Nigeria-UAE airport slot row

(Link on Daily Trust)

Just as regular passenger flights between Nigeria and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) began to gradually pick up following several months of disruption over a row on Covid-19 travel protocol, yet another row broke out over airport slots between Air Peace, a Nigerian-registered airline, and the UAE’s Emirates. 

The Bilateral Aviation Safety Agreement (BASA) between Nigeria and the UAE allows international airlines from both countries to request and obtain airport slots in each other’s international airports. 

However, in the absence of a strong Nigerian competitor, the UAE’s Emirates has for years dominated the lucrative Lagos-Dubai and Abuja-Dubai routes. In addition to UAE-bound passengers, many travellers from Nigeria opt for Emirates to get to their respective destinations across the world via Dubai. 

Emirates maintains two Dubai-Lagos and one Dubai-Abuja flights daily making it 21 flights per week. Also, the Abu-Dhabi-based airline, Etihad equally dominates the Nigeria-Abu-Dhabi route, which further consolidates UAE airlines’ virtual monopoly on the Nigeria-UAE route.  

It was only in 2019 that a Nigerian-registered airline, Air Peace commenced passenger flights to UAE’s Sharjah Airport instead of neighbouring Dubai Airport apparently to save a fortune on airport charges, which are obviously higher in the latter. 

The airline recently requested two additional slots to make it three per week, which the UAE denied. Nigeria retaliated by reducing Emirates slots in Nigeria to only 1 per week. Enraged, Emirates suspended its operations in Nigeria and, of course, Air Peace operations in UAE, which triggered a row that almost affected diplomatic relations between the two countries less than two weeks after President Buhari’s state visit to the emirate. 

Though UAE’s recent allocation of seven slots in Dubai Airport to Air Peace suggests an imminent resolution of the row, the incident highlights the struggle over flight frequency among airlines, which sometimes affect diplomatic relations. 

The UAE has had a similar row with other countries including the United States, Canada and some major European countries whose airlines have accused Emirates of practices inconsistent with free-market values to outcompete them on many lucrative international routes in the US, Europe, Canada and elsewhere. 

They have, for instance, alleged that Emirates enjoys subsidy under the table from the deep-pocketed Dubai government, which has enabled it to offer customers unmatched quality services at unmatched rates at the expense of its competitors. However, Emirates has always denied the charges arguing that its operations are guided by standard free-market practices.

Whatever the case is, Emirates has been able to grow from an airline with only two planes leased from Pakistan in 1985 into arguably the world’s largest international airline with more than 260 planes covering more than 150 international destinations. Equally, its base, the Dubai Airport has grown from a literally glorified airstrip in the desert into currently the world’s busiest international airport handling about 800 flights per day at its peak.  

After all, though airlines compete on quality and efficiency in their struggle to outcompete one another in the increasingly thriving hence equally increasingly competitive airline business, they also engage in under-the-table arrangements and other forms of discreet manipulation to disadvantage one another. Besides, notwithstanding relevant international legal and regulatory provisions, governments the world over favour their respective locally-registered airlines against their foreign competitors. 

Anyway, from the celebratory tone of the Nigerian media and the general public following UAE’s allocation of seven slots to Air Peace, more than the three it had requested, it’s obvious that the underlying aim behind UAE’s action is comprehended only by a few, if at all. That explains why Nigeria’s media coverage of the development simplistically suggests that the UAE has conceded and that Air Peace and Nigeria have prevailed. 

Whereas, it’s probably a trick aimed at frustrating Air Peace out of the Nigeria-UAE route all together eventually. It’s what the Hausa describe as “kora da hali” Because restricting the slots to Dubai Airport only exposes Air Peace to direct and unavoidable competition with Emirates, which the former, of course, may not survive in the long run. Air Peace may not afford sustained operation in Dubai Airport due to high airport charges, which are the reasons why it wants to remain in Sharjah Airport in the first place. 

Faced with this, competing with Emirates in ticket pricing would pose a big challenge to Air Peace considering the disproportionately huge disparity in service quality, efficiency and sophistication between the two airlines. 

Besides, Air Peace cannot maintain seven flights to Dubai per week in the first place. Even if its request for two additional Lagos-Sharjah flights to make it three per week were granted, it may not be able to sustain them after the current seasonal travel peak when the UAE receives the highest number of visitors from all over the world each year.  

Now, it remains to be seen whether or not the Air Peace management and the Nigerian government realise the trick and its implications, and indeed how they would react. 

Saudi palace politics

(Link on Daily Trust)

Mohammad bin Salman, Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia

The circumstances surrounding the rise of Prince Mohammad bin Salman (MBS) as the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia have brought the dynamics of the palace power struggle in the monarchy to the fore. 

The Saudi ruling dynasty Al-Saud is currently the most powerful ruling dynasty in the world considering the sheer religious, economic and geopolitical significance of the domain it rules over without being subject to any authority. 

The dynasty founded the kingdom. It had, at two separate points in history, founded two emirates in its native Najd region. The first was in 1774 when Mohammad bin Saud and an Islamic scholar-revivalist Sheikh Mohammad bin AbdulWahhab co-founded the Emirate of Diriyah, which lasted until 1818. 

The second was in 1824 when a grandson of bin Saud, Turki bin Abdullah restored the Al Saud reign and founded the Emirate of Najd, which, however, also collapsed in 1891. Yet, 11 years later, Abdul-Aziz bin Abdurrahman Al Saud managed to reclaim it and kept expanding it until he founded the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in 1932. 

Interestingly, the ibn Saud-ibn AbdulWahhab alliance has grown into a kind of intergenerational kinship between their descendants i.e. Al Saud and Al Ash-Sheikh. The former has kept the kingship while the latter has kept the symbolic scholarly authority in the kingdom. Al Saud means the descendants of ibn Saud while Al Ash-Sheikh means the descendants of ibn AbdulWahhab. The current Grand Mufti of the Kingdom, Sheikh Abdul-Aziz bin Abdullah Al Ash-Sheikh is a lineal descendent of ibn AbdulWahhab. 

Anyway, over the course of Abdul-Aziz’s struggle before and after he founded the kingdom, he kept marrying daughters of Arab tribal chiefs and influential tribal figures to secure the unwavering loyalty of the unpredictable Arab tribes without which he couldn’t have achieved his mission. He was said to have married more than 20 women, of course, maintaining not more than four at once; and had more than 60 children.  

As is the case with all ruling dynasties, wings and individuals among King Abdul-Aziz’s lineage have always been locked in the palace power struggle over positions of influence including kingship. Wings within the dynasty have always developed based on shared maternal backgrounds among his children whose mothers came from different Arab tribes. A wing’s influence is primarily determined by the amount of their mother’s tribal, clannish or familial influence. 

The most influential wing is the Sudairi wing generally and the Sudairi Seven particularly. Their mother, Hassa bint Ahmad As-Sudairi was widely believed to be King Abdul-Aziz’s favoured wife. Her children were equally the most influential particularly the Sudairi Seven who formed a clique of extremely rich princes with networks of highly influential connections within and outside the kingdom. They were Fahd, Sultan, Abdurrahman, Naif, Turki-ath-Thani, Ahmad, and Salman, the current king. Also, their families have over the decades collectively maintained that influence dominating the other wings. 

However, things began to change following the death of King Fahd and the ascension of the then Crown Prince Abdullah bin Abdul-Aziz to the throne in 2005. Abdullah wasn’t a Sudairi; he was the only male child of his mother; he was, however, very influential within the country’s elite National Guard force, which was responsible for protecting the ruling dynasty. His appointment as the Crown Prince despite his relative disadvantage was seen as a tactical move by King Fahd to preserve the intactness of the Guard’s loyalty and Abdullah’s knowing that, barring any unforeseen circumstances, his turn would come in due course. 

No sooner had Abdullah settled on the throne than he embarked on subtle but obvious moves to promote his own family at the expense of the Sudairis. He appointed some of his children to some very important positions, and though he reluctantly appointed a Sudairi, Sultan as the Crown Prince, he relieved a number of them from important positions.  

He also created a whole new position, the Deputy Crown Prince, to which he appointed Muqrin bin Abdul-Aziz who was supposed to become the Crown Prince once the latter’s position became vacant for whatever reason. Like Abdullah, Muqrin was the only son of his Yemeni mother hence equally considered relatively less advantaged. It was alleged that the plan was to somehow get Abdullah’s son, Mut’ib appointed the Deputy Crown Prince once King Abdullah passed away and Salman became King while Muqrin became the Crown Prince. That way Abdullah’s wing would be in a position to compete favourably with other wings for kingship eventually. Consequently, the Sudairis influence diminished considerably during Abdullah’s reign. 

However, things never went as the Abdullah wing had planned because no sooner had Salman become King following Abdullah’s death than he equally relieved many of those Abdullah had appointed to various important positions including his sons. He also relieved Muqrin of the Deputy Crown Prince, appointed his nephew Mohammad bin Naif and his son Mohammad bin Salman the Crown Prince and the Deputy Crown Prince respectively. Likewise, other Sudairis were appointed or reappointed to various top positions in the kingdom.  

Moreover, two years later he abolished the position of the Deputy Crown Prince, relieved Mohammad bin Naif of the Crown Prince and elevated his son Mohammad bin Salam to the Crown Prince who has since then acted as the de facto King. 

Since then the power struggle has been within the Sudairi wing exclusively especially between the Salman sub-wing, the Sultan sub-wing, and the Naif sub-wing from where the deposed Crown Prince Mohammad bin Naif comes. Many including some highly influential Sudairis have been relieved of their positions. Those who are rightly or wrongly perceived to be harbouring resentment against MBS are being persecuted; many have been imprisoned including bin Naif himself while others have fled the country. 

Lobbying in Washington

(Link on Daily Trust)

To put it simply, lobbying is a deliberate effort to influence the process of government policymaking or legislative enactment in favour of particular business, political or other interests. 

Lobbying thrives not only in the corridors of power; it’s equally used to influence public perceptions on particular issues by way of lobbying influential public relations firms and media organizations.

In fact, even highly reputable research institutions including scientific research centres aren’t completely invulnerable to lobbying, after all. Many supposedly objective pieces of research and findings on various issues including scientific findings by many reputable institutions and centres are somehow influenced by underlying interests of various lobbyists’ clients. 

Though lobbying business flourishes more in the capitals of the particularly capitalist Euro-American axis e.g. London, Brussels, Paris, and, of course, Washington, it’s also quite common in other major capitals like Beijing and Moscow. It’s, however, particularly established in the United States being the world’s strongest military power and largest economy. 

In Washington, well-connected persons many of whom have held various legislative offices in the US Congress, or important political or bureaucratic positions in the White House transform into lobbyists to leverage their respective connections in lobbying on behalf of big corporations, foreign governments, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and other interest groups.

Though lobbying is supposedly regulated by relevant laws to ensure transparency by enabling hired professionals to make a case for proposals on behalf of their respective clients, that isn’t always the case in reality.

In typical lobbying, the quality of a proposal argument per se doesn’t necessarily guarantee its acceptability. It’s an open secret that many a time, Congressmen, policymakers and high-ranking White House officials are influenced by way of inducement and/or tacit blackmail or both.

The amount of resources that corporations, foreign governments, cartels, NGOs, and interest groups invest in lobbying in the United States far exceeds the official figures, which only reflect reasonable payments for services rendered within the legal scope of lobbying. Whereas, in reality, much more than that is spent under the table in inducements. 

Lobbying is the real manifestation of capitalism (jari-hujja) or “iya kudinka, iya shagalinka”. It’s is effectively a “legalized” form of corruption. In the US, for example, various industries e.g. Banking, Manufacturing, Energy, Real Estate, Food, Insurance, pharmaceutical, Hollywood, etc. maintain high-paid lobbyists lobbying on their behalf for legislation and government policies advantageous to their collective interests. 

In the meantime, there is an equally fierce struggle within each industry with each corporation and cartel maintaining its own lobbyists in its struggle for advantageous regulatory measures at the expense of the others. 

Usually, an industry, cartel or corporation has its way depending on the amount of its lobbying budget and the effectiveness of the blackmailing tools at the disposal of its hired lobbyists.

Regulators induced in lobbying turn a blind eye to cases of cutting corners, exploitation and other unethical practices regardless of their implications on public health, safety and other interests. 

Scandalous practices of such nature are occasionally exposed either accidentally or as a result of discreet investigations some of which are secretly sponsored by rival corporations and cartels, which have lost out in lobbying struggle.

Foreign governments equally maintain lobby firms in Washington; they invest hugely in lobbying not only to influence US foreign policy on particular issues but also to secure US active or tacit support on specific issues involving the interests of other countries. 

Lobbyists in Washington can get a US administration to literally do the bidding of their respective foreign clients by way of inducing and/or blackmailing members of the US House of Representatives, the Senate, and appropriately influential officials in the White House.  

Foreign governments with the highest spending on lobbying in Washington include Germany, Saudi Arabia, Japan, the United Arab Emirates, Canada, Qatar, South Korea etc. Interestingly, even some supposedly non-US allies e.g. China, Iran and Russia equally spend hugely on lobbying in Washington.    

Also, though Israel maintains the most influential lobby in Washington, its case is particularly interesting, because, ironically, its influence isn’t linked to its spending on lobbying, if at all it spends. Its influence over the US political establishment, media and entertainment industries is so deep-rooted that no one can afford to be rightly or wrongly linked to anti-Israel sentiment, for it may simply mean the end of his political career. In the US political circle, everyone, including the president, is easily blackmailable when it comes to Israeli interests.

Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and other interest groups equally maintain lobbyists in Washington. Groups and organizations hell-bent on promoting moral decadence and undermining ethical values are particularly active in lobbying for legislation and/or government policies favourable to their causes. 

After all, the rate at which they are having their ways not just in Washington but other capitals across the world suggests the sheer influence of their backers. For instance, the so-called LGBTQ rights groups have grown so influential that criticizing their mission of promoting absolute rebellion against moral standards is now considered a form of primitive intolerance. 

Sub-Saharan Africa in global politics

(Link on Daily Trust)

The United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken is on a diplomatic tour in Sub-Saharan Africa visiting Kenya, Nigeria, and Senegal. As expected, the officially stated mission of his tour revolves around the US commitment to partnering with the countries and the region at large in tackling various challenges bedevilling them. 

Tours by leaders and high-ranking officials from major international players and ambitious developing countries in Sub-Saharan African countries often prompt curiosity not only about the obvious absence of the countries’ influence in global affairs but also practically the absence of their uninfluenced influence in their own affairs, for that matter. 

It’s a tradition in Washington that once a new US administration is done settling down and rolling out its foreign policies on major issues e.g. relations with Russia and China, the Middle East issues, relations with US major European and Asian allies, and regional powers in various continents, it then attends to Sub-Saharan African countries. 

Usually, the Secretary of State would embark on a tour covering a number of countries to reiterate the US “commitment” to helping them tackle poverty, insecurity, corruption, among other things. Also, at some point, the President may equally embark on a similar tour. 

Secretary Blinken’s ongoing tour in Sub-Saharan Africa simply comes in the context of that tradition, for, in reality, the countries command no respect on the global stage due to the sheer failure of their power elites. This is not necessarily because they do things that their counterparts elsewhere don’t do after all, but largely because of how they do theirs. For instance, their penchant for reckless misappropriation of public resources in grossly unsophisticated hence effortlessly exposable processes is particularly peculiar. 

Besides, though they are extremely greedy, their ironically very limited ambition explains why they always end up with peanuts compared to what they cost their respective governments. This is quite clear especially in their dealings with ruthlessly ambitious and fast-growing countries like India and China that owe a great deal of their success to Sub-Saharan African natural resources and raw materials, which they acquire under largely questionable deals, to say the least. 

Likewise, Euro-American countries, which had literally plundered Sub-Saharan African countries' natural resources and raw materials, and exploited their people for a very long time until only six decades ago use subtle but systematic blackmail on account of their governments’ real or alleged human rights abuse, undermining democracy, and lack of transparency to extort huge concessions from them in favour of their (Euro-American) corporations.  

Consequently, while Sub-Saharan African countries remain grossly deficient in the strategic infrastructure necessary for sustainable industrialization, which is indispensable for sustainable economic development, their massive consumer markets continue to rely on imported products and critical services provided by foreign corporations. 

Also, the characteristic deficiency in dynamic creativity that Sub-Saharan African countries’ elites betray has further made it easier for such developed and developing countries and their corporations to manipulate them.  

Though corruption and other challenges persist in all countries, they never frustrate development as it’s obtained in Sub-Saharan African countries. While power elites elsewhere are creative enough to come up with and pursue strategic development policies according to their peculiar challenges, their Sub-Saharan African counterparts are largely too literal in their understanding of the standard textbook ideas they have imbibed, which were written in and for environments with absolutely different socio-political, economic, cultural, environmental and attitudinal challenges.  

One easily observable thing about every ambitious developing county is the flexible creativity of its elite. China, for example, is basically a communist country with a single party system, yet thanks to its ability to creatively add appropriate capitalist touches to its economic system, it has been able to dominate global industrialization and overtake Japan as the world’s second-largest economy after the United States.  

It’s the same thing with the likes of India, Turkey, Malaysia, Indonesia etc. Even the relatively less industrialized countries in, say, the Middle East owe their success to the creativity of their respective power elites. The particularly remarkable success of the Gulf countries, in particular, says it all in this regard. 

Whereas, in Sub-Saharan Africa, even the supposedly more enlightened intellectuals are largely intellectually confined within the limits of literal meanings of either liberal capitalist or Marxist theories. In a typical Sub-Saharan African country, proposing solutions to common challenges in the light of either unrealistic Marxist populist rhetoric or inconsiderate elitist capitalist ideas, mere fluency in, say, the English or French languages, and tendency to determine the worth of things on the bases of Euro-American standards, are all that it takes for one to be recognized as intellectual and progressive.  

That explains why even after six decades of independence, power elites in Sub-Saharan Africa still betray an inferiority complex towards particularly their Euro-American counterparts; they behave as though they are still under colonial rule. In Nigeria, for instance, there have been instances where some rightly or wrongly aggrieved individuals among the political elite blatantly reached out to the US ambassador, the UK high commissioner, and the EU office in Abuja literally begging for their intervention in their favour in purely local affairs. 

Now, though I may have digressed too far, it’s only intended to shed some light on why the Sub-Saharan African countries are practically worth nothing in global politics, and indeed why racists and other chauvinists assume that Sub-Saharan Africans are inherently inferior to other human races.     

Migrants as blackmailing tools

(Link on Daily Trust)

Over the past few months, there has been an upsurge in the number of migrants stranded on the Belarus-Polish border desperate to cross over into the European Union (EU). Poland is an EU member-state but the richer EU countries like Germany are their targeted destinations. 

Migrants, both those with genuine reasons and those with pretences, prefer the richer EU countries due to their particularly attractive provision for migrants and enabling migration policies. However, since the number of migrants always outweighs the resources budgeted for those provisions, the screening is quite strict. Consequently, only a tiny fraction eventually makes it, which explains why thousands of migrants go to the extent of endangering their lives in their desperate attempts to migrate to those countries and other wealthy nations elsewhere. Some of them somehow manage to make it to their respective destinations while many die in the sea, desert and other terrains, or end up stuck in exploitative conditions.  

It’s in this context that thousands of migrants mostly from Syria, Iraq and other war-torn and unstable Middle Eastern, Asian and African countries are currently on the Belarus-Polish border kept off Polish territory by a barbed-wire fence and Polish security personnel. Belarus isn’t allowing them back either. They have been piling up there amid deteriorating conditions. In a video call with the BBC, an Iraqi migrant lamented that "There's no way to escape; Poland won't let us in. Every night they fly helicopters. They don't let us sleep. We are so hungry. There's no water or food here. There are little children, old men and women, and families." Also, out of desperation, there have been repeated but failed attempts by the migrants to force their way through. 

Now, while on the surface this situation may look like any typical migrant issue, it’s actually an orchestrated blackmail attempt. 

Belarus President, Alexander Lukashenko rose to power in 1994. The country was part of the Soviet Union that had collapsed in 1991. However, President Lukashenko has maintained an underlying Soviet communist tone in his style, which has kept him at loggerheads with the EU countries and their US ally. 

Also, since the rise of Vladimir Putin to power in Russia, President Lukashenko found a reliable ally in him for his obsession with reviving and exercising as much former Soviet influence as possible. 

President Putin supports but also manipulates Belarus in countering the expansion of the EU-dominated North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) towards where he believes should be Russia’s exclusive sphere of influence. 

The EU imposed sanctions on Belarus last, which, in turn, decided to, among other things, manipulate the migrant card to blackmail it (EU) into lifting it. Belarus began facilitating the exodus of migrants into its territory for onward illegal crossing over into the EU via the Polish border. Hundreds of migrants were flown into Belarus capital, Minsk, on direct flights from Baghdad and other cities only to be systematically escorted by the Belarus security personnel to the border with Poland to cross over. The aim is to create migrant crises in some countries in the EU zone and expose their governments to unnecessary legal and economic dilemmas associated with handling the migrants, which may have serious economic and political repercussions on the governments.    

President Lukashenko is perhaps inspired by the success of some leaders in manipulating migrants as blackmailing tools, e.g. his Turkish counterpart, Tayyip Erdoğan. As an opportunistic politician par excellence, President Erdoğan has fetched Turkey tremendous economic benefits and political concessions from the EU, by manipulating migrants as blackmailing tools.

Since the escalation of the Syrian crisis that triggered waves of migration from the country and other countries towards Turkey for onward crossing over into the EU zone, the Turkish government has managed to extort billions of Euros and significant concessions from the zone in return for controlling the exodus of the migrants into it. For instance, a five-year agreement reached between Turkey and the EU in 2006 in this regard saw the former reaping 6 billion Euros. Under the agreement, the EU also reluctantly agreed to simplify the Schengen visa process for Turkish citizens and to reactivate talks over Turkish ambition to join the zone. 

Yet, as negotiations continue over the renewal of the agreement, which expired earlier this year, President Erdoğan had already threatened to let the migrants into the zone in a tactical move to extort commitments for more funds and more concessions on other issues especially considering the fact that the EU hasn’t delivered on its commitments regarding the Schengen visa and Turkish EU ambition.     

Similarly, in 2010, former Libyan leader, Gaddafi equally managed to blackmail the EU into considering paying Libya billions of Euros in return for preventing the exodus of African migrants into the zone through the Libyan Mediterranean coast. He had warned the EU governments that the zone would turn “black”, as he put it, in view of the sheer number of African migrants desperate to migrate there unless it (EU) agreed to pay Libya at least 5 billion Euros a year to stop them. The arrangement was, however, overtaken by the 2011 uprising in the country that ended his life.