*Umar Ardo, Ph.D*
As President Mohammad Buhari took off yesterday for the United States on
the special invitation of President Barack Obama, expectations are high
both in Nigeria and the United States on the outcome of the visit. To
attain success, President Buhari needs to define his priorities, marshal
them out and ensure that he also understands and matches them with the
needs of the United States. As the saying goes, good policy begins with the
ability to recognize reality. It is for this goal that I venture to state
what I think President Buhari needs to tell President Obama.
In my view, Nigeria’s problems are basically three in nature –
insecurity,
corruption and severe economic depression. And for the United States, its
problems are also mainly three in nature –terrorism and insecurity
especially in the Islamic World; global threat to its corporate economic
interests; and apparent failure to fashion out how best to handle and
resolve the problems. If the two leaders are able to identify these
problems and see them as mutually reinforcing and their resolution as
mutually beneficial, and resolve to work towards it, then the visit would
meet the high expectations on both sides of the divide.
Making a comprehensive analysis of the issues involved will show that
Nigeria needs the United States in solving its problems in as much as the
United States needs Nigeria’s problems resolved as a critical element in
the resolution of its problems. With the fall of communism on the global
scene, the Western World under the leadership of the United States came
into direct conflict with the Islamic World in what seems to be a clash of
civilizations. The seemingly irreconcilable ideological positions of the
two former allies have since put the world’s security on the edge. Also,
under the effect of globalization, the United States strategic economic
interests as a super power have come under severe threat globally. The war
for wealth, a nastyfight for a share of prosperity, and the related
struggle over political and cultural dominance of the world, have become
the major conflicts the US is facing across the globe today. The era of
America’s supremacy, in which it overshadowed the rest of the world with
its economic and technological might, is fast coming to an end. A new
topography of global power equation is taking shape as globalization is
shifting world economic emphasis from the United States.
In Asia, which contains more than half of the world population, the US
economic interests are increasingly being challenged not only by Japan and
the US-propped ‘Asian Tigers’, but also more by the turncoat communist
and
socialist states of China and India. All over Asia US firms are today in a
cut-throat competition with companies of these Asian countries. The result
is that the productive core of the US is shrinking, while Asia’s is
expanding; Asia’s new strength leads to the weakening of the US. As Asia
booms America faces mass unemployment and growing national debt. In Europe,
the situation is no better. The Marshall Plan of the post-World War II have
long outlived its usefulness as most European companies have become arch
rivals of American firms in the war for wealth. As more and more European
firms offer the same standard of service, the need for America’s firms
decreases all across Europe. With the formation of European Union and the
Euro Zone, Europe not only expanded its economic base but has also
fortified it. Ultimately, over the years, America’s firms are taking
marginal spots in Europe’s economic life.
America thus needs to look beyond Asia and Europe for its economic
expansion and preeminence. With the emerging crisis of confidence in
relations between America and the Muslim World, especially in the aftermath
of 9/11 terror attack, and the accompanying tension between them following
the declared war on terrorism, the US has only one large region to look up
to – Africa.With a population of over a billion people, Africa is
undoubtedly a reservoir of a potential huge world market. Besides, not only
Africa has the world’s most unexplored and unexploited natural resources,
but the continent’s religious affiliations, be it Islamic, Christian or
traditional, are not extreme in nature. All its religions rest on a solid
foundation of African cultural traditions. Hence religious identity does
not have the same meaning in African communities as it does in say Arabia,
Asia Minor or Israel.
In Nigeria, there are probably more commonalities among ethnoreligious
groups than differences. With the right economic and social environments,
Nigeria can reclaim this African heritage without being overwhelmed by the
forces of global religious extremism. The current Boko Haram terrorism and
insurgency in Nigeria is in fact an exception rather than the norm. It is
the result of economic hardship, constitutional freedom and lack of any
form of dialogue with the Muslim communities in the country that sparked
off the conflict. Indeed, severe poverty has direct relevance to the
current insecurity situation. Since 1999, Nigerians are being promised and
assured of good life by politicians seeking public offices. Under the
generic parlance of “dividends of democracyâ€, they have been promised
high
standard of living – i.e. assured peace, security, education, healthcare,
power, clean potable water, economic prosperity, political rights and
freedom, transparency and honesty in leadership, etc. But how so
disappointed Nigerians have become today!
While the ‘democratic constitution’ of the county has brought in liberty,
rights and freedom to individuals and groups in the country, the promised
and expected ‘high standard of living’ woefully failed to materialize. On
the contrary, there resulted a large scale and wide spread poverty and
hardship across the land, chiefly brought about by poor or failed public
policies, high level of corruption and dishonesty by elected public
officers, election and electoral malpractices by incumbents, a compromised
and insincere judiciary, among many other vices in public service.
Furthermore, in so short a time, there emerged in the country a glaring
disparity in the earnings and living standards amongst the citizens never
seen before in the history of economic and social mobility of a people
anywhere in the world; such that today in Nigeria less than 2% of Nigerians
(most of whom are the very politicians elected) own and control over 98% of
the national wealth, while more than 98% of the citizens struggle daily to
survive on less than 2% of the country’s resources. As these policies are
seen being facilitated, driven and implemented by the political class over
the years, naturally there is today no love lost between the masses and
politicians. Here then lies the real source of terrorism in Nigeria.
As rightly maintained by Ted Gurr, a world renowned Criminologist, “when
expectations go up and realities go down, men rebelâ€. For all the facts
have shown that the Boko Haram insurgency is basically the result of failed
expectations of ‘dividends of democracy’ under civil rule. Contrasting
the
personal and collective freedom and liberty of citizens ushered in through
constitutional democracy with the failed promises and expectations of
improved standard of living of citizens, one then sees clearly the seeds of
crises being sown in the society. Add the polarization and great disparity
of wealth amongst citizens, the overt and insensitive corruption by public
servants, the increasing widespread of poverty and deprivation within the
vast majority of the people, the extreme forms of election frauds by
incumbent leaders, the compromised judiciary, etc., relations between the
government and the governed invariably have to come under severe stress.
Because the local civic cultures are unable to withstand the stresses and
strains of these economic and political pressures, it naturally breeds
disappointment, despair and instability. It then takes very little for
civil resistance to go virulent. This is the proper explanation of the
various insurgencies, including the BH insurgency, ravaging the country
today. Hence it makes no sense to debate whether these insurgencies are
political, socio-economic or religious. The answer is they are all of the
above.
As President Buhari gets to meet with President Obama in the hope of
resolving this problem, he must understand its fundamental underpinnings.
The challenge is for the government to resolve its two most critical
elements – i.e. the economic and the political elements. On the economic
level, the President must get the support of the United States to build a
strong base for the country. The United States must have to come forcefully
in terms of funding, investments, transfer of technology, and other
initiatives to help Nigeria out of its present economic doldrums, at the
same time decentralizing economic opportunities and national resources in
such a way as to bridge the wide gap between the rich and the poor amongst
Nigerians. On the political side, President Buhari’s government must tackle
corruption, build infrastructure, freely open the political space, entrench
constitutionalism and rule of law, institute credible electoral processes
and create level playing fields in politics to avoid causing system
breakdown.
In return, on its part, Nigeria, being the most dominant in the African
Continent, with the largest human and material resources, and the largest
number of black Muslims in the world, should play a central role in the
fight against terrorism, in global stability and the advancement of the US
economic and strategic interests. Already a strong international player in
peacekeeping operations, Oil and Liquefied Natural Gas deposits, Oil
pricing within OPEC, leadership role in the OIC, AU, ECOWAS, etc. Nigeria
is well positioned to partner with the US in stabilizing the global
environment. Being the largest non-Arab Muslim country in Africa, Nigeria
can play a key role in evolving constructive specific relations regarding
America with the non-Arab Muslim countries that can serve as a
counter-balance to the broad international relations between the West and
the Islamic World. Such relations will aim to ultimately oscillate the
centers of worldwide Muslim community between Southeast Asia and West
Africa, where pluralism and tolerance is more established than in the
Middle East, Arabia and Asia Minor. This is very crucial not only to
opening US economic vistas and advancing its corporate interests but also
restoring security and stability in the international community. With good
support from the United States Nigeria can initiate and execute such
defining role.
This is what Buhari needs to tell Obama.