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Good Governance : A Security Strategy For West Africa By Abubakar Mohammed Sambo
The events after the collapse of the Soviet Union have turned out to be changing so rapidly because of the near end of the ideological bifurcation of the world; making at that time the world to have two diametrically opposed political and economic ideological beliefs. The need for the spontaneous spread of the communist ideology by the Eastern bloc and the desire for the containment of the communism by the West threw the world into these two ideological bifurcations and resulted into the cold war.
During the cold war the East had actors by way of states that share same communist sentiments and headed the Soviet Union while the United States of America heading state-actors with capitalist doctrine. There are a group of ‘coward nations’ as one of my radical lecturers in the university used to address them, whom for whatever political reason identified themselves neither with the East nor with the West. They branded themselves as the groups of ‘non- align nations’. All African countries belong to the non-align nations. I think I will not be wrong to brand these nations as ‘prostituting’ state-actors in the international system. This is because they wanted to romanticize with both the major powers and at the same time tried to avert the wrath of the captains of the two power blocks.
All they require as a group, the non-align countries pressed hard for some little economic changes in their relations with the two powers as their demands as part of the new international economic order (NIEO) thus; the rise in development assistance to 0.7% of the GNP of the developed countries; the restructuring of the external debt of the third world countries; the substantial expansion of world bank lending and the establishment of lending in the energy sector; increase in IMF quota, and financing the essential supply; increased access to markets in developed countries for third world exports and the removal of protectionism. Now, the changing global political relation in particular, re-configured the balance from bi-polar world to unipolar moment with the eastern block chickening out of the power equation.
Post cold war Africa has noticed changes in the approach as well as the commitment of particularly the United Nations in peace keeping operations during the 90s. This can be attributed to lack of any other ideological belief to contain by the west and the international police, is busy trying to forge co-operations that will be beneficial to them and expand the horizon of their market base. They seem to discourage spending for peace keeping and security related adventures in the less developed countries unless where their economic interests are glued to.
The European experience right from the unification of Germany and the dramatic changes of many Eastern European states opened a new political, social, economic and cultural relation for their common good. Asia has concentrated more in trying to bring states in that region for economic or rather market dominance of the world. The Asian tigers triggered off this commitment and vision. China, Japan Malaysia and India are global players today in the communication technology industry in particular and almost an all rounder in the skills of business creativity and market expansion, manipulation and general economic development.
Africa on the other hand is very busy, busy trying to address the issues that are fundamental to survival; the problems of hunger, famine, mosquitoes through the roll back malaria campaign, and issues of political succession, while others are building a much bigger unions and economic frontiers. Since after the cold war, we have had civil strife or wars in Sudan, Somalia Liberia Angola Mozambique Sierra Leone and Rwanda. The peace between the factions of UNITA and MPLA in Angola is still elusive, the Mozambique FRELIMO and RENAMO; the succession between Ethiopia and Eritrea; Somalia is almost a failed state in this 21st centaury, the power succession in cote dvoire. All these are ‘positive’ multi dimensional effects of post cold war relations in Africa.
In West Africa, when conflicts in Liberia broke out, the United Nations were busy in operation desert shield and desert storm, trying to rescue Kuwait from Iraqi invasion, thereby giving no heed to the West African Liberia, owing basically to the global strategic interest being more pronounced in the Gulf States. We all know well the role which Nigeria played in trying to enforce peace in Liberia and later Sierra Leone. Over 3 billion US dollars was spent in these two peace keeping operations by Nigeria alone. This is much and these resources could have been channeled into other strategic development of Nigeria or the entire sub region of ECOWAS for enhanced growth and development so as to achieve more positive its integration agenda particularly in the areas of community unification, agriculture, road network and defense and security networks… had it been there was no war!
The fundamental problem of lack of security from within the African sub region is poverty. That does not mean that the West African sub region is poor, No. This poverty is institutional which was induced by bad governance in most of the states in the West African sub-region.
As was opined by scholars that relative deprivation is equal to collective violence (RD=CV). Most of the violence witnessed from within the sub region is as a result of economic deprivation or denial by some section within a country to have access to political control and have a little share of their ‘national cake’! The remote causes of problems in Liberia and Sierra Leone at a point in time had to do with who controls what? Who gets what when and how? We can say that insecurity which primarily brings about civil wars and strife happens when certain groups in governance use their political and economic prowess and legitimate force to subjugate fellow citizens.
Section (V) of the ECOWAS protocol on Good Governance, Article(s) 25, 26, 27 and 28 made provision on poverty alleviation and the promotion of social dialogue within the West African Community. Article 27 thus provides that, all member states should fight poverty from within and from without the community, …especially by: Creating an environment conducive to private investments and the development of a dynamic and competitive private sector; providing instruments necessary for the enhancement of job creation and for the development of the social sector as a matter of priority; ensuring equitable distribution of resources and income in order to consolidate national development unity and solidarity; enhancing the integration of economic, financial and banking activities through harmonization of commercial and financial laws and establishment of community multi-national corporations.
These are beautiful ideals, built in other to provide for the good life and uphold social justice. What we need in the West African sub region in order to have meaningful life, experience economic and social growth is good governance, agreed. With good governance, there are likelihoods that wars may never happen in the sub region and we will have less to spend on defense budgets and more to inject into infrastructural development, health, education and pursue the integration agenda more vigorously in the West African sub region.
Since the community members agreed under article 25 of the ECOWAS good governance provision that…“member states agree that poverty alleviation and promotion of social dialogue are important factors for peace”… in the sub-region, our leaders and politicians, the parliamentarians in particular, should be able to integrate positively the issues of social justice, employment generation both from within formal and informal sectors of the economy, environmental protection and revival; desertification environmental degradation, ozone pollution ,chemical waste disposal are issues that seriously need to be addressed, as most of the citizens in this part of the world rely on either farming, cattle rearing and livestock farming, fishing and petty gardening…soil and environment dependant. By this you can hardly separate the ECOWAS citizens with their immediate environments.
The ECOWAS secretariat on its part seems too slow in responding to most of the challenges in the sub-region. A lot has been said on integration, good governance, common currency and single market, we are yet to realise tangibly all these laudable goals. A lot has to be done on their part, because they have the opportunity to transform the fortunes of the West African citizens positively. The secretariat should also put a monitoring mechanism for ensuring that the good governance provision is being respected and implemented as contained in her provisions. With good governance in west African sub-region we will experience less conflicts and speed up the integration process for the good of all and realised the fundamental objectives as set out in article 3 article 4 and article 5 of the economic community of west African states.
SAMBO, is a PhD candidate at the Department of Political Science and Strategic studies, Nigerian Defence Academy, Kaduna. |