have moved around to other peoples’ territories the owners of the land must be respected and recognised and in the interest of peace, there must be constitutional device to acknowledge people’s ownership of their lands. Nigeria is part of an old continent and the facile comparison of Nigeria with the United States when discussing movement of people to other people’s areas and giving examples that one can move from one state to another in the US, and contest elections is not appropriate to Nigeria. I have lived all my life in Ibadan and I have a home there and I am even a Chief of the Alaafin, yet I will consider it unreasonable for me to aspire to be Governor of Oyo state without trampling on the rights of the indigenes. Residence and indigeneship are totally separate things. Residence confers economic rights and right to vote but not rights to political office. If because I am resident in Ibadan I am entitled to hold office in Oyo state as well as in my state in Ekiti. I would be exploiting the people of Oyo. This same logic can be extended to Lagos, Plateau, Rivers, Anambra etc, this is an irritant which we must solve at this conference so that the bad blood now existing among Nigerians can be over come. There is no need talking about citizen’s rights over riding indigene rights. We have enough troubles in the country we don’t want to add to it. This does not mean that Nigerians will be hindered in buying land or establishing industry and residence anywhere in the country but we must concede the ownership of land to the original owners and that originality of ownership of that land must be constitutionally protected and land ownership goes with political rights to offices constitutionally assigned to states. No one should have the right to be constitutionally elected in two sates of the federation.

    At the level of the nation, we would need to agree to division and devolution of powers between the federating and constituent units in such a way as to protect individual and group rights. Our founding fathers in the constitution negotiated by the representatives of the people in 1959 agreed to a federal system of government. This was a system that guaranteed wide powers to the original three regions each of which had their own constitutions and anthems and even diplomatic representation abroad. At independence, the power of foreign representation was withdrawn from the regions and centralised in the federal government. That independence constitution must be the starting point at the forth coming conference. The federating units should not be this unwieldy thirty-six states. The federating unit should be based on six zones and as much as possible especially with the three nations in the country the boundaries of the zones must be coterminous with the group areas. In other words, all people speaking the same language must be under the same zonal government. The so-called Anioma people of present day Delta would have to merge with their Igbo compatriots while the Yorubas in Kwara and Kogi will have to merge with their Yoruba compatriots. And all the Hausa speaking states should be in one zone stretching from Sokoto, to Katsina, Kano, Kebbbi, Northern Kaduna, Jigawa, and parts of Bauchi. I will leave the cartographers to work out the details. All those who believe that sovereignty of all nationalities should be the basis of our political association will have to prove the viability of any political configuration they may seek to create within their own zones. As in any typical federation, foreign affairs, defence, finance, currency, policing of inter-state crime, the Supreme Court, immigration, aviation, shipping will lie within the federal jurisdiction. These enumerated powers would be constitutionally agreed upon by the majority of the delegates and powers not enumerated above will lie with the six zones. This will be regarded as residual powers in which the federal government will have no jurisdiction. For example, police, agriculture, local government, primary, secondary and tertiary education, judiciary, works and transport, railways, taxation, royalties on minerals, excise duties and VAT would lie with the zonal authorities. There would be areas of concurrent jurisdiction such as higher education, inter-state highways, railways and this will be so stated.

     

    •To be continued

     

  • International relations in historical perspective – 5

    It was in the anti-colonial environment of a cold war and bipolarity in world affairs that the process of decolonisation gathered momentum. America traditionally had been opposed to colonialism, with the exception of the aberrant behaviour of the conquest of Spanish territories in Cuba and the Philippines in the 1890’s. America’s anti-colonialism has been demonstrated since their intervention on the world stage from the time of James Monroe in the 1820’s through the time of Woodrow Wilson to the time of F.D. Roosevelt. Their opposition to Franco-British intervention in the Suez Canal in 1956, during the presidency of the 34th president of United States, Dwight David Eisenhower (1890-1969) was in tune with their opposition to propping up the old Empires of Britain and France. Throughout the Second World War American policy makers had left the British in no doubt that they would strenuously work for the dismantling of the old Empires. The existence of colonial empires, the Americans reasoned, contributed to the outbreak of wars. America also wanted to occupy the high moral ground in their titanic struggle with the Soviet Union. Both the United States and, ironically their foe, the Soviet Union were committed to a policy of decolonisation for different reasons. America was driven by anti-colonial idealism fundamental to the origin and evolution of the United States itself but for Soviet Russia, right from its foundation by Vladimir Ilyich Lenin (1870-1924) anti-imperialism was an article of faith because Lenin believed that all wars were imperialistic wars fought for carving out the world into markets as a result of not knowing what to do with surplus production and primitive accumulation of capital in the highly industrialized countries. Whatever may be the reasons for support of the liquidation of the European Empires in Asia and Africa, the nationalist leaders of these areas exploited the situation to their countries’ advantage in the traditional European fashion of power politics and national interest.

    By 1947, beginning in India and ending in the 1970s the Europeans lost their colonial empires in Africa and Asia and by 1990 the remnant of colonial empires in Africa notably Namibia was freed. The biggest prize, South Africa, has been freed from institutionalized policy of racial discrimination and apartheid. She has since joined the civilized world under a non-racial majoritarian democratic regime. This happy ending could never have been achieved but for the determined effort and struggle of independent African countries joined by other progressive forces in the world notably in the Socialist countries and the Scandinavia. The United States policy oscillated between support for justice, benign neglect and what in the Reagan years was called constructive engagement which was a euphemism for support of racist oppression in South Africa.

    One can look at events during this period from reactive and active perspectives. the African saying that when two elephants fight it is the grass that suffers guided the actions of many Afro-Asian and Latin American countries at this time. The point was that no developing country wanted to be caught in the middle of the struggle for hegemony between the Capitalist West and the Communist East. This was why many countries in this group embraced the policy of non-alignment. This was a policy based on self-interest. It was, of course, not a policy of neutrality in the traditional sense of steering clear at all times of political engagement.

    Non-alignment meant that decision of which side to take would be based ideally on sovereign assessment and high moral principles and not on political expediency or ideological preference. This was the Theory. But in practice many of the non-aligned countries took pro-soviet positions in international politics. There were reasons for this. The stridently anti-colonial propaganda of the socialist countries was very alluring and attractive. In practical terms, the socialist countries demonstrated their support by supplying weapons and instructors for the various liberation movements particularly in Southern Africa. The socialist countries were also more prepared to offer financial and technical aid to independent African countries. The apparently great industrial strides made by the socialist countries, particularly the Soviet Union through the five-year development plans easily recommended itself to the African countries. Capitalist mode of development with emphasis on individual capital was regarded as inappropriate since indigenous individual capitalists were few and far between and the foreign capitalists were only interested in extractive industries rather than investing in consumer oriented labour intensive industries. Because the problem of youth unemployment was one of the greatest problems that the newly independent countries had to face, they found the ‘full employment’, characteristic of the commandist and centrally planned economies attractive. The example of India’s embrace of centralized planning based on five year programmes was copied by most African countries during their first decades of independence.

    Furthermore, the will to be different from the brutal collectivisation of agriculture in the Soviet Union and the free-for-all land alienation by a few in western countries underpinned the economic basis of non-alignment. Non-alignment was a policy based on high moral ground. Its founders Jawaharlal Nehru (1889-1964) of India, Ahmed Sukarno (1901-1970) of Indonesia, Marshall Josip bros Tito (1892-1980) of Yugoslavia, General Abdel Nasser (1918-1970) of Egypt, Kwame Nkrumah (1909-1972) of Ghana, cleverly assessed the international situation and decided that it would be unwise of them to allow their countries to get sucked into the life and death struggle for mastery of the world. Non-alignment gave these leaders the feeling of some relevance. Their friendship and support were courted and sought by the leaders of the West and the East.

    In reality, all the great events of the 20th century have been resolved without the input of the non-aligned nations. We can recall, for example, the Berlin blockade of 1948, the Hungarian rebellion of 1956, the Berlin air lift of 1961 and, most importantly, the Cuban crisis of 1962. For the first time, since the advent of nuclear weapons, the United States and Soviet Russia faced each other over the America’s blockade of Cuba over Soviet Russia’s missiles in Cuba. The world stood at standstill until Soviet Russia’s premier Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev (1894-1971) blinked, when he realised his policy of adventurism and brinkmanship, left the young president John Fitzgerald Kennedy (1917-1963) no alternative than to risk nuclear war. Other events in which the non-aligned nations were marginal include the spring revolution of Czchekoslovakia of 1968, the resolution of the Vietnam war, the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe, the coming down of the Berlin wall, the collapse of communism in Russia itself, the disintegration of Yugoslavia, and the collapse of the apartheid regime in South Africa. In terms of Realpolitik the non-aligned movement has been rather tangential in the politics of the modern world.

    •Concluded

  • International relations in historical perspective – 4

    IT was in the anti-colonial environment of a cold war and bipolarity in world affairs that the process of decolonisation gathered momentum. America traditionally had been opposed to colonialism, with the exception of the aberrant behaviour of the conquest of Spanish territories in Cuba and the Philippines in the 1890’s. America’s anti-colonialism has been demonstrated since their intervention on the world stage from the time of James Monroe in the 1820’s through the time of Woodrow Wilson to the time of F.D. Roosevelt. Their opposition to Franco- British intervention in the Suez Canal in 1956, during the presidency of the 34th president of United States, Dwight David Eisenhower (1890-1969) was in tune with their opposition to propping up the old Empires of Britain and France. Throughout the Second World War American policy makers had left the British in no doubt that they would strenuously work for the dismantling of the old Empires. The existence of colonial empires, the Americans reasoned, contributed to the outbreak of wars. America also wanted to occupy the high moral ground in their titanic struggle with the Soviet Union. Both the United States and, ironically their foe, the Soviet Union were committed to a policy of decolonisation for different reasons. America was driven by anti-colonial idealism fundamental to the origin and evolution of the United States itself but for Soviet Russia, right from its foundation by Vladimir Ilyich Lenin (1870-1924) antiimperialism was an article of faith because Lenin believed that all wars were imperialistic wars fought for carving out the world into markets as a result of not knowing what to do with surplus production and primitive accumulation of capital in the highly industrialized countries. Whatever may be the reasons for support of the liquidation of the European Empires in Asia and Africa, the nationalist leaders of these areas exploited the situation to their countries’ advantage in the traditional European fashion of power politics and national interest. By 1947, beginning in India and ending in the 1970s the Europeans lost their colonial empires in Africa and Asia and by 1990 the remnant of colonial empires in Africa notably Namibia was freed. The biggest prize, South Africa, has been freed from institutionalized policy of racial discrimination and apartheid. She has since joined the civilized world under a non-racial majoritarian democratic regime. This happy ending could never have been achieved but for the determined effort and struggle of independent African countries joined by other progressive forces in the world notably in the Socialist countries and the Scandinavia. The United States policy oscillated between support for justice, benign neglect and what in the Reagan years was called constructive engagement which was a euphemism for support of racist oppression in South Africa. One can look at events during this period from reactive and active perspectives. The African saying that when two elephants fight it is the grass that suffers guided the actions of many Afro- Asian and Latin American countries at this time. The point was that no developing country wanted to be caught in the middle of the struggle for hegemony between the Capitalist West and the Communist East. This was why many countries in this group embraced the policy of non-alignment. This was a policy based on self-interest. It was, of course, not a policy of neutrality in the traditional sense of steering clear at all times of political engagement. Non-alignment meant that decision of which side to take would be based ideally on sovereign assessment and high moral principles and not on political expediency or ideological preference. This was the theory. But in practice many of the non-aligned countries took pro-soviet positions in international politics. There were reasons for this. The stridently anti-colonial propaganda of the socialist countries was very alluring and attractive. In practical terms, the socialist countries demonstrated their support by supplying weapons and instructors for the various liberation movements particularly in southern Africa. The socialist countries were also more prepared to offer financial and technical aid to independent African countries. The apparently great industrial strides made by the socialist countries, particularly the Soviet Union through the five-year development plans easily recommended itself to the African countries. Capitalist mode of development with emphasis on individual capital was regarded as inappropriate since indigenous individual capitalists were few and far between and the foreign capitalists were only interested in extractive industries rather than investing in consumer oriented labour intensive industries. Because the problem of youth unemployment was one of the greatest problems that the newly independent countries had to face, they found the ‘full employment’, characteristic of the commandist and centrally planned economies attractive. The example of India’s embrace of centralized planning based on five year programmes was copied by most African countries during their first decades of independence. Furthermore, the will to be different from the brutal collectivisation of agriculture in the Soviet Union and the free-for-all land alienation by a few in western countries underpinned the economic basis of non-alignment. Non-alignment was a policy based on high moral ground. Its founders Jawaharlal Nehru (1889-1964) of India, Ahmed Sukarno (1901-1970) of Indonesia, Marshall Josip bros Tito (1892-1980) of Yugoslavia, General Abdel Nasser (1918-1970) of Egypt, Kwame Nkrumah (1909-1972) of Ghana, cleverly assessed the international situation and decided that it would be unwise of them to allow their countries to get sucked into the life and death struggle for mastery of the world. Non-alignment gave these leaders the feeling of some relevance. Their friendship and support were courted and sought by the leaders of the West and the East. In reality, all the great events of the 20th century have been resolved without the input of the non-aligned nations. We can recall, for example, the Berlin blockade of 1948, the Hungarian rebellion of 1956, the Berlin air lift of 1961 and, most importantly, the Cuban crisis of 1962. For the first time, since the advent of nuclear weapons, the United States and Soviet Russia faced each other over the America’s blockade of Cuba over Soviet Russia’s missiles in Cuba. The world stood at standstill until Soviet Russia’s premier Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev (1894- 1971) blinked, when he realised his policy of adventurism and brinkmanship, left the young president John Fitzgerald Kennedy (1917-1963) no alternative than to risk nuclear war. Other events in which the non-aligned nations were marginal include the spring revolution of Czchekoslovakia of 1968, the resolution of the Vietnam war, the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe, the coming down of the Berlin wall, the collapse of communism in Russia itself, the disintegration of Yugoslavia, and the collapse of the apartheid regime in South Africa. In terms of Realpolitik the non-aligned movement has been rather tangential in the politics of the modern world.

  • International relations in historical perspective – 4

    The outcome of the politics of balance of power and realpolitik was the First World War which for the first time involved practically the whole world in what began essentially as a European conflict but which eventually ended as a world cataclysm and conflict. In ending the war, the traditional American idealism was brought into play when President Thomas Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924), 28th president of the United States (1913-1921), enunciated the famous Fourteen Point Programme. Chief among these programmes were the ideas of open covenants openly entered into, self-determination for all peoples and the idea of international government as seen in the League of Nations. American idealism was supported by Soviet socialism since the collapse of Tsarist Russia in 1917. In this way, for purely ideological reasons, the principle of self-determination enunciated by President Wilson was supported by Soviet Russia as a way of removing the cause of wars which socialists generally saw as the struggle for market and raw materials among the industrialized countries of Europe.

    There was a campaign against previous diplomatic practice characterized by secret treaties that eventually led to the First World War.

    Apart from the idealism of President Wilson for ‘open covenants’ and the ideological opposition to secret deals by Soviet Russia, there arose in England particularly within the Labour Party a “Committee for democratic control” of foreign policy. But the tradition of secrecy surrounding diplomacy was so strong that things continued as before until the greater cataclysm of the Second World War of 1939 to 1945. These revolutionary ideas had no chance of surviving in a world still dominated by Europeans who were married to their age-old ideas of territorial conquests, and aggrandisement, reparations and politics of national interests. The idealism of Woodrow Wilson was stopped in its track by the politics of bitterness and revenge of the French Statesman George Benjamin Clemenceau (1841-1929) and the traditional British politics of maintaining a balance of power in Europe as seen in the Versailles peace settlement of 1919, of which the British Prime Minister David Lloyd George (1863-1945) was one of the architects. International relations was dominated by the attempts by the post world war government of Italy and Germany to undo what was regarded as a primitive diktat imposed on the vanquished nations by the victorious powers at Versailles in 1919. The new world order which Woodrow Wilson had attempted to build never really took off because of the territorial avarice of France and Great Britain and the unchanging nature of international politics. Professor A.J.P. Taylor in his brilliant book, The Origins of the Second World War, directly linked the rise of Adolph Hitler (1889-1945) to the short-sightedness of the architects of the Versailles peace settlement.

    In spite of America’s traditional commitment to a policy of isolation, she was forced into the Second World War when imperial Japan attacked the American pacific fleet at Pearl Harbour in Hawaii in 1941. Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1882-1945), the 32nd President of the United States, brought the weight, resources and Wilsonian idealism of America against the Axis powers of Hitler’s Germany, Hirohito (1901-1989), and Hideki Tojo’s (1884-1948) Japan and Benito Mussolini’s (1883-1945) Italy. The collapse of the axis powers became only a matter of time when one realises that the linchpin, at least in Europe, of the Axis powers, Germany was at the same time engaged in a life or death struggle with Soviet Russia under Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (1879-1953). Eventually Germany was brought to its knees and Adolph Hitler committed suicide in 1945 rather than be captured by Russian troops. The Japanese surrendered to General Douglas MacArthur (1880-1964) later in the year after America exploded the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki following the successful Manhattan project led by James Robert Oppenheimer (1904-1967) which resulted in building the first atomic bombs.

    The introduction of this weapon of mass destruction changed international relations for all time. Politics among nations was now dominated by serious attempt at avoidance of wars between the major powers. Although, as much as America struggled to uphold her policy of collective security through the new institution of the United Nations, traditional politics of national interests and territorial aggrandisement dominated the politics of the Soviet Union which combined traditional Tsarist policy of pan-slavism with the politics of balance of power. America later succumbed to the politics of balance of power when it formed, in the face of Soviet constant expansion in Europe, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to serve as deterrence against Russia in 1948. Russia was of course driven by her national interests. Having suffered about 20 million casualties during the Second World War and suffered another 20 million because of starvation and forceful collectivisation of agricultural production, she could hardly afford the idealism of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The death of Roosevelt in 1945 and the ascension to power by Harry S. Truman (1884-1972), 33rd president of the United States (1945-1953), brought more realism into American foreign policy and set in motion the so-called Truman doctrine of the policy of containment of communism, through regional military pacts and alliances in Europe, the Middle East (Baghdad Pact) and Asia (SEATO), in which the United States and the Western alliance were determined to oppose communism, where Western interests were threatened.

    The division of the world into two rival camps was made permanent by the victory of the communists in China in 1949 under Chairman Mao Zedong (1893-1976), the same year in which the Soviet Union acquired the atomic bomb. The splitting of the atom and the development of hydrogen bombs by Russia restored the balance of power between the United States and the USSR. It was however not until 1955 that the Soviet Union developed the strategic bomber force that had the capacity to deliver nuclear bombs on American cities. From this period began the concept of balance of terror or Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD) a scenario in which in the event of nuclear war there would be neither a victor nor a vanquished. J.F. Kennedy (1917-1963), 35th president of the United States said in the case of this eventuality, “the living would envy the dead”. The explosion of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki shook the world to its very foundation and finally changed the way mankind previously used war as one of the options of state policy. The total destruction brought by nuclear weapons made Albert Einstein (1879-1995) to say that he did not know what weapons would be used in the third world war, but he was sure that sticks and stones would be used in the fourth world war. This is to say the third world war of thermonuclear exchanges would so obliterate civilization that man would go back to the Stone Age. This certain suicide by humanity has never dissuaded the Russian and the Americans from contemplating the use of theatre nuclear weapons, the so-called neutron bombs that would kill man without destroying property. It is nevertheless quite clear that if and when mankind again passes the threshold of military use of nuclear weapons that would open a Pandora box and would in the words of Winston Churchill (1874-1965) constitute the beginning of the end if not the end of the beginning.

    This thought of Armageddon has remained a factor of deterrence since the beginning of the cold war and up till now. The awesomeness of the destructive force of nuclear weapons has led to the various international disarmament conventions, treaties and protocols and to the permanent meeting of the U.N. disarmament conference in Geneva for almost six decades. This is an institution which has taken on a character of its own and to which all nations including our own accredit ambassadors and diplomats. In short, an uneasy modus Vivendi was established in the way each of the super powers related to one another.

     

  • International relations in historical perspective – 3

    The evolution of the modern concept of international politics could be said to have begun in 1648 with the end of the Thirty Years’ War which was concluded by the Treaty of Westphalia. In spite of this recognition of sovereignty of states in the European system, it did not stop the outbreak of wars. A philosopher such as Geog Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831) who was to rise to the prestigious position of professor of philosophy at the University of Berlin argued in one of his books the Philosophy of Right that in the march of human history, dialectical clashes between nations advanced the course of human civilization. Nationalists, particularly in the divided German and Italian states quickly embraced this new philosophy which saw nothing wrong in wars, especially those arising from the quest for national Risorgimento. Coinciding with the rise of Hegelianism was the unification of Germany and Italy, a development that was to radically revolutionise international relations.

    Since the emergence of nation states like France and England as major players in the game of international politics, there has been a move towards two trends in international relations. The first trend was the idea that a state’s policy should be dominated by what it considers its national interest. It does not really matter whether this national interest is maintained by diplomacy, deception, duplicity or war. This concept of raison d’etat dominated the thinking and action of Armand Jean du Plessis, Cardinal de Richelieu (1585-1642). He was Chief Minister of France from 1624 to 1642. Being a Prince of the Church, one would have expected that he would champion the cause of the Holy Roman Empire and the universal Catholic Church. Richelieu came into office in 1624 when the Habsburg Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand 11 was attempting to revive Catholic universality, stamp out Protestantism and establish imperial control over the princes of, particularly the German speaking states and statelets of central Europe. What did Richelieu do? Under him, raison d’etat replaced the medieval concept of universal moral values as the operating principles of French policy. By the time of the Thirty Years’ War (1618-1648) each of the principal powers of Europe namely Denmark, Sweden and France reduced Central Europe into human waste and by the time the war ended the German population of Central Europe was reduced by a third.

    During the course of this struggle, Richelieu was able to expand the territories of France eastwards to encompass what later became the disputed provinces of Lorraine and Alsace. Few statesmen can claim a greater impact on history than this man. Richelieu was the father of the modern state system. Absolute devotion to the promotion of a state’s national interest, through the example of what Richelieu accomplished for France became the dominant theory and practice of international relations. The success of this policy of raison d’etat elicited another trend of balance of power politics in order to ensure that France did not impose an absolute hegemony on Europe. These two ideas, which started as facts of life and later as a system of international relations, were to dominate the international system for the next 100 years.

    Even when Napoleon upset the working of the balance of power during his conquests in Europe, he was eventually brought down by coalition of forces in which Great Britain played a dominant role. This again introduced another theme into European politics in which even though separated from Europe by the English Channel, Britain’s national interest moved her to intervene in Continental European politics to ensure that no one single country dominated the affairs of Europe. After the defeat of Napoleon Bonaparte, the peace of Europe was maintained through the contrivance of balance of power politics and Europe acting in concert to maintain peace and to ensure legitimacy of European regimes and institutions.

    The architect of this policy of Concert of Europe was the cosmopolitan Austrian Chancellor Prince Clemens Wenzel Lothar Metternich (1773-1859) who was committed to maintaining the status quo in Europe and stamping out the spirit of nationalism which was antithetical to the interest of the ramshackle Austro-Hungarian Empire of several nationalities. This policy worked hand in hand with the traditional policy of national interest. The British Foreign Secretary and later Prime Minister, Henry John Temple, Third Viscount Palmerston (1784-1865) articulated this policy when on becoming foreign secretary in 1830, a position which he was to hold for years until becoming prime minister himself, said,

    “When people ask me … for what is called a policy, the only answer is that we mean to do what may seem to be best upon each occasion as it arises, making the interests of our country one’s guiding principle”

    “We have no eternal allies and no permanent enemies”, said Palmerston “our interests are eternal and those interests it is our duty to follow”.

    The policy of raison d’etat coupled with the policy of concert of Europe was built around a shifting coalescence of interests of Britain and Austria. For almost half a century this policy worked until the wars of German unification and Italian 11 Risorgimento introduced the potent force of nationalism, which had remained dormant since the French revolution. The emergence of Count Camillo Benso di Cavour (1810-1861) and Prince Otto Edward Leopold Von Bismarck (1815-1898) led to the modification of an old idea of national interest. This modification came in the form of a policy of realpolitik in international affairs.

    By this is meant accepting the world as one finds it and making the best use of the situation. The ideal world is utopian and can only be found in the realm of ideas, but the political world is dominated by struggle and national interest. The aim of nations was acceptably the avoidance of wars and the preservation of peace, preferably through diplomacy, but when all other options failed, war in the words of Karl Von Clausewitz (1780-1831) is politics by other means. This idea of realpolitik became the dominant idea of international relations until the eve of the First World War.

    This concept was not confined to Europe, as the earlier ideas were. It began to influence even American and Japanese politics. Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919) who became the 26th president of the United States in 1901 and remained in office until 1909 was closer to European practitioners of the politics of realpolitik than any American politician of his age. He was as much an imperialist as Robert Arthur Talbot Gascoigne Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (1830-1903) who with Bismarck and Jules Francois Camille Ferry (1832-1903) were responsible for the European partition of Africa and South East Asia as well as the intervention in China to carve out spheres of influence.

    Theodore Roosevelt not only fought against the Spanish government in Cuba before becoming president and in fact rode into the White House as a war hero. He in fact, parroting Bismarck’s comment, said,

    “if I must choose between a policy of blood and iron and one of milk and water… I am for the policy of blood and iron. It is better not only for the nation but in the long run for the world”

    American diplomacy had always been characterised by an idealism based on isolationism and non-intervention in the politics of Europe for fear of European entanglements. This policy had been an article of faith since the presidency of James Monroe (1758-1831), the fifth president of the United States. Theodore Roosevelt brought into American foreign policy the tradition of realism which would continue to struggle with the traditional American ideas of morality and idealism in foreign relations.

     

  • International relations in historical perspective – 2

    In ancient world of the Middle East, between 1500 and 500 years before the birth of Christ, a common great civilization occurred and dominated the area from the Tigris – Euphrates (Babylon) to the Nile (Egypt) and beyond. The choice then was between empire and chaos – just as in nature one empire fell giving rise to another. The empires of Alexander, the Romans, Chinese and the Mogul empire in India operated not on the basis of international relations but on conquest. There could be no relation between civilization and barbarism. Even up to the 17th century in Europe the accepted concepts was that of a universal empire and not the coexistence of sovereign states. It was not until the consolidation of the French, English and Spanish national states in opposition to the universal Holy Roman Empire that the idea of the proper mode of relations between sovereign states began to evolve.

    Two philosophers, Jean Bodin (C1530-1596) and Hugo Grotius (Huig Van Gruit) (1538-1645) were the first two people to properly articulate the underlying philosophy that should guide the relations among states. This is not to forget that before them Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527) had something profound to say about interstate relations even though tangentially. This Italian diplomat and writer, the son of a prosperous Florentine lawyer, had in one of his books 11 Principe written in 1513 but published in 1532 said that the prince even in his foreign relations need not be bound by covenants entered to solemnly by him. He was also not bound by promises made as long as he concentrated on the end in view since the end would justify whatever means he adopted for political and territorial aggrandisement of his state. Machiavelli is not usually known for his contribution to the evolution of politics among nations but his amoral ideas have no doubt influenced politicians since the 15th century.

    Jean Bodin was a lawyer and an attorney to King Henry 111 of France. Writing against the background of Machiavellian philosophy, he insisted that the sovereign has an obligation to keep faith in treaties and alliances and should not for political expediency repudiate treaties solemnly entered into if the international system were not to dissolve into anarchy. This identified need for restraining absolute sovereign in their international dealings influenced Hugo Grotius, 50 years later, to carry forward the philosophy of Jean Bodin. Hugo Grotius was an international jurist, born in the Netherlands and practised law in The Hague and held at various times diplomatic positions on behalf of the French and Dutch governments. He was finally appointed ambassador to France by the Swedish government. In his book De Jure belli et Pacis (1625), he advocated that sovereign states should coexist in amity and peace with one another through the restraints of international law and existing norms that govern relations among states. His importance in the history of jurisprudence rests not on constitutional law but upon his conception of a law regulating the relations between sovereign states.

    The practical urgency of the problem in the 17th century laid in the chaos associated with the rejection of the universalism of the Roman Empire and the Catholic Church and the wars of religion which followed the Counter Reformation. The wars of religion brought to international relations, the intrinsic bitterness of religious hatred and afforded the colour of good conscience to the most barefaced schemes of dynastic aggrandisement.

    Coupled with this was the economic imperative which led the western European nations along the road of expansion, colonisation, commercial aggrandisement and the exploitation of newly discovered territories. Hugo Grotius claimed there was an immutable law of nature which governed relations between sovereign and subject and one government and the other. This law of nature was the fundamental basis of the civil law of every nation and this civil law was reflected in the laws binding every nation. The originality of this classical idea of natural law which had been discussed by Plato (C427-347BC), Aristotle (384-322BC), the stoics and Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43BC), was that Grotius believed that the same intrinsic principles are fundamental to the behaviour of states in their relations with one and the other. One of the most significant contributions of Hugo Grotius was his elucidation of the concept of extra territoriality, otherwise known as diplomatic immunity which was originated by the French jurist Pierre Ayraut (1536-1601). This concept was further developed by Samuel von Pufendorf (1632-1694), and by the 18th century the idea of diplomatic immunity had taken firm root and this concept of immunity was formally consolidated by the Vienna Convention of 1961. The idea that what binds human beings together on an individual basis can be transposed to relations between nations can be seen also in David Hume’s (1711-1776) A Treatise of Human Nature when he wrote, describing the basis of human relations and collaboration in founding civilized societies.

    “I observe that it will be for my interest to leave another in the possession of his goods provided he will act in the same manner with regard to me. He is sensible of a like interest in the regulation of his conduct. When this common sense of interest is mutually expressed, and is known to both, it produces a suitable resolution and behaviour. And this may properly enough be called a convention or agreement betwixt us, though without the interposition of a promise since the actions of each of us have a reference to those of the other, and are performed upon the supposition that something is to be performed by the other party … assures us still more that the sense of interest has become common to all our fellows, and gives us a confidence of the future regularity of their conduct: and it is only on the expectation of this that our moderation and abstinence are founded”.

    It is this logic of rule governing not only an individual behaviour but state behaviour that underpins the working of international relations.

     

  • Foreign Policy in global historical perspective -1

    The study of International Relations has always been subsumed within the study of History until very recently when, like political science, it became a separate discipline. Nevertheless, history has remained the foundation of a meaningful study of this important subject whose beginning was also historically determined. Serious study of International Relations began after the First World War. The loss of millions of men and wholesale destruction of property led to serious soul-searching as to how to prevent future conflicts on this grand scale. The study of politics among nations was therefore considered fundamental in avoiding another World War. The fact that the Second World War still broke out and that since 1945 we have witnessed many proxy wars that have led to the death of millions of people does not diminish the importance of the study of International Relations. Rather than throw up our hands in exasperation, scholars have fine-tuned their tools of study so as to reduce to the barest minimum, the volatility and variability of such a discipline anchored on human behaviour. One is not saying here that the role of scholars of International Relations could be decisive in the matters of war and peace because cynics might ask, “how much injection of available knowledge in the field did Adolf Hitler or Joseph Stalin factor into their foreign policies in the inter war years?” To many of the authoritarian and totalitarian exponents of politics of power relations in this century, diplomacy was only seen as a holding operation before countries were ready to unleash, with all its ferocity, destructive and offensive power of the state. Treaties amounted to nothing but chiffon de papier and indeed and in truth wars were politics by other means.

    Coming nearer home. To what extent has the available knowledge of the imperatives of Nigeria’s foreign policy influenced and affected recent operation of Nigeria’s foreign policy? This kind of argument will miss the point of scholarship and search for knowledge for knowledge’s sake. The utility of this kind of academic enquiry would then depend on the calibre of political leadership and the prevailing factors of international politics and domestic concern of the period. Today, as a result of experience and documentation of international norms and diplomatic practice, certain ground rules have been established which while not totally preventing outbreaks of wars, have however, reduced them and, or mitigated their serious consequences.

    The academic discipline of history provides a serious scholar, the broadest knowledge available to mankind. A historian must necessarily be aware of whatever revolutionary advances in the arts, philosophy, medicine, engineering and the sciences that have left their impact on man and his environment. In fact, all knowledge is historical. Man logically builds on the achievements of those who have toiled in the same field in the past. Progress in all fields of human endeavour takes knowledge and experience of the past as points of departure in the constant search for truth and knowledge. The study of history is such a vast area of academic pursuit that it is humanly impossible to master the entire field. What a historian does is to specialise and embrace a philosophy that would guide him or her in his or her studies. Historical knowledge is so fundamentally important that no society can make progress without it. One must know from where one is coming in order to know where one is going is a popular wise saying.

    One of the early historians of civilization, the French man, Francois Marie Arouet Voltaire (1694-1778), in his book The Age of Louis XIV published in 1738 wrote that history provides

    “…the comparison which a statesman or an ordinary citizen can make between the laws and customs of other countries and those of his own; this is what leads modern nations to emulate each other. The crimes and misfortunes of history cannot be too frequently pondered on, for whatever people say, it is possible to prevent both.”

    The same sentiment is echoed by George Santayana when he said those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

    History only repeats itself if it does at all, as a result of human folly and weakness. As the Greek philosopher Heraclitus of Ephesus (C500 BC) said, no two events can be absolutely similar just as one cannot jump into the same body of water in a stream twice because the universe is in constant state of flux. The positivist idea of history, which I subscribe to claims that in spite of the variable factors of the human element one can make predictions about the future course of events if things remain equal and firmly rooted on the knowledge of the past. It is this belief that has informed the choice of the topic of this article.

    Knowing the past and recent development of Nigeria’s international relations, I can without arrogating to myself the special gift of prophecy forecast the dynamics of the future foreign policy of Nigeria. In any case historical periodisation is only for tidiness and scholastic convenience.

    The difference in real life between the present, the past and the future is hardly perceptible. Albert Einstein, the father of the theory of relativity, said in 1955 that the distinction between the past, the present and the future is only an illusion, however persistent. He said, “the laws of physics as we know are time-symmetric”, they run just as well backwards as forward in time. In other words, the future exists simultaneously with the past: Isaac Newton the great physicist said the future already exists and that it can be known in advance. History is, of course, not physics and I certainly would not want to reduce such a complex field as history to mathematical exactitude but even in quantum mechanics (physics), the uncertainty principle said it clearly – the more precisely one measures what, the less precisely one could measure when. The same sentiment of time past being present in time future is echoed by the poet T.S. Eliot; when he wrote “time present and time past are both perhaps present in time future and time future is contained in time past”.

    The French philosopher Henri Bergson, who won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1928, further explained the continuous evolution of historical events and the link between the past and the future when he wrote:

    “for our duration is not merely one instant replacing another; if it were, there would never be anything but the present – no prolonging of the past into the actual, no evolution, no concrete duration. Duration is the continuous progress of the past which gnaws into the future and swells as it advances and as the past grows without ceasing, so there is no limit to its preservation. Memory is not a facility of putting away recollections in a drawer. …in reality, the past is preserved by itself automatically in its entirety, probably it follows us at every instant”.

    The course of human history is influenced by a confluence of physical, material and spiritual forces. The mistake Marxists made was to see historical development purely through the materialist prism.

    Prediction of the future by the scientist or the historian is not totally different because of the variability of not just human factor but even of natural phenomena. The prediction of the future by the positivist historian is surprisingly as useful as that of a natural scientist’s futuristic anticipation.

  • The amalgamation and its enemies

    In recent times, a lot has been written and said about the amalgamation of British protectorate of Southern Nigeria and the Colony of Lagos with British protectorate of Northern Nigeria. The reason for this recent interest in what the then Governor General Sir Frederick Lugard did is because it was a century ago that he translated his political memoranda into political reality. After retiring from Nigeria and having been ennobled as a Lord, he settled down to reflect on his mission in Africa in what he called the Dual Mandate which was subsequently published. The way he explained the Dual Mandate was that tropical colonies in the British Empire were acquired for two purposes, namely; for British commercial interest and secondly, for spreading western civilization. This is not an original idea because Joseph Chamberlain, the industrialist from Birmingham, who in the 1890s emerged as Secretary of State for the colonies had justified acquisition of colonial territories on the grounds that even though they might not have been useful initially, they were some kind of investment which British enterprise could make profitable in the near or distant future. The second idea of spreading western civilization has been earlier enunciated in the book “The White man’s Burden” written by an imperialist writer Rudyard Kipling.

    It is common knowledge that the reasons for the amalgamation were economic rather than political. The Southern protectorate was economically viable because it derived a lot of revenue from customs duties largely levied on what was called “trade din”, which was cheap alcohol made from potatoes by Dutch people and exported to West Africa for local consumption. The British forbade the export of this to Northern Nigeria because of their respect for Islamic feelings. Secondly revenue also accrued to the Southern protectorate from export of palm oil and palm kernels as well as hard wood timber, whereas in the North revenue was only derived from export of tin and columbite, as well as hides and skins. The days of the groundnut pyramid in Kano were still in the distant future. In order to save the British exchequer of money being sent to the Northern protectorate as subvention, amalgamating the two protectorates became a reasonable way out. British political tradition overseas supported amalgamation. In Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, separate colonies were usually pressured and encouraged, for the purpose of protection to merge into larger units. When there was considerable distance among them the merger always took the form of federations. Hence Sir Lugard was following the British tradition when he brought the two protectorates together in 1914. He had no illusion about what he was doing. He did not set out to unite the newly created Nigeria neither did he set out to merge the Civil Service of the two protectorates. What he did was to leave the Northern administration as it was while trying to bring the Northern system of indirect rule into the Southern protectorate. The British officials in the South were of course not happy with the Lugardian system to the extent that a cynic said “if it were possible for the native Nigerians to withdraw from Nigeria, civil war would have broken out between British officials in the South and North”. Southerners who ventured to go to the North were made to live outside the Birane in what was called Sabo gari or new towns outside the native cities. Northerners who also came to the South were subjected to the same social isolation from their compatriots in the South. This of course was deliberate because Lugard did not want Southerners to infect their Northern counterparts with what he called seditious and radical ideas. The Governor-General’s younger brother Major Edward Lugard whom he appointed his political secretary dismissed the educated Southerners as “trouserd niggers dressed in Bond street attires” and “who send their laundry to London every forth night for dry cleaning. This social division of northerners and southerners was to determine the future political and economic development of the country. The question now is should we celebrate the centenary of the amalgamation? There is no agreement on this. Some feel there is nothing to celebrate; others feel since the experiment has lasted a hundred years there is something to celebrate. The country that we have may not be a country of our dream but it is worth noting that if we leverage the size of our population both locally and internationally, there would be more dividends that will be accrue to Nigeria. What is wrong with Nigeria today is that it is not well configured and there is too much power centralised in the centre. We have had 53 years to change this imperfect edifice but we have not been able to do so because there is vested interest in the status quo. It is not Nigeria that something is wrong with, it is the people of Nigeria. Some have argued that Nigerian peoples are strangers to themselves. This is not outrightly true. Before the advent of the British, there were economic and cultural contacts between the Yoruba and the Nupe and among the Yoruba, Kanuri and Hausa. The artistic tradition of the Yoruba, Nupe, Igala and the Igbos of Igbo-Ukwu is the same. The Igbo for example and the Igala were in political contacts before the coming of the British and the dynasties in Benin and Yoruba land originated from the same source. The Jukun of the middle Benue valley had cultural and political influences in wide areas of Northern Nigeria as well as in the Cross River Valley. The point I am making is that if the British had not come to Nigeria, the people of Nigeria may have evolved into some kind of polity built on the then existing cultural and economic ties.

    I am using the title The Amalgamation and its Enemies from a book edited by Professor Richard A. Olaniyan, retired Professor of History from the renowned Obafemi Awolowo University. Professor Olaniyan has put together in this book under reference 11 chapters dealing with all the issues on the amalgamation and how the project has been seriously subverted by socio-political, economic and ethno-religious contradiction and this subversion has made the search for an enduring national cohesion at best a tantalising possibility. The contributors to this book under reference include Professors Dauda Abubakar, Adewale Adebamiwi, Adigun Agbaje, Akin Alao, W. Alade Fawole, Ehimika A. Ifidon, Leo E. Otoide, Rufus T. Akinyele and Richard A. Olaniyan himself as well as the late Professor Adiele E. Afigbo and with a forward by the distinguished Professor Tekena Tamuno. Coming from different parts of Nigeria, and straddling history and political science gives the book under reference its great value and I advice all those who want to make contributions to the discussion of the amalgamation to purchase a copy of this book and read it.

    Our peoples’ frustration with the politics and economy of this federation is unfortunately undermining the development of nationalistic fervour which swept off the British from Nigeria in 1960. Since independence and the removal of a foreign target or political enemy, Nigerians have not had the fortune of the right kind of political leadership that could galvanise the country into greatness and leadership position on the continent. The result of this is the dissatisfaction of most Nigerians with the political monster of a country that cannot guarantee development and security for its people. After all the reason for the existence of any polity must be for the happiness of the people. No one can seriously tell fellow Nigerians that all is well when the cancerous sickness of corruption, inequity, insecurity and underdevelopment is apparent for all to see. This is why there are many enemies of the “mistake of 1914” as arrogantly stated by the late Sir Ahmadu Bello, the Sarduna of Sokoto and his counterpart, Obafemi Awolowo who dismissed in 1947 Nigeria as a “mere geographical expression”. The challenge before all of us is to prove these two political titans wrong.

  • Rambling thoughts – 2

    On our part in Africa, especially in Nigeria, we are not able to run our country well and we are still busy tinkering with our constitution and bothering about taking census that would gobble up half of our national budget. Our educational sector is lying prostrate as universities were closed for almost five months. There are no roads, railways, inland waterways, safe and regular aviation services, and our communication infrastructure begs for improvement and our electric power generation is still less than what an average north American city would have. These are serious challenges that we would need to face. It is probably too late for my generation. But shouldn’t the next generation, the young people and those yet unborn have a better shake in life? There is no point in our complaining that we are looked down upon wherever we go. We probably deserve it. If we had a thriving economy, a decent and secure society at home, and a generally satisfied nation, we and our children would not need to go anywhere. God has been very kind to us Africans. We have the best climate in the world, hardly any hurricanes, tornadoes, typhoons, earthquakes, volcanoes, floods, and landslides. There is nothing wrong in our stars; it is us that something is wrong with. I pray that in my lifetime, Nigeria would put itself on the trajectory of civilised life, so that our young people can have visions while we old people dream dreams.

    It is very difficult to know where to begin the task of reformation and salvation for our land and our peoples. It doesn’t seem that the crop of political leaders we have would provide this. Since 1999, we’ve had another chance at civilian politics after years of military domination. I am not one of those who would belly-ache about the era of our military rulers. All I would have wanted is for them to be like those military leaders who transformed South Korea into a successful industrial economy or the communist dictators of China who have succeeded in building up China into the industrial work house of the world and the second largest global economy. But unfortunately in our own case, we suffered from the double jeopardy of military dictatorship and underdevelopment. Unfortunately when we transited into a so called civilian democracy in 1999, the elected president foisted on us was an unreformed military dictator. Since 1999, we have been stumbling from one crisis to another.

    In fact our situation has deteriorated to the point that everything now is seen from an ethnic prism. Those who felt if none of the three major ethnic groups in Nigeria provided the president, that things would be better and that ethnic loyalties and preferment would not be as strong as before, have been completely proved wrong. It now seems that if the minor of the minorities by luck throws up the president of the country, we would be faced with the same problem of his giving preference to his ethnic cohorts in appointments into key positions. I was happy to read what Adams Oshiomhole, the Governor of Edo State said about performance as the antidote to ethnic problems in Nigeria, and that no matter from what ethnic group one comes from, if he or she works for the betterment of the society, everybody irrespective of their ethnic group would recognise it. But in a situation of blindly following an ethnic cohort who is not performing, lies the danger for our country.

    One is almost tempted to give up on Nigeria and to mind his or her own business. But we can’t because this is the only country that we have. “We must stay here and salvage it together”. This is where our ancestors lived and were buried. This is the place where our umbilical cords were buried. I always told my children that no matter their achievements in a foreign land, it cannot be the same as if they were in Nigeria. When I go home to Okemesi, as soon as I am seen by traditional ‘dundun’ drummers, they know what cognomen to call me to make me empty my pockets into their hands. There are people in my hometown who when they see me, can go on for one hour reciting my family’s praise names. These are the things that make life worth living and not the money or titles that modernity has brought to us in Nigeria. Our situation is desperate and I am going to suggest an unorthodox way out.

    Before I go into this, let me say that structurally, Nigeria has to change. The best way to go is to have six federating zones of the country rather than the present unwieldy 36 state structure plus Abuja. Secondly, we do not need a bi-cameral legislature at the centre. What we need is a unicameral legislature like what Canadians are now trying to do in their country by abolishing the Upper house which is a waste of resources anywhere. We are not America, and we should never compare ourselves with America. We should also go back to the parliamentary system of government so that the leader of our government is right there in parliament defending his policies and answering questions. This is what our sister state in South Africa practices and this nonsense of the centre creating local government should stop. We do not need 774 local governments and whatever local governments we need would be created by the zonal governments.

    Having said this, at the inauguration of elected leaders, they must be made to swear by the Bible or the Quran and whatever traditional beliefs that are prevalent in their areas in addition. So that whoever betrays his people, if he is not killed by the long suffering Gods of the Bible and Quran may be killed by the local Amadioha or Sango or any such local gods that our people fear. Who knows, this unorthodox thing may work and we should not be shy to discuss this line of action because unusual time demands unusual actions. We should also bring the death penalty as a punishment for corruption, embezzlement just like we have it for murder. A man or woman who runs away with huge amount of state funds is no less a murderer than the armed robber that waylays people on the highway, because if the money stolen were available for development, the highway gangster may have been profitably and gainfully employed.

    I also believe that there are some genuine men of God of the two monotheistic religions of Islam and Christianity in Nigeria who command respect among their followers. These men of God as part of their pastoral duties and as tribunes of the people, should speak out and condemn erring leaders with all the emphasis at their command. After all, this was what the Prophets of old used to do. And if we really have genuine men of God, they should follow the example of our Lord Jesus Christ and Prophet Mohammed (PBUH) and condemn whatever is unjust, evil, inequitable, unfair and ungodly in our land. The days of separating Caesar and God are over in Nigeria and our men of God should not be contended with saving our souls only, they must ensure we have a good life while we are here on the earthly side of the heavenly divide.

  • Rambling thoughts – 1

    I first went to the UK in 1964 at the age of 22. I was then at the University of Ibadan. Without my planning or lobbying to spend my penultimate year in the University of London, I was called by my Head of Department, Prof. J. C. Anene to proceed to London with a female colleague Margaret Okonkwo. She must be several times a grandmother by now. Nigeria was then a bride and many countries in the world wanted to befriend us. It was part of the programme to make us Anglophiles that the University of London decided to begin a student exchange programme with us in Ibadan. Just as we left Ibadan for London, students from London came to replace us at Ibadan. It was a seamless exchange programme. We had no problem fitting into the academic programme at the University of London and those who came from London had no problem with fitting into the University of Ibadan system. In those days, our food was good, our hostels were excellent. We had water in the toilet and showers came out of the baths in our bathrooms. After a year in London, I returned home to graduate at the University of Ibadan. Needless to say, the programme succeeded beyond anybody’s wildest dreams. It has turned me into an Anglophile forever.

    As a young man, London was like paradise to me and everything looked different and wonderful. I attended three colleges of London University for lectures, namely School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University College (UC) and QueenMary’s College at the eastern part of London in Mileend. After graduating from Ibadan, I went to Canada to study for a PhD in 1967 just at the outbreak of the Nigerian Civil War. After a year in Canada, I had to go back to Europe in 1968 for field work and archival research in London, Hamburg, Berlin and Paris. After getting the PhD in 1970, I then picked up jobs first at the University of Western Ontario in Canada and later the University of the West Indies, before returning home. My experience there made me a global citizen and I am at home anywhere in the world with contacts in Canada, the West Indies, Germany, France and Great Britain. Since then, I have always found myself visiting these countries and others where I did not have direct academic contacts.

    I have also had opportunity to visit several African countries and countries in Asia, Latin America and Australasia; and wherever I go, I am always tempted to compare them with my home country of Nigeria. As a young person, I always felt unhappy when I was discriminated against for being black and sometimes I was very aggressive in my resistance to racism. Nowadays, when I go abroad, I try to be oblivious of racism because I have a choice of staying at home. But because of the circumstances of my earlier life, my children were born abroad and even though they grew up in Nigeria, they seem to suffer from identity crisis of not knowing exactly whether they are Africans or Americans, Canadian, English or whatever; and because of the dwindling opportunities in west Africa for young people, they also prefer studying and living abroad and settling down and getting married and having their families there. My unfortunate circumstance of losing my wife also makes it imperative for me to go to my children and grandchildren for fellowship. This means I have to travel long-distances to see them and my grandchildren. In the process, I suffer all kinds of indignities that would normally not come my way. I have noticed that when I am flying, the moment the airline staff, especially abroad see my name, they of course recognise it as an African name and make sure they put me in a corner of whatever class I am flying or on the wing of the aircraft and generally in the most undesirable places of the plane, irrespective of what kind of ticket I bought.

    When I use the underground or the tube as they are called in London, people generally would not want to sit near or when one gets there before others, people would prefer to stand than sit near you. This can be very irritating and there is nothing you can do about it. When you go into a shop to buy things and you give a one hundred dollar bill or a fifty pound note, the supervisor would be called to look at the currency and the person presenting it as if you are from outer space. It can be very humiliating that even the money you have does not confer respect on you and it makes me sometimes swear not to go to their countries again. But as long as you have children and grandchildren living in foreign lands what do you do? When I think about all these and wonder about the harrowing experience my children generally have to live with, I feel terribly unhappy because this doesn’t have to be like this. In my time, when you go abroad, and you graduate, the pull of home is so strong that you immediately want to return home, but now where is the home that these young people can return to? There are no jobs and if my highly educated children were able to get jobs in their professions, the tools would not be there for optimal performance. For example, I have been to hospitals abroad and in Nigeria and I always wonder on what basis patients are treated here without equipment for proper diagnosis of their problems.

    The point I am making is that the professional frustrations of highly skilled people in Nigeria is enough to kill young people and to turn them into cynics. I see every day examples of this and the unnerving frustration of young people and I see young people who have abandoned their training and their ethics to run after money. Yet, we have resources in Nigeria, but they are just not being applied well. This is because of leadership problem and the fact that many of our leaders are just totally oblivious of the racial factor in international politics. Yet all we need to do as a black people is to do well and we would be respected all over the world.

    I am old enough to remember when Japanese, not to talk about Chinese were treated with contempt in the western world, and when Indians were seen as nobodies along with us Africans. All these have changed today. Japan has the third largest economy in the world and it is a global economic power and in another decade, China would eclipse the USA as the numero uno of the global economy. India in recent times, inspite of its overwhelming domestic and cultural problems has just sent a probe to Mars to show the rest of the world that they are right there with the leaders in space exploration.