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Unequal Nigeria -US Partnership

This Day (Lagos)
EDITORIAL
December 20, 2005
Posted to the web December 21, 2005
Lagos
Nigerian authorities are crooning over the country's energy security
partnership with the United States to protect the Niger-Delta region and the
Gulf of Guinea. Mr. Funso Kupolokun, presidential envoy on Gulf of Guinea
Energy Security, and John Campbell, the US Ambassador to Nigeria, have
presented a communique on the areas of cooperation at a joint press conference
in Abuja.
The partnership is primed to work through four special committies whose
responsibilities, ambassador Campbell has listed as disrupting illicit small
arms trafficking; bolstering maritime and coastal security; promoting
development and poverty reduction; and combating money laundering and other
financial crimes.
On the surface, there is nothing to quarrel with in the objectives of the
partnership. The worry however is that experience has shown that treaties
between two inordinately unequal partners invariably ends to the overall
disadvantage of the weaker party, in this case, Nigeria. Even though details
are unavailable, the communique on it shows that the treaty, at least, in its
critical element of security is wrong in principle and would likely be harmful
in practice.
By implication, the treaty is a shameful admission that Nigeria lacks the
capacity to protect its maritime boundaries and to secure law and order at
home, be it in the Niger-Delta or elsewhere. This is nothing but a creeping
symptom of a failing state. It is a fundamental issue if a country that ought
to be an exemplar to the rest of Africa cannot protect its maritime boundaries
and maintain law and order at home, all by itself without going into a
partnership of unequals.
In practice, the treaty holds dark foreboding. Talk about community development
and poverty reduction are mere sops thrown in to sweeten the partnership. The
real object of the treaty is aimed at securing the undisturbed exploitation of
oil by the partners. From the Nigerian standpoint, Mr. Kupolokun has said that
it is meant to a safeguard the oil wealth of the Niger-Delta which is crucial
to Nigeria's achievement of 40 million barrels per day production of crude oil
by 2010.
Ambassador Campbell was equally blunt about US interest. Affirming that energy
supply from Nigeria is very important and strategic to the US, he noted that
the partnership exists to keep the supply lines open. Again, it is in American
interest to partner with Nigeria on money laundering and other financial crimes
as part of its war against international terrorism.
Now, on the twin issue of oil and terrorism, the US has been uncompromising to
the point of unilaterally imposing its own will on other nations. Iraq is only
the latest imposition of that will. Its entire Middle-east policy, including
American support for Israel in complete disregard for justice for Palestinians
and others in the region, and the desire to impose democracy in the Arab
states, is dictated by a desire to keep the area stable to allow for free flow
of oil supplies to the US. America's new found interest in the Gulf of Guinea
is only a demonstration of its current problems in the Middle-east and the need
to maintain the other alternative sources of oil supply.
To that extent, America is prepared to use any guile to get a security foothold
in the region. Incidentally, that is the platform that the so-called
partnership has provided for it in Nigeria. In going into the arrangement,
Nigerian authorities seem to have forgotten the trend all over the world that
while it may be easy for the US to insinuate its way into areas where it has
strategic interests, it is often difficult, if not impossible to get it out as
long as that interest persists. America has a long tradition, notably during
the cold war era, of using all means, including murder and the promotion and
maintenance of dictatorships, to preserve its affluent way of life.
We believe that it is this fact of American history that has made the Abuja
joint communique to proclaim glibly that the partnership will not entail the
presence of US military personnel in the Gulf. This may well be duplicitous
talk. The US has been known to deploy thousands of troops to a country in the
name of advisers. At any rate, how can the object of the partnership to disrupt
illicit small arms trafficking, and bolster maritime and coastal security be
effected jointly without these so-called US advisers? How many of them will
come to train our own armed personnel?
Here, we easily recall the stiff opposition of former army chief of staff, Gen.
Victor Malu, to what he saw as the subordination of Nigeria's armed forces,
secrets and all, to the American army in the name of training cooperation. For
his efforts, Malu was relieved of his job.
We believe that there is every need for the National Assembly to conduct an
inquiry into the Nigeria-US security partnership. If need be, it should hold
public hearings on the matter. One important reason for a public hearing is the
symbolism that treaty has for the Niger-Delta problem. This is an internal
political problem which can only have a lasting resolution through internal
mechanisms.
Inviting an external strong-arm to impose "peace" may infact inflame the
situation. Infact, we are yet to see where America's strong-arm meddlesomeness,
be it in Taiwan, the Korean peninsula or Victnam, was able to settle a domestic
problem for good.

   

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