Nigeria’s commonwealth membership needs critical evaluation

On Thursday, September 8, 2022, the head of the Commonwealth, the British monarch, Queen Elizabeth II, was reported to be critically ill, and later, joined her ancestors. What first came to me, subconsciously, was the institution she embodies – the British Empire that massively impacted world history, especially those of Africa, and other third world countries in Asia and to a large extent, the (north) American continent between the 18th, and early 20th century. The impacts were made through slave trade and colonialism which ultimately resulted in the expropriation of mineral and human resources of their colonies abroad – Nigeria happens to be one of them. That became an incentive for the British and other imperial powers in Europe to embark on more territorial conquest around the world in order to increase the wealth of their nations, at the expense of the people of those far-flung places that are thousands of kilometres away.

It is a matter of fact that any territorial conquest, without a commensurate ability (manpower) to garrison same, is like fetching water into a cane basket. This is quite understandable to students of “military strategy on expansionist imperialism”. When an army conquers a territory without the required number of boots to garrison it, the entire venture would be akin to a snake that crosses a rock without leaving footprints. So to avoid that kind of scenario in the twilight of the slave trade and subsequently colonialism by the middle of the 19th to early 20th century, Great Britain and other imperial powers in Europe came up with some disguised institutional arrangement, known as neocolonialism, to nurture, maintain and sustain the exploitative arrangement that characterised the relationship between “the west and the rest” – that is, colonisation by proxy.

This is done, in most cases, using citizens of the same colonial territories to continue the perpetration of the evil that the twin phenomena of the slave trade and colonialism were known for – socioeconomic exploitation of overseas colonies. This is akin to using the hand of the members of a household to pick pieces of meat from the pot of soup (remember the voice of Jacob, and the hands of Esau). In order not to be seen to have violated international laws as contained in treaties like the United Nations Charter etc, it is sometimes done with the instrumentality of multinational companies or non-governmental organisations through which resources, mineral and human resources, are funnelled out of the former colonies. France, for example, did her own through the elongation of her “policies of assimilation or association” into the period of post-independence. Meanwhile, Britain came up with the formation of the Commonwealth of Nations, comprising Great Britain and her former colonies, except the United States of America, among other ruses.

Commonwealth Nations, as described by the Encyclopedia Britannica, is a free association based on the principle of equality of sovereign states who were former British colonies. These also include a number of its former dependencies, including the United Kingdom herself, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. Countries that have chosen to maintain ties of friendship and practical cooperation, and who acknowledge the British monarch as the symbolic head of the association, are also parts of the group. They tag it “a friendly association” of 56 countries that were former British colonies united by a common allegiance to the Crown and freely associated as members. The membership of the union is supposedly voluntary and free with the only condition being the recognition of the Crown as the symbol and head of the association. But the Orwellian arrangement with which it operates stinks to high heavens. The organisation with 56 member countries is meant to be one that is based on equality of members states per the Balfour Declaration of 1926 but what we have, instead, is an association in which “members are equal, but some are more equal than the others”. Of the 56 member countries, we have 15 of them being referred to as “the Commonwealth realms” (whatever that means), while 36 other members are republics and the remaining 5 have different monarchs. The dichotomies tell the whole story.

Whenever one interrogates what benefit Nigeria derives from being a member, some people are quick to tell you that there is an opportunity for scholarships for students of Nigerian origin. Nothing could be more puerile than that. We have countries that are not as close to Nigeria as Great Britain purports to be, yet hundreds of Nigerian students, study there on full scholarship. Japan and Russia are good examples. To me, the only beneficiaries of the Commonwealth of Nations are “the white supremacists” who see it as an opportunity to keep reminding the current generation of Nigerians and the unborn ones that their ancestors were once our colonial masters. The purported technical educational assistance, offered through such institutions as the Sandhurst military academy, Oxford, and Cambridge universities, are just some of the ruses to train Nigerians that could be used as stooges expected to be in government to further strengthen the institutions of neocolonialism and nothing more. After all, ruling those colonies directly, as it was during the colonial era, no longer makes any economic sense due to the high cost of governance.

Therefore, there are two questions that every (African) member of the Commonwealth, especially, Nigeria, is expected to seek (satisfactory) answers to, if I am to be proven wrong. The number one question is one: Why would a Nigerian, for instance, emigrating to the UK, Canada, Australia, or New Zealand, be subjected to a language test, before being granted a visa even though Nigeria adopts and proclaims the English language as its official language? To me, it does not make any logical sense that citizens of a country that has gifted the English language, scholars of the language, and writers like Wole Soyinka, China Achebe, Pius Adesanmi (of blessed memory) among numerous other prolific writers and teachers of the English language would be made to write the International English Language Testing System (IELTS) or Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) exam before being granted a visa to emigrate to Canada, for instance, for work or studies. Meanwhile, nationals of a country like Jamaica would be exempted from such humiliating stress. Canada is a country whose population is divided into two, almost equal, proportions between speakers of French and the English language yet their citizens are never made to write IELTS or TOEFL before being qualified for visas into the UK.

Meanwhile, Nigeria, which adopts solely the language of colonisation as the lingua franca, has her citizens subjected to the stress and humiliation of having to visit the British Council, the majority of which staffers are also Nigerians, to write the exams to determine their supposed level of proficiency in the language they use in transacting official business both in the public and the private sector. Yet, Nigeria has gifted the world, and indeed, Commonwealth, Chief Emeka Anyaoku, a Nigerian, as its secretary-general for 10 solid years. I have come across a Briton who speaks the English language in a way that acknowledges no syntactic rule and he confesses to being an Illiterate. Would such a person cease to be a British citizen? I doubt it. I am not trying to dictate the criteria for accepting migrants from anywhere into the imperialist countries but as far as the membership of the “special purpose vehicle” created to continue (in a subtle manner though) what the institutions of slavery and colonialism were created to perpetrate is concerned, I see no reason why the Nigerian Government is and should continue to be a part of such an organisation — one that has continually dehumanised her citizens at any given opportunity.

I understand that for a Nigerian to secure a visa to the UK or any white Commonwealth nation, he suffers no less stress, (humiliation if I want to go to the extreme) than a national of a non-member country. Like the Yoruba adage goes; “what is the benefit of the Garcinia (Bitter) Kola if, after peeling, one realises it is not made up of lobes yet when eaten, it tastes bitter?”

The second reason why Nigeria’s membership in the Commonwealth should no longer be, beyond questioning, is the Commonwealth Games. The games, the last of which was hosted in Birmingham between July and August 2022, is an all-sports (except football) event in which every member country sends in a contingent of athletes to compete for honours. The hosting of such an event, like in the case of the FIFA World Cup, should be a matter of rotation among the 56 member countries. But so far, 20 cities in nine countries (counting England, Scotland, and Wales separately) have hosted the games since its inception in 1930. Australia has hosted the Commonwealth Games five times (1938, 1962, 1982, 2006, and 2018 and will host the next edition in 2026) more than any other nation. Two cities have hosted Commonwealth Games more than once: Auckland (1950, 1990) and Edinburgh (1970, 1986).

Furthermore, I do not believe the kind of customs barriers placed in the ways of goods originating from Nigeria is less difficult than the ones encountered in France or other European countries that are non-members on the same goods. It is, therefore, safe to say that the union is more or less an avenue for the colonial masters to further extend their imperialist expansionism through the subtle imposition of their culture on the rest without appearing to be doing so through their so-called scholarship. This is an empire that was not only at home with the apartheid regime in South Africa, but also “in bed” with it for decades.

The question is, what happens to the concept of friendship when only nine out of 56 countries are deemed worthy or capable of hosting the games? If South Africa hosted the senior FIFA World Cup in 2010, Nigeria, the FIFA Under-20 male World Cup in 1999 and the FIFA Under-17 male World in 2009 in addition to having hosted the All African Games in 2003, why won’t they host a colourful Commonwealth Games? If these (African) countries could stage the aforementioned events without any ado, why not the Commonwealth Games? But as I said earlier, the Commonwealth is the 21st-century version of George Orwell’s Animal Farm, part of which I do not believe Nigeria should be.

Nigeria must, therefore, use this occasion of the death of Queen Elizabeth II to introspect and critically evaluate her continued membership of the Commonwealth and see to it that these anomalies are reversed with a view to safeguarding the dignity of her citizens, and her sovereignty cum national pride. Being a member of the organisation that prides itself in being concerned about good governance, how much has Nigeria benefitted from the UK government in terms of preventing the stashing of public funds in British banks by the thieving political elites? How much of such funds has the Commonwealth facilitated its repatriation? That is why I find so disgusting, the eagerness of the minister of interior, Rauf Aregbesola, to be counted as one of those who are the earliest to mourn the exit of the monarch by announcing that the Nigerian flag, home and abroad, should be flown at half-mast. That is inferiority complex-induced colonial mentality and such must stop, henceforth.

Abubakar writes from Ilorin. He can be reached via 08051388285 or [email protected]