Iliyasu Gadu
Ilgad2009@gmail.com
08035355706 (Texts only)
For the United States and Israel defeating the Islamist regime in Iran is an existential challenge that cannot be avoided. Should the US and Israel fail to remove the Islamic regime in Iran then the consequence will be the loss of petrodollar and the dismantling of the entire US strategic superstructure in the Middle East. By extension, this epochal development will result in the inevitable and gradual diminution of US position as a global hegemon.
Right now looking at what this portends to US position in the global scheme of things, there is a profound discussion going on that should the war against Iran require the use of ‘’tactical’’ nuclear weapons to secure a decisive victory, then President Trump should be prepared to do so not minding the consequences.
But baring the use of nuclear weapons to defeat Iran, the opinion of most analysts is that the US is heading for a defeat in its war against Iran the consequences of which will result in the scaling down of US global status as the sole superpower. This will inevitably accelerate the multipolar global strategic superstructure currently unfolding.
By every assessment Nigeria counts among the countries that currently possesses the most advantages in emerging as one of the major centres of the multipolar global superstructure now evolving.
The key factors that would come into play in this regard are; demography, resources and industrial production.
At present from all estimates, by 2050 Nigeria is expected to become the third largest country by population after India and China in that order. The most telling statistic in this regard is that 45 percent of Nigeria’s current population is under 40 years in age. That amounts to about 100 million out of the estimated 230 million population of Nigeria. And if an estimated 80 million out of the 100 million give birth to three children over the next two decades and if those children also give birth to 2 children, by 2050 Nigeria’s population will leapfrog to about 500 million. Considering the factor of demographics in the global profile of India and China, the World would be foolish and impossible to ignore a country with a population of 500 million in its calculations, especially if that country happens to be the third largest by population.
As far as resources are concerned, Nigeria is a factor in its own right. Hydrocarbon, rare earth minerals, vast agricultural land for cultivation of crops and produce of any kind exist to make the country self sufficient in food for domestic consumption and export.
For Nigeria to be relevant in the emerging global multipolar structure, it must aim to be an industrial economy; there are no two ways about it. We cannot hope to be on the same multipolar pedestal as China, India, Brazil, Indonesia, Turkey etc on a 5000-megawatt energy supply and a puny industrial base that produces mostly consumer items like Beverages and Biscuits etc instead of steel, machine tools and industrial machinery.
We must review our current economic policy which focuses more on light industries, white collar service sector jobs. We must be boldly ambitious and go for a comprehensive integrated industrial production in every sector of the economy. We should apply technical solutions to our sectoral challenges and for this we should aim to have more technicians and engineers than lawyers and accountants as we currently have, in the thrust for industrial expansion of our economy. In this regard we should train and utilize our teeming youth population as the technical and engineering managers of our industrial revolution.
There are some who will consider this as a pipe dream and that we are too bound to the major economies especially our former colonial rulers to break away from them without consequences. But one of the salutary consequences of the emerging world order is that every country in the world, especially the major industrial ones would not be able to retain the advantages they currently have in the global system. If America loses the petrodollar advantage as a consequence of the war in Iran, the underlying basis of the existence a whole host of multilateral agencies like NATO, EU, IMF, World Bank seizes to carry the weight they currently have. Should the petrodollar arrangement which Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Arab states guarantee collapses, the critical question will be if the countries that now hold American bonds decide to shake off their holdings and withdraw their gold reserves from America how will the US impose economic policies on the world in the future as it has been doing since the end of the second world war?
Another point to consider too is that along with the US, the major western economies, Germany, France, Britain, Italy, Belgium, Spain and Portugal are also facing existential economic and social decline in demographics, cost of living and industrial production. It is estimated that in the foreseeable future the declining populations of these countries will reach a crisis point that will negatively affect their economic and social growth. We can see the manifestations of these in the current protests and political developments right across Europe.
Through history these countries have utilized the advantage and opportunities they had to advance their dominance over countries of the world. In our contemporary situation today, these countries have run out their advantages. This means that in the foreseeable future they would not be able to exercise their dominance on political, economic and strategic issues.
Nigeria has the advantage of demography and diversity as well resource advantages to negotiate from a position of strength in the emerging world order. What is more Nigeria is the most strategically positioned country on the African continent that is termed the next frontier of competition between the major countries of the world struggling for a toehold; the US is prowling around looking for military bases and arm twisting African countries for deals; Russia is in the Sahel providing ‘’military assistance’’ to countries in the region; China is moving is surreptitiously with its ‘’Belt and Road Initiative’’ projects that takes it right through the heart and soul of Africa. The recent deal granting the US rights over Nigeria’s mineral resources and the agreement by the Lagos state government to accord the Chinese traders into our retail market was a needless move. To the US we should have tied them to an industrial extraction agreement with Nigerian participation; to the Chinese we should have asked them to build and run industries here for the products they intend to retail with Nigerian participation not to dump products of their industries and factories.
By its strategic position in Africa Nigeria should have a say one way or the other in economic deals involving our resources. We should design our economic paradigms and use it to negotiate with foreign economic powers for our mutual benefit. The days of naivete and accepting economic policies that do not serve our interests are over. Any country that wants to engage economically with us must negotiate our terms. We have the market and resources and in the emerging world economic order these are factors we can leverage for our future economic growth. We must use the contemporary evolving situation to start putting something on ground for our teeming population so that when 2050 arrives, Nigeria is deservedly counted as one of the most important countries in the world at that time.
(Concluded)
The World is changing and where is Nigeria? (2)
