Obasanjo’s Strategy Against Regional Integration in ECOWAS

By

Nduka Uzuakpundu

ozieni@yahoo.com

The future of integration in the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) rests, quite persuasively, on the burgeoning, if renascent, tradition of respect – by the leaders of the sub-region – for the principles of democracy, human rights and international trade. Indeed, so impressed by this tradition are some international donors and development agencies that they are beginning to plan towards registering an ambitious presence in the sub-region via some high visibility projects. They are also impressed with the free movement of goods and services, labour and capital on the West African seaboard of the Atlantic, and think that with a very strong industrial base, the sub-region could become a comfortable reference for others in the continent. There is now a plan – a plan which is more of a brilliantly informed simulation – to build on the long-existing energy co-operation between Nigeria and her less endowed, northern neighbour – the Republic of Niger. There is another to pump some $5.5 billion – over a five-year period – into the West African gas project. A third, which, until lately, was shrouded in secrecy, has to do with a nuclear power plant.

An investigation carried out by some journalists from English- and French-speaking West African states showed that the World Bank and the Chirac administration are already lobbying some statesmen, eminent opinion leaders and industrialists in the sub-region to have the nuclear plant built in Benin Republic. About July 2002, when the plan for the nuclear power plant was broached, both Paris and the World Bank tacitly agreed that every means available should be employed to ensure that it was not erected in any Anglophone country in the sub-region. Nigeria was singularly mentioned, in a 210-page document, as one country that should be frustrated from using her muscular influence to have the nuclear project. The reason for this naked conspiracy against the Obasanjo administration was not clearly stated in the document – “Strategic Framework For A Swift Acceleration Of Regional Integration In The Ecowas Sub-Region”– but it was quite safely inferred on page 55 that Nigeria is still not an assuringly stable country, even though, she has, since the end of the 20th Century, gladly opted for another bout of multi-party democracy. “Besides, the current campaign by the Obasanjo administration against ingrafted corruption in high places . . . is far from convincing. Fighting corruption is a nuclear assignment. It demands a transparent straight-forwardness; not selective justice. It is quite distinct from sending an armada – in a thankless exercise – to keep peace in someone else’s country. If the ECOWAS sub-region is to progress rapidly – so as to achieve integration by 2015 – the nuclear power plant should be located in a Francophone country. It is feared that less endowed and smaller countries in the sub-region would feel alienated if a project so significant to regional integration should go to Nigeria. Nigeria has a notorious culture of negligence of public property. Her maintenance record of her industrial and political infrastructure is unsatisfactory. There is little guarantee, in spite of her polished, top military might, that the nuclear plant, if erected in her territory, will be protected, in the event of a religious crisis, or protest by workers against a questionable increase in the price of fuel. For these issues, Benin Republic, which is an assuring contrast to Nigeria, will be a very good location for the plant.” Ghana, which is also a stable country – whose profile as a destination for tourists and foreign investors is well on the rise – lost out in the subterranean and complex diplomacy for the nuclear project, because, like Nigeria, she too, was a former British colony. In one of the recent appendices to the document, an unidentified former French diplomat, whose firm constructed the passenger terminal at the Charles de Gaulle airport, in Paris, which collapsed in the summer of 2004, wrote that “Nigeria, under the leadership of President Olusegun Obasanjo, does not deserve to have the nuclear project for her anti-integration conduct, in 2003: the closure of her border with tiny Benin Republic.” The journalists at the Accra workshop – Reporting on Regional Integration in West Africa – History, Institutions and Policies of ECOWAS – organised by the International Institute for Journalism (IIJ) InWent, Berlin, Germany – were opposed to the nuclear project because it would be too costly to build and maintain. Because of the lackadaisical manner with which governments in the sub-region treat public corporations – in terms of funding and maintenance – it would be no long time – thanks to corruption – they believe, before such a nuclear plant would be neglected and become a danger to sub-regional safety. Thus, the sub-region may be exposed to a nuclear accident – a la Chernobyl. One of the participants at the workshop quipped – rather darkly – that both Paris and the World Bank, that were sickeningly willing to finance about 80 percent of the project, were into some mischievous, private design to decimate the population of the sub-region in the event of a nuclear mishap, which was bound to occur; since HIV/AIDS would seem to have failed! The participants would rather the nuclear power project be discarded, because it was not a priority issue in the integration of the sub-region.

ECOWAS leaders, they offered, should explore the possibility of lobbying the Chirac administration and the World Bank to pump whatever capital they had earmarked for the nuclear plant into poverty reduction programme – like the Obasanjo administration’s National Economic Empowerment Development Strategy (NEEDS) – under a strict supervision by Jeremy Pope of Transparency International. The journalists, from eight ECOWAS countries, were able to capture the views and conducts of the diplomats who were part of the subterranean negotiations back in 2002 for the stationing of the nuclear plant in the Benin Republic. The Liberians, who knew that they were certainly not qualified for the project, because of the crisis in their country, were undisguisedly flirtatious. At one point, they promised their Ghanaian counterparts, who were very eager to clinch the nuclear project, their support in return for some fat kickbacks – the kind that lynx-eyed Obasanjo can never see, still less campaign against them with such clean instruments as the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Practices Commission (ICPC) and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) – to help the pains of post-war reconstruction. Not only that, the Kufour administration was reported to have promised the Liberians a stupendous post-construction maintenance contract on the nuclear plant. Much to the chagrin of the Kufuor administration, the crafty Liberians reneged. Their reason, it was reported, was the urgency of their need for instant gratification for any concession they gave. They doubted the words of the Ghanaian authorities. The Chirac administration was behind the ugly turn of events for the Kufuor administration: It was said to have played dirty with the card of massive water, health and education projects it had embarked upon, since 2003, in the Nimba County area of Liberia.

Two years on, and more than $55 million shelled into the post-war reconstruction efforts in that country – including what some have called a housing scandal involving about 207 unclean public officers, the Liberians knew to whom they should sell their votes on the nuclear power plant project. Dr. Dirk van den Boom, a German political scientist, who has done an extensive study on the institutions of ECOWAS, palpably worried by the attitude of the Liberians – indeed, the Sierra Leoneans were also a part of the nakedly flirtatious behaviour, having been gratified by the World Bank to the tune of $55 million in a popular water project serving Freetown and 207 towns and villages – said that it bodes ill for the prospects of integration in the West African sub-region. Although this was one of the ugly and dirty habits often exhibited in international diplomacy, he surmised, no less, that the (West) African culture of forgiveness and reconciliation would, over time, soothe frayed nerves and broken hearts. With some shuttle diplomacy – under the captaincy of elder statesman, Obasanjo – the sub-region, he said, could reinvent itself and vow never to allow unclean foreign powers to cause further gargantuan damage to the prospects of regional integration. Those who were offended by the corrupt conduct of the Liberians and the Sierra Leoneans, in Boom’s view, were probably too naive. They should go back to school to learn some of the winning, if dirty, habits that are part and parcel of international diplomacy. The Senegalese, who are very proud of their country’s status – as a bastion of democracy and stability in the sub-region – were particularly peeved by the perceived manner the Chirac administration went about negotiating the nuclear plant in favour of tiny Benin Republic. They feel snubbed and accused Paris of insincerity and unfairness. The choice of Benin Republic, they said, was an unacceptable imposition. For that, they insisted, implacably, that unless the Chirac administration apologised for its sleazy conduct – and call, with the collaboration of the World Bank and the European Union (EU) a plenary conference of all major stakeholders to decide, by a popular vote, where the nuclear power plant should be sited – they would leave the Francophone Internationale. On March 25, when the IIJ-InWent-sponsored, Accra workshop was getting to a close, some top French government officials were reportedly seen in Dakar on a mission, which Boom speculated was “damage control diplomacy.” A remorseful World Bank, which has accepted a fairly gargantuan share of the blame for the ebbing ties between Paris and Dakar, is offering to mediate. Its emissary, who played a key role in the whole sickeningly scandalous nuclear affair, was a middle-aged, innocent-looking, Ghanaian woman of stately beauty, with polished dentition. Her spouse is a Brussels-based business tycoon, who is distinguished – amongst Members of European Parliament – for his shrewdness. Agye-Atie was said to be one counsel, who dug into his experience in Brussels, and offered that the Kufuor administration should invest a chest of confidence, time and scarce resources in the nuclear plant project – in the honest belief that it would ultimately be Accra’s. Since the ugly turn of events, the Ghanaians’ experience has had a ripple effect on relations between Paris and the EU. The hiatus is said to be so deep that some member-states of the EU – especially those who are at a loss in defending the unblushingly coquettish conduct of the Chirac administration in siding with the World Bank, which is just another arm of Washington’s foreign policy – are now advocating common foreign and trade policies for Brussels. What really is so attractive about Washington and the World Bank that the Chirac administration is beginning to flirt with them? The same Washington that almost every EU member state kept, until recently, at a leprous distance for its illegal invasion of Iraq! How could the French have switched camp so soon? Could it be that the French are, again, being ruled by the Bourbons, who have learnt and forgotten nothing? A rather pensive Boom won’t be drawn on that. But he felt that what was at play was a classic demonstration of permanent interest that is characteristic of international politics. “Will Berlin and the rest of the EU drag Paris to Strasbourg or heap punitive sanctions on it for bad behaviour?”, he was asked. “Certainly not,” he responded. What is pretty certain is that some member states of the EU are beginning to question Paris’s faith in the Union. “A more informed hunch is that Berlin would prefer to see, and work towards, a united, virile EU – a well-integrated EU, which can genuinely sway global politics – including the politics of dubious nuclear power plant – using the tool of uncorrupted diplomacy.” Barring unforeseen circumstances, Africa’s first nuclear plant will be built in tiny Benin Republic – thanks to the duplicity of Paris. Thanks to the uncouth diplomacy employed by the Chirac administration. While all other leaders in the ECOWAS sub-region have taken the new, monstrous development lying low – in the interest of regional integration – Obasanjo is the only one who has been swooning over it. This is in spite of the fact that, about a fortnight ago, someone, with the best of intentions, faxed a message to him, anonymously, to the effect that the nuclear power plant case was a mere, mischievous assumption. Obasanjo thinks differently, preferring to parade himself as an elder statesman who is bereft of a nuclear sense of humour.“How can one believe that?”, he asks. “What I have read and heard about this rather dubious nuclear power plant project – with all the dirty lobbying and Machiavellian diplomacy that have gone into it, in the past two years – have persuaded me that this administration must take a staunch stance. It appears to me that the French are at it again. As a perspicacious student of history, one is not unaware that, back in the early ’60s, the Balewa administration was mad with the de Gaulle administration – which built the Fifth Republic on the ashes of a weak Fourth Republic – because of its nuclear tests in the Sahara. That was in the 20th Century. Now, in the 21st Century, they are getting too dangerously close, in their mischievous nuclear conspiracy, for the security of this nation.” Obasanjo fears that if it is, indeed, true, Nigeria might lose her geo-strategic importance in Africa. The impeccable student of Cold War history in him has likened the whole nuclear power plant scandal to the prelude to the Cuban Missile Crisis of the early ’60s, for which the Kennedy administration dared Khrushchev’s Soviet Union, by rigging a gargantuan sea blockade of Cuba – thus forcing the removal of the menacing nuclear missiles to where they posed no visibly imminent danger to the security of the United States. Still, the crafty student of (post-) Cold War history in Obasanjo says he would not go back to the archaic, ineffective and anti-integration strategy of shutting Nigeria’s border with tiny Benin Republic – in protest against the nuclear power plant project. Nigeria, he insists, is opposed to the proliferation of nuclear arms in the West African sub-region. With furrowed brows and the sprightliness of a well fed, uncompromising labour leader addressing an impenetrable multitude of hungry-looking ryots at an anti-fuel-price-increase rally, he gesticulates, punches the air aggressively and roars, that if the nuclear power plant is built in Benin Republic, it may be managed by terrorists. No one really knows what the crafty and the incorruptible in Obasanjo would do – just in case the nuclear power plant becomes an embarrassing reality causing, in the first place, an asymmetry in Nigeria-Benin ties. But it will be a gargantuan scandal if the calculating and redoubtable student of military strategy in him does not plagiarise the Israelis’1981 illegal air-strike against Iraq’s Osiraq / Tammuz nuclear power plant. The West African sub-region, in keeping with the gospel of the Bushman at the White House, must be a nuclear-free zone. Nuclear power plant my foot! Nduka Uzuakpundu is on the Foreign Affairs Desk of the VANGUARD in Lagos.