Category: Thursday

By Jide Osuntokun

One of the noticeable phenomena in contemporary times is the rise of nationalism not only in Russia with its policy of protecting “Russia abroad” but also in the United States under the former president of the USA, Donald J. Trump and his policy of “America first”.  This was a policy of isolationism and building fortress America in which the former president wanted to so arm America that any war it engages in will be a walkover. As part of his scheme, he wanted to buy Greenland from Denmark a deal whose suggestion at all was deemed rather odd, old fashioned kind of territorial bargaining and unusual in contemporary times.

President Trump was ready to befriend Vladimir Putin, Viktor Orban of Hungary, Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines, Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil, Kim Jong un of North Korea, Xi Jinping of China at least initially before they fell out and the Arab monarchical dictators and any other “strong leader” irrespective of his democratic credentials as long as such people were friendly to the USA. “America first” policy was based on brutal diplomatic language of abuse and bullying of opponents something unseen in diplomacy since the Europe of Adolph Hitler and Benito Mussolini. In this scenario, Trump said he was not bound to defend any foreign country’s democratic rights as long as America’s interests were not involved.  He was not even interested in NATO whose members he claimed had cheated the US by under-contributing to its budget and as for the European Union, he did not see the usefulness of the Union and supported Britain’s exit from it.

He was not interested in the UN and any of its specialized agencies.  He threatened to cut the US contributions to the budget of the UN and actually withdrew from UNESCO and the WHO at a critical time of the coronavirus pandemic on the grounds that the World Health Organization did not back his theory that the coronavirus pandemic was unleashed on the world by China. Trump was ready to dismantle the peace architecture of the world set 1945. It did not matter to him whether it was NATO or the UN and its specialized agencies such as UNESCO, WTO, UNICEF, World Bank, The World Court and the United Nations convention on climate change (UNFCC) and its mitigation, adaptation and finance signed in 2016.

Trump claimed there was no climate emergency and that the whole thing was cyclical and that the science of it was not universally accepted. He said the economic demands on America to save the environment were so onerous as to constitute an economic burden on America. Even though all the major countries stayed in the Paris Accord and continued to implement policies agreed upon by the world to mitigate climate abuse, the accord was almost dealt a death blow by the United States’ withdrawal. Staying in the Paris Agreement by America was critical; America being one of the countries whose industrial and anthropogenic emissions and other forms of pollution brought the whole world to the present climate emergency. Happily, the Joe Biden administration has returned America to the Paris protocol on climate change.

China, the other major power virtually operating outside the “talking shop” of the UN has staked out its dominance in the South China Sea by building fortified artificial Islands which it has militarized as forward positions for the Chinese military in its defence of what it considers its national interest. China has become more aggressive in Hong Kong, flying the flag of nationalism of “one country one people “in spite of its former commitment to maintain “one country two systems” which involves the protection of Hong Kong’s democratic and capitalist system of government, which it covenanted with Britain to protect.  China has made it clear that Taiwan is part of China and would not welcome United States’ interference. The US is challenging China in the South China sea under the guise of protecting International law of freedom of navigation. The US has recently cobbled together a so-called alliance of four democratic states namely India, Japan, Australia and South Korea as a counterpoise to China in South Asia and South East Asia. It is also helping its former enemy, Vietnam and the Philippines to strengthen their claims in the South China sea. There is no doubt that this is the beginning of fierce competition for global economic supremacy between the United States and China that is bound to increase as China tries to catch up with the US as the premier economic power in the world. This is what is at the root of the increasing diplomatic spat between China and the United Sates. While all this challenge and counter moves are going on, the UN can only watch from a distance and hope that the situation does not get out of hands.

It is becoming increasingly clear that the UN is not in a position to secure world peace.

This is why the UN in the past embraced the strategy of regionalism and world order. The UN actively supports regional organizations as building blocks for global peace. Representatives of such organizations as the EU, The AU, OAS and others have observer status in the UN General Assembly (UNGA). This is actually a wise step as could be seen in the ECOMOG operations in Liberia and Sierra Leone in the late 1980s and 1990s with UN support only in the latter part of that operation whose burden was largely borne by ECOWAS, a regional organization. The UN nevertheless  is still able to arbitrate between warring countries in Africa, in South America, the Middle East, East Timor and to help build peace where there is none in collapsed or collapsing  states like Sierra Leone, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Liberia, Libya, Somalia, Central African Republic and to mediate between Morocco and Algeria over their rival claims on Former Spanish Sahara (Rio de Oro) and to help build in the 1990s peace in former Yugoslavian successor states some of which were in military confrontation with others.

In spite of its limitations, some people even think the UN can help unlock the knot of rival nationalisms within existing member states. This unrealistic expectation is prevalent in Africa and in a place like Nigeria where some groups would like to secede from the present country because of the fear of ethnic chauvinism and discrimination based on language and religion. This is not an area in which the UN would like to be involved but of course, if law and order were to break down in any member country it will be the duty of the UN to help the suffering people in such situations such as is currently the case in Tigray in Ethiopia. Even when it cannot shape the course of events, the voice of its current Secretary-General, Antonio  Guterres carries moral weight.

The relevance of the UN during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic has amplified the usefulness of the international organization. If the WHO had not existed, substantial members of humanity in Africa, Asia and Latin America, but particularly in Africa would not have had access to Covid- 19 vaccines because of their poverty. It is the WHO, appealing to the conscience of the rich world, that has been able to mobilize resources for supply of vaccines to the poor part of humanity. But for this, Africa would have been forgotten in an era of vaccines nationalism when most countries in the world are naturally taking care of their own citizens first before dawning on them that in a global pandemic, no one is safe until everyone is safe. Apart from the WHO, the financial institutions of the UN, the so-called Breton Woods institutions such as the World Bank and its regional affiliates, and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), are helping many poor countries.

The future of the UN will lie in its ability to coordinate global efforts to save the environment because it is the only body that can coax the various countries driven by their national interests to see the world as a common patrimony of mankind. Even though the job of economic equity and fairness cannot be guaranteed by the UN or through fair trade as is being dreamt of by the WTO supporters mostly in the Third world, it is also clear that a world where the yawning gap between the rich and the poor continues to widen will not be secure for either those who are at an advantage or the disadvantaged. In the future, the futility of armed peace, balance of terror or Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD) which we have become used to may compel us to commit ourselves to a policy of general disarmament that was mooted after the Second World War.

By Jide Osuntokun

Developing crises in the international community particularly the ongoing deployment of Russian troops on the border of Ukraine which has drawn sharp criticism from the United States and her NATO allies presage possible big powers conflict if care is not taken. Hopefully this will not lead to a shooting war between Russia and NATO and its leading power the United States but we could see a proxy war between Ukraine aided by NATO and Russian troops backing Russian ethnic Ukrainians who have effectively set up their own country adjacent to Russia. It is unlikely President Joe Biden would allow Russia to annex eastern Ukraine as it did to Ukraine’s Crimea in 2014.  Vladimir Putin’s Russia seems to pursue policies of brinkmanship paying little regard to international opinion. The Czech Republic has now had to expel scores of Russian diplomats from its country after being accused of subversion and some kind of terrorism involving blowing up of munitions factories in the Czech Republic. The absence of the United Nations as a mediator in all these crises is symptomatic of the weakness and ineffectiveness of the UN in today’s global politics.

ÿþIt is 76 years ago since the United Nations was founded after the most destructive war mankind has ever faced and which included the use of atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki wiping out close to a million souls instantly. The ferocity and the destructive nature of the new weapons convinced world leaders that if serious and collective efforts were not made to rein in man’s violent behavior, mankind itself would be doomed to self-immolation and annihilation. Since the end of the Second World War in 1945 and the ability of the Soviet Union  in 1949 to balance the one-sided equation of the USA being the only nuclear power in the world, peace has been maintained by the fear of mutual terror of possible  exchange of nuclear weapons by the two nuclear weapons states of  the USA and the USSR especially when inter-continental ballistic missiles tipped with nuclear war heads became operational by the late 1950s. These weapons system have been further perfected depending on intended theatre of operation and targets to the point that each of the then super powers of the USA and USSR allegedly had enough nuclear weapons to bury the world five times over. One cynic added what would be the point of burying the world five times over once it is buried once? The second-strike capability possessed by each of the super powers eliminated the advantage of a surprise attack. The futility of the arms race eventually led to some reduction in nuclear weapons by the USA and Russia, the successor state to the Soviet Union. More reductions are planned for the future presumably by all the nuclear weapons states.

The danger now facing the world is the proliferation of nuclear weapons. It is not only the five permanent members ( P5) of the United Nations’ Security Council ( UNSC) namely the US, Russia, Great Britain, France and China  that have the bomb, other countries such as India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea are now nuclear weapons states. Iran has ambition, against international opposition and international treaty of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NNPT), to join the nuclear club, presumably for defensive purposes. There are other countries that have the technical knowledge and the money that can quickly become nuclear weapons states if determined to do so because the UN ‘s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) based in Vienna Austria, does not really have the energy and force to prevent a determined country from producing nuclear weapons as was the case of North Korea, Pakistan, Israel and India. Countries like Japan and Germany, the two countries that lost the second world war can easily become nuclear weapons states but for their constitutional self-restraint and possibly international disapproval.

What was until recently a bipolar world up till the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1994 suddenly became a unipolar world of the United States as the global hegemon. This has now metamorphosed into a tri- polar world of the United States, Russia and China, when the question of war and peace are taken into consideration. But in actual fact, it is really still a bipolar world of China and the United States when all indices of power including the economy are considered. For example, the following comparative GDP figures graphically illustrate the strength of each major power today. The USA has a GDP of $21.43 trillion, China has a GDP of $15.42 trillion and Russia has a GDP of $1.7 trillion USD (2017). The relative poor strength of Russia is what made President Barack Obama of the United States to call Russia a medium power to the annoyance of President Vladimir Putin who found the description humiliating for a proud and powerful country and a nuclear power for that matter.

This is the power context within which the modern United Nations operates. The truth is that the UN is as effective as the major powers want it to be because each of these major powers that sit permanently on the UNSC can wield their veto power in the UNSC to prevent collective action of the UN even when world peace is threatened. The UN seems most effective when the major powers are behind it and are ready to provide logistical support if military or humanitarian operations are needed. The big powers rarely provide troops for peace keeping or peace enforcement operations. The only aberrant example was during the Korean War of 1950 to 1953 when a largely American military operation supported by her western allies fought under the UN flag.

The upshot of all these preambular statements is to suggest that the issues of global peace are largely dealt with bilaterally between the super powers rather than under UN multilateral diplomatic channels. Of course, when there is a crisis in such places like Syria or Myanmar, the UN Security Council would convene to condemn, offer platitudes and call for arms embargo and nothing more. When action is taken it is usually unilateral action with the UN merely as an onlooker. Each of the global powers recognizes red lines which they may not cross to avoid super power confrontation. When Russia in 2014 illegally annexed the Crimea peninsula part of Ukraine, it was a gamble that the United States would not risk a global conflict to save Ukraine. The USA of course imposed sanctions and summoned the meeting of the UNSC to condemn Russia. Russian policies in Eastern Europe and the Caucasus are based on what it calls protection of “Russia abroad “that is to say, showing the Russian nationalist flag to assure the millions of Russian leftovers in the 15 successor states of the former Soviet Union. The USA and the west without open acquiescence with this policy seem to see that Russia has genuine interests in those states. This is why military operations by Russian supported dissidents and even Russian volunteers in Eastern Ukraine, in Georgia, and Moldova are largely tolerated as sops to Russian nationalism. This should also be taken in the context of the USA and her NATO allies intervening in the Balkan wars (1994-1995) to stop the genocide of Serbs against Muslims in Bosnia in spite of Russian opposition of western military action against a Slavic people like the Serbs. But Russian opposition was brushed aside especially when it was obvious genocide was being committed. In any case Russia in 1994 was not in a position to challenge the West. The UN later came into the scene when UN International Criminal Court was set up in The Hague to try Serb and Croat political and military leaders for genocide and crimes against humanity. This same court has tried some African leaders from Liberia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, the Ivory Coast and Chad for crimes against humanity. The number of former African rulers that have been dragged before the court has raised eyebrows in Africa where intellectuals are wondering why it seems the International Criminal Court was set up specifically to try former African rulers. It should however be borne in mind that countries like the USA and Russia are not parties to the protocol setting up the International Criminal court and consequently the court has no jurisdiction over their nationals. It is obvious that the UN is only active in stopping the virulent nationalism leading to genocide when relatively powerless countries are involved but not countries such as Russia’s championing ethnic Russian nationalism in former countries of the Soviet Union. However, no matter the push by Russian nationalists, Russia has restrained itself in all forms of intervention apart from secret efforts of subversion in the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania despite the presence of large ethnic Russian population in the three Baltic states. This restraint by Russia is because of the danger of confrontation with NATO to which these countries now belong to maintain and guarantee their freedom from Russia.

By Jide Osuntokun

It has become a habit of mine to take the privilege I have as a columnist, to celebrate those who have made great impacts ether in terms of public or international recognition or appointments or sadly people who have finished their race of life and are sure to get the crowns of glory from God Almighty for the impact they have made on our country and Ipso facto on other Nigerians. It is however better to celebrate a person when he or she is alive, well and kicking than to celebrate them posthumously. This is why I write about good citizens who happen to be my friends.

I knew of ‘Biola Omolewa before I ever met him. I went to Ibadan Grammar school for the Higher School Certificate course for two years between January 1961 and December 1962 and stories about the rascally boys in previous years were told to us country bumpkins from Ekiti where my previous school, Christ’s School Ado- Ekiti is located. The exploits and appropriate punishment on the two rascally friends of Abiola Omolewa and Isaac Oluwole were told us like broken records.

Luckily I met Oluwole in the school in the science section of the upper sixth form as the British called the second year of the two-year program preparing students for the Advanced Level certificate that was to see us enter any university in Nigeria or any part of the Commonwealth and the United States. Oluwole’s physique and stature were not intimidating! I therefore dismissed the stories of the duo’s rascality as exaggerated. So when I met Biola, I was again surprised because Biola’s centre of gravity was even lower than that of Oluwole’s, if you know what I mean.

Biola after some time in Lagos went to Christ’s School, my old school for his Higher School Certificate thus switching school with me. It was in Christ’s School in 1962 that I first met Biola. I don’t know if there were stories about me Biola heard when he got to Christ’s School because my set (1956 to 1960) did not lie down and allowed ourselves to be run over by the bullies who were our seniors. Some of us only luckily escaped being rusticated by the   then principal, Canon Leslie Donald Mason, who always backed the prefects no matter how unjustly they treated us. His credo was that discipline must be maintained at all costs! I remember how some of us in 1959 narrowly escaped being sent down but given the last chance not by an “act of merit  but grace “ perhaps divine grace, as Archdeacon L.D Mason , our English principal tearfully put it.

My friendship with Biola really developed from 1964 to this day. Biola entered the University of Ibadan in 1964. I was already there since 1963. We both were in the History department. Biola excelled in his first session that he became a university college scholar. He did so well in the subsidiary French course that he and others like Ladipo Adamolekun were sent to Dakar, Senegal for advanced French course for three months. He did so well that the History department nearly lost him to the French department.

When he returned to Ibadan, we were both involved in running the Historical Society of the university. I remember with fondness our trip in 1965 to Ghana and Benin and my struggle with the French language during the soirée amicale the students of L’Ecole Behanzin organized for us.  After the Soirée amicale, female students who felt I was courageous to have danced with the wife of their principal, something none of them would have dared to do, flocked to us boys actually asking us to take them to Nigeria. That was the good image of Nigeria then in West Africa even before the oil boom/curse. What these young people did not understand was that we were undergraduates not high schoolers. We however like all boys enjoyed the adulation and we bragged to our female members how foreigners appreciated us and that it was a case of too much familiarity breeding contempt. I enjoyed my time in the limelight of being called “Monsieur le president “by adoring Beninois girls!

When I left the following year on a one year Exchange Program with the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) of the University of London, Biola took over from me as president. The following year, he followed the same trajectory of being chosen as one of the two students exchanged with SOAS and Saint Mary’s College of the University of London. When I left for graduate studies after graduating in 1966, I knew Biola would follow my footsteps like my “running mate”. He did. The late Professor J. F. Ade Ajayi wanted to have Nigerians specialize in European Studies so that when the white professors handling those courses departed for their countries, there would be Nigerians prepared and ready to take their positions. He wanted Biola and myself to be prepared to do this. He also had the same plan for Nigerians to be able to specialize in American Studies for which he chose the late Okon Uya and another person, an Igbo chap whose name has escaped my old brain. It was not an easy thing for me and Biola and particularly for Biola whose effort was sabotaged in Ibadan by the same people he was trying to replace. Eventually Biola switched to Education which was the plan of God for him and he has excelled and distinguished himself there as the foremost Nigerian professor of Adult Education.

He has achieved so much in the field of education that his advice and expertise and experience are highly sought after by the federal government, UNESCO and other international organizations like the Commonwealth that pay close attention to and interest in education. To crown his efforts, the federal government appointed him as ambassador and permanent delegate to UNESCO in Paris in 1999 and he held that position for almost a decade and this he did with distinction. I am not writing a reference for Biola . He doesn’t need one from anybody but God at this stage of his life. He invited me to collaborate with him in editing two huge biographies of Professor J. F. Ade Ajayi our mentor and the other was on Pastor Enoch Adejare Adeboye, our spiritual father. I hope we did a reasonably acceptable job.

Biola is a wonderful person. He as an energetic person who seems not to get tired even at his age. He recently went to Abakaliki for a meeting of council of the Federal university located in the place. I believe he hired a taxi for part of the trip. When he contacted me from there, I felt sorry for him and I asked him what the hell he was doing there in these days of general insecurity? He disarmed me by saying God was with him there.  I told him off rather irreverently even though I am an elder in my church. I am of the credo that God helps those who help themselves.  Abiola is blessed with two brilliant daughters and a son who are doing well abroad. One of the girls has inherited the gift of mastering foreign languages particularly French and German and of course English like her dad. Unfortunately Biola lost his Gambian wife, Yamin almost a decade ago and like me in our adversity, he soldiers on. Biola has this wonderful gift of never being unhappy or perhaps he has a way of masking his unhappiness because with Biola it’s jokes all the time, at least when we are together. He is a prodigious researcher and a workaholic. He knows all the research libraries in London and Paris and also the art galleries where whenever he sees a painting of divine personages Biola would stop and offer a prayer! He once took me to the London Gallery of the Arts and while others were snapping photos, Biola led me in prayer every section we went to my embarrassment and amusement of onlookers! Later he took me to Saint Stephen in the Field, an Anglican church, built right on a cemetery in Trafalgar Square London. I would ordinarily not go to a church in cemetery and later have breakfast in the same cemetery! This probably came naturally to Biola!

Biola is a genuine Christian who contributes to Christian institutions financially like he did throughout his sojourn in Paris. He also builds up people and I have been a recipient of his generosity when my daughter was getting married in Dublin when he sent his wife Yamin to represent him all the way from Paris with a heavy present to lift my hand up just as he did to me when I visited him in Paris. Biola and I have come a long way experiencing the usual ups and downs in our journey of life. I wish I could have the inner joy that Biola seems to have. Unlike me Biola never drank despite his sojourn in Paris where red wine is cheaper than Evian water! This separates him from us “les hommes sous develope”. I am sure Biola knows the joke of this comment. I throw it in because how can I write this short congratulatory tribute without making Biola laugh?

Biola deserves whatever accolades that may be heaped upon him. In his inimitable way, Biola never mentioned his coming celebration to me. I always tell him he is a magician who disappears and appears at will. I love you with all your eccentricities perhaps the hallmark of a true academic!

Wherever you are, Biola have a blast because you are worth it!