Soft power comes with economic benefits across the aisle
But for the umpteenth demagoguery of Mr. Peter Obi, the candidate of the Labour Party (LP) in the 2023 presidential election, President Bola Tinubu’s state visit to Saint Lucia should have passed for what it is: a sovereign state’s diplomatic priorities on how it relates with other sovereign states, for mutual benefits.
That is captured under the 4-D foreign policy doctrine of the Tinubu administration: Democracy, Development, Diaspora and Demography.
Saint Lucia, with a GDP of US$ 2.43 billion (contrasted to Nigeria’s US$ 363.8 billion) — both for 2023 — is a far smaller economy. But its per capita income of US$ 11, 854 (2024) towers above Nigeria’s: US$ 3, 136 (2024).
There is no magic to this reverse: Nigeria’s thumping population (of 227 million) just “swallowed” its vaster earning, as St. Lucia’s puny population (179, 744) boosted its tiny GDP, thus reflecting a far better per capita income.
What this cross-statistics show is the inter-dependency of states, from the poorest to the richest, the smallest to the biggest; and how diplomacy can birth peace, boost cooperation and produce shared interests and mutual interests; as against war, which pushes aggression, cross-border raid, conquest and brigandage.
These salient points of peace and shared prosperity, from cooperation, hard thought-out among states, make a silent plea for the mission to Saint Lucia. Still, hard number crunchers would still ask if the hard tilling is worth the puny harvest. That is a legitimate query.
But that hardly justifies Mr. Obi’s emotive tantrums, drawing on local tragedies and everyday challenges to bad-mouth the trip. It’s simply not so.
That pre-Donald Trump America used USAID to solve sundry global developmental challenges — in health, education, technology, all sorts — did not mean that the United States had created an el-dorado in which every American is “made”. That Russia has, for three years now, launched blistering aggression on Ukraine, has not stopped the president of Ukraine from travelling abroad in his country’s interests.
That Johannesburg accounts for arguably the highest number of car-jacking in the world has not prevented the South African president from embarking on diplomatic shuttles abroad. That the United States crops the direst global statistics in gun violence, claiming helpless children in schools, and hapless citizens in malls, doesn’t quite make America the Armageddon such tragedies suggest.
No one starts learning new tricks in old age — and so it is for Mr. Obi’s combustible brand of base populism: a willful penchant to stack emotive cards and weaponise tragedies as a prime political tool. The man has his appeals, no doubt.
But people that process issues through their mind, and not through their heart, marvel at his non-stop hysteria. His tantrums over St. Lucia are yet another proof. But the more he cries wolf, the more he risks being scorned when serious issues arise, and real wolves threaten.
Sane criticism — or even politics — is made of more sober stuffs.
The fact of the matter is that St. Lucia appears to tick every box in Nigeria’s 4-D diplomatic policy: Democracy, Development, Diaspora and Demography.
If it’s democracy, there is surely something to pick from a country which democracy has endured since its independence in 1979. Nigeria’s democratic encore that same year sunk after four troubled years. That the same experiment has endured here since 1999 — 26 years — is a thing to cherish. But having democratic friends hurts no Nigerian.
Development, diaspora and demography follow in the same logical lane.
Cooperation between these two countries, leading to mutual development, is hardly novel. The late Sir Darnley Alexander, from St. Lucia, was Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN) from 1975-1979, after entering the Nigerian service after the Western Region, under Chief Obafemi Awolowo, recruited him as a legal draughtsman.
So, what stops Nigeria from opening up the job market of St. Lucia for many of its huge expertise in human capital, many of these youths, grappling with unemployment challenges? Incidentally, Nigeria’s Technical Aid Corps (TAC) officials are already looking toward that direction.
The diaspora, after a united and just Nigeria, is about the most important national issue, given the huge Nigerian diaspora population. Whatever done to open consular services for Nigerians in Saint Lucia — and the greater Caribbean — can’t be said to be a waste.
Then, demography. From history, culture and contemporary realities, Nigeria would be wise to closely x-ray demography, vis-a-vis its comparative advantages. That way, our human capital can be pressed to full advantage, especially in cultural products: music, film and even stage. Such exchanges could build a market hub, from which both countries can mutually reap. This also won’t preclude education and training, as Nigeria’s putative scholarships for Saint Lucia youths to study in Nigerian universities.
Indeed, it’s a practical application of soft power towards the Caribbean, with Saint Lucia, headquarters of the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS), as entry point. OECS is itself entry point into the 15-member Caribbean Community (CARICOM) — a political and economic union, and five associates from the Americas. CARICOM has a combined GDP of US$ 130 billion; and tapping into that, for mutual benefits, can’t be termed a waste by any bit of imagination.
The 15 CARICOM states are Antigua and Barbuda, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Dominica, Jamaica, Grenada, Guyana, Haiti, Monserrat, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Saint Lucia, Suriname and Trinidad & Tobago. All of these countries have ancestral links with the African continent, especially West Africa, no thanks to trans-Atlantic slave trade.
Even Mr. Obi as Anambra State governor flew to Haiti — a CARICOM state — to make donations in a time of dire tragedy. So, why was it yes to Haiti then but no to Saint Lucia now? Opportunistic, emotive politics, perhaps?
But Mr. Obi does have one point: even with love to Saint Lucia, Nigeria must not throw money around, under the guise of economic diplomacy. It’s an eon from when Nigeria’s headache was not money but how to spend it. Yet, sane criticisms are well taken in measured tones, not in the screeds and screeches of viragoes.
