After several years of military rule and autocratic governance, Nigerians have become accustomed to uses and abuses of raw, naked power. We lived and worked under decrees that were at times vindictive, at times self-serving, at times confusing and often times oppressive. I remember a Military President declaring that he was not only in office, he was in power – as if we needed reminding. Even the so called civilian governments were not exempt from the corrupting influence of power.

Both have kept the State captive – one through the abuse of the gun, the other through the abuse of the ballot box. The net effect of this is that power, in its naked, but abusive form, has become ingrained in our DNA as a people. Everybody, from politicians, to police, to priests, exercises power wherever possible. Some Secretaries and P.A s are so adroit in the use of power that they hold their Principals captive and thus become very influential – and wealthy- in the process. Even a gateman exercises power over who comes in and who gets to park. It is who we are. It is what flows through our blood.

So controversial FCT Minister, Nyesom Wike, was not saying what we have not been living with when he said at a rally recently, that politics is motivated mainly by power. To quote him correctly and put in context, he used the words ‘interest, power, and will of the people’. To be fair, most politicians the world over, are largely motivated by these three words. However, the more altruistic the pursuit of these words are as principles to some politicians, the more they tend towards effective and purposeful leadership. In Wike’s case however, they mean self-interest, personal power and subversion of people’s will.

He seems to forget that political power is a stage where you play your part and leave. In his compulsive need to control the levers of political power in Rivers State, he is taking godfatherism to a new, dangerous height. He is not even attempting to hide the fact that he wants Fubara removed not because of his effectiveness as Governor, but because he is not doing his bidding. It stands to reason that whoever replaces Fubara has to be more pliant to the point of being a figurehead. Seeing him mount the soapbox at different Local Governments in Rivers State, you’d be forgiven if you thought he was going for an elective position in the State. His job as the ‘administrator’ of FCT where he has the chance to positively affect the lives of millions of residents and help change the narratives of visitors and foreigners in the Federal Capital, is obviously secondary in his scheme of things.

In the US, and far from our shores, President Trump might also think he is motivated by these three words. He might define them to be the interest of his country, the power of his country and the will of the people in his country – even when people might see a similarity between some of his actions and Wike’s. So it is probably the pursuit of these words as principles which has made him do what he did in Venezuela. But an old dictum says the freedom of your hand stops where my face begins. The notion that every nation is sovereign however small, however badly run, has served the world for the past eighty years. US had, for years, played a vital role in promoting liberalism and sovereignty around the world.

It was the moral referee of the world. It was the world’s Police. At the best of times, everyone knew America’s interest always came first. But US always had more nuanced and subtle ways of getting whatever it wanted. Often, its sheer military and economic dominance were enough deterrent. And if that didn’t play out the way US wanted, then a carrot and stick approach served well enough. And in the few cases where it perceived that a regime change was desirable, it was smart enough to know how to effect it. After all, there is a myth around genuine power with the belief that real power is what you don’t use. But by overrunning Venezuela and seeking to annex Greenland, America has thrown that myth out of the window. Worse, it would encourage other Superpowers to seek to do the same. The world is not likely to be safer for it.

In the past fifty or so years, America had emerged as the most respected country in the world. It was the country other countries wanted to ally with and do business with. The reason was simple. America rewarded friendship and could be trusted not to throw its allies under the bus. Ukraine and Greenland show that America has changed. Now, erstwhile allies are jittery and might have to seek stronger regional alliances just to stay alive. Venezuela shows that ‘might is now right’ and that big, powerful countries are back in business and could take needed resources wherever they could find them. That was the world order that colonized and partitioned Africa. That was the unilateral world order that preceded World War 11. But that was not the world order we grew up with. That was not the world order which had sustained peace however fragile, since the World War. That world order respected boundaries. It respected consensus building. That world order was held together by the UN.

Now, a most unsettling thing is the recent announcement that America would be disengaging from certain international organizations. Sixty-six of them by some estimates, with more than thirty being UN organizations. Think about it. The chief host of the UN; the chief promoter of the UN; the chief financier of the UN is undermining the UN by tacitly saying it no longer recognizes the jurisdiction of the UN in certain areas. And in declaring that it will no longer be part of any organization that doesn’t promote US interests, it is clearly saying that US interests supersede global interests. This should frighten all of us because of its ramifications. The UN is imperfect. Many would accuse it of pandering to the interests of the West and the Superpowers. But it has done its bit in alleviating poverty around the world. It has played its role in maintaining a measure of world peace. It has played a restraining influence on the excesses and exuberances of authoritarian State actors. More poignantly, it is has successfully served as the moral conscience of the world. Now, the UN is slipping into irrelevance because the most powerful country in the world no longer wants to be restrained.

While it is left to America to decide if pulling out of so many international organizations is in its long term interest as an influential, global player, this could be seen by the rest of a liberal world, as a drift towards unilateralism which bodes the world no good.

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