Nigeria: The Fallacy of Conspiracy

Also published in DAILY TRUST

Recently an article written by one Gordon Duff, a senior editor in an American journal in which the article was first published, went viral on some social media and websites concerned with Nigeria’s issues, as it was also republished by Daily Trust and perhaps some other newspapers in and outside Nigeria.

In the said article, Gordon Duff warns of a plan by some outside powers to balkanize Nigeria, which he supported with some frightening details also. Though not first of its kind, his warning has particularly interested many analysts because it comes when the country is going through some of its most critical moments.

It is also interesting as the issue of the removal of oil subsidy is already up, which many Nigerians see as an IMF & World Bank’s agenda to further frustrate Nigeria economically. Predictably, Gordon Duff’s article has reignited the debate about a possible conspiracy plotted against Nigeria by some powerful powers.

It is noteworthy however that, being a country where hardly if at all anyone seems prepared or indeed bold enough to admit his responsibility of its failure, looking for possible scapegoats is the most important work that occupies the country’s ruling elite and their apologists in order to cover up or justify their failures.

However, this is not the funniest part of it, because after all, being the architects hence the beneficiaries of the failure, the elite’s obvious desperation to find scapegoats is pragmatically (though not morally) quite understandable.

What is therefore particularly unfortunate is how they have been able to delude not only the average Nigerians but even some otherwise well educated chaps, that the country is being targeted, sabotaged and undermined by some powerful external powers, who are allegedly bent on frustrating it lest it should growth, compete with them or even surpass them in development and influence.

The vast majority of Nigerians allude to such conspiracy, which also has been effectively promoted into a theory of a sort; considerable enough to influence not only the laymen’s presumptions but also the analyses of some otherwise well exposed and educated analysts.

In reality, the world has come of age and grown too enlightened to be controlled by some unseen hands as maintained in such conspiracy theory, which incompetent and corrupt leaders around the world are fond of citing as a pretext to cover up their incompetence and leadership failures.

Such belief is borne out of the presumption that individual countries can only flourish and develop at the expense of one another. Interestingly enough, in olden days of savagery that was (to a large extent if not entirely) the reality.

However, in the modern age, ambitious countries seek to manoeuvre their ways to achieve and maintain their strategic interests and outperform others, in the process of which they could of course ignore the principles of fair play and indulge in some dirty deals to undermine other countries.

Yet this can’t be a conspiracy per se, because every country simply pursues its interests accordingly, which determine which countries it would ally with or against, at any given time and on any particular issue.

The whole game therefore is a game of interests with little or no reference to the principles of fairness and morality. And this is the reason why every ambitious country works hard to identify its points of strength and develop them into formidable bargaining tools in order to derive as much benefit as possible and avoid as much harm as possible in the largely morality free international political game.

After all, the notion that says “in politics there is no permanent friend or permanent enemy but permanent interests” defines the relationship between such countries, which predictably gave rise to the trend of pragmatic diplomacy in international relations.

Therefore, it is a big illusion to presume that there is any grand and systematic conspiracy to destabilize Nigeria or keep her perpetually backward. And the longer Nigerians cling to this illusion, the more they actually undermine the country’s prospect of transformation and by implication impose upon themselves a doom not destined by God the Almighty.

Incidentally, when I rule out any systematic conspiracy against Nigeria or downplay its impacts (if it really exists), I don’t necessarily deny its existence altogether in international political game, instead I simply deny such an exaggerated and indeed unwarranted formidability attached to it. As I also totally deny the notion that, it has rendered Nigerian rulers helpless while the country fails under their watch.

After all, a country that is likely to be a target of a conspiracy (if it is really necessary), is that which has a credible, competent, efficient, creative and indeed ambitious leadership; determined to not settle except for the best in everything. Therefore a country like Nigeria where primitive looting, gross incompetence and neglect among other things have already conspired to render the system obsolete and dysfunctional, there is no need for any painstaking conspiracy in order to destroy it, because it is already too vulnerable.

As a matter of fact, it is the elite themselves who fall over one another at the doorsteps of western diplomats and intelligence officials to divulge the countries secrets to them. The recent WikiLeaks scandals involving some top officials amongst them say it all.

So, had there been any conspiracy of such magnitude against Nigeria with its incompetent and corrupt leadership as such, the country would have collapsed long before. In reality, all such unfounded excuses can’t cover up the fact that, apart from being unrepentantly corrupt, the brains of Nigerian ruling elite are too obsolete for modern leadership responsibilities, which invariably requires constant creativity.

And they don’t seem to realize that by clinging to such ridiculous conspiracy excuse, they are actually confirming the fact that they are too dull to unravel and avoid it, which by implication disqualifies them for any leadership position indeed.

By the way, since Nigeria’s independence there have been several countries which have taken their destinies in their hands and resolved to curve out befitting statuses for themselves in the world’s highly competitive socio-political and economic environment. And had they sat back to blame others for their woes, they wouldn’t have reached where there are today.

With hard work, competence and creative thinking, countries like China, Brazil, Venezuela, South Korea, Singapore etc and many other countries (some of which are even at the loggerheads with the alleged conspirators i.e. western powers), have been able to transform themselves into promising, flourishing and indeed competitive countries.

So, even if Nigeria is actually targeted by some foreign powers, its leadership failure is worse than any foreign plot against it, because it is what actually enables that foreign plot to work out in the first place.