A new global ranking has outlined the Top 20 Most Powerful Political Positions in the World, highlighting the offices whose decisions shape international security, economic stability, and global diplomacy.
From Presidents of major world powers to influential prime ministers and even the mayor of the world’s most economically significant city, the list reflects how political authority is distributed across regions and institutions.
The ranking underscores not only the dominance of traditional superpowers like the United States and China, but also the growing influence of emerging economies and strategic geopolitical players.
It also places regional blocs such as the European Union on the same stage as nation-states, emphasizing the expanding role of supranational governance in today’s interconnected world.
Here are the top 20 most powerful political positions in the world
1. United States – President
2. China – General Secretary of the Communist Party
New figures from the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) show that international travel has not only bounced back but is now surpassing pre-pandemic momentum. Several destinations posted record-breaking arrivals in 2024–2025, with Seven countries standing out as global tourism powerhouses.
Here are the seven most visited countries in the world
1. France – 89.4 million visitors France continues to lead the world in tourism, welcoming close to 90 million people. Its magnetic appeal cuts across culture, history, food, fashion, and art. From Parisian landmarks to picturesque wine regions, France’s well-connected transport system and diverse landscapes keep travellers coming in massive numbers.
2. Spain – 83.7 million visitors Spain follows closely, drawing more than 83 million tourists. Its warm weather, coastal charm, and vibrant cities remain major attractions. Barcelona, Madrid, Seville, and the Balearic Islands headline its tourism map. The country’s sustainability drive and impressive list of UNESCO sites have also strengthened its global standing.
3. United States – 79.3 million visitors The U.S. remains one of the world’s most varied travel destinations, recording over 79 million international arrivals. From urban icons like New York and Los Angeles to national parks and entertainment hubs, the country offers a broad mix of experiences. Strong marketing efforts and improved travel connections have helped sustain its high numbers.
4. China – 65.7 million visitors China maintains its place among the most visited countries, with around 66 million travellers in the past year. Visitors continue to be drawn to its blend of ancient wonders and cutting-edge modernity. Landmarks such as the Great Wall and the Forbidden City, combined with fast-developing cities like Shanghai, highlight its evolving tourism landscape.
5. Italy – 64.5 million visitors Italy completes the top five, attracting about 64 million visitors. Its global reputation for art, architecture, and cuisine remains unmatched. Rome, Venice, Florence, and Milan are perennial favourites, supported by strong cultural branding and a tourism sector known for warmth and hospitality.
6. Mexico – 38 million visitors
Mexico attracts around 32 million international tourists and six million domestic travelers each year. This is not surprising considering the country’s rich history, delicious affordable cuisine, and lively arts and culture scene. One of the main tourist attractions is the chance to explore the ancient ruins of the Mayan and Aztec civilizations, including famous sites like Chichen Itza and Teotihuacan. Other travelers go to enjoy Mexico’s stunning beaches in places like Cancun, Puerto Vallarta, and Cozumel. Mexican food is another big draw, with world-renowned dishes like carne asada, mole poblano, and guacamole. Additionally, visitors can partake in iconic festivals and fiestas like Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead), the Vive Latino music festival, and Cinco de Mayo.
7. United Kingdom – 30 million visitors
The United Kingdom is undeniably one of the most visited countries in the world, and it’s easy to see why. Comprised of England, Scotland, Wales and North Ireland, the UK boasts a rich cultural heritage, stunning landscapes, lively cities, and a reputation for being welcoming and friendly. It’s home to some of the most famous global landmarks, including Stonehenge, Big Ben, and Edinburgh Castle (pictured above). The capital city, London, attracts millions of tourists yearly with its diverse range of museums, art galleries, and iconic attractions like Buckingham Palace and the London Eye. Other popular destinations in the UK include the charming Cotswolds, the rolling hills of Scotland, and the historical city of Bath.
MAZI Ben Ezumah’s literary excellence for years predates this new offering being reviewed here as it will be made manifest soon in the course of this short piece. All the same, this short story published in a multilingual creative writing book/journal , #14 Novum, Volume 5 , 2023, in Germany and contributed to by 33 authors from different nationalities, bespoke the literary adroitness of the author. The short story was published when the author was on his second sojourn for a Master’s degree in education at the University of Huddersfield in England(2023), after having bagged the first at Walden University, Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA(2015); and of course the foundation B.A. in English at the University of Jos in 1990.
The short story of 10 published pages entitled “ It Could Have Happened to Anybody” tells the story of Oko , a fisherman from a fictional Mkpa village, of which the author’s cosmological description situates as a character that can be from any part of Eastern Nigeria coursed through by a river. Oko, a character garbed with so much psychological depth that belie the literary form it inhabits, is in the story propelled by existential concerns of a large family of 15 persons waiting to be fed daily, to continually fish “in troubled waters” as it is said.
The detailed description of the Ntu river of the Mkpa village where Oko regularly plies his trade, the natural environment, the mythical ascription about the malevolent forces surrounding the river that has seen to the death of many in “boat mishaps or swimming,” forebode that it is a story that may not end well for the major character. Hear this: “ Mkpa folklore is replete with stories of strange sightings and paranormal activities around the Ntu river; mermaids, imps, hobgoblins, anomalous fiendish critters, ghosts, and eerie fish-like creatures, all ostensibly activated by certain enraged evil spirits, frenetically dance on the bank of the river every market day, only to skip back into their watery abode once humans approach them.” (217).
The antidote to the possible machinations of these malevolent spirits ,in order to allow for humans like Oko to ply their trades connected to the river, is to make propitiations and sacrifices , which the community do with animals of various kinds; but the river keeps claiming its victims all the same. Oko, a determined man with huge family responsibilities within a world in which “to grovel and stoop and sprawl for bread before a fellow man…. is to die a certain painful death;” cannot but damn any foreboding danger or omen to continue fishing in the river. The alternative to that is unfathomable.
And so Oko, rises as usual some minutes after midnight to make his way to the Ntu river to check his nets, egg on by whirling thoughts of mouths to feed, fees to pay and overdue indebtedness to the town’s union. Even a portentous omen such as his stubbing his toe against a tree stump that leads to its bleeding does not deter him from his fishing expedition, after all, he is a skilled fisherman of about two decades ,very knowledgeable about aquatic creatures and their weird dispositions. Oko paddles his canoe into the river, checks his nets and it happens that one has inadvertently entrapped a monstrous crocodile of about twenty five feet in length. Even in his epic battle with the crocodile that eventually cost him his left leg, Oko inner thoughts go thus: “ As he battles the monster while keeping himself afloat, he also thinks of how he’ll use the proceeds from it to take care of his immediate needs. The skin alone would yield a fortune at the local tannery shop while the meat could be sold to restaurants in the neighbouring town.
The Thought of the gains to be made from the haul energises him to no end and he keeps pulling with all his might.”(223). At the end , Oko with his near-death experience of hauling a huge fighting crocodile in his net to the bank of the river , lost his left leg, became an amputee and a folk hero to the appreciative villagers,holding court in his compound, feasting the villagers with palm wine and crocodile meats. The villagers in turn give Oko numerous presents , with the union resolving to take care of his children’s education, forgive his debts and continue to support his family, as what happened to him could have happened to anyone.
A reading of the short story by anyone will reveal that it is coming from the stable of a master storyteller steeped in the African traditional ways of storytelling. The story itself evokes the aura of the world of the African folktales where family heroes go to great lengths to provide for their families in the most honest ways they can in spite of impossible and extenuating circumstances. Even the description of Oko’s seeming tug of war with the crocodile in the net as he drags it to the shore reminds the reader of the ubiquitous African folktale tortoise’s contrived tug of war between two huge animals who pull from opposite ends without really identifying who they are tugging with until they become extremely exhausted and passed out.
The communal approbation and support to the folk hero , Oko, who meets with misfortune as he braved to feed his family can be said to be the stuff of folktales if placed against the mindless individualism and apathy towards the welfare of the less privileged ones or those who have met with misfortunes in our society of today. The short story itself, placed against the existential problems of an average man in Nigeria of today and the world over working to fend for himself and family is relatable and contemporary. Oko may be a fisherman living in a bucolic and superstition- ridden African village but his fate, as vividly painted in lean and highly descriptive prose, is not different from the average public servant, artisan or peasant farmer in an urban area of modern Nigeria: honest fending for a family of whatever number can lead to unexpected daunting occurrences that may not be reversible
The short story is a well told one with the right suspense, though linear in narrative structure but with the psychological introspections into the central character adding to the creation of a well-rounded character. The sociological and cosmological description of the world inhabited by the characters and events in the story foreground the richness and diversity of the narrative world of the story. The story in its telling seems to have no superfluous word or one put there for the purpose of mere embellishment. Each word moves the story along its course and adds something to making the world of the story believable and enthralling. Reading the story as a whole gives a feel that it is an excisable part of a whole somewhere or an excerpt from an extensive piece.
This leads us to our secondary concern in this review. The writer, Mazi Ben Ezumah, is someone who is known to me personally and to most of us who schooled with him at the University of Jos in the last years of the 1980s, as an intensely creative person and a literary gadfly whose writings were highly regarded way back then. He led us then in the students’ Writers’ Forum and once edited the famous “Weaverbird Magazine”, the literary journal of the then Department of English, University of Jos. As I have stated in another write-up about him, we together learned creative writing and literary criticism under legendary teachers in an intellectually fervent atmosphere that he captures so well in an essay entitled “ Denja: My Co-Traveller” in the festschrift on me “Of Foot-Soldiers and Hybrid Visions…” (2020: 653-657). He said the following about me in that piece which I will forever cherish: “Denja is at peace in the garret, as he is in the palace.
He can cavort with the peasant, as he would effortlessly dine with prince or king….He is always conference ready….As a team player, he believes in creating the necessary synergy across multidisciplinary divides so as to allow fresh ideas to thrive…. Denja is peace-loving and has no space for animosity or grudge. He is always far above the fray of pettiness and rancour that in the end renders worthwhile relationships ineffectual and unprofitable”(657).We have indeed been co-travellers since our undergraduate days. After graduation, we kept in touch by exchanging long literary letters written in the fashion of “ From the table of Lord Gordon Bryon to his friend and colleague Alfred Lord Tennyson.” Those letters both ways are literary masterpieces in their own rights and are still nestling in my archives. Of course, the world happened to both of us, we trod different paths, but remained united in our continued love for the arts , letters and enlightenment. He has read nearly all what I have written, sometimes doing a review of my writings and being there whenever I put up a public show of presenting my books and other such outings. He has been a friend who will do more than just being there by assisting also with the economic sides to friendship. Together, we have substantially mentored in ideas, experience and in finance young students from our alma mater over the years.
My Co- Traveller,Mazi Ben Ezumah, has done monumental works in the non-fictive area such as the trilogy he co-wrote on “Perspectives on Aro History and Civilization” Vol.1-3. I was on hand as the book reviewer at the presentation of his play “The Wedding Bell That Never Rang “ to the public in Abuja on the 13th of June, 2013. In my review which I titled “The Artist in Search of the Ideal” and which was published in several newspapers, I wrote thus on the play: “A reading of the play whets your appetite for a performance that is bound to call back the mind to the re-appraisal of the role, place and the survival instincts of an artist in today’s society. It is also an un-nerving exploration of how idealism or the lack of it and the supernatural still affect the affairs of men and women.”
Beyond this published play, I am unaware of any other published creative text of Mazi Ben Ezumah, though I have read many astounding poems of his since our school days right to the point when the instantaneous publishing pathways of the social media came on board and still thrive. I have watched his drama skits right from the Unijos days and read a full length published play as observed above but me and others may have been denied gems from this reticent master storyteller because many of what he has written are still in his closet. I am aware he has tomes of completed manuscripts; he showed me some dog-eared, brittle papered ones recently.
The literary fame( permit me to call it that with all sense of modesty) some of us had hugged could have been his too; the difference is just that we put ourselves out there while he held back, maybe subjecting himself to undue self-criticism or waiting for the right time to come. Some of our colleagues from way back then who knew him to be even a great writer then that nudged some of us to take to writing, at a point were asking around “ where the hell is Ben Ezumah,is he no longer writing?” Mazi Ben Ezumah, the ancient literary mask , it is you I am calling with this Oja flute ! This dance at the literary square will not be complete without you taking your own nimble and thunderous steps.
Russia–Ukraine Imbroglio Global and sub-regional peace and economics will continue to be impacted by geo-politics. Geo-politics is significantly influenced by the foreign policy direction of the United States of America and its allies and the reactionary foreign policies or initiatives by China, Russia, and other Countries.
The Russia-Ukraine impasse (which in my opinion) is avoidable, has lingered on a seeming “stalemate” on paper. But in my opinion, Ukraine has suffered heavily in terms of infrastructure, human capital loss, and a wrecked economy which will probably take Ukraine almost 50 years to recover to become the Country that it used to be in the global economic and socio-political scheme of things before the onset of the war in 2022. The devastating consequence of this war, gets some people like me wondering, “if there could have been better options and approaches to the Russia-Ukraine crisis in the interest of Russians and Ukraine in particular and the entire world in general?” Certainly, the Russia- Ukraine Imbroglio has ravaged the global economy almost resulting in a global recession with devastating impacts on food security, supply chain disruptions, oil supply and pricing, energy supply to Europe, and the resultant effect of the cost of living crisis, etc.
In the case of Russia, President Vladimir Putin is not likely to shift ground but rather refine his mid to long-term strategy because so far, his strategy has been working more for him than the US and EU strategy for Ukraine.
If the Russia-Ukraine imbroglio continues unabated without a change in the political strategy disposition, it will continue to impact negatively on global and national economies.
With the outbreak of the war in Gaza, the US and its allies have re-prioritized and re-focused the allocation and deployment of their man and material resources to seriously support Israel leaving Ukraine to struggle on its knees midway into the war without all the resources that Ukraine has been asking for or the requisite support. I hope that in the interest of global justice, peace, and prosperity; reason and rationale will prevail so that a better win-win strategy and action plan for global peace will be on the table. I am also an advocate of a two-state Solution to the Israel-Palestine logjam.
The escalation of issues in Gaza has boosted support for Palestine by Iran Houthi rebels etc. which will only continue to escalate the war and its effect on innocent non-combatants. This asymmetrical war will also have long-term negative impacts on Israel and its allies.
Unless there is fairness and justice in addressing the Gaza situation, the world will not be insulated from the tangible and intangible dire consequences of this protracted crisis.
Sub-regional political impasse and rising insecurity in Africa
The sub-regional political impasses and insecurity in Africa, particularly in the Sahel region may likely escalate unless the ECOWAS and AU come up with better stratagems for longer-lasting solutions to the multi-dimensional geo-political and insecurity challenges that are bedeviling the entire African continent.
UK Elections
About 3 million overseas Britons are now eligible to vote in the upcoming UK general elections which will take place in the second half of this year. These new electorates will certainly make an impact on the outcome of the upcoming UK general elections that will determine the fate of the incumbent Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, especially with the sentiments and interests of the UK electorates on the current education, health, and immigration policies of Mr. Rishi Sunak’s administration. The ongoing latent civil war within the Conservative Party will also be a threat to the Party’s unity of purpose to be formidable going into elections against a more stable Labor Party (albeit they have their own internal wrangling that may be easier to resolve). The aforementioned factors as reflected in the recent outcomes of local elections in 2023 where the Labor Party candidates won are indicators of days to come. I reckon that there will be a review of Homeland (especially Immigration) and Foreign policies if the Labor Party wins the Prime Minister seat or even if the Conservative Party wins due to internal sub-ideological differences within groups in the Conservative Party. Currently, Prime Minister, Mr. Rishi Sunak is not enjoying the best of Polls or support within the Conservative Party. However, it turns out that the outcome of the UK PM elections will reflect global geopolitics and economics, especially in the US and Europe.
With former President Donald Trump’s latest triumph at the IOWA Caucuses despite the political optics and legal challenges he is facing, Mr. Trump looks set to give the incumbent President Joe Biden a good fight. If so, we may likely see the likelihood of a re-occurrence of the 1979 scenario whereby an incumbent President, Mr. Jimmy Carter, of the Democratic Party lost to the Republican Party candidate, Mr. Ronald Regan. If that scenario plays out, President Joe Biden may lose to Donald Trump. A dramatic return of Mr. Donald Trump to the White House will certainly lead to a 180-degree turnaround of USA policies, positions, and dispositions especially in areas of foreign policy, immigration, investment and trade, AI, homeland security, etc. There will be a total overhaul of the homeland security and foreign policies direction of the Biden administration. Of course, the aforementioned impacts are expected only if and when Mr. Donald Trump of the Republican Party takes over the presidency of the USA. However, forward-thinking Countries will be keenly watching the US politics and presidential election as it unfolds as they contemplate their strategy beyond 2024. It is worthy of note Joe Biden is currently facing one of the lowest polls of an incumbent American President in history, especially in the areas of homeland security, immigration, and foreign.
ECONOMIC GLOOM
•The current global economy trajectory is not looking good based on geo-politics, and climate change which has impacted food security, infrastructure, human capital, etc. According to the World Bank;
•The second half of 2024 will be the slowest half-decade of GDP growth in 30 years!
•Escalating geopolitical tensions could create fresh risks for the world economy. “Meanwhile, the medium-term outlook has darkened for many developing economies amid slowing growth in most major economies, sluggish global trade, and the tightest financial conditions in decades.”
•Cost of borrowing for developing economies—especially those with poor credit ratings—are likely to remain high with global interest rates stuck at four-decade highs in inflation-adjusted terms.
•Global growth is projected to slow for the third year in a row—from 2.6% last year to 2.4% in 2024, almost three-quarters of a percentage point below the average of the 2010s. Developing economies are projected to grow just 3.9%, more than one percentage point below the average of the previous decade.
BRICS
The BRICS strategy is certainly working as the BRICS countries include major world powers, such as China and Russia, and countries that are major powers on their continent, such as South Africa and Brazil. The group currently has a combined population of 3.5 billion i.e. 45% of the world’s population. It has a combined economy of over $ 28 trillion which is about 28% of the global economy. BRICS countries will also be producing about 44% of the world’s crude oil.
The Russia-Ukraine war has further divided the world economically with consolation of the BRICS nations as a counter-measure to the globally dollarized economy which is slowly but steadily posing a threat to the US Dollar and certainly the US economy in the mid to long term – it is just a matter of time.
CLIMATE CHANGE
Global warming remains a big challenge to the world. Climate change has been having a devastating impact on our Agriculture. Climate change management should be. A key element of the Agriculture sectoral reform strategy will be risk assessment and mitigation as well as the sustainability modules. Climate change management from the point of view of early warning systems, disaster/crisis mitigation management, and proactive countermeasures and processes that should cover dependencies and counter-dependencies are critical to the existence and sustainability of our entire world going forward.
The collective execution of the action plan at the just concluded climate change conference COP 28 which took place in Dubai UAE last month will be a critical success factor
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
The rapid rate at which Artificial intelligence (AI) is growing and its impact across ecosystems and value chains is so fast that Countries and organizations that do not take the advent of AI seriously will not only be left behind in development but will suffer the devastating consequences of its threats and risks.
A POINT TO NOTE
What should remain etched in the minds of world leaders (including Nigerian), is the fact that based on the aforementioned realities and projections; the earlier we seize the moment to deal with the fundamentals, and/ or the building blocks, the better our chances of keeping up or catching up (if possible) with the rest of the world.
Desolation persists nine years after The Nation exposed Lafarge’s devastation of Ewekoro
We prioritise health, safety of our host communities – Lafarge Africa
The commercialization of despair over 60 years, two generations
Why Federal Govt must check cement company’s breach of regulations
Deadly metals in our blood – Residents
In July 1987, Aminu Adigun Akintokun took his last breath thus signalling the end of a life grisly spent. Until his death, the 61-year-old stirred every day to a wind rush of catastrophe, choking on chronic asthma and poisonous air, which made something as commonplace as breathing extremely difficult. “We sensed there was trouble when the hair on his head and body started drying up and falling off, recalled his grandson, Olajide Akintokun.
Like his grandpa, Olajide’s uncle, Biliaminu Akintokun, died in 2015. He also suffered shortness of breath while his hair peeled off his head and body.
Olajide’s aunt, Amina Akintokun, battled a similar ailment until she died in 2022 at the age of 87. She had trouble breathing, which caused the family to invite a nurse to treat her at home. At her demise last year, Olajide recalled his father, the late Baale of Ewekoro, Mukaila Adeyeri Akintokun’s warning that he must never reside in Ewekoro.
“Before he died in April 2010, he reiterated the warning to me, saying I must leave lest I suffered a similar fate like my late uncles and aunt,” disclosed Olajide. Consequently, he packed his belongings and relocated to Lagos.
Two generations of the Akintokuns have died in Ewekoro, where the skies bleed perpetual grey and the gnarled trees, polluted farms, dusty roofs and shutters jointly fulfil the image of an industrial graveyard.
In this neglected tract, dreams die out. Both the young and old expire in a thick haze of cement dust. The natives breathe in poisonous rubble and ingest slurry dispersed from Lafarge Africa’s industrial chimney.
More worrisome are the poisoned crops, rendered toxic by the cement company’s production activities. Several studies have revealed that residents living between 1km to 5km from Lafarge’s production plant are imperilled by chemical, atmospheric, and toxic waste pollution. This is the fate of the residents of Ewekoro where both old and young suffer a slew of fatal respiratory problems and skin diseases until their death.
For instance, the late Seyi Bisiriyu and John both died in their 20s, after they were diagnosed with shortness of breath and cement dust sediments in their hearts.
The Nation findings revealed that the two youngsters and former residents of Olapeleke, a satellite community in Ewekoro, suddenly collapsed and died after suffering persistent shortness of breath.
Several youths are deserting it in droves. For instance, it was due to the perilous environmental situation that Olajide’s parents raised him far away from Ewekoro. Even as an adult, the place holds little or no attraction to him, as he could neither work nor live there, he said. According to him, there are no decent job opportunities and living there exposes residents to a myriad of respiratory diseases caused by Lafarge pollution of the environment with cement dust.
Idris Adio, a farmer, equally bemoaned the gruesome living conditions, stressing that his recurrent episodes of intense cough and shortness of breath, are caused by the persistent pollution of Ewekoro by Lafarge Africa.
Speaking with The Nation, Adio wheezed through his sentences as he fought, albeit futilely to unclog his chest of phlegm. “This is what I go through. It’s what we all go through frequently,” he said.
The wrinkled grimace of a life poorly spent
The situation in Ewekoro seems to have deteriorated since The Nation’s expose of the dystopic living conditions in the community, in a five-part investigative report, in 2014.
The wrinkled grimaces of a life poorly spent masked the faces of the natives, back in the period. Many of them presented a pitiable sight. For instance, Amos Odekunle, the Asiwaju of Olapeleke, a satellite community in Ewekoro, lamented his failing health. Speaking exclusively to The Nation, Odekunle recounted his battle with chronic cough. The light receded from his eyes every time he wheezed for breath. His words tapered off incoherently as he struggled to complete his sentences against tormenting spasms of chronic cough and a clogged chest.
The village chief disclosed that he had been diagnosed with shortness of breath and a badly scarred chest. “The doctors say I have cement dust sediments in my heart. They say that is why I can no longer breathe easily,” he said. Odekunle attributed his ailment to long years of exposure to Lafarge’s limestone quarrying activities and persistent discharge of cement dust into his neighbourhood.
Odekunle revealed that he had to take lots of drugs and hot water to decongest his heart of blockage. “When the pain becomes too unbearable for me, I have to travel to the General Hospital in Lagos to receive proper treatment. It is only then that I get to enjoy relief,” he said.
Many residents of Ewekoro suffer asthma and shortness of breath but they never know until their health worsens. Many struggle to manage their ailments while avoiding the hospital. Aside from the fact that the only hospital within the axis is cited far away in a neighbouring community, they dread receiving any bad news that could worsen their fears and accentuate their impoverishment, said Ekeji Baale of Ewekoro, Musulumi Balogun, in a previous interview with The Nation on the issue.
The few that go to the clinic can’t afford an inhaler or the drugs to manage their health condition. Right now, an inhaler costs between N4,800 and N5,200, which is markedly higher than its former price of N1,000 to N1,200 back in 2014, when The Nation exposed the situation in Ewekoro.
Consequently, several parents give their children palm oil to lick whenever they suffer a clogged chest or shortness of breath. Those who can afford it give them sachet milk to drink hoping it would mitigate the effect of the polluted air.
“We know it never works. It’s just a poor and desperate form of damage control. We have suffered the death of loved ones due to preventable ailments like asthma and shortness of breath. Many of us were not born with such ailments,” lamented Balogun.
Such incidents have become a recurrent tragedy in Ewekoro given the communities’ persistent exposure to flying rock debris and cement dust from LafargeWAPCO’s plant chimney and limestone quarry in the area.
Most residents of Ewekoro are unable to undergo comprehensive medical laboratory tests to determine the true state of their health due to the prohibitive costs. Consequently, many of them battling with health issues only get to know an aggravated state of decline.
Pleading anonymity, health personnel in neighbouring townships revealed that what they provide is ameliorative care to most of their patients from Ewekoro who present with aggravated cases of pulmonary diseases.
“Many of them dread being told to go for tests because they have neither the means nor resources to foot the bills. Most are unemployed and impoverished peasant farmers. The best we can always do is to comfort them and give them drugs to manage the pain. Those who are referred to larger health facilities take the referral and never come back until their health worsens,” said a nurse at the General Hospital in Itori.
Studies affirm the deadly impact of cement dust exposure
In a study carried out to determine selected heavy metals and electrolyte levels in the blood of staff of LafargeWAPCO and residents of the industrial community in Ewekoro and neighbouring districts, it was discovered that workers and the residents of the community and their neighbours are at great risk of lead poisoning to which they are persistently exposed.
The study which was conducted by Dr O. O. Babalola and Babajide S. O of the Department of Biochemistry, Faculty of Science, Obafemi Awolowo University Ile-Ife, Osun State, and the Department of Science Laboratory Technology, Moshood Abiola Polytechnic, Abeokuta, Ogun State respectively. It focused on the determination of the levels of lead, cadmium, sodium and potassium in the blood of 36 selected industrial workers, 36 residents of the neighbouring communities and 12 residents of the communities further away from the industrial setting. The latter 12 residents served as the control population. The subjects were recruited from the cement, ceramic and granite industries at Ewekoro, Abeokuta North and South Local Government Areas of Ogun State.
In the study, exposure to lead was identified as a major occupational hazard and a consequence of industrialisation, according to the researchers.
“The most significant source of lead exposure is dust. Occupational dust is the reason for the test carried out on these industrial workers and the residents of the neighbouring communities. In each case, the lead in dust arises from a complex mixture of fine particles of soil, flaked paint and airborne particles of industrial or automotive origin. Dust is deposited in windowsills from outdoor sources. The particles characteristically accumulate on exposed surfaces and are also trapped in the fibres of clothing and carpets.
“When lead is released into the environment, it has a long resident time compared with other pollutants. Lead and its compounds tend to accumulate in soil and sediments. They will remain bio-available far into the future due to their low solubility and relative freedom from microbial degradation. Another reason may be that, most of the arable crops being consumed by the residents of the neighbouring communities might have taken up lead from the soil. Lead from dust and gases from various industrial sources such as these factories can contaminate soil and plants.
Govt looks away as Lafarge breaches mining, environmental laws
The Nigerian Minerals and Mining Act, which came into effect in 2007, seeks to protect the environment and communities where solid mineral resources are found. The law protects the rights of host communities and their environment and provides for rehabilitation and penalties for defaulters.
The Nation’s findings, however, revealed that Lafarge Africa continually flouts environmental and mining laws in its operations.
According to the National Environmental (quarrying and blasting operations) Regulations, 2013, section 20 states “a person shall not locate a quarry or engage in blasting within three kilometres (3km) of any existing residential, commercial or industrial area.”
In addition, the Nigerian Minerals and Mining Act, 2007, section 3 (c) identifies lands excluded from mineral exploration and exploitation to include those occupied by any town or village. Section 22 of the National Environmental Regulations adds that ” A person shall not blast in such a way that the impact of such blast will cause any form of discomfort or nuisance to the public and residents within 1,000 metres from the epicentre of the site or users of the road thereof.”
Section 123 of the Mining Act also states that “No person shall in the course of mining or exploration for minerals pollute or cause to be polluted any water or watercourse in the area within mining lease or beyond that area.”
Despite these provisions, Lafarge has destroyed several houses and farmlands, while persistently polluting the air and water bodies by its operations in Ewekoro.
Section 23 (2) of the National Environmental Regulations further specifies the time the blasting must not take place. “Blasting operations shall not be carried out at the rush hours of 7 am-10 am and 5 pm and beyond.” Notwithstanding, residents report that Lafarge engages in blasting operations even at night.
Also, Lafarge’s pollution of Ewekoro manifests a clear violation of the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) Act of 1992. Section 2 (1)(2) of the Act states thus: “The public or private sector of the economy shall not undertake or embark on or authorise projects or activities without prior consideration, at an early stage, of their environmental effects.
“Where the extent, nature or location of a proposed project or activity is such that it is likely to significantly affect the environment, its environmental impact assessment shall be undertaken by the provisions of this Act.”
Residents despair as govt, regulators ignore their plight
Despite Lafarge’s evident breaches of mining and environmental laws, the Minister of Environment, Balarade Abbas Lawal, recently commended the company for its commitment to “environmental sustainability,” to the chagrin of its long-suffering host communities in Ewekoro.
Lawal gave this commendation during a courtesy visit of the company’s management team led by the Group Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer, Lolu Alade-Akinyemi, to the Minister in Abuja.
The minister commended Lafarge Africa for the various awards received over the years in environmental responsibility referring to it as a testament of the company’s environmental friendliness.
According to him, Lafarge Africa’s compliance with rules and regulations makes it comfortable to come for a courtesy visit, without waiting for the Ministry to come after them to comply.
Against the backdrop of the environment minister’s curious endorsement of Lafarge’s operations, it becomes understandable why the National Environmental Standards and Regulations Enforcement Agency (NESREA) has failed to serve a statutory check on Lafarge’s operations in Ewekoro. The federal agency charged with the task of protecting the environment against industrial defaulters with actionable sanctions has, so far, failed to protect Ewekoro.
According to Section 2 of the NESREA’s Act (2007), the Agency is responsible for the protection and development of the environment, biodiversity conservation and sustainable development of Nigeria‘s natural resources in general and environmental technology, including coordination and liaison with relevant stakeholders within and outside Nigeria on matters of enforcement of environmental standards, regulations, rules, laws, policies and guidelines.
Attempts to contact the agency through its official phone line and the Ministry of Environment’s phone line failed repeatedly as both numbers were permanently switched off. Attempts to reach the agency by email equally proved abortive.
The Ministry of Mines and Steel Development has equally failed to check the activities of Lafarge Africa. Just recently, the ministry and Lafarge entered into a partnership to purportedly help the administration of President Bola Tinubu realise its ‘Renewed Hope’ agenda.
The announcement was made by the Minister for Solid Minerals Development, Dele Alake, while receiving a Lafarge Africa delegation, led by the company’s Group Managing Director, Lolu Alade-Akinyemi, on a courtesy visit.
Alake emphasised the critical role Lafarge Africa Plc plays in the mining sector of the Nigerian economy, stressing that the role aligns with the present administration’s policy to make the solid minerals sector a significant contributor to the nation’s gross domestic product.
Residents of Ewekoro, however, urged Alake to launch an inquiry into the company’s operations. “If the minister knows the level of damage done by Lafarge to our community, he wouldn’t be so eager to partner with them just yet,” said Olatunde Idowu, a teacher and former resident of Ewekoro.
Crafty tokenism and bullying of dissenters
In the first part of this report, published last week, The Nation highlighted Lafarge’s recourse to crafty tokenism disguised as Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and elders’ support, this curious sort of CSR has for a long while, served the interests of the company in stifling dissent or silencing it outright.
Immediately after last week’s publication, however, a certain employee referred to as Engineer Yomi – allegedly in charge of the organisation’s damage control – started reaching out to respondents featured in the last report.
“They have started calling them for “urgent meetings,” in a bid to shut them up. When they refuse, they will issue subtle threats to them in a bid to prevent them or any other person from speaking to the press,” said one of the local chiefs in Ewekoro.
Already, factions loyal to Lafarge within Ewekoro and satellite communities, mostly traditional chiefs, have started intense lobbying and bullying of perceived dissenters, accusing them of working against the community’s interests.
“That is how our people behave, many of those who are supporting Lafarge today were yesterday’s dissenters. But now that they are enjoying patronage and cash tokens from the company, they have stopped speaking for our interests,” lamented an aggrieved youth.
Indeed, it is noteworthy that some of the traditional chiefs and residents who spoke to The Nation, nine years ago, accusing Lafarge of destroying their homes and farmlands, have switched sides.
While some have suddenly lost their voice, a few others barefacedly defend Lafarge claiming it is doing its best.
The natives would find it easier perhaps to assert their rights if they could escape the cycle of tokenism that has them jostling for “paltry sums” given to them annually by Lafarge Africa. While the latter prides itself on its commendable Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiatives in the area, more residents of Ewekoro have dismissed the company’s claims, arguing that whatever form of support the company gives to their community as part of its CSR, will never be enough palliative to the damage it wreaks on their neighbourhood by its production activities.
A good example is the so-called elder support. The traditional authorities are asked to suggest beneficiaries of the fund and when they do, Lafarge gives each beneficiary N50, 000. When the latter gets back to the community, he or she has to share the money with about 20 other people. In the end, what often gets to each beneficiary, around N2,000 or thereabouts, is usually too ridiculous to be acknowledged.
Hence from a purported N50,000 annual support to one aged person, in Ewekoro, what gets to the beneficiary and other recipients, is a measly N2,000.
We are committed to zero harm to people – Lafarge Africa
In an exclusive interview with The Nation, Lafarge’s Head of Corporate Communications, Public Affairs and Sustainable Development, Ginikanwa Frank-Durugbor, stated, “We recognise the importance of prioritising the health and safety of our people and host communities and reducing the environmental impact of our operations to the barest minimum.
“As a member of Holcim, we are reinventing how the world builds for today, tomorrow and the future through our commitment to decarbonise our business operations and drive sustainable growth. Our sustainability strategy is centred on four pillars including climate and energy, circular economy, nature and people.
“We are committed to conducting our business with zero harm to people while minimizing our environmental footprint. This investment in a new bag filter underscores this commitment. Our stack emission measurement is done by government-accredited agencies every quarter and the report is shared with both the State and Federal Ministry of Environment.
“In addition, Air quality measurement (Total Suspended Particulate) conducted across the plant fence lines shows all measured values are below the national standard of 250 µg/m3. However, measurement was also carried out simultaneously on 3rd party (Lagos/Abeokuta express road) influence and the result showed a dust (Total Suspended Particulate) value of more than 250 µg/m3. Mitigation measures are to plant trees along our perimeter fence to prevent the impact of dust from the third party. We also carry out palliative repairs regularly on bad portions of the road to reduce fugitive dust generation.”
Lawless in Ewekoro, humbled in America
Notwithstanding Lafarge’s assurances of its commitment to the best business practices, many residents of Ewekoro are hardly impressed. Its operations in Ewekoro have triggered various comparisons between the cement company’s operations in Nigeria and in other parts of the world.
In 2021, the United States federal government, New York State and a LafargeHolcim cement plant reached a settlement to resolve alleged violations of federal and state water regulations. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for New York’s Northern District, the Environmental Protection Agency and New York State announced the deal with the LafargeHolcim facility in Ravena. The consent decree would require the company to pay an $850,000 civil penalty and comply with a state discharge permit.
It’s alleged that from 2015 through April 2021, the cement company violated effluent limitations 273 times with a variety of pollutants. The agencies say the plant, situated across the street from the Ravena-Coeymans-Selkirk High School on Route 9W, was also responsible for unauthorized discharges into tributaries of the Hudson River, such as Coeyman’s Creek and Hannacroix Creek.
Judith Enck, former EPA regional administrator and president of Beyond Plastics, said the plant has a long history of violating environmental laws.
“It’s really troubling that we’re now just learning that for over six years the company violated the Clean Water Act and is now being fined $850,000 by federal and state environmental agencies. Remember, this cement kiln is very close to the Hudson River. It’s also across the street from a large public school. The company was discharging large amounts of pollutants either directly into the Hudson or into tributaries that run into the Hudson. They were discharging sulfuric acid, partially treated the landfill leachate, fecal coliform and other materials. This violation of Law happened 273 times between April 2015 and April 2021.”
A humbled LafargeHolcim, in its reaction, stated that it cooperated fully with state and federal regulators, adding the “consent decree is a humbling reminder that we did not achieve our expectations, for which we take full responsibility. We have worked closely with the State and Federal Government to take steps to ensure we are in continuous compliance, today and into the future.”
Under the agreement, LafargeHolcim is being directed to invest in an Environmental Benefit Project that will help improve the health of the Hudson River, which residents termed “a victory for the town of Coeymans” in Albany County.
In 2019, Lafarge Africa’s parent company, LafargeHolcim, became an entity of interest in an investigation of the operations of its cement plant in the northern Serbian town of Beočin. A government inspection had revealed that the factory’s harmful emissions far exceeded the legal thresholds. Despite this disclosure, the report has remained confidential and no proceedings have been opened to date.
Three years ago, Lafarge Africa’s parent company, France-based LafargeHolcim said that Lafarge Béton was not responsible for the discharge of ‘particles of cement, treatment liquids and plastic microfibers’ from its Bercy concrete plant in Paris Department. The La Télégramme newspaper reported that the plant has been under environmental inspection since late August 2020. The company argued that the pollution resulted from a single incident ‘caused by malicious parties’ who knew of the ongoing investigation.
The mayor of Paris had contacted the public prosecutor to request a criminal action against LafargeHolcim.
Between a small fry and the behemoth
Against the backdrop of the cement giant’s stark environmental footprint in the global business arena, the United Nations Climate Change Summit, otherwise called COP28, in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, opened with the historic launch of the Loss and Damage Fund on Thursday, December 3. While the operationalisation of the fund on the first day of the summit demonstrated the commitment of world leaders to the resolution reached last year at COP27 in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, Nigeria is expected to leverage on the foci of this year’s event to resolve its myriad of environmental challenges, particularly those triggered by industrial pollution.
Victims of pollution like the residents of Ewekoro believe they constitute a small fry in the cauldron of Lafarge Africa’s manufacturing operations.
“Nobody cares about us here. Nobody. Left to the government, Lafarge is treating us right. They are giving them awards here and there. Nobody sees the destruction they are visiting on us,” said Kehinde Olaleye, a commercial transporter.
Olaleye, 31, relocated to Arigbajo-Ifo, with his wife and only son after the latter developed a chronic cough “before his second birthday.” He disclosed that he had to desert his family home and leave it for squatters.
Corroborating him, Bolanle Moyo, a trader, stated that before she fled from Ewekoro, she and her husband endured several spells of starvation as her petty trade suffered a complete dearth of patronage.
“No money was coming in. Everybody came to buy things on credit. My husband was out of job due to his failing health. He used to be a farmer as he inherited large tracts of farmland from his grandfather. But he developed whooping cough and became too weak to work on the farm. When he started coughing blood-stained sputum and suffering shortness of breath, we knew we must leave the community,” she said.
The pervasive devastation is responsible for the mass exodus of youths from the community into the suburbs of Lagos and Abeokuta, and sometimes, even farther.
Notwithstanding, the hopes of the once vibrant agrarian community are riding on the President Bola Tinubu-led administration to intervene and save it from complete annihilation.
While campaigning for the presidency, President Tinubu promised to boost food production and employment while helping to mitigate the harmful effects of extreme weather cycles and climate change. According to him, approximately 35 per cent of Nigeria’s arable land is presently under cultivation. He stated that his administration’s target will increase this to 65 per cent within four years.
He said his “Farm Nigeria project” will begin with a special focus on the 11 river basins throughout the country, explaining that such an innovative project will aim to make more arable land available for agriculture.
The situation in Ewekoro, however, manifests in counter-purpose to President Tinubu’s promises. In its prosperous epoch, the rivers Ewekoro, Amititi, Sofuntere, Abalaye and Olorekore irrigated Ewekoro and its satellite communities but Lafarge channelled the five rivers away into its quarry thus causing them to dry out, the villagers claimed.
Consequently, the communities’ cash crops gradually died off. Ever since the township has been struggling to deal with the tragic loss of its once flourishing agricultural economy.
There are no flourishing cocoa, rice, palm kernel and cocoyam farms anymore; a dense forest and swamp of shrubs and thickets plastered with cement dust, currently dominate the wide tracts that once attracted itinerant contract farmhands, agricultural entrepreneurs, farmers, middlemen, transporters and traders, to mention a few, to the erstwhile prosperous enclave.
Against the backdrop of the township’s devastation, the Environment Minister, Lawal, and Minister of Solid Minerals, Alake, have both endorsed Lafarge Africa’s operations in Nigeria.
Some would be kind enough perhaps to oblige them with an uncensored narrative of Ewekoro. The industrial township howls like a wounded animal, scraped by the ripped moans of both the old and young wheezing through emaciated lungs and billows of cement soot, in search of breathable air.
This is the story of Ewekoro, where Lafarge Africa peddles patronage, like the proverbial carrot, to suppress generations of disgruntled natives, swallowing discontent for a token and the meal it could buy in silent fury.
Ewekoro lived off the highway. Now, it dies by it. A dusty silhouette of commercialised ruin. At dawn, a thick pall of cement dust hovers atop the roof-peaks of the town, before raining like a sand storm from a grey, indifferent sky. At night, the dust falls like snowflakes until the township disappears under its fog, and its thickening debris cobwebs the sleep of the solemn wild. Eventually, it blankets the houses and greenery like a greyish fabric of ash.
Nine years after The Nation exposed the devastation unleashed on Ewekoro via multinational cement company, Lafarge Africa Plc’s discharge of cement slurry and exhaust into its water bodies and atmosphere, the situation has barely improved.
Within and about Ewekoro, despair shines like final fate. “Living here is akin to subjecting yourself to a cruel and unusual form of punishment,” said Bode Adekunle. “Anyone who wishes to prosper in life must get out of Ewekoro,” said the 19-year-old.
Amid the bleakness, Adekunle’s voice pealed, like the tragic knell of a civilisation in its final death pangs.
Corroborating him, Sakiru Lasisi, 21, condemned his grandparents for yielding their land and birthright quite cheaply to Lafarge. He also condemned his parents for failing to exact compensation from the cement company for the devastation it wrought and still wreaks on their birth place. “They gave them the opportunity to take our land and maltreat us. Will they try this in the Niger Delta? They will never attempt what they do to us in Warri,” he said.
Adekunle and Lasisi were 10 and 12 years of age respectively at the time of The Nation’s first visit to Ewekoro. Like many of their peers, they plotted their escape from the town since their early teens. Bode currently sells building materials in Lagos while Lasisi works as a commercial transporter.
Likewise, Nofiu Ologunebi left Ewekoro in 2014, just after he turned 17. Now 26, the Lagos-based maintenance engineer admitted that he has no plans to relocate to his hometown.
“I have persistently told my younger ones to relocate immediately, anytime the opportunity arises. Many of us who relocated to Lagos do not want our siblings to waste away unduly in Ewekoro,” he said.
Despite his disenchantment with the status quo, Ologunebi cannot entirely abandon his homeland. He is a part of the Ewekoro Youth Indigenes (EYI), a pressure group comprising sons and daughters of the soil on a mission to reclaim the lost glory of their birth land.
His mother, Shakirat, who is also the Iyalode of Ewekoro, has equally been fighting for the interest of Ewekoro in her own way. For instance, she is currently embroiled in a fierce tussle with a faction of the community’s traditional council perceived to be loyal to Lafarge and accommodating of the company’s activities.
Just recently, the Iyalode was arrested and hauled to the Ogun State Police Command in Elewe Eran, in Abeokuta, Ogun State by the other faction, which claimed that she was unsettling their town by her quest for environmental justice and reparation from Lafarge. According to the female chief, the fight cannot be left completely to the youths.
Her nephew, Asiwaju Olamide Shodipe, heir to the former Asiwaju of Ewekoro, late Chief Shodipe, had also being a part of the clamour for reparation before the demise of his father. According to him, he and his peers would not relent until they secure justice for the entire local council.
The N1trillion suit…
Four years ago, members of the community dragged Lafarge Africa Plc, before the Federal High Court in Abeokuta, accusing the company of polluting and destroying their environment through the mining of limestone.
In a class action suit filed through their lawyer, Idris Faro, the community members are demanding N1trillion in damages as compensation for the alleged “pollution and destruction of the plaintiffs’ town, farmlands, rivers, air and general environment, arising from limestone mining and cement manufacture for a continous period of 60 years,” by Lafarge.
They want the N1trn damages to be paid with an annual interest of 15 per cent until the final liquidation of the sum.
They also prayed the court to order Lafarge to refund them the money they spent in filing the lawsuit.
The plaintiffs – Asiwaju Olamide Shodipe, Alhaji Raufu Akintokun, Shakirat Ologunebi, Ayinde Akintokun and Olufemi Tewogbade – filed the N1trn lawsuit on behalf of themselves and the entire Ewekoro community.
Aside from Lafarge Africa Plc, they also joined as defendants six persons, whom they described as the company’s “lackeys, stooges and errand boys”.
The six other defendants are Chief Satari Balogun (now deceased), Chief Joshua Akintokun-Oniyitan, Chief Ayantan Shodiya, Chief Tajudeen Adebowale, Chief Taye Akintokun and Prince Bola Awesu.
In their second amended statement of claim, the plaintiffs said Lafarge sited its largest plant in Nigeria in their community at Km 64, Lagos-Abeokuta Expressway, alleging that the company’s activities in the last 60 years had taken a toll on their well-being and means of livelihood.
They recalled that the defunct Western Region Government of Nigeria acquired part of their land and gave to West African Portland Cement Company (WAPCO) for limestone mining and cement manufacture.
The said WAPCO was later acquired by Lafarge, which carried on with the business, “using powerful explosives like dynamite in the mining and blasting of limestone in Ewekoro town, which, apart from causing disturbing noise, has damaged a lot of houses in Ewekoro town.”
The plaintiffs said, “A huge expanse of our farmland, measuring 426.599 hectares, which were not even part of the original acquisition, have been entered into by the 1st defendant (Lafarge) and it mines limestone thereon.
“The cement dust from the giant chimneys of the 1st defendant’s plants billows into the air, polluting the plaintiffs’ town, farmlands and rivers for a continuous period of 60 years.
“The cement dust has depleted the population of fishes, crabs and other animals in the rivers in and around Ewekoro land. Also, the livestock in Ewekoro have reduced in number as a result of inhalation of cement and pollution of the grassland where they graze.
“Farmlands, measuring about 1,000,000 hectares, have been polluted by cement from the 1st defendant’s plant for about 60 years, destroying crops.
“Dwelling houses in Ewekoro town have been splatered with cement dust billowing from the defendant’s plants.
“The livelihood of about 300,000 farmers and fishermen, including the plaintiffs, have been destroyed by the 1st defendant’s mining of limestone and cement manufacturing for about 60 years in Ewekoro town.
“Ewekoro inhabitants suffer from asthma, skin diseases, respiratory diseases etc, due to cement inhalation and this has led to loss of several lives over the years. The 1st defendant has made trillion of profits or more for about 60 years in Ewekoro land.”
The court reportedly ruled in favour of Lafarge, stressing that the natives lacked the right to institute legal action against the company. The court held that only the state government may institute such action against the company. “Right now, we are taking the case to the Court of Appeal,” revealed one of the plaintiffs.
A tragic story of devastation and neglect
The decline of Ewekoro bears a striking resemblance to the degeneration of its neighbouring satellite community, Olapeleke, where the natives grapple with collapsed buildings and socio-economic ruin foisted upon them by Lafarge’s limestone mining activities in the area.
The residents complain of cement dust pollution, vanishing rivers, and a comatose agricultural economy. With anguish, they recalled Ewekoro’s promising years. According to the natives, before LafargeWAPCO arrived in the community in the late 1950s,the entire region of Ewekoro was a prosperous community; farming was its economic mainstay and its thriving agricultural economy produced cash crops including ofada rice, yams, cocoa, plantain, palm kernel and maize at great profit. But no sooner did Lafarge venture into the region than the once burgeoning agricultural sub-sector began to suffer irredeemable decline..
The natives argued that the only benefit they derive from hosting Lafarge is that due to its presence in our community, electricity supply in Ewekoro has been stable and this attracted a lot of immigrants from Sango, Ifo and eviron into the community. However, the immigrants who came to enjoy the electricity have fled due to the excessive pollution of the community by Lafarge.
Aside from destroying the natives’ homes and other valuables, cement dust from Lafarge’s chimney settles on their farms and contaminates their vegetables. The cement dust released by the company’s chimney settles on the crops. Take ewedu (jute), for instance, which is often grown by lots of subsistence farmers in the area; it must be washed vigorously to cleanse it of cement dust after being harvested for sales and consumption. But once the water dries off, it displays stains and patches of cement dust all over. This makes it extremely difficult to sell it in the market. Left without a choice, the natives are forced to eat it. No one would buy such contaminated vegetable at the market.
Before the decline, Olapeleke was a crucial part of Ewekoro with about 200,000 people in its satellite expanse. Prior to the arrival of the West African Portland Cement (WAPCO), now Lafarge-WAPCO, the township boasted of a rich endowment of natural resources and agricultural cashcrops, including cocoa, kolanut, cocoyam, cassava, rice (its fabled highly nutritious and expensive ofada rice), tomatoes, pepper, groundnut, plantain, sugar cane, maize to mention a few. However, the township’s most valuable and expensive natural endowment is its abundant limestone deposits.
Olapeleke sits atop limestone, the major raw material used in the production of cement.
When the discovery of the natural resource in the Ewekoro Township became public in the early 1950s, residents of the community anticipated a remarkable fillip to their thriving agricultural economy. But they were wrong. By the time Lafarge commenced mining of the raw material, the community came to a sad realisation that rather than bring great fortune and prosperity to their doorstep, the company’s limestone exploration wrought untold loss and hardship on Olapeleke.
In 2001, Olapeleke reported a loss of over 100 houses as that completely collapsed under the incessant barrage of limestone raining like hailstones on the community in the course of Lafarge’s quarrying activities.
Twenty two years later, less than 30 houses are left standing in good condition of the 110 reported by Baale Gabriel Akinremi in 2014; and these few bear crude patches all over, that are meant to prevent the cracks allegedly wrought on them by Lafarge’s flying rock debris from aggravating.
Many of the families that lack the strength and wherewithal to renovate their homes have deserted the village in droves to live in more habitable settlements outside the community.
The impoverished ageing population, however, lamented that they do not have any where else to go and they cannot desert their ancestral homes even as the few left stand at risk of devastation by flying rock fragments from Lafarge’s limestone quarry.
Dried up rivers, disappearing farmlands
Prior to the cement company’s arrival, the community had five rivers which were used for irrigation, fishing and drinking purposes. The rivers were Ewekoro, Amititi, Sofuntere, Abalaye and Olorekore, according to the villagers. But Lafarge reportedly channelled the five rivers away into its quarry thus causing them to dry out. Consequently, the community’s cash crops and trees, including cocoa, kolanut and palm trees, withered and gradually died off.
The Nation findings reveal a township struggling to deal with the tragic loss of its once flourishing agricultural economy. There are no flourishing cocoa, rice, palm kernel and cocoyam farms anymore; a dense forest and swamp of shrubs and thickets currently dominate the wide expanse of land that was once the lure that attracted itinerant contract farmhands, agricultural entrepreneurs, farmers, middlemen, transporters and traders to mention a few, to the erstwhile prosperous enclave.
Today, those who still have the nerve to farm engage in subsistence farming. And the proceeds are always very poor. Aside from cassava and maize, very few cash crops survive on the land thus killing its hitherto thriving agro-economy.
The elderly population recalled with nostalgia the good old days when agriculture was the mainstay of the rural community. Back then, it was common to see a young couple partner to acquire profitable stake in the agricultural economy. They jointly farmed, harvested and sold their farm produce, including cocoa, palm oil, and other cash crops at great profit. But their farmlands were destroyed at Lafarge’s incursion into the area.
“We suffered a lot after our land was forcibly taken away…we got only N0.50 kobo as compensation. Today, we are recognised as the actual land owners yet we are suffering because there is no one to fight for us,” cried Apeke Akinremi, a widow.
Intrigues made in Ewekoro
In 2014, at The Nation’s first visit to Ewekoro, the Baale of Ewekoro, late Satar Lawal, refused to comment on the degree of devastation suffered by his community, claiming that he would only react after The Nation had spoken to Lafarge. Satar claimed that Lafarge had really tried for Ewekoro community, stressing that the company discharges cement dust on his community only when its equipment are down with a fault.
The reality is, however, quite different from Satar’s claims; while he defended Lafarge, The Nation copiously took photographs of the cement company’s chimney that towers directly behind his palace as it dispelled cement dust excessively on to the community. It was also very instructive to note that the company’s equipment were not down due to any fault at the time the pictures were taken.
Soon after The Nation’s visit to Ewekoro, late Satar and his fellow chiefs called a press conference to address crucial environmental issues affecting Ewekoro local government area (LGA). They urged the company’s management to consider their safety and do something to mitigate the impacts of its operation on them and the environment.
The 12 communities they claimed to represent are Olapeleke, Akinbo, Oke Oko, Egbado, Sekoni, Olujobi, Papalanto, Ewekoro, Egba -Ajegunle, Elebute, Alagunto and Itori. While the first eight communities are situated on areas referred to as ‘limestone belt,’ the four others, are homes only to the company’s plants and chimney.
Lafarge’s elder support, CSR and other tokens
The natives would find it easier perhaps to assert their rights if they could escape the cycle of tokenism that has them jostling for “paltry sums” given to them annually by Lafarge. While the latter prides itself on its commendable Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiatives in the area, the people of Ewekoro dismissed the company’s claims, arguing that whatever form of support the company gives to their community as part of its CSR, will never be enough palliative to the damage it wreaks on their neighbourhood by its production activities.
A good example is the so-called elder support. The traditional authorities are asked to suggest beneficiaries of the fund and when they do, Lafarge gives each beneficiary N50, 000. When the latter gets back to the community, he or she has to share the money with about 20 other people. At the end, what often gets to each beneficiary, around N2, 000 or thereabouts, is usually too ridiculous to be acknowledged.
Hence from a purported N50, 000 annual support to one aged person, in Ewekoro, what actually gets to the beneficiary and other recipients, is a measly N2, 000.
In the absence of a dependable Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) regulatory framework in the country, most multinational corporations are at liberty to commit discretionary percentages of their profit to CSR initiatives. To this end, Lafarge allegedly commits N55 million annually to Ewekoro and its 11 satellite communities including Olapeleke, Akinbo, Oke-Oko, Egbado, Sekoni, Olujobi, Papalanto, Ewekoro, Egba -Ajegunle, Elebute, Alagunto and Itori.
Findings revealed that, of the figure, N11 million gets to Olapeleke for community development. Initially, the figure was N9 million, out of which N5.5 million is earmarked for capital projects like road construction. About N1 million is earmarked as bursary for 10 students at N200, 000 each; N250, 000 as support for five aged people; Youth Empowerment, N700, 000; while five farmers are given N500, 000 each.
When the recipients of the money eventually get it, they take it back to their respective communities where the money is split, by consensus, among greater number of recipients. The N50, 000 Lafarge gives as support to the aged, for instance, is reportedly shared with about 11 or 15 fellow aged persons. Thus, even though Lafarge claims to have given N50, 000 as support to one aged person, the money is actually shared among the specified recipient and about 11 to 15 others. At the end, each beneficiary gets a paltry N2, 000, N3, 000 or N5, 000. The natives are forced to adopt this method in order to make the money go round those who desperately need financial support within the community.
The same formula is adopted in sharing N500, 000 given to five farmers. Eventually, what will get to each farmer is never up to N50, 000. What gets to each farmer most times is as low as N10, 000.
Feeding fat off a battered mule…
No doubt, the amount Lafarge devotes to CSR in Ewekoro is too meagre and unrepresentative of the immense profit the company grosses from its mining and cement production activities in the area.
For the year 2022, the company declared a dividend of N32 billion following the approval of the company’s shareholders at the 64th Annual General Meeting of the Company held in Lagos on Friday, April 28, 2023, at the Civic Centre, Victoria Island, Lagos.
In the year ended 2022, Lafarge Africa Plc increased its revenue by 27% from the N293 billion recorded in 2021 to N373 billion as Operating Profit improved by 29.3% on the back of net sales improvement to close at N84.2 billion.
Addressing Shareholders during the meeting, the Chairman of the company’s board, Prince Adebode Adefioye, stated that: “Overall, net sales increased by 27% compared to the prior year, to close at N373.2 billion. Similarly, Operating Profit improved by 29.3% on the back of net sales improvement to close at N84.2 billion. In addition, cost-saving initiatives implemented across our value chain contributed partly to operating profit improvement. The improvement in net sales and operating profit led to an increase in Profit Before Tax by 12% to N69.7 billion and Profit After Tax by 5.2% to close at N53.6bn.”
In the first half of this year ended in June 2023, Lafarge Africa declared N55.32 billion profit before tax, an increase of 18 per cent from the N46.88 billion reported in half year ended June 30, 2022. The cement maker on the Nigerian Exchange Limited (NGX) reported N35.48billion profit after tax in H1 2023, a decline of 5.2 per cent from N37.41billion in H1 2022, attributable to 109.5per cent growth in tax expenses in the period under review to N19.84billion as against N9.47billion in H1 2022.
Lafarge, however, reported N197.68 billion revenue in H1 2023, a nearly six per cent increase from N186.6billion in H1 2022.
Against the backdrop of the company’s declared profits, many residents of Ewekoro are bitter because they feel that their representatives are not representing their interests as they expect them to. Pleading anonymity, a member of the traditional council alleged that their traditional chiefs hardly protect the interests of their communities because they are wary of offending the management of Lafarge.
“They fear that if they do, they will lose the lucrative contracts they get from the company periodically,” revealed the chief.
We prioritise health and safety of our host communities – Lafarge
In an exclusive interview with The Nation, Lafarge’s Head, Corporate Communications, Public Affairs & Sustainable Development, Ginikanwa Frank-Durugbor, stated argued that the company is doing its best to make life easier for residents of its host communities.
She said that Lafarge is committed to conducting its business with zero harm to people while minimizing its environmental footprint. “Our investment in a new bag filter underscores this commitment. Our stack emission measurement is done by government accredited agencies on a quarterly basis and the report is shared with both the State and Federal ministry of Environment. In addition, Air quality measurement (Total Suspended Particulate) conducted across the plant fence lines shows all measured values are below the national standard of 250 µg/m3.
“However, measurement was also carried out simultaneously on 3rd party (Lagos/Abeokuta express road) influence and the result showed dust (Total Suspended Particulate) value of more than 250 µg/m3. Mitigation measures are to plant trees along our perimeter fence in order to prevent impact of dust from the third party. We also carry out palliative repairs regularly on bad portions of the road to reduce fugitive dust generation,” she said.
To mitigate the impact of Lafarge’s production activities on its host communities, she said the company has put corrective measures in place, including the installation of dust abatement and emission monitoring equipment on its stacks while ensuring continuous preventive maintenance of the equipment.
A people’s heartfelt prayer…
Despite Lafarge’s claims, not a few residents of Ewekoro contended that they are forced to live under a perpetual cloud of pollutants and cement dust discharged by the company’s chimney.
Among other things, they wish that the company embrace environmentally- friendly activities in line with global business practices in the extractive industry.
They wish that Lafarge “pursues CSR initiatives that truly benefits all segments” of their community. They want Lafarge to desist from its plot to buy what’s left of their land “for a pittance.”
The children dream of a better neighbourhood complete with decent living facilities similar to those accessible to Lafarge staff in their gated estate.
Precisely nine years ago, the Ekeji Baale (Chief) of Ewekoro, Musiliu Balogun, argued thus: “Our community is the goose that lays the golden egg that Lafarge currently feeds fat upon; let Lafarge compensate us for exploiting our land and damaging it. We deserve to be compensated,” he said.
Corroborating him, the Otun Iyaloja of Ewekoro, Risikat Balogun, lamented thus: “Nobody cares what happens to us. Nobody. We are dying here and the world is quiet about it. Poor people like us suffer heavy consequences and pay heavy penalties for the company’s exploitation of our land. I am pleading as a mother, a wife and citizen of Nigeria, let the government come to our aid. The world should come to our aid. We are dying over here.”
But precisely 3,285 days after their lamentation, the two Baloguns have completely gone quiet even as the fate of the entire community hangs precariously on the balance.
About dystopia
To witness the aftermath of Ewekoro’s industrialisation by Lafarge is to be lost inside a wakeful nightmare. The markers on this mapless journey are the poisoned air, cratered roads, tyre-gripping mudbeds, swarms of children covered in cement dust, dust shields fabricated of disused blankets and nylon sheets, deserted mini-market and a township limping with decapitated hope.
Most of the natives who were born into a vibrant farming community along the transit highway have watched their agro-economy fritter and fade off a precipice interred by neglect.
The rich community of Lafarge staff, however, live very safe metres from the plateau of Ewekoro’s impoverishment; untarnished in their gated estate, fenced with lush greenery, tarred roads, paved sidewalks and manicured gardens.
Behind Lafarge’s gates, the manicured beauty of its staff residences tapers into oblivion. Dystopia persists as the natives huddle farther from relief. In over 60 years, those with next to nothing slink into greater austerity in a necessary performance of hope and endurance.
The crescendo of their privation and hardship, reveals in real time, how a once blooming agro-economy got stifled by industry.
Lafarge arrived, Ewekoro collapsed, and the world has since responded the only way it could, until it stopped. “Empathy fatigue” manifests as the straw man of pundits within and outside the beleaguered community.
The epic catastrophe that plagues Ewekoro has been met only with feeble resistance.
1. Hamas attacks Israel in a savage and brutal manner killing thousands of Israelis civilians.
2. Israel declares war on Hamas, flattens and occupies Gaza and kills thousands of terrorists and innocent Palestinian women and children.
3. Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad fires rockets into Israel in solidarity with Hamas.
4. Israel launches devastating a counter attack against Hezbollah and unleashes a brutal and vicious ground offensive in Southern Lebanon and occupies it.
5. Israel launches air strikes against Iran for consistently providing 70% of funding and lethal weapons to Hamas and for consistently providing 90% of funding and lethal weapons to Hezbollah.
6. Iran hits back with air strikes and the declaration of war against Israel.
7. The Arab world declares an Intifada against Israel and declares war against her.
8. America, the EU, the UK, Australia, Canada, India and their allies stand with Israel.
9. Russia, China, North Korea, Turkey, Pakistan, Afghanistan, the Arab world and their allies stand with Hamas, Hezbollah, the Palestinians and Iran.
10. The war in Ukraine gets even worse as Russia crushes the Ukrainian forces and takes more territory.
11. NATO finally jumps into the fray in the Ukraine and Europe is plunged into total war with the use of tactical nuclear weapons.
12. China, Iran, North Korea, the Arab world and their allies side with Russia whilst America, NATO, the EU, the UK, Canada, Australia and their allies side with Ukraine.
13. China invades and occupies Taiwan making good their threat and claim on the island and asserts her power in the South China sea.
14. America responds and all hell breaks loose on earth.
Ladies and Gentlemen, sadly over the next few months and years each of these events are likely to happen.
We are very close to WWIII and guess what, the whole thing was planned and contrived many years ago by those that wish to establish a New World Order.
May God save the world from the shape-shifting reptilians, satanists, Lucifereans and Illuminati cult members that are behind this frightful and utterly demonic agenda.
Senator Tinubu pays tribute to UN Building’s terror attack victims
Sanwo-Olu lauds her empowerment initiative
The First Lady, Senator Oluremi Tinubu, has paid tributes to all those who died 12 years ago in the bombing of the United Nations (UN) Building in Abuja.
The First Lady spoke at the wreath-laying ceremony in honour of the victims of the incident.
She called for a world where terrorism, along with its severe impact on the society, is effectively contained.
A statement yesterday in Abuja by her spokesperson Busola Kukoyi said the First Lady spoke on the need for the global community to channel more energy towards fostering peace, promoting dialogue and combating the forces of hatred and division, so that the world could enjoy harmony.
Paying tribute to the dead, Senator Tinubu said the world must not only draw strength from the sacrifice of those working for peace, but must also recommit to the values of unity, understanding and cooperation that the UN represents.
“On this solemn occasion, we remember and honour the lives that were lost. I pay tribute to the dedicated individuals who were serving the cause of peace and development within the walls of the UN Building.
“Today, we stand united in our resolve and determination to create a world where the principles of peace, justice and cooperation that the United Nations stands for are not merely ideals, but reality for all,” she said.
The Undersecretary General of UN, Office of Counterterrorism, Valdimir Voronkov, joined the First Lady in performing the wreath-laying ceremony.
Voronkov harped on the need to build solidarity and provide support to victims of terrorism across the world as terrorism continues to threaten peace and security, leaving hundreds of thousands of victims and survivors in its aftermath.
“The Federal Republic of Nigeria knows the consequences of terrorism within and around its borders all too well. Indeed, parts of Africa have experienced the highest impact of terrorism for many years.
“The United Nations itself is not immune from terrorism. Two weeks ago, we marked the 20th anniversary of the devastating attack on the Canal Hotel in Baghdad, Iraq, on August 19, 2003,” the UN chief said.
The solemn and brief ceremony was witnessed by heads of some UN agencies in Nigeria.
Also, Lagos State Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu has applauded the First Lady for her intervention in empowering women and other vulnerable groups in the society through her initiative, Renewed Hope Initiative (RHI).
The governor gave his commendation when he visited the First Lady at the State House in Abuja.
The interventions of the initiative in the education sector are: National Scholarship Programme, which recently started in Abuja with 43 beneficiaries from across the nation; and Women ICT Training and other empowerment programmes in agriculture and social investment.
Sanwo-Olu noted that the empowerment initiatives would complement similar policy objectives of the Bola Ahmed Tinubu Renewed Hope Agenda, as well as reassure Nigerians of the administration’s determination to fight poverty and uplift millions of Nigerians.
“We have to encourage her on the Renewed Hope Initiative, which we have all heard about, which she is championing with other First Ladies; of course, the wife of the Vice President, because it complements what Mr. President is doing.
“I think she is really great with her focus on schools and to be able to provide succour for the people that are vulnerable,” he said.
On the ongoing reforms by President Tinubu, Governor Sanwo-Olu said taking the country to a level where every Nigerian can be comfortable requires hard decisions and systematic efforts by the government.
The Lagos State governor added that it also requires a lot of patience on the part of the citizens.
“We have to continue to encourage and support him and encourage our citizens as well that we see a bright light down the tunnel. Not doing anything is not an option.
“So, in the course of doing things differently, there will be a belt-up here; there will be tightening there.
“But at the end of the day, we believe the result that comes out of those reforms will improve the quality of life and make things a lot better for our citizens and the economy will continue to grow in the direction that we are all appreciative of,” he said.
THE Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) believes there is reason to celebrate as the count down to 2019 begins: the world will enter the new year with the lowest level of extreme poverty at eight per cent.
According to the ECA, “latest estimates by World Data Lab show that, for the first time in history, the world will enter the new year with the lowest level of extreme poverty, at 8%.”
But, the United Nations (UN) organ also painted a gloomy picture for Africa, stating that “single digit numbers hide underlying differences, especially for African countries. Six hundred million people globally will start 2019 living in extreme poverty and only 20 million will come out of this situation by the end of the year. Africa still has much of its population living in poverty or vulnerable.”
The ECA added that its “recently unveiled Africa Poverty Clock estimate that, in 2019, 70% of the world’s poor will live in Africa, up from 50% in 2015. By 2023, the share of Africa’s poor will increase to over 80% of global share. In other words, Africa will be adding more poor people to the world.”
The African Poverty Clock, the ECA, said “provides real-time poverty estimates for every country on the continent, with forecasts until 2030”.
“Current projections indicate that almost all of Africa is off track for ending extreme poverty by 2030. Thirteen countries are projected to see an increase in absolute numbers. Seven out of the top 10 countries in the world with the most poor people are in Africa. This is expected to rise to nine out of 10 by 2030. Four main factors drive Africa’s diverging progress with the rest of the world,” the UN organ said.
It is a universe out of sync indeed. Not since the height of the Cold War has the civilized world witnessed such an evil distemper abroad and a nasty disquiet at home. Something strange and inexplicable is beginning to happen to the post-Cold War order, hinting at a possible reconfiguration of the global order and international relations.
A year after the assassination of Kim Jong Nam, the exiled and estranged half-brother of Kim Jong11, the maximum ruler of North Korea, in a bizarre incident at the Kuala Lumpur Airport in Malaysia, an even more surreal drama played out in the quiet suburb of Salisbury in England this past weekend.
Sergei Skripal, a former Russian double agent and Yulia, his daughter, were discovered on a bench outside a restaurant in the somnolent rural paradise barely conscious after a sumptuous meal. In all likelihood, they had succumbed to an attack from a deadly nerve-agent called Novichok principally traceable to Russia.
It will be recalled that Skripal, a former colonel in the Russian spy system, was found to have compromised over three hundred Russian agents and was sentenced to thirteen years in jail. It is a measure of his importance to his new masters that he was exchanged in a spy-swap and taken to Britain to begin a new life. But the Russian bear may hibernate. It does not forget, and neither does it forgive for that matter.
Taken together, the two incidents, and in particular the Salisbury demarche, look like scenes out of a notable spy thriller, something like a James Bond film—From Russia with Novichok— or a horror political movie. Theresa May, the British Prime-minister, is hopping mad with the Russians. Britain had slammed a twenty-three diplomats’ expulsion on the Russian mission in London. Vladmir Putin has promised to reciprocate in kind, setting off a diplomatic spat which speaks to a new world disorder.
Whoever fells an elephant must be ready for a rumble in the jungle. The Russians have a beef with the west, particularly the US and Britain, for their role in the collapse of the old Soviet Empire. Without firing a shot, Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan combined brilliantly to fracture the Soviet Union and the so called Second World of actually existing Socialist states.
In a saturation bombardment of enemy target, the western media began beaming images of paradisiacal existence in western societies to the increasingly restive Russian middle class who eventually came to the conclusion that there was no sense or point in sacrificing their comfort and prosperity to prop up some peripheral satellites states in the name of some bogus brotherhood of socialist humanity.
Once this right-wing re-engineering of the human psyche took hold of the popular imagination in Soviet Russia, it was only a question of time before the Russians wanted out of what they began to see as a misbegotten Socialist unitarism which has sentenced them to a life of misery and penury. With help from a naïve and deluded Mikhail Gorbachev, the Socialist Empire briskly dissolved into its component parts.
The direct result of this implosion has been a resurgence of Slavic nationalism on a scale that has not been witnessed since the virus of extreme nationalism led to the First World War. Putin is the direct heir and manipulator of this neo-Slavic ascendancy. It has led Russian into strategic duelling in Ukraine and the Black Sea as well as in Syria which has been reduced to a vast rubble of the dead and the dying. Russia has been fingered directly in the electoral shenanigan that brought Donald Trump in America and is now poised to destabilise a United Kingdom that is still struggling to find a way out of the Brexit conundrum.
If the Russians were truly involved in the rise of Donald Trump, it was a direct hit. The ascendancy of the rogue huckster has seen the rise of a native tribalism in America and governmental incompetence on a hair-raising scale that has dwarfed the most extreme manifestation of state delinquency since the advent of the nation-state.
The omens are very dire indeed and America is a-hollering with the commotion of hiring and firing which has not been seen since Thomas Jefferson and his iconic colleagues laid out a new template of governance. Only this past week, Trump fired Rex Tillerson, his Secretary of State, even before the plane bringing him from Africa has fully taxied to a halt.
As if on cue, Europe has played host to a resurgence of xenophobia and extreme native nationalism which have led to much national unease and dark foreboding in Germany, Austria, Holland, France, Britain, Belgium and Italy. In these civilized and advanced countries, the fear of immigrants and people of colour has become the cornerstone of nascent national wisdom. The world has never been more polarized and bitterly divided by race, colour and creed.
In China, they have just removed the restricting clause to pave the way for life rule for their wily president. Rather than rising prosperity leading to political liberalisation and the growth of democratic culture according to western truism, it has led to a tightening of the democratic noose and the rolling back of the political empowerment of the people.
So far, all is quiet on the Beijing front. There is no rumbling of a human earthquake on the scale of Tiananmen Square. In the event, the Chinese Emperor is once again retreating behind the forbidding walls of the Forbidden City. China is cocking a snook at liberal democracy telling anybody who cares to listen that it is peopled by a different race and that as an ancient civilization China is not expected to set much store by the values of recent civilizations no matter their condescending arrogance and pretentious self-righteousness.
When the inscrutable and unflappable Chinese behave in this manner, they are telling the world that the struggle for a new global order has entered a critical phase and they are not prepared to trade their natural advantages for kudos and subversive endorsement from the west. The heedless Russians did just that and are struggling with the nuclear fallout even as their new Czar is battling to impress it on the west that Russia is not a western country. The Chinese are chuckling with poker-faced delight.
Elsewhere in North Korea, the roly-poly fellow with the bouffant hair-do may not be as mad as they think. Believe it or not, he has already worsted the Americans in a nuclear face-off thus insinuating a timely equilibrium into a unipolar global order. He has already achieved the parity and deterrence of Mutually Assured Destruction. The world is already learning new lessons. The main one being that in the brave new world of nuclear offensive, it is not the size of a country that matters but its capacity to inflict maximum nuclear damage.
The Americans, through their overwhelming technological advantages, may yet figure out how to deal with the jowly terror of the Korean Peninsula and his threat to their uni-polar supremacy. Kim Jong 11 is like a fly perched on the most delicate part of the anatomy. But for now, it is obvious that the hardy North Koreans are not about to allow themselves to be dragooned to Washington.
What are the implications of these global concussions and unfolding world disorder so soon after the west thought they got it right with the end of the Cold War? The errant eccentricities of certain nations and historical individuals notwithstanding, they speak to the fact that there is a fundamental rationality embedded in human history which makes periodic restructuring inevitable for the global order and nation-states alike if they are to face new realities. Just as no nation can rule the world in perpetuity, no national ruling bloc can also hold sway forever.
At the turn of the nineties and with the Cold War sprinting to an impossible conclusion aided principally by the implosion of the Soviet Empire, Francis Fukuyama, an American scholar of Japanese extraction, wrote a famous book triumphantly proclaiming the unchallengeable dominion of liberal democracy and the irreversible ascendancy of America as the global law-giver. But with subsequent developments, it is now obvious that Fukuyama might have spoken too soon. What he saw was not the end of history but history at a particular ending.
Fukuyama could not have foreseen the advent of Donald Trump, the human fireball setting ablaze the most brilliant political institutions the modern world has seen, or the rise of primitive tribalism in America for that matter. Donald Trump is a nightmare for America and the rest of the world. It is possible that after four years, America will figure out what to do with this nasty glitch on their system. But the damage to American power and global prestige will be there for a long time.
If internal fissures can be mended, external afflictions are not so amenable. With the Iranians still chafing in ethno-theocratic distemper, with the Koreans threatening a nuclear holocaust, with China confronting the world with a new prototype of the Yellow Peril, with the rise of anti-Western Slavic nationalism in Russia, with Europe gripped by illiberal fear and xenophobia and with Syria reduced by carnage to a vast field of vultures, the combined population of societies under the hammer of anti-democratic hybrids far outweighs the dominion of liberal democracy.
What are the implications of these global ruptures for Africa? Unfortunately, the cradle of human civilization remains rooted in civilizational infancy. As it has been famously noted, although humankind first developed in Africa, it has not continued to do so there. This is a drama of giants and a poor man’s mouth is a cutlass fit only for bush-clearing.
African nations do not expect to be taken seriously as long as they remain a net exporter of misery and human afflictions to other nations; as long as the flowers of their youth are absconding and voting with their feet ; as long as its children are openly sold into slavery in the stateless anomie of Libya and as long as they are wantonly butchered by homicidal militias. A demented hen that sucks her best eggs cannot expect global approbation.
Unfortunately, African nations that could make the difference are weighed down by a combination of internal and external factors arising from their historical circumstances. The progressive nations of Ghana, Senegal, Tanzania and Botswana lack the world-scale economy and strategic population that could propel them into continental and global reckoning.
Ever since its liberation from the claws of a monstrous racist regimen, South Africa has projected a curious combination of international coyness and lack of self-assertion. The psychological impairment of the past still haunts and hurts. The ascendancy of Cyril Ramaphosa, a former iconic revolutionary turned sedate billionaire businessman, is unlikely to threaten the extant status quo. In retrospect, the wily ANC old guard who passed him over for promotion and sure presidential ascendancy knew just why they had to do that. They were not about to commit class suicide.
Ironically, Nigeria, despite its current difficulties, remains in the eyes of dispassionate observers the best hope for continental renaissance. Nigeria has the best national advantages in terms of sheer biodiversity, natural riches, human resources and quality population to drive a continental revival. But Nigeria is so hobbled by internal problems that it is a miracle it has continued to survive.
Stone Age leadership, ethnic fundamentalism, regional divisions, religious polarities, ancestral feuding leading to bloodshed on an industrial scale and state larceny have prevented till date the rise of an alternative elite formation that will drag the country by the scruff of the neck to the portals of modernity and modernization.
A new internally driven Berlin Conference is in order for Africa. African nations must set in motion the mechanism for the convoking of a pan-African congregation to deliberate on the fate of the continent. Without this, the unfolding global disordering of the old order is likely to consume most of its nations.
