In the last two days, some South Africans have embarked on a very aggressive act
of historical revisionism playing the victim to gaslight entire African continent
over the Mexico issue.
And if you think they’re not worried about such African solidarity from Cairo to
Limpopo, St. Louis to the Horn of Africa, you’re mistaken. They’re shaken and the
world also took note. It is not just football. It runs deeper.
They stated that they are the most Pan-Africanist nation on earth through their
policies. They itemised innumerable things they did for Africans to which fellow
Africans have not shown an iota of gratitude instead they supported Mexico.
They listed funds they donated to Congo to fight Ebola, how they sent their
military to the Congo and Cabinda and how they have been intervening across
Africa.
Granted that in the last decade, Nigeria has been under the leadership of men
who are so provincially obsessed that they don’t understand that there’s a bigger
world out there, we should not allow our leadership failures to aid those bent on
rewriting history.
Even before its independence in 1960, because two regions were already self
governing as at 1957, Nigeria already positioned itself as Africa’s foremost
financier and liberator, and this is not through rhetoric, but through billions in
hard currency, military commitment, and institutional backing.
Adoption of Africa as the centrepiece of its foreign policy at independence wasn't
just a punchline. It was a statement of purpose.
In 1961, when France tested an Atomic Bomb in the Sahara Desert, Nigeria was
the only country in Africa that rose against that act by severing diplomatic
relations with France and rallying other newly independent states across Africa to
join that campaign.
Many couldn’t fathom such temerity and boldness and they chickened out. But
some summoned courage. France never forgave Nigeria for that “intransigence”
which influenced their foreign policy direction in West Africa for three decades.
As a founding member of the OAU (now AU) in 1963 and ECOWAS in 1975,
Nigeria helped shape continental integration. At one point, it virtually underwrote
the OAU/AU’s operational budget when others defaulted, and this included
settling the OAU secretariat’s outstanding rent for ₦80 million in 1980 when ₦80
million was about $100,000 million.
Nigeria singlehanded built the first secretariat of the Organisation of African Unity
(OAU) in Addis Ababa and that building served the OAU till its transformation to
the African Union and a new headquarters was gifted by China a decade ago.
Nigeria was the first nation to provide direct financial aid to the ANC in the early
1960s. In the 1970s alone, it gave $5 million annually to liberation movements
through the Southern Africa Relief Fund (“Mandela tax”) raised $10.2 billion
within six months under General Obasanjo, funding education for hundreds of
South African exiles.
The cumulative expenses by Nigeria towards liberation of South Africa and other
anciliary groups in the Frontline States runs to about $30 billion, but the real cost
in non monetary terms is unquantifiable. It was because of South Africa and
Zimbabwe that Nigeria nationalized British Petroleum (BP) under General
Obasanjo in 1979.
The government of Nigeria seized BP's 20% equity in the Shell-BP Petroleum
Development Company and its 60% stake in BP Nigeria Ltd.
This was in direct response to the UK government's decision to allow BP to supply
oil to the apartheid regime in South Africa and to pressure Britain regarding the
transition to majority rule in Zimbabwe-Rhodesia.
Prior to the BP action, Nigeria pulled its public assets and state accounts out of
Barclays Bank as a sanction after reports revealed the bank was purchasing South
African defense bonds.
Nigeria has spent an estimated $13–$16 billion on peacekeeping across Africa
since 1960, deploying over 250,000 troops to UN and OAU missions. Nigeria was
the first to send troops to the Congos during the Kitanga Crisis in early 1960s and
to Tanzania in 1964, and later to Darfur region.
And in the 1990s, ECOMOG operations in Liberia and Sierra Leone cost Nigeria $1
million daily not to talk about thousands of lives of our military lost in both
operations.
As of 2014, Nigeria contributed $16.7 million annually (18% of the AU budget),
making it one of the “Big Five” along with South Africa, Algeria, Egypt, and Libya.
It also covers 75% of ECOWAS’s official budget.
Nigeria played a foundational role in the establishment of both the African
Development Bank (AfDB) serving as a principal architect, the largest shareholder,
and host country.
Established in 1964, Nigeria was not just a member but a leading force in the
Bank's creation and its largest shareholder. Nigerian economist Dr. Pius Okigbo
chaired the UN panel that proposed the bank's creation in 1961.
At its inception in 1964, Nigeria's initial subscribed share capital in the African
Development Bank was 10 million units of account which was equivalent to $10
million at the time, representing about 4% of the Bank's total initial authorized
capital of $250 million.
Nigeria specifically gave out the right to be the headquarters of the Bank to
Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire after their president Félix Houphouët-Boigny visited Tafawa
Balewa and begged for that concession with a promise to support Nigeria to be
headquarters of Africa Central Bank.
Interestingly, when war broke out in Cote d'Ivoire in early 2000s and the AfDB
came to beg Nigeria to take the temporary headquarters until the war ends,
Nigeria unfortunately refused that offer and the Bank took it to Tunis in Tunisia.
Tunisia gained from Nigeria's loss. That's a story for another day because this is
not public knowledge.
Nigeria holds the largest number of shares and the highest voting power over 9%
presently, a figure it had to whittle down to accommodate South Africa after
encouraging the newly independent country to rise to leadership position in
Africa.
Nigeria established the Nigeria Trust Fund (NTF) in 1976 with an initial $80
million, as a special fund managed by the AfDB but funded solely by Nigeria to
provide low-interest loans to poorer African nations and the NTF has impacted
the continent with about $1 billion for 88 projects across 34 countries.
Nigeria also launched the Nigeria Technical Cooperation Fund with a $25 million
grant fund to finance technical assistance and project preparation for other
African countries.
The Fund sends doctors, nurses, teachers and other skilled manpower to different
African countries and the Caribbean similar to the US Peace Corps. I know about
the extensive operations of the NTCF because I have consulted for them before.
In 1993, Nigeria helped the AfDB to establish the African Export and Import Bank
Afreximbank. Since its inception the Bank has cumulatively disbursed over $100
billion in funded and unfunded financing and trade support. And the institution's
total assets and contingencies have grown considerably, reaching over $48.5
billion.
Nigeria is collaborating with Afreximbank to launch the Africa Energy Bank
(headquartered in Abuja) and has approved the Pan-African Payment and
Settlement System (PAPSS) which has allowed cross-border trade in local
currencies.
From hosting Namibian students to bankrolling Zimbabwe’s liberation, Nigeria
spent what it had on African freedom even when its own people were lacking
basic necessities.
That the Lion does not roar again and presently whimpering like a house cat
should not make us to deny huge contributions and impacts made in years past
and present.
Irrespective of our individual positions on the present status of the Nigerian state,
undeniable is that what I have enumerated here are matters of facts.
And if we do not reiterate these facts, the emergency narrativists will change the
story and the world would run with what's available.