Big For Nothing Nigeria

 By Tony Eluemunor

When Egypt and Ethiopia, but not Nigeria, were the two African countries invited to join the BRICS bloc last month, many Nigerians were not surprised. Our leaders did not even betray any anger that Nigeria was not among the six new countries invited to join the BRICS bloc. 

*Tinubu 

On 27 August 2023, a Nigerian newspaper, the Business Day published a story: “What is Nigeria missing by its non-membership of BRICS”? Its answer: “But why will Nigeria join the bloc, if one may ask? The bloc, comprising Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa has since its formation as BRIC in 2009 and later BRICS in 2010, with the addition of South Africa, proven itself as formidable force against the overbearing and manipulative influence of the West”.

If the newspaper’s analysis is correct, then Nigeria has no stake in BRICS bloc because Nigeria no longer thinks independently but is now a mere puppet of the West.

We all remember in 2010 when BRIC became BRICS with the addition of South-Africa. Nigerians were incensed that their dear country was passed over unjustly and South Africa was picked. But after a further 13 years of backsliding, worsened by the Mohammad Buhari administration’s incompetence which may have no equal in history, Nigeria no longer matters in world affairs.

I know we ever love to take our country ever seriously, not realizing that Nigeria has been declining quickly since the end of the Murtala-Obasanjo administration 1979. In geo-politics, Nigeria has since then been sliding from being the Big Black Hope to being the Big Black Shame. With every passing year, we have mattered less and less as the African Big Brother. President Olusegun Obasanjo, who had a Minister of Integration in Africa in the late Ambassador Raph Uwechue made Nigeria matter once again during his 1999-2007 administration. I accompanied Uwechue to Freetown and Brazzaville to douse some flames.

To show you the level we have fallen from, we have to pan back to the mid-1970s when the Murtala-Obasanjo regime incepted and the leaders vowed that Nigeria would not remain a Big-for-Nothing country. In 1976, Nigeria’s then Head of State, on Nigeria’s behalf, seized the African leadership from the then contending powers; United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, with his Africa Has Come of Age speech, at that year’s OAU special conference.

On 3rd January 2976, the US Ambassador gave a letter from American President Gerald Ford into Garba’s hand. “It was patronizing”, Garba said, as the letter threatened, that the US would “not however stand idly by if the Soviet and Cuban intervention persist”, and urged “another round of talks the Angolan groups”. Unspoken order to the OAU: “the Angolan crisis which is off limits”.

I will quote from late former Foreign Affairs Minister, Gen. Joseph Garba’s book; Diplomatic Soldiering: “Murtala was livid. “That evening, we issued a strong response to it, in sum calling it “gross insult and in sum calling on the Americans to go to hell”.  Then at a special OAU conference, according to Garba, “Since the alphabetical sitting arrangement placed Nigeria very close to the podium, I was by winks, gestures and copious notes to Amin (Idi Amin, Uganda’s then leader and OUA chairman), actually able to direct the meeting to the advantage of the pro-MPLA group”.

“Murtala was the third speaker and the mere introduction of him brought a tumultuous reaction in the large hall. His forceful delivery of an already tough speech must have chilled the anti-MPLA forces and certainly reverberated far beyond the hall and even the continent”. 

That “Africa Has Come of Age” speech changed Africa for in it Murtala Muhammed announced Nigeria’s recognition of MPLA as the only representative organization for the Angolan people and announced Nigeria’s gift of $10m to the MPLA freedom fighters. The Murtala-Obasanjo administration ordered Nigeria Airways to start flying the Lagos-Luanda route just so that Angola should have an air link with the outside world.

“What after all did Nigeria gain”, Garba asked from all the sacrifices made for Angola? When Murtala Muhammed, their greatest benefactor was assassinated, it took Angola three weeks to send a condolence letter.

Augustino Neto, the MPLA leader over-flew Nigeria on route to Guinea twice but never touched down in Lagos. Garba’s reply: Nigeria gained “high visibility in the international community, an awakening of our government officials as to what serious lobbying involved; and rallying a large population of our population to an international cause.

“These are small pluses. They allowed us to seek a new role in international arenas, including the OAU and the non-Aligned Movement.

 

They enabled us to stake a claim on the United Nations Security Council, a claim which, though challenged, ultimately prevailed.  And all of these developments made possible our greater international impact in matters that centrally concerned our foreign policy aims”.

Also, never ask what Nigeria gained from helping kill the apartheid system in South Africa; we wiped that shame off Africa’s face…and we are Africans!

If that same wholesome spirit had endured, we would have remained Africa’s true leader and we would have been invited to join the BRICS bloc. But we are a big-for-nothing country, now, a shame to Africa; the global poverty capital which experienced electricity national grid collapse Thursday morning and can’t even organise free and fair elections – since 1999.

*Eluemunor is a commentator on public issues