My mother’s question in 1960, “what has Great Britain done to cause us to want to break the link between Britain and Nigeria? Why don’t we like the Queen, whom she regarded as a very nice person!
A traditional expression is that what an old man or woman saw sitting down, a young man on top of an Iroko tree would never see. Looking at Nigeria since independence, she may have been a clairvoyant, she foresaw the mess Nigeria is today, and perhaps she saw this while sitting.
The U.S. made Russia into the big bad bear that will come to get us.
What does the Ukraine war tell us according to the western news media? It will seem that Russia is no big bad bear, it cannot even fight a small part of its territory. Originally the Russians and the rest of the world believed that the war would only last a few days, so what happened?
Russia is getting drones and arms from Iran, South Africa, North Korea and China, so where is the vaunted Russian Power?
Libya’s quest for nuclear weapons brought the end of Gadaffi.
New nuclear countries are Pakistan, India, South Africa and Israel but Iran attempt to get nuclear weapons was refused.
I wish that Bolaji Akinyemi’s campaign that Nigeria should have a black bomb, so as to gain international favor and respect, had succeeded.
The fear Russian had of the Western surrounding the then UUSR had led Russia Khrushchev’s attempt to locate a Russian base in Cuba which led to the famous standoff between Russia and the United States. Which aggressively followed the Monroe doctrine which denies all attempt of establishing any hostile occupation of any country near the United States. NATO is seeking now to have Ukraine as a member?
The United States is the loudest disciple of democracy as the most suitable government for the world to adopt. However this doctrine is sometimes conditioned by realities, such as right of passage in the world’s seas.
A few years ago the government of Egypt attempted to nationalize the Suez Canal. France, the United Kingdom and Israel attacked the Egyptians and the U.S. did not fully support the nationalization of the Suez Canal. The consequence was that the Egyptians lost control of the Canal. Egyptian President G. Nasser who prompted the nationalization lost his job and was disgraced.
The new dispensation thereafter returned the control of the Suez Canal to Egypt with strong support of the United Kingdom and France and with guarantee that the Canal would be open to all nations without let or hindrance by Egypt. A few years later, Egypt in an open election returned to power the Muslim Brotherhood led by Mr. Morsi. This was unacceptable to the West, led by the United States.
General Asisi led a coup against Mr. Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood. The general won and has since continued to rule Egypt. The pain here is that the U.S. would never allow government that it did not support to control anywhere that threatened the US access to use the Sea lanes. The same is idea informs the U.S. attitude to China with regard to Taiwan and the sea lanes thereby. Incidentally the U.S. jailed the strong man in Panama, Noriega who had tried to nationalize the Panama Canal. The Canal has since been open to international ships.
Russia is still smarting over the United States having a nuclear bomb with which the U.S. bombed Japan(Hiroshima and Nagasaki). Russia did not know the U.S. had the bomb and felt betrayed, having lost 26 million people which is three or four times the number lost by West in the war against Hitler in the WW11.
A disappointed Russia had to find its own nuclear weapons to protect itself against an untrustworthy ally. India, Pakistan depended on the Russian technology to build their own nuclear weapons.
Muhammad Gadaffi had also wanted to acquire its own nuclear weapons as a representative of the Arabs possessing a nuclear weapon. Gadaffi lost his life because of this ambition.
Concluded
Cole (Ph.D) OFR is Nigeria’s former Ambassador to Brazil.
