Former Minister of Foreign Affairs, Professor Bolaji Akinyemi has stated that there is no shred of evidence to suggest that the Commonwealth of Nations is being controlled by the British.’,
The Commonwealth of Nations, often simply referred to as the Commonwealth, is a political association of 56 member states, the vast majority of which are former territories of the British Empire. The chief institutions of the organisation are the Commonwealth Secretariat, which focuses on intergovernmental aspects, and the Commonwealth Foundation, which focuses on non-governmental relations among member states. Numerous organizations are associated with and operate within the Commonwealth.
He made this assertion while featuring on the globally-viewed Toyin Falola Interview Series where he was a guest to the global community including scholars, politicians, world leaders, captains of industry, among many other policy and opinion molders. The panel, led by foremost historian, Professor Toyin Falola, consisted of Professor Akinjide Osuntokun, Ambassador Jaiyeola Joseph Lewu, and Ambassador Godknows Igali. The interactive audience included Professor Richard Joseph, Bishop Hassan Kukah, Blessing Ajisafe, Jonathan Bill Doe, Professor Babafemi Badejo, Franklin Amoo, Femi Olugbile, Reverend Father B.A.C. Obiafuna, Tola Osunnuga, Izielen Agbon, Binta Moustapha, Martin Okusanya, among several others.
While interrogating Professor Akinyemi’s career path as foreign minister, Ambassador Lewu sought to find the relevance of the Commonwealth to Nigeria to which Professor Akinyemi argued that: “The Commonwealth should be regarded as an asset because in multilateral diplomacy, it helps to have a crop of committed friends that when it comes to lobbying for a particular policy or a particular position, you could turn to them and regard them as being secured in your corner. They also have other friends that they also approach on your behalf. To that extent it is a functional instrumentality that helps in multilateral diplomacy. Because of the shared colonial history, you often operate on the same wavelength. There are concerns about whether the Commonwealth is not a colonial instrumentality to replace British authoritarianism over its former colonies. I don’t think so. The way the British handled the postcolonial development, they missed the grand opportunity not only to lock us into a closer relationship with them but to allow us to help them develop their own connections in global affairs.
“As countries became independent, the British left with this system where the apex of the judicial body even within the Commonwealth was still the Privy Council. But the Privy Council was made up of exclusively British judges at the highest level. That was a mistake on their part. If they had picked chief justices from their independent Anglophone nations to be members of the Privy Council, it would have become less British and more Commonwealth in outlook and the bond on the council may have been sustained. But because they kept it exclusively British, it was then easy for political decision makers to withdraw from judicial membership of the Privy Council. India, Nigeria, the West Indies and others then made their own Supreme Courts the apex. The British lost a grand opportunity there. There had then been an evolution of a secretariat for the Commonwealth. I don’t believe any Briton had become the Secretary-General of the Commonwealth. The first was from Canada; we have had from Nigeria, India; the present lady is from the West Indies. That now became the fate of the Commonwealth.
“There is no evidence that Britain had ever tried to micromanage the affairs of the Commonwealth from the background.
That has helped in the evolution of a Commonwealth position on issues that have an impact on global affairs; examples being the Commonwealth position on free elections, on democracy, on human rights, and others. I believe that the Commonwealth is ahead of ECOWAS and the EU in terms of its own conventions on human rights. That is something that could be of assistance to us in evolving an ECOWAS or AU charter on democracy.”
Speaking further, Akinyemi delved into the political crisis in Niger Republic, advocating that a soft diplomacy was appropriate and respect for the rule of law entrenched.
For him, “Something that may be falling under the radar is the use of soft diplomacy by President Bola Tinubu. Nobody de-markets their country than Nigerians do. We are so critical and everybody is busy attacking the President’s position, forgetting the fact that as chairman of ECOWAS, he is duty bound to articulate ECOWAS decisions. But we also know that diplomacy sometimes acts behind the screen. The use of religious organisations and personalities are opening doors where the formal
organisations cannot open those doors.
This is because of the abuse of religious organizations, because of the influence of Jihad and fundamentalism. This has tended to discredit religious organisations and religious influences. They have their roles to play. I see Tinubu using religious organisations which have acceptability in Niger. The door has opened a little bit. The reports have it that the government is ready to negotiate and talk. That is how negotiation starts.
“There was a misrepresentation of the ECOWAS communiqué from the beginning; this was when ECOWAS said it was not ruling out the use of force. The way they would have put it at the State Department would be that nothing was off the table, nothing is on the table.
Nevertheless, it never meant that boots were going in after seven days. All the talks about war were misplaced. That has happened and now soft diplomacy is now being used. This however extends beyond ECOWAS. How does one deal with democracy and coups? I think there must be a charter on democacry proposed at the ECOWAS level, embraced by the AU, and wherever else. That is going to say that bad governance and tampering with the constitution is a civilian coup and if that happens that should not be accepted by the ECOWAS and AU and that such government would stand suspended. It is not enough to have a kangaroo election.
That is what happened in Central African Republic where the president there has just amended the constitution to allow him run for another seven years after the spending the time allowed by the constitution.”
Source: Guardian