Weekly Political Review

  By Samson Ezea

Instead of playing to the gallery and speaking belatedly in defence of Buhari’s government, Gowon, who is also an elder statesman should speak truth to power, by urging Buhari government to sit up. He should remind Buhari that he was not elected to preside over a killing field or animal kingdom, where cows are more protected than human lives. He should tell Buhari that the killings are tearing the country apart and that there is no way human life can be compared with that of cows.

Imo Assembly Commences Impeachment Proceedings Against Deputy Governor

The Imo State House of Assembly on Tuesday, commenced impeachment proceedings against the state deputy governor, Eze Madumere.

 The House accused the deputy governor of gross misconduct.

 Madumere had fallen out with Governor Rochas Okorocha over 2019 succession matters. Okorocha, an All Progressives Congress (APC) governor, is backing his son in-law, Uche Nwosu, against Madumere, who is also in the race.

  The deputy governor was said to have pitched tent with another faction to wrest control of the APC from Okorocha during the party’s ward, local government and state congresses.

  But the Federal High Court recently cancelled the congresses, following a suit by some supporters of Okorocha and ordered fresh ones.

  Chaai, Weekly Political Notes has consistently maintained that with the dynamics of Nigerian politics, Imo APC crisis cannot be said to be over, until it is over. The deputy governor’s impeachment move is obviously a continuation of the battle for the soul of APC in Imo between Okorocha and the forces against him.

   Before now, Okorocha’s political enemies, which include his estranged ally and deputy, Madumere had upper hand in the battle, having outsmarted Okorocha in the state congress to install their loyalists as party officials.

  But at the party’s national convention, Okorocha bounced back by ensuring that his lackey, Emmanuel Ibediro defeated preferred candidate of his opponents, Senator Osita Isunazo to emerge National Organising Secretary of the party. Isunazo and his cohorts protested, but nothing meaningful happened.

  Since then, the cookies appeared to be crumbling faster for Okorocha’s enemies with the court judgment that nullified the state congress, followed by the impeachment move against the deputy governor, Madumere.

  With this development, Okorocha and his supporters have once again taken control of the party in the state. But whether this will give Okorocha leverage to install his preferred candidate and son-in-law, Uche Nwosu as his successor in 2019 will be known in the days ahead.

  That Okorocha has the last laugh now does not mean that the battle for soul of APC in Imo is over. It is only after the 2019 elections that the victors and the vanquished of the battle would be known.

PDP Coalition Act Of Opportunism, Says Balarabe Musa

Former Governor of Kaduna State, Balarabe Musa, says the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) by 39 political parties and groups ahead of the 2019 general elections is an act of “opportunism”.

  Musa said this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja on Tuesday.

  He said, “I don’t think a coalition like this which is opportunistic will be able to defeat the governing party, that is the All Progressives Congress (APC).”

 Musa, who is the national chairman of Peoples Redemption Party (PRP), said his party was not part of the coalition.

 “Remember, the reason for coming together is simply because they have lost the opportunities for sharing power.

 “It is not because of anything which they can do, which APC didn’t do. No, it is not because, they have a different ideological position.

 “There is no fundamental difference between them and the APC; they are just an electoral gang to defeat the APC. I don’t think the coalition is enough,” he said.

  Balarabe said it all. The coalition is indeed an act of opportunism. Balarabe’s view is not different from that of many Nigerians.

  The haste in which the MoU was signed is selfish and suspicious. The major objective is to wrest power from APC by all means. It is not necessarily about good governance, employment, basic amenities and security, which the APC government has failed to adequately provide. Now, If APC could be described as a party of strange bedfellows, how could one describe the new coalition, multitude of strange bedfellows?

  But despite this, the country needs a strong opposition to keep APC on its toes ahead of 2019 polls. It is hoped the coalition will stick together till 2019, and not collapse like that of the Second Republic. If not for want of time, merger of the opposition parties would have been better than hurried coalition. This is because in a coalition, there is high tendency for parties to pullout or sellout, when it matters most.

Herdsmen Attacks: It’s Unfair To Accuse Buhari Of Killings–Gowon  

A former Head of State, Yakubu Gowon, says it is unfair to blame President Muhammadu Buhari for the incessant killings arising from conflict between farmers and herders in parts of Nigeria.

  Gowon, who was Nigeria’s military ruler between 1966 and 1974, said he believed the President has no hand in the killings.

“The Buhari I know will not be involved in such things. Certainly, no leader will encourage his people to be killed.”

  He spoke on Tuesday, at the Plateau State Government House, when he paid a condolence visit to Governor Simon Lalong on the resurgence of violence in the state.

  According to a statement by the state commissioner for Information and Communications, Yakubu Dati, Gowon decried the past practice of releasing arrested suspects without their trial.

  With due respect to Gowon, apart from being entitled to his opinion, Gowon should be reminded that nobody blamed Buhari as a person for the killings. Rather, Nigerians blamed Buhari’s government for failing to stop the killings. This is because the primary constitutional responsibility of government is to protect lives and property of citizens.   

  Obviously, Buhari’s government has failed in this regard and deserves every condemnation, if necessary blackmail. Is Gowon saying that Nigerians should keep quiet and applaud Buhari’s government for failing to protect them from attacks by herdsmen?

  Instead of playing to the gallery and speaking belatedly in defence of Buhari’s government, Gowon, who is also an elder statesman should speak truth to power, by urging Buhari government to sit up. He should remind Buhari that he was not elected to preside over a killing field or animal kingdom, where cows are more protected than human lives. He should tell Buhari that the killings are tearing the country apart and that there is no way human life can be compared with that of cows.

Ugwuanyi's Supreme Court Victory Is A Prayer Answered, Say Enugu Monarchs

The Enugu State Council of Traditional Rulers said the Supreme Court verdict in favour of State Governor, Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi’s election is a prayer answered by God.

  Chairman of the Traditional Rulers Council, Igwe Lawrence Agubuzu, said this in a statement, issued in Enugu on Tuesday.

  According to Agubuzu, the Supreme Court’s judgment was in the best interest of the state.

  He said: “We, as the custodian of customs, tradition and peace of our people, enjoin all indigenes of the state to join hands with the performing governor of the state to keep and consolidate on the peace in the state.”

   Celebrations and merriments that trailed the judgment across the state was a clear indication that Ugwuanyi’s victory was a peoples’ prayer answered. From the old to young, politicians to core professionals, residents of the state were extremely happy about the governor’s victory.

  The victory came after a protracted legal battle between Ugwuanyi and his kinsman, Senator Ayogu Eze. Such is capable of derailing any government in power, but while the legal tussle lasted, Ugwuanyi was not distracted.

   He focused on providing good governance, enthroning peace and development. This endeared him to the people, especially at the grassroots. His popularity soared in the state and beyond. So, it was not a surprise that the traditional rulers described Ugwuanyi’s victory as prayer answered.             

Buhari’s Government Most Corrupt Since 1999 – Atiku

 A former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar, has described the government of President Muhamadu Buhari as the most corrupt since 1999.

  Abubakar spoke in Abakaliki, Ebonyi State capital on Tuesday, while addressing supporters of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) at the state secretariat of the party. He was in Ebonyi to continue his campaign to emerge PDP presidential candidate in 2019.

  He said the only achievement the All Progressives Congress (APC)-led government can boast of is fighting corruption; but argued that fighting corruption is not the only responsibility of government.

   Atiku spoke like a politician, who is seeking support of his party members to emerge presidential candidate in 2019. He told them what he felt they would like to hear. If not, how could Atiku with all his experience say that Buhari’s government is the most corrupt since 1999 without any evidence. What a generalisation!!! It is expected of a personality like Atiku to be specific and thorough in making such allegation.

   Before raising such weighty allegation, fact and figures should be put forward to substantiate it. Atiku should know that leveling allegations is not a sure way to electoral victory. It goes beyond that. So, instead of dwelling on running the Buhari government down, Atiku should concentrate on telling Nigerians what he did as a vice president and what he intends to do if elected president.

Obasanjo Accuses APC Of Using Anti-graft Agencies To Witch-hunt Opposition   

Former President Olusegun Obasanjo, Tuesday, accused the All Progressives Congress (APC) of using the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and other relevant agencies to witch-hunt and intimidate opponents.

  Obasanjo alleged that some judges are already being intimidated; to prepare them to do the biding of the ruling party, in petitions that would arise from next year’s election.

  He disclosed this in Abuja, at a colloquium titled Nigeria’s democracy: The journey so far and the role of women, which marked the 70th birthday anniversary of Mrs. Josephine Anenih, former minister for Women Affairs and Social Development.

  Hmmm, This is a case of pot calling kettle black. Obasanjo lacks the moral authority to accuse any government of witch-hunting opposition with anti-graft agencies. This is simply because that was the stock in trade of Obasanjo’s government from 2003-2007. Some of Obasanjo’s political opponents, he used EFCC to hound out of office were later reinstated by court.

  But this does not mean that there is no element of truth in his allegation against the APC-led government. It is only those who have something to hide that are afraid of witch-hunt. It is quite unfortunate that Nigeria is a clime, where an average person, especially a politician is a suspect and always has something to be afraid of.    

THE FALL OF NATIONS

Then the Blast overtook them with justice,

and We made them as rubbish of dead leaves (floating on the stream of Time)! So away with the people who do wrong! (Quran 23: 41).

In the course of a discussion of the decline and fall of the Roman Empire, R. Briffault, in his book, The Making of Humanity, made some thought provoking observations, which we will do well to ponder over: A society based on false principles inevitably disintegrates. What really happens is that the phase of society, the order of things in which disregard of right is habitual and accepted, inevitably deteriorates and parishes. However much the individual may temporarily benefit by inequity, the social organisation of which he is a part and the very class which enjoys the fruits of that inequity, suffer inevitable deterioration through its operation. They are unadapted to the facts of their environment. The wages of sin is death by the inevitable operation of natural selections: And for a nation, it’s expiration.

If a nation suffers, it has brought the suffering on itself. It cannot blame it on any outside agency. The Quran has, repeatedly directed our attention to the phenomena of nations that flourished in the past but which went into ruin because of their way of life, the goals they pursued, the values around which their culture was organized, their actions and the consequences of those actions. The Quran tells us to go round the world and see for ourselves "the fate of those who defied God". History has judged them, as it will, in time, judge us:

We have already sent down to you verses making things clear, an illustration from (the story of) people who passed away before you, and an admonition for those who fear (Allah). (Quran 24: 34).

A nation which takes to destructive ways is invariably granted a respite, long or short. It is saved if it retraces its step and turns back to the right path before reaching the point of no return. This is termed ajal in the Quran.

To every People is a term appointed: When their term is reached, not an hour can they cause neither delay, nor (an hour) can they advance (it in anticipation).  (Quran 7: 34), See also (Quran 13: 38).

Success or failures are the eventual consequences of our good or bad conduct. The Quran makes this clear, see Quran 10:44. The Quran says that a nation begins to decline when it pursues wealth and takes to hoard money it should have spent for the general good. The rich, instead of helping the poor and the needy, amass wealth for themselves. The inevitable consequence was that the nation began to deteriorate. See Quran 47:38.

The consequence is clear: If a nation refuses to work for development of its people and for the establishment of Divine Order and pursues the ignoble end of self-aggrandizement, it will be supplanted by another nation carrying more weight in the balance of humanity.

The Quran says that it is the duty of the intellectuals and the leaders of thought, to discover the right path and persuade the people to follow it. When these men do not discharge their duty properly, the nation slides into injustice and tyranny and heads for ruin. The leaders of thought are bound to keep a watchful eye on the nation and to warn when it goes wrong. The leaders are to blame if the nation pursues false values. If a nation begins to decay, the process usually starts at the top. The upper stratum of the society first becomes corrupt and the corruption percolates downwards. It is strange that men of high intelligence should be the first to be corrupted. It is because they cannot resist the temptation to use their intelligence to further their own interests. The above are a glaring testimony of the state of affairs in our country today.

The masses too, are not quite blameless as they allow themselves to be misled by their leaders. As free responsible beings, it is their duty to think for themselves and reign in their leaders when they go wrong. If they fail to do this, they too cannot escape punishment. Resilience under a condition of misrule is tantamount to docility and it’s a crime. Common men, by shirking their duty to think independently, become accomplices in the crimes of their leaders. Had they rebelled, the leaders might have been brought to their senses and checked themselves. Their willing obedience to errant leaders is in itself a crime and they have to expiate it.

The blame for what Nigeria has become therefore, falls on you and me. Our wickedness stinks to the heavens; pulling down everyone and everything to become rich. We import substandard products, fake drugs and expired baby food unfit for human consumption, container loads of dangerous addictive drugs and we have the nerve and temerity to complain about leadership?

We even steal from widows, orphans, and refugees. We take the food of IDPs and sell it for profit. A conscienceless people; nothing is sacred. From the construction of substandard roads and buildings, all for profit at the expense of human life; an invaluable item which all our profit and contract sum cannot buy.

One would think this behaviour is reserved for urchins but it would surprise you that this is the character of many decent looking people who appear to be normal but are not: They are Christians, Muslims, husbands, wives and sadly youths. We pervert justice and enthrone injustice and inequality. Slave traders pale to insignificance in comparison to what we do to ourselves: No surprise, after all, we sold our people to the Whiteman for looking glass and gin. We are wickedness personified. We fast and starve ourselves believing that we are bribing God; we pray and go into trance, speaking in strange language called tonging, hold deliverance services and vigils during which we call upon the ‘holy ghost’, invoking the sacred name of God in vain.

Our problem today is beyond prayer and fasting. We are fast approaching the precipice and about to fall into the great abyss. We have reached the point of no return.

Everything is upside down. Like they say; everything is scatter, scatter and its now ‘rererun’.  Where is the hope for our children and our children’s children; when the father steals and the children display profligacy with reckless abandon; the poor honouring those who robbed the commonwealth instead of stoning them? Where is the hope?

May we not fall into ruin; that is why we have to make a hard choice and pursue change so that we may avoid the path which led others into demise.

The great lesson that the Quran teaches us is that individuals as well as nations are the architects of their own fate. Their destiny lies in their own hands.

Our Lord! Lay not on us a burden greater than we have strength to bear. Blot out our sins, and grant us forgiveness. Have mercy on us. Thou art our Protector; Help us against those who stand against faith (Quran 2:286)

Barka Juma’at and a happy weekend!

Babatunde Jose
+2348033110822

Post-Helsinki summit Cold War echoes

The presidents of United of States of America, more so from John Fitzgerald Kennedy to Barak Obama, have tended to impact history more for the brilliance of their public remarks than the perspicacity of their policies and actions. And political analysts have variously observed that mastery of the spoken word has more than its conventional significance on the fate of US presidential candidates. But the current holder of that all-powerful office, Donald Trump, promises to be the exception that would prove that rule. President Trump would not, by any standard, pass as a brilliant public speaker, but the proven efficacy of his policies and actions in less than 24 months in office dwarf the full-term achievements of most of his predecessors. In most instances Trump has succeeded with seeming ease in international situations which his predecessors had considered impossible.

For example, in over sixty years since the Korean war, the western world could not tame the military adventurism of North Korea. But Trump somehow not only managed to get the North Koreans to resume communications with their estranged southern brethren, but he also succeeded in making the North Korean leadership see reason in commencing negotiation talks on dismantling its nuclear armament programme. He has also put a measure of effective check on Bashar al-Assad genocidal excesses in Syria’s protracted civil war. Next, Trump looked China (US leading trading competitor) in the face and accused her of cheating through currency manipulations; and consequently imposed tariffs on imports from China. Trump’s immigration proposals have been just as audacious. He proposes to wall-off illegal immigrants from one of his southern neighbours, Mexico; just as he enacted a novel ban on would-be visitors from select terrorists-infected countries. The effects of these actions and policies have been phenomenal; US economic indicators have since headed northwards. But reactionaries are fanning the embers of counterproductive-Nativism against the president; with some members of Congress lobbying for impeachment proceedings on Trump, on the allegation that he colluded with the Russians in meddling with the US 2016 presidential election that brought him to power. That controversy rages on.

President Trump’s just-concluded European official tour was no less unconventionally bold, if controversial. In Brussels, Trump openly railed against fellow North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) member-nations for failing to meet the 2% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) target set for the organization’s annual budget. The US would altogether opt out of its obligations to NATO if other member-nations continued to come short, the US president threatened. The defaulters immediately retorted by labeling him “a disruptor” of international bodies. Trump was acting out a Russian script, the defaulters alleged, since NATO was essentially set up to check the expansionist excesses of the Russian Federation. Trump was dauntless; he would stir up even more stinging controversy in the United Kingdom, even amid growing protests against his visit. When a journalist at his joint news conference with the British prime minister, Theresa May, asked about his views of the Russian president, Vladimir Putin; Trump unequivocally said, “Putin is not my enemy; he is my competitor. I don’t know him that well; he is not my friend either; we could be… But he is not my enemy.” The statement expectedly elicited strong emotional reactions across the western world. How could a US president publically deny that Russia is an adversary of the west? Most of the western world has been asking.

Whilst that question yet buzzed Trump gave a practical effect of sorts to his unexpected remarks in the UK at his Helsinki summit with the Russian president. In a seeming subtle attempt to create a room for Trump to assuage the perceived emotional injuries of his surprise remarks, a US reporter asked his president to elaborate on his relationship with Putin. “We have all been foolish in dealing with each other over the years…a lot of mistakes were made in the past. It is time to correct those mistakes. Putin is not my enemy; he is a competitor…and I say that as a compliment…”, Trump responded in part, reiterating the point he had made just before departing the UK. Conservative America is now loudly calling for Trump’s head in all but words.

This has been the intractable challenge of mankind almost from creation: the inability of the human mind to evolve from a traditional position. Trump didn’t say anything new in Helsinki. He hadn’t minced words throughout his 2015 campaign in commenting about the Russian leader. He even went as far as wistfully stating that he looked forward to being friends with Putin, because according to his reading of history, “the world would be a much better place if the US and Russia got along well”. All true pacifists would agree on this. A conciliatory relationship between the two global superpowers would certainly signal the beginning of a nuclear-arms-free world, a much coveted phase of human evolution. That envisaged conflicts-free phase of human evolution has actually been within grasp since the world unanimously condemned the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, under the auspices of the United Nations Security Council, decades previously. But few world powers, notoriously the US, have had the greatest challenge abiding by the spirit and letter of the non-WMD-proliferation UN Charter. This was the genesis of the destabilizing arms race between the US and Russia – otherwise dubbed the Cold War. The ongoing reductionist outrage against Trump’s Helsinki-summit performance is a confirmation that, indeed, the Cold War still rages in the minds of many in both America and the Russian Federation. My “Buying the same horse twice” article made the point on these pages, and it is pertinent to quote relevant section of the piece in extenso:

“But, as the proxy wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and other places have since demonstrated, Perestroika and Glasnost didn’t stop the cold war. The western and eastern doctrines have since resumed their ego-centric struggle, albeit in a modified form as decreed by dialectics. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s every action points nostalgically to a ‘reformed Union of Soviet Socialist Republics’ while US President Donald Trump talks just as nostalgically of a ‘great native America’. Let us hope that the two modern leaders will be humble enough to connect the dots leading to the twenty-first century synthesis: a more equitable world order. That depends on if the two can trust each other. Even the lead actors of Perestroika and Glasnost, US president Ronald Reagan and Comrade Mikhail Gorbachev, had expressly recognized this when they agreed to ‘trust but verify’ each other. It was therefore a good pointer to hear presidential candidate, Donald Trump, rhetorically ask his supporters, ‘Wouldn’t it be nice if Putin and I get to like (read trust) each other?’”

Indeed, the emerging reality of climate change and rapidly declining global resources enjoins cooperative relationship between all nations, going forward. So, by all means, nations should compete among themselves for excellence; but that excellence should not be for the vainglorious purpose of national aggrandizement and bullying weaker nations as has been the case. Rather, nations should compete to excel in promoting the wellbeing of the human race; for, as all the Holy Writs make clear, all knowledge is for the sole service of mankind to the eternal glory of the Magnificent Creator. This should be the global response to the post-Helsinki summit Cold War echoes from the western world.

Afam Nkemdiche is an engineering consultant; July, 2018                                

EU still in denial on immigration

“The North/South destabilizing trade imbalance can no longer be sustainable. It is time to stop playing the ostrich…” – Refugees crisis: Chickens coming home to roost; The Guardian, October 2, 2015.

The 28-member European Union (EU) has yet to brace up to the real causes of millions of unsolicited migrants on its doorsteps, even as one of its leading members, the United Kingdom (UK) voted in 2016 to leave, and few others now threatening to borrow a leaf from the would-be leaver. Immigration is at the top of the issues threatening the Union. The essential causes of those problematic migrations are historically evident, but the EU apparently regards that evidence as inconvenient. So denial provides provisional convenience to the European bloc; meanwhile thousands of economically dislocated humans perish in the bordering Mediterranean Sea every month, as the EU erects both physical and legal walls to fence off its unwanted guests. Latest reports on the vexed challenge show that these walls are composed of: a) disrupting humanitarian rescue missions in the Mediterranean(!); b) offering aid to countries that commit to stemming the flow of people; c) funding the United Nations (UN) to repatriate migrants stuck in Libya; and d) beefing up the Libyan coastguard to nip migration in the bud. (This should partly explain the harsh treatments Nigerian returnees received in the hands of Libyan authorities)   

Only recently the EU has opted to increase its expenditure on Africa by over 20% spread across 7 years hence, to a minimum of €36bn (£31bn) in a bid to reduce the number of migrants and refugees crossing the Mediterranean Sea. A large part of that amount is said to be targeted at funding the Italian-trained Libyan coastguard, whose primary task it is to force migrant-boats back to Africa. But so far, the effect of all these international efforts to stem mass migrations northwards is comparable to the effect of water on a duck’s back. The migrations have increased with time. And rather instructively, a recent study by a watchdog, Eunpack, to closely examine EU’s efforts to tackle the migrations challenge has revealed “a mismatch between the grandiloquent declarations and the action actually implemented on the ground…” and “a troubling lack of monitoring and impact evaluation schemes across most of the EU crisis response initiatives…” The study then concludes that, “outsourcing of migration management to Libyan authorities and the dramatic increase in the number of people in custody in Libyan detention centres is fuelling a criminal economy and traffic”.

Sequel to that disheartening report, EU’s foreign affairs chief, Federica Mogherini, suggested that, “If you want to manage migration and if you want to prevent further security threats in particular terrorism, there is one single place where you have to invest all your political, economic and diplomatic efforts and that is the belt of the Sahel and the Horn of Africa”. For its part, the European Commission (EC) has entered a “compact” with five African counties: Ethiopia, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, and Senegal that is inextricably tied to development aid, trade and other EU’s policies to the original agenda of returning unwanted migrants from Europe. In the first year of the compact Mali accepted EU funds in exchange for 404 returnees; those funds are tied to beefing up internal security forces, border control, and crack down on smugglers. One fact however stands starkly out of all the foregoing: the efforts fight shy of the real causes of the 21^st century mass migrations from the southern hemisphere to the northern hemisphere. But William Swing of the UN International Organization for Migration didn’t fight so shy of that inconvenient historical fact when he recently asserted thus, “For three centuries Europe populated the world…and today, because of demographics and the low birth rate, it has become a continent of destination. This is a psychological adjustment that has not been made…”

The UN official has stated a fundamental fact only peripherally. Population and demographics are not at the core of the issue, but material wealth and economic opportunities are primary to the discussion. Until some two hundred years ago when the United State of America gained her independence, Europe was a net receiver of global wealth. But even with the US independence, global wealth continued to flow from the south to the north. For a planet that was evidently designed for a circular flow for its equilibrium, a unidirectional flow would inevitably result in catastrophic disequilibrium. It therefore requires little imagination to see that the ongoing mass migrations are naturally following the flow of global wealth for, as a popular adage makes plain, bees always follow honey. It is understandable that the EU is presently having difficulties coming to terms with this reality. But we should make bold to remind the Europeans that the short term pains of facing up to this touch reality is as nothing in comparison with the unending nightmares of looking the other way. Token gestures which results from looking away from reality will not wish away the migrations challenge. What the moment calls for is an all-encompassing infrastructural development progamme for Africa – the equivalent of post World War II Marshall Plan for the redevelopment of Europe.

The need for such a plan was proposed at UN Roundtable discussions as early as in the last months of the 20^th century. Other forward looking groups have since continued to call for a Marshal Plan for Africa. One of the more dedicated of these groups, The Club of Rome, in the early 1970s published its detailed studies of human exploitative activities and their consequences on global stability, The Limits of Growth. As the over 200-page book indicates, employing empirically derived data, trillions of Euros, rather than tens of billions, are the realistic sums required to sustainably check the present global socio-economic instability; and by extension, the mass south/north migrations. Of course the impulsive response to that suggestion would be to exclaim that the sums are simply unaffordable. But I would counter thus: if the northern hemisphere’s unsustainable consumption and undifferentiated growth patterns could be reasonably adjusted, funding for Africa’s Marshall Plan would materialize. The EU as a bloc and her North American neighbours need to make a fundamental shift in their existing social values; that is the “psychological adjustment” William Swing of the UN was talking about.

There is little doubt that a painstaking digestion of The Limits of Growth and countless related studies on the subject would facilitate this all-important adjustment of mindset. This is not an option for the EU, but the only option for the entire northern hemisphere. To persist in denial could be likened to a bomb waiting to go off.

Afam Nkemdiche is an engineering consultant; June, 2018