By Kayode Emola.
Our world has revolved around diplomacy for millennia. This simple art has solitarily sustained or destroyed empires and nations around the world. Yet despite its immense power, very few countries utilise this tool, and those who don’t always only have themselves to blame.
In late 2019, at the beginning of the crusade for a sovereign Yoruba nation, a number of people embarked on various forms of awareness. These awareness campaigns brought the plight of people in our homeland to the forefront of the international stage. As the awareness gathered momentum, 2020 saw a lot of the intelligentsia begin to identify with the Yoruba struggle. The challenge, however, was not how to utilise our connections or opportunities, but rather the best way in which to actually channel our energies.
In the quest for sovereignty and independent status, very few countries have achieved this by the art of diplomacy. The few that have succeeded in this respect include the division of Norway and Sweden in September 1905, and of the Czech Republic from Slovakia in January 1993. Much more commonly, as in the instances of South Sudan, apartheid South Africa, Zimbabwe, etc, a tireless war is fought before independence was attained. Despite this, in our world today only a few nations can claim to be truly independent.
Many African countries in the late 1950s and early 1960s, after the second world war, attained their independence on a platter of gold. At this time, many European nations found their economies had been bitterly battered by the effects of the war. Britain, who up to that point had held on tightly to their vast empire, found themselves too indebted to even manage their own country’s affairs, let alone those they had colonised. As a result, they found themselves having to relinquish the sovereignty back to the nations.
The US, when taking over from Britain as the major world power, still failed to learn from the mistakes of their predecessor. Rather than learn the art of diplomacy, America was itself embroiled in a multitude of mindless wars. The latest, the war on terror on which they embarked in Afghanistan, caused the US heavy losses, both financially and otherwise.
Perhaps in all of this they would have done better to borrow the Yoruba adage, “Ẹ jọ la kọ́ kọ̀ mà kò, ki a tò ko ija”: we first learn how to narrate our side of the story before we learn to fight. The Yorubas are exceptionally skilled in diplomacy, however sometimes this diplomacy has led us to the foolishness of capitulation. It is important to remember that the art of diplomacy includes the setting of one’s red lines which, if crossed, need to be acted upon. Falling to do so ultimately leads to high costs in the long run, as it results in ceding much ground to your opponent, who will be all too willing to exploit this to their advantage – and your detriment.
Careful assessment of the situation in our world today reveals a host of problems, from starvation to strife, to internal conflicts and many others. Very few people have really sought to find an answer to these challenges, with the more popular view being to look for a silver bullet that can solve them in one fell swoop. The truth is, these areas are complex and require time and effort to truly comprehend. It is difficult to find lasting solutions to these; and to do so requires us to critically analyse the source of the real issues.
Across the world there is well in excess of 1000 tribes, tongues and languages, yet the current structure of national boundaries divides the lands into fewer than 200 nations, plus approximately 50 other recognised territories. This, in my opinion, is the reason why there is so much conflict in the world, and why conflict after conflict persists incessantly, from Tigray/Ethiopia to Ambazonia/Cameroon and even Biafra-Yoruba/Nigeria. The current global arrangements leave no legal instrument in place with which to counteract this situation, no recourse offered towards engendering a meaningful conclusion other than to hope against hope for the goodwill of those at the helm of affairs.
Several conventions were developed to bring about world peace after the second world war, yet we seem to be no closer to the global peace we all yearn for. Many of the Geneva conventions address the situation of wars rather than seeking to provide a viable roadmap for the prevention of the wars in the first place. This has allowed more advanced economies to advance their plans of acquiring more territories – whether directly or indirectly; whilst the weaker countries are left begging for fairness, equity and even their very survival in the distribution of the world resources.
Evidence suggests that there are enough resources on this planet to supply everyone ten times over, if only greed were to be curtailed. The problem is, the ‘weaker’ countries, especially many of those in Africa, have up until now acquiesced to this inequitable distribution. They content themselves to rely on the mercies of the more economically advanced nations to throw to them the occasional scrap as they see fit. They do not know – nor is there the impetus to seek to learn – how to utilise this valuable tool called diplomacy.
Early in the campaign for an independent Yoruba nation, only very few actually sought to engage with key players and nations of the world to persuade them of the idea. Consequently, the world has been poorly equipped with all too few tools to work with when it comes to actually coming to our aid.
If we seek the emancipation of our people from the contraption that is Nigeria, if we want to ensure we actually have a place to bequeath to our children and a legacy worth passing on to those after them, the time to act is now. We need to now double, triple, quadruple our efforts in the art of diplomacy. We need to learn and develop these skills, then implement them strategically in conversation with high level global players. We no longer have the luxury of time to spare. We need to act: we need to act tactically and deliberately, and we need to act fast. In a fight where diplomacy is the highest and most advanced ammunition, who among us is ready to answer this call to arms?
