Franco-Nigerian Summit.  By M.K. Ilyasu

Franco-Nigerian Summit.

By M.K. Ilyasu

 

The political debate in Nigeria is increasingly focused on whether to engage France or isolate it. The aim here has been to offer a framework for getting beyond a conundrum that is paralysing the currency of the debate.

My aim, in this regard is to encourage a different way of thinking about how the country might move forward since Presidential elections, in a way that mitigates fears for alliances in the current democratic regime.

My question is; are we disgruntled people unhappy and disappointed of any important initiative that may not emanate from our sense of entitlements?

The dominant, epoch-making storyline is now clear with the rise of this pseudo intellectuals threatening bricks and fire storm for an issue safeguarding key areas of cooperation against more national critical socio-political positions.

Nigeria’s future and democracy.

This standard view is expressed in countless opinion pieces and political speeches and is now reshaping both national and international engagements.

However, the national predicament might be more accurately described as a more subtle and complex conundrum: in the immediate short term, what was supposedly good for stronger national alliance might not be good for our democracy, and vice versa.

Contextual analysis

Nigerian governments have since been struggling with this democracy for several years now. Politicians’ priority in ensuring its continuity is desperately needed. A strategy is needed specifically to address fears that these pseudo intellectuals are not just illiberal and reactionary in their policy prescriptions but also likely to show themselves to be increasingly undemocratic.

Whatever the correct judgment might be on this, debates have undoubtedly eclipsed a more systemic concern with democratic choices.

Background

PBAT leadership faces the challenge of navigating a delicate balance between addressing pressing security concerns and pursuing its long-standing commitment to democracy.

My understanding of his strategy to address the emerging two way nexus between conflict, and governance crises and mitigate the vulnerabilities it creates, doubled down on defending traditional approaches to tackling the economy and, on the other hand, exploring new strategies and political formats towards investments. The latter might entail some uncomfortable steps, but the gravity of mounting challenges invites a deeper rethink.

The suggested policy of reinforced ostracisation of France might be appropriate for many policy issues, but on political-system matters, a business-as-usual continuity risks intensifying the very causal factors that underpin our current situation.

Defining Moments

The Sahel and Lake Chad region.

Several examples help show in more detail how conflict, governance including Climate change crises are converging and leading to systemic regional destabilization. Three case studies stand out:

The Sahel is grappling with major compound crises that have been escalating since 2011. Climate change and socioeconomic drivers are leading to conflicts over land use, which are negatively affecting rural livelihoods and generating intergroup tensions. In turn, fragility and conflict have amplified grievances against national governments and increases in violence and extremism across the region, with a fourfold rise in documented security incidents between 2018 and 2024.

The region’s multifaceted crises have resulted in significant humanitarian impacts and deeply unsettling changes to political regimes. The UN estimates that in 2024, more than 32 million people in the Sahel require humanitarian assistance. More than 7 million people have been displaced either within national borders or to other countries, and there are no signs of an improvement to the crisis.

Food insecurity is a major issue, and conflict-affected areas are systematically classified as suffering from a food security crisis.

All countries in the Sahel are highly or very highly exposed to climate change risks. In 2024, the region was affected by a heat wave driven by climate change, exacerbating a context of extreme poverty, conflict, and unprecedented humanitarian needs. Over the last ten years, the central Sahel and the countries around Lake Chad have experienced at least 780 disasters. The UN’s 2023–2024 human development report showed that with the exception of Cameroon, the Sahelian countries fall below the low human development threshold. Some 38 percent of the region’s population—roughly 125 million people—live on less than $1.90 a day.

Meanwhile, competition over land and water resources between farmers and herders has heightened tensions across the region. Driven by increased variation in temperatures and precipitation as well as rapid demographic changes, scarcities of land and water resources are putting pressures on livelihoods. These pressures on the well-being of mostly rural and economically deprived communities, generate grievances against institutions, increasing political fragility.

Alongside these climate and conflict stresses, the region has suffered major democratic regression and a cluster of military coups in recent years. Since the 2020 Malian coup, there have been ten further overthrows or coup attempts across Central and West Africa. Military takeovers have been successful in Burkina Faso, Guinea, and Niger as well as nearby Gabon and Sudan, and promises to go back to civilian rule have been delayed. In Chad, President Mahamat Déby took power in 2021 after the death of his father, tightening autocracy.

Against the backdrop of this wave of coups, the Sahel now accounts for more than half of all deaths related to violent extremism across Africa.

Democracy indexes rank the region as one of the most autocratic in the world, signifying a democracy crisis that is clearly deepening in parallel with conflict and climate stresses.

Security spending has increased in countries such as Burkina Faso and Mali, potentially drawing funds away from governance capacity in other areas, like climate change mitigation and conflict prevention.

With this background, one should be able to appreciate the reasons why PBAT must seek constructive partnership with France who has been assuming responsibility in the context of colonial master and development driver.

MATTERS OF CONCERN

In the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed by both France and Nigeria, on the sidelines of the official visit to France by President Bola Tinubu, both countries agreed to collaborate on research, training and Franco-Nigerian students exchanges for knowledge and skills transfer.

Describing the deal as a boost to the efforts of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu administration to reposition Nigeria’s solid minerals sector for international competitiveness, Mr. Alake stressed that the ministry would leverage the partnership to open up the mining sector to French investors.

Blessed with abundant solid minerals, Nigeria has for years been unable to fully explore the huge opportunities available in the sector, mostly due to very low investment. This is very truthful and it has been the curse as well as the source of the ongoing banditry in all the States endowed with these minerals.

Rather than criticising the government for opening up this sector for investment, I would expect critics to proffer through the instrumentality of law, ways and means of checkmating partners from taking undue advantage of one another.

Since governments are more intent mainly on negotiating for their own national interest, key advantages rather than remaining pessimistic would have been mere encouraging. It is strikingly funny how far debates about Franco-Nigerian MOU are divorced from the world of debates about democratic quality.

Yet, it goes without saying that the MOU is a pact that initiates all Nigerians to live up to our claims to be fully democratic and put those terms to the test on core values of political pluralism.

The MOU is not merely listing generic principles or replicating existing Bilateral treaty provisions in a way that has no operational relevance. Rather, it should be concrete and detailed enough to hold parties meaningfully to account.

The MOU should include injunctions against the kinds of subtle democratic erosion that have proliferated in recent years. For example, it should include commitments not to challenge the equality of citizenship rights, not to support laws that criminalize or besmirch civic organizations, not to seek ways of restricting citizen protests, and to support the democratically participative containment of disinformation.

It should expressly reject minimal, majoritarian democracy and commit to deeper rights protections, tolerance, and active citizenship.

The MOU should hold all parts of the political spectrum to account, including mainstream parties that have themselves been guilty of undermining democratic quality in recent years.

It should connect a holistic framework of democratic practice to the concrete use of our rule-of-law and democracy toolboxes, in terms of both restrictive measures and positive incentives for parties to comply.

And it might also clarify the potential value of differentiated integration as a way out of the democracy catch-22, allowing for better democratic responsiveness to different national and subnational preferences while advancing cooperation.

THIS IS WHAT I EXPECT FROM CRITICS OF FRANCO-NIGERIA MOU.

 

11/12/2024