By Ernest Udoh-Robert
The world is experiencing new happenings that question the meaning and integrity of international diplomatic postulations on sovereignty.
Before now, many were grappling with Francophone countries who claim to be sovereign nations, yet have their financial reserves being managed by France. China on the other side of the divide sees Taiwan as its province, and has threatened to use force should it declare independence. Russia is saying no to Ukraine, a sovereign country, joining the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO).
Moreover, today, we see the United States of America moving into Venezuela and abducting Mr Nicolas Maduro, the president. Obviously, sovereignty is taking a new shape in international community.
Nigeria’s foreign policy today, under President Tinubu, focuses on African peace and stability, which has been our running diplomatic and negotiating tilt for many years, while addressing internal security and economic needs of Nigerians.
Mr. President, in his inaugural statement, said that the West African sub-region and Africa would be a major focus of his administrations foreign policy exertions. This has served to reinforce the popular mantra that Africa is the centre-piece and the corner stone of Nigerias foreign policy. For the administration of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, this time-honoured focus of Nigerias foreign policy locates Nigeria and Nigerians as the object and subject of Nigerias foreign policy and international relations.
Now, with the current redefining of sovereignty in international diplomacy that is being brought to the table, how prepared are we and how are we prepared for this new realities? One point to stress, however, is that the ultimate decisions about Nigerias foreign policy and international relations as with other positions of the Federal Government lie with Mr. President on whose table the buck stops. He is ultimately the chief foreign policy maker, albeit with inputs from other critical stakeholders such as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and relevant ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) of Government.
In other words, how prepared is Tinubu, looking at today’s new narrative of foreign policy in the international community? In the light of the country’s coming elections and the insecurity bedeviling the country, where is our position of strength for us to engage despite these issues? Can we stand tall to negotiate or stop any form of aggression? Or stop them from determining who becomes our president?
Mr Bowen, a journalist with the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), in an article titled: ‘Trump risks pushing world back to age of empires’ writes; “Only a few hours after the Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro was removed from his palace, his job and his country by US special forces, Donald Trump was still marveling about how it felt to monitor a live feed of the raid from his Mar-a-Lago mansion. He shared his feelings with Fox News.
“If you could see the speed, the violence, they call it that… It was amazing, amazing work by these people. No one else could do something like this.”
The US president wants and needs quick victories. Before he took office for the second time, he boasted that ending the Russia-Ukraine war would be a single day’s work. Venezuela, as presented in Trump’s statements, is the quick, decisive victory that he has craved.
Maduro is in a prison cell in Brooklyn, the US will “run” Venezuela – and he has announced that the Chavista regime, now with a new president, will turn over millions of barrels of oil and that he will control the way the profits are spent.”
Recently the United States government, collaborating with the Nigerian government, launched strikes on terrorists base in Sokoto. Did we have a choice, could we say no? As a nation we find ourselves obeying without resistance.
Nigeria today is diplomatically weak. Our weakness was glaring when a Nigerian Air force plane was held by the Burkina Faso government, an act that would have been a taboo, when we were truly the giant of Africa and running Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Monitoring Group (ECOMOG), a military task force formed by ECOWAS to promote peace and stability in the region.
Established in 1990, ECOMOG’s primary goal is to intervene in conflicts and restore order in member states. Some notable interventions include:
1. Liberia (1990-2000): ECOMOG helped end the civil war
2. Sierra Leone (1997-2000): Supported the restoration of democracy
3. Guinea-Bissau (1998-1999): Assisted in resolving a civil conflict.
All that is history now. Niger, Mali, Burkina Faso and Guinea would not have left ECOWAS if Nigeria were still the giant of Africa. Unfortunately, the story has changed; it might even be easier to pick President Tinubu than Maduro. God forbid! You may say, but the world is changing and brute force is excelling.
China, while responding to US abduction of Maduro, strongly condemned the seizure and violation of Venezuela’s sovereignty. Without grandstanding in the style of Trump and Macron, it has taken a series of measures, understanding that the US has defined control of Venezuelan oil as a way to halt China’s presence in South America and stop its unstoppable development.
China has taken series of measures that target the heart of the American Empire because the aggression against Venezuela is a declaration of war against the proposal for a multipolar world and against the BRICS.
Just hours after the news broke of President Maduro’s kidnapping, Xi Jinping of China convened an emergency meeting of the Politburo Standing Committee that lasted exactly 120 minutes. There were no statements or diplomatic threats, only the silence that precedes a storm.
This meeting activated what Chinese strategists call a comprehensive asymmetric response, designed to address aggression against partners in the Western Hemisphere, and Venezuela is the beach head for Latin America in the “backyard of the United States.”
The first phase of China’s response was activated at 9:15a.m. on January 4th when the People’s Bank of China quietly announced the temporary suspension of all US dollar transactions with corporations that had ties to the US defense sector.
Boeing, Lockheed, Martin, Raytheon, and General Dynamics awoke that Thursday to the news that all their transactions with China had been frozen without prior notice. At 11:43a.m. that same day, the State Gris Corporation of China, which controls the world’s largest electrical grid, announced a technical review of all its contracts with American electrical equipment suppliers, implying that China is decoupling from American technology.
At 2:17 PM, China National Petroleum Corporation, the world’s largest state-owned oil company, announced the strategic reorganization of its global supply routes, effectively reactivating its energy weapon.
This involved canceling oil supply contracts with American refineries worth $47 billion annually. Oil that previously reached the US East Coast was redirected to India, Brazil, South Africa, and other partners in the Global South, causing oil prices to surge 23% in a single trading session. But the most important strategic message is that China can strangle the US energy supply without firing a single shot.
In another move, the China Ocean Shipping Company, which controls approximately 40% of global shipping capacity, implemented what it called Operational Route Optimization. This means that Chinese cargo ships have begun to avoid using American ports: Long Beach, Los Angeles, New York, and Miami, which rely on Chinese naval logistics to maintain their supply chains, suddenly found themselves without 35% of their normal container traffic. This was a catastrophe for Walmart, Amazon, and Target, which depend on Chinese ships to import products manufactured in China to American ports,and saw their supply chains partially collapse in a matter of hours.
Every Chinese move strikes at the economic heart of the American Empire. What option (s) does Tinubu have? Perhaps we should begin to think differently and understand that absolute sovereignty does not exist in todays world. It is important that we begin now to strengthen institutions and not personalities.
