Renegotiate And Restructure Nigeria!

By Arthur Agwuncha Nwankwo

The conduct of international relations among nations is anchored on the realist paradigm of “might is right”. This is the central thesis of Hans J. Morgenthau's seminal work on Politics among Nations. The motivating factor in relations among nations is the furtherance of their vital and strategic national interests. In these murky waters of international politics, the powerful states relate to other states on the basis of what they consider to be in the best interest of their states. It is in this context that I want to do a brief post-mortem of president Buhari’s recent tour of the United States of America.

*Dr. Nwankwo 

Not a few Nigerians believed that so much would come out of that visit. I am certain by now the reality of the failure of that visit would have disrupted such expectations. Buhari’s visit to the USA was programmed to stimulate a stiff in US policy towards Nigeria. On the cards for discussion was the issue of Boko Haram insurgency. While Buhari lacked words and technical depth to explain the implication of the insurgency to the strategic interest of the USA in Nigeria, a bemused Obama promised that USA and her allies would consider areas of cooperation with Nigeria especially in combating international terror. Back home, many Nigerians went to town with their cymbals announcing that Buhari’s visit would yield much result. Today, we have come to terms with the reality that Buhari went on excursion to the USA, used the opportunity to visit the White House – a pleasure he did not enjoy as a military dictator.

The USA before now had promised former President Jonathan that they would help in containing the Boko Haram insurgency. That promise only ended on the pages of newspapers. Their strategy of helping Nigeria fight insurgency was to deny us the needed arms to fight insurgency. They convinced their European allies not to sell arms to us. For the first time in several decades Nigerian oil was rejected by the USA. This situation has not changed even with the excursion of President Buhari to the USA. The apologists of the president's visit to the USA also made us believe that the USA has promised to help in rebuilding the Boko Haram ravaged North East and West of Nigeria as well as the issue of IDP’s in the country. For the government to think that these are some of the high points of that visit indicates the ineptitude and absence of intellectual content in governance in Nigeria. Why would the USA or Western Europe undertake such tasks? Is the USA or any country in Western Europe a Father Christmas? International relations among nations is not governed by morality or sentiments. This is one fact that we must note. America has behaved the way it has to Nigeria, not because it hates Nigeria but primarily because in so doing her national interest is best served.

Believing in the promise that the USA would help in rebuilding the North Eastern and North Western parts of Nigeria, which has been destroyed by Boko Haram is also misleading. Any assistance rendered by the USA in this context would be conditionalized to the discomfort of the country. No! The USA would not help us. Only Nigeria can rebuild her destroyed zones or areas.

The USA realizes that Boko Haram insurgency is not an isolated development, nor was the militancy in the Niger Delta, the eruption of the Biafran challenge, the annulment of the June 12 1993 presidential election and the incandescent ethnic nationalism in Nigeria.

All these are tied up in the circus that has become the Nigerian conundrum; in contrast to the events in Jamestown in the 17th century in Virginia, which prepared the groundwork for a properly structured United States of America. If, therefore, the USA chooses to ignore Nigeria and her numerous challenges including the Boko Haram insurgency, it is because it is in her national interest to do so.

If the North West and North East have been devastated by Boko Haram, it is because the insurgent group sees Nigeria as restricting its religious freedom and thus wants to create an Islamist state in the North West and East of Nigeria. They are entitled to such agitation. If the Niger-Delta militants rose up in arms against an iniquitous Nigerian state that has degraded her environment, impoverished the people of the region, they are only saying to the Nigerian state: “we want our autonomy and unfettered control over our resources”. If the Igbos rose in defense of their lives and property and resources in the face of organized genocidal pogrom, calculated alienation from power centre's in the country, it is because they realized that their creative ingenuity is best expressed in a democratic environment and would resist any dictatorial tendency.

If the Yoruba’s nationalized the June 12 annulled presidential election, it is because they recognized that a great injustice has been done to them. All these tell us that Nigeria has a major structural problem, which only her can solve and not necessarily the USA or any western power. So going to the United States with a horde of coterie of hangers-on, standing on the red carpet, or telling the world that political patronages would not be the same for states or regions that gave 95 percent support and those that gave 5 percent support to APC, does not retract from the fact that Nigeria’s destiny is in her own hands and not in the expected pity from a super power. Only Nigeria has the key to her own salvation. That key is to renegotiate and restructure the country. May God help us.

*August 25, 2015

*Dr Arthur Agwuncha Nwankwo is a publisher, award-winning author, political scientist, historian and chairman of Fourth Dimension Publishing Company, the largest publishing company in Sub-SaharaAfrica with over 1,500 titles.