By Louis Odion, FNGE
There are a few telltale signs that a nation has lost her own dignity and prestige on the world stage. Perhaps, the most easily recognizable is the weight her passport carries at a foreign border post and how her citizens are treated on a foreign soil, particularly when at fault.
True, Nigeria's stock on the global stage has been
in decline over the years. But even at that, nothing could have prepared anyone
for the sheer evisceration, the diminution of the Nigerian humanity
as depicted by the plethora of horror videos emanating lately from Libya's
open slave market and the adjoining transit camps of desperate immigrants from
sub-Saharan Africa longing for Europe.
For the young women, graduating from Libya's torture
chambers and rape bouts is however not a guarantee that they would
survive the perilous sail on the Mediterranean Sea. Two out of 26 bodies
of such ladies recently discovered refrigerated in a dark vessel off Italian
coast were identified as Nigerians. They were found to be pregnant.
Worse, in what only suggested absolute contempt for the
Nigerian state, their remains were hurriedly interred by the Italian
authorities without according the bereaved families even the least entitlement
in the difficult circumstance - the opportunity to pay the customary
last respects.
We see the vanishing Nigerian pride also in the waves of
unprovoked and later unchallenged xenophobic attacks against her citizens in
South Africa.
Nigeria's steep fall from the height of respectability
of the 70s in both regional and international arenas could only have resulted
from the cumulative failure of diplomacy in the intervening decades.
This must indeed be a troubling moment for Akin
Oyebode, professor of International Law and Jurisprudence and one of Nigeria's
truly progressive scholars who turned 70 last Saturday. The
celebration of this icon has animated the progressive boulevard of the
nation's academic community in the past few days.
Were he asked to contextualize the referenced
indignities suffered by Nigerian migrants today, the Ekiti-born scholar would
likely put it all down in his accustomed wit to Nigeria's loss of her
"nuisance value" in the global arena. If the 1970s are still
remembered today as the golden age of Nigeria's diplomacy, it is only
because of the character and coherence demonstrated by the political leadership
of the era.
Over the weekend, President Muhammadu Buhari led the
stream of stirring tributes for the erudite professor attaining the platinum
age. Indeed, not many could be said to be as consistent as the
Ekiti-born scholar in the past half century in exploring the far reaches of
International Law through research, writing and propagation to fashioning the
African perspective to world diplomacy.
Central to this Pan-Africanist standpoint is the fierce
reminder that Nigeria and indeed all self-respecting post-colonial states must
define their own truths and realities from their own interests, not the
dictations from the western powers. It is, therefore, impossible to read and
digest his "International Law and Politics: An African Perspective"
and not feel the awesome presence of a truly authentic African thinker.
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| Odion |
On a personal note, this writer had the privilege of
being taught International Law by Professor Oyebode (doubling as the HOD of the
Law Faculty) at the University of Lagos for his Master's degree in
International Law and Diplomacy many years ago. A true master of his art, his
erudition always electrified the packed lecture hall, spiced with a
terrific sense of humor that made arcane technical concepts looked so simple
and otherwise mundane events of history truly memorable.
However, the simplicity of his airs sharply contrasts
the rigidity of his principle. Once the Vice Chancellor of Ekiti State
University, he did not hesitate before tendering his resignation letter once he
sensed his values conflicted with those of the new political
leadership of the state then.
Overall, there can be no doubt about the surfeit of
professed solutions to African problems. But the enduring question is
whether the errant nation, the wayward continent, is willing to heed the wise
counsel of the philosophers like Oyebode.
In a paper he delivered back in 1986, he observed:
"The fact of underdevelopment of Nigeria's political economy circumscribes
the role of the country on the world stage. The sophistry of Africa being the
centerpiece of our foreign policy has worn thin. Without genuinely radical
reordering of our society, the country would be unable to fulfill its mission
in Africa and beyond."
Thirty-one years later, those words surely continue to
speak to the Nigerian reality. That the allure of migration now seems too
irresistible to our youths to the point of embarking on suicidal trips through
Libya is only a reflection of harsh economic climate at home. It is the
immutable law of nature for man to lust after greener pasture. When
opportunities abounded at home and Naira was strong, the temptation for our
ladies to go prostitute in Italy and young men flocking to labour camps
elsewhere in Europe to slave was certainly less.
It is perhaps a measure of the insipidity of our
contemporary foreign policy that a nation that birthed the Emeka Anyaokus,
Bolaji Akinyemis and Oyebodes seems no longer capable of speaking eloquently
and respectably on the world stage today.
Oyebode's possible anguish could then only be in
context of the curse of talents left to lie fallow. Nothing could truly be more
traumatizing than the spectacle of a land brimming with great minds being
sentenced to a darkness and squalor inflicted by mediocrity or the scion
of the proverbial meat-seller left a supper of bones.
Of course, in retrospect, the carnage that Libya
approximates today is another graphic illustration of the failure of African diplomacy
of which Nigeria cannot, by any stretch of imagination, shirk responsibility.
It was largely in the interest of vengeful western powers that erstwhile Libyan
strongman, Moammar Ghadaffi, be swept out of power in the ferment of
the Arab Spring. But the aftermath only left Africa with more instability.
At the defining moment, the African Union ceded the
initiative to buccaneering outsiders and, instead, conveniently chose to
marinate in idiocy. It explains why Libya is now a lawless province with no fewer
than five militia armies laying claims to different chunk of the once
prosperous country. It explains why, even when Nigerians are either sold as
slaves or butchered openly, there is no constituted authority to hold
accountable today from the perspective of International Law.
Oyebode's forte in International Law is treaty. From
his antecedents, it is safe to also assume Prof has been suffering insomnia not
so much for Morocco's treacherous bid to gatecrash into ECOWAS from North
Africa, but more for Nigeria's apparent timidity, if not indifference, to what
should ordinarily be treated as a clear and presence threat to her continued
dominance and influence in the West African sub-region.
Regardless, here is wishing
Prof happy birthday.
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