Nigeria’s Energy Market Scenario in Looming Iran – Israel War II

Introduction

Geopolitical and geoeconomic variables are converging strongly on the likelihood of a repeat of the June 2025 military exchanges between Tehran and Tel-Aviv. For many commentators it is a matter of when rather than if. Potential impact on global markets are noted. Given that one of the priority variables at play is petroleum, the fulcrum of the global economy by a huge margin, we are concerned with Nigeria’s situation. In this scenario, our position isn’t claiming prescience that the conflict is certain or suggesting accuracy of account, rather drawing from history attempt to extend meanings with geopolitical implications as far as Nigeria and its citizens/residents are concerned.

The Setting

There are broad outlines of the current global geopolitical configuration. These outlines began as early as 1991 and the patterns, relationships and trends are reaching maturity. From an intellectual viewpoint, those addicted to western worldview in these matters should draw conclusions from facts on the ground especially with long durée. Geopolitical transitions and change of hegemons are normal geopolitical and civilisational realities.

At the moment United States military assets are active in West Asia (via Israel), Venezuelan coast and the Black Sea (via NATO). These are engagements of choice with limited geostrategic depth spectrum. Cost is the main variable in these investments because once peer-to-peer conflict go beyond a week and without compensatory inbound benefits, defeat can only be masked by propaganda. In each of the theatres, (control of) petroleum is the major attraction despite US role as one of the biggest petroleum producers/importer and petroleum products exporter.

In the last 3 years US has secured the EU LNG market by encouraging the latter’s severance of its strategic energy relations with Russia at painful costs. Similar geostrategy is playing out in Turkey with Ankara signing up to US LNG concomitant to reducing contracts with Iran and Russia respectively. US isn’t starved of markets because Washington DC imposed its will on satraps and vassals with ease. 

As for Russia, despite shrinking European market, it has consolidated new markets in Asia particularly China and India. Her economic performance is an unvarnished testimony. Therefore in the global energy market US, Russia, China and India are the top players with sufficient import, export and refining capacities. Chinese massive imports is enabled by pipelines that reduce dependence on sea-based imports with extra security provided by an ascending naval capability.  Where does this leave small players?

Nigeria’s Regression

One can declare that Nigeria is historically versed on conflict-induced petroleum windfalls during 1973 Arab-Israeli war and 1990 Gulf War I. Reminiscing one of its former leaders, the issue is never resources but how to spend it. Despite these additional profit accumulations in the short term, Nigeria is bereft of stability, certainty and genuine collective wellbeing. However a number of geopolitical variables give Abuja renewed advantage. These include distance (from chokepoint and war theatres), low-sulphur petroleum and weak currency.

These advantages kick in once prospective conflict goes beyond 14 days. Correlation of forces between Israel (US) and Iran is sharp nevertheless the mastery of the Red Sea by Yemen in the last 2 years is a factual deficit for the former. Unknown is the scope of ambiguity loaded on Tehran’s coordination with Moscow and Beijing. It also possess a massive spirituality card of sacrifice mostly ignored by many commentators and analysts. From the 3^rd week, cost-inflation tactics by Tehran may include closing the Gulf of Hormuz hitting Gulf states exports triggering global knock-on effect.

This singular operation even for a few days may hand Tehran a strategic edge for selective control of the gulf. Mind you the Red Sea and the Gulf of Hormuz become shut for traffic. Naturally petroleum prices will rise sharply and customers particularly from the African neighbourhood, Europe, Asia and South America proceed to Nigeria's Bight of Biafra. Huge commissions, grand profits and big bank balances in foreign currencies will effect automatically devoid of capital control. Arguments will advance against based on the worn-out anti-inflationary platitude.  Then what?

Domestic Market and the Imperium

The current human resource panorama in both public and private sectors have questionable applied leadership competence to successfully oversee such precarious project in Nigeria. This is not borne of pessimism rather an admission of legacy patterns locked in dismissal of implications of geostrategic calculations. This means that the scenario will only be confronted when it emerges. The political elite and structures have deep qualitative gaps open to both abuse and genuine reform. Their rabbit-on-the headlamp attitude to all things western against national interest may play out with pavlovian distinction.

While new customers readily increase petroleum purchase (with low insurance premium) mostly by short-term contracts and spot-market mechanism, there will be lack of production capacity to accommodate such surge in demand. Nigeria upstream sector currently struggles to meet its OPEC production quota. Similar situation is evident for storage where mediation of strategic reserves remain as opaque as its apparent location in policy drafts. Profit will certainly accrue and accumulate parked in foreign accounts as foreign reserves which is normal for a country without an sovereign payment system.   

The primary issue for the economy on the downstream sector is already taking place in the massive limit in refining capacity poorly augmented by huge imports of select petroleum products. Quality issues plague many of the sold products multiplying consumer costs across the board. The booming generating set market is an indicator. Nigeria is a petroleum exporter and a big importer of refined products because of decades-long lack of investment in the 4 state-owned refineries. The same petroleum products imports during the surge may suffer delays from bureaucratic lapses and profit-oriented sabotage.

Therefore leveraging any windfall will initially decline with cost of imports rising to inundate the apparently bulging capital account. It is uncertain from history how post-conflict reality will positively transform for production revitalisation, domestic market stability and increased refining capacity. Surges have narrow window and then expire for normal market trends and equilibrium to restore.

Having drawn one conclusion from history, great prospects that ruptures Nigeria's past from the future remains. The big picture is certain on the aftermath irrespective of outcome which unveils a clear demarcation of US-led west from the world with Moscow, Beijing, Delhi and Tehran in the driver's seat. A new world order is coming. Nigeria's part in the new configuration doesn’t and shouldn’t depend on petroleum exports and conflicts, but on its people, the majority who presently groan for dignity and justice. This invites a reliable energy geostrategy with a healthy petroleum industry prioritising robust domestic market and sophisticated performance in the global markets.

Conclusion

There is no need for a new conflict anywhere to increase petroleum profits rather such will be a theoretical bonus with the potential to revitalise the concept of petroleum as a curse to Nigeria. However pregnant possibilities and opportunities in the global energy market in a post-Atlantic world are endless for new mechanisms to transform strategies and operations underpinning petroleum resource management. Federal government has priority card. Even in the face of climate change with its potential positive effects for state and people, there remains a potential for a critical mass of will necessary to exploit advantages domestically. A 3^rd windfall in less than 100 years may either accelerate positive change or elevate regression to a whole new level probably unseen since 1861.  

Neoliberal Economic Riot at the Base

Introduction

The purpose of this piece is to present a summary of how neoliberal economic features are acting and impacting at the lowest geopolitical space in a typical African entity. The reason is to extend the debate on post-independence collective degeneration. By moving away from national level arguments we show the dynamic processes and complex reactions at the grassroot. The political unit of focus in the autonomous community/republic.

Clarification of Terms

Neoliberal economics is a system of material and service exchanges where the primary objective is the maximisation of profit in a disequilibrium market. Uncontrolled market with limited government oversight is the king. It is liberal because its undergirding ideology assume that all participants in the market are discrete individuals with sufficient capacity for rational decisions. In this market everything is assigned a monetary value to be bought and sold. The market is rigged and controlled. Neo indicates the refinement of liberal thinking.

Where does this market operate? Anywhere in the world however the best examples are flag-independent countries i.e. countries where political leaders have limited ability to decide and act on their peoples' interest. Europe, Americas, Asia and Africa have thriving examples. However it is most severe in Africa, South America and Asia. The political, religious, cultural, civil and military leaders are hostages of external powerful interests even if they were elected. These leaders are powerful only on 3 grounds; allowing or ignoring peoples’ super exploitation and oppression, refusal to strategically invest in the peoples and deploying institutional violence on the peoples resisting and protesting in solidarity.

The Base

This is the grassroot, that reside in non-urban communities accounting for the majority of national populations. They are connected to the national and regional/state capitals from where most policies and decision are designed and implemented. Policy implementation is not guaranteed. Normatively, the capitals should be the primary source of resources, capital, investment and infrastructure. In addition grassroots depend on subsistence agriculture and secondarily by services. The social structure used to be strong, dependable, participatory and collaborative. This is the main safety net precisely located in families. There is no public neocolonial social security.

Governance-wise, the base seemingly endured with sophisticated indigenous mechanisms handed down from ancestors. However these are seriously challenged in the face of colonial realities. They have offices, structures, processes and institutions currently held by leaders with limited awareness of their basis, requirements and conditions. The leaders have no serious formation in indigenous knowledge, value system and cosmology rather are beneficiaries of Eurocentric methods whose relevance disconnects from facts on the ground.

The economy has been monetary and non-monetary with goods and services exchanged equitably in non-market and nearby market spaces. Usually food sovereignty is guaranteed in stable communities with sufficient arable land, water and labour. This guaranteed affordability and reliability.

Contemporary Experience

As neoliberal fiscal and monetary policies deepen from the capitals over time, incomes collapse, saving evaporate, costs rise from incorrect implementation of policies, limitation of statutory payments and lack of necessary goods and services. Simply put, the state fails to deliver its duties. Cashflow drastically decline with numerous implications. Cost of food begins to rise, as the cost of health care, schools and basic necessities. Costs are highest at the grassroot. This pressure is tackled in various ways by families and groups. How do the leadership react?

Despite the severity of the situation, it equally carries huge opportunities for leadership particularly in rallying citizens towards emancipatory and liberational search for solutions. At this point intellectual block and leadership suspension step in. Most indigenous, civil, political and religious leaders consistently fail to act because of their Eurocentric formation. Due to their delegitimised positions, they are inflexible to ground-up strategic solutions even as evidence of economic pain increase. In addition they have a spatially ontological blindness that disable them from grounding any credible response away from the capitals.

Most leaders are severely handicapped, incompetent and ignorant particularly the so-called Christian leaders who stew in brainwash. Their views of politics are distorted that they are content with colonial liberal theological focused on personal salvation without coherent asymmetric political framework. They forget that Jesus Christ was a colonised and oppressed subject of Rome. They are ignorant of economic structure, laws and impact as their demands intensify for more material sacrifices from oppressed members. 

This irresponsibility and lack of credible approach leads to distrust and mutation of places of worship for commercial purposes. The leaders mistake people’s focus on survival for their own competence and relevance. They blame the oppressed for lacking initiative, energy and lack of faith were applicable. They fail to see the strategic, institutional and collective dimensions of the complex processes and the begging need for credible response. Lightweight and miserable intellectuals evacuate the situation to poverty devoid of comprehensive long durée root-cause analysis.

Local markets shrink as fewer sellers go to bigger markets, while journey to bigger markets costs per capita rise in the absence of private transport. Many leaders still hesitate to approve new markets in proximity to retain capital and reduce waste at the base. Both grassroot production and quality decline in the absence of government support, community banks, cheap fund facilities and public social security. Insecurity, crime and immorality gain traction. 

Those with extra capital in the community set up shops to cater to customers with variable profit margins. Social relations slowly weaken as disputes grow. The unwell easily go to places of worship and questionable indigenous doctors. Debt, quality of life and standard of living rapidly. Death rate rises as lifespan decrease sharply in the face of collapse of preventive health care. Community composition, cohesion and identity gradually adjust negatively. Like controlled demolition, the grassroot is unravelled systematically over time. 

Conclusion

Collective degeneration from neocolonial policy is the natural controlled outcome from the colonial project. Its impact touches every part of a neocolonial state. Its mitigation is stalled by thoughtless, inflexible and delegitimised indigenous leadership formed on Eurocentric diet.  There are viable alternatives. Until leadership opens to indigenous value system and authenticity plus deleting the notion of history as a burden and embrace it as a treasure trove for reconstructing collective dignity of our peoples, comprehensive strategic action to reverse decline at any scale is remote.

Fundamental Obstacles to Africa’s Intellectual Renaissance

 Introduction

A closer look at Africa from inside and outside suggest among other movements a renewal of enduring tensions between forces at various scales since 2020. These tensions seem to have ebbed away or rather receded from the 1990s following the collapse of the Soviet Union. However post-collapse didn’t bring positive growth on most Africa’s indicators of life for the majority. Bad situations got worse before advancing to a freefall from 2011 to the present. The forces driving this collective holistic degeneration of peoples are consistent, unwavering and predictable. For many reasons, the intellectual springs and most African intellectuals either ignore the true underlying currents or fail to appreciate the reality of their structural power. Our focus in this output is to unveil two features of these gaps both of which reinforce each other.

Function of Time

Most readings of Africa’s experience even among Africans on the continent and in diaspora flow from unquestioned imposed timelines. Even when the timelines are appropriated, the substance of outcomes offer lightweight testimonies of positively disruptive solutions to facts of the ground. In most cases timelines are presented as mostly short and medium, both of which are insufficient and insignificant for comprehensive investigation of complexity. The popular timeline is the 1950s – 1960s given as disruptive when colonial powers or rather European elite offered most African nationalist leaders flag independence. If critical reflection is tolerated, such gestures of deceit were made without compensation after an average of 100 years of violent imposition. None of the colonial structures, philosophy, strategy and institutions including religions were radically changed. Just a change of personnel!

A wrong reading of pre-flag independence endured from colonial miseducation policies with its brainwashing operations and reductionist curricula. While indigenous neocolonial leaders pretend to offer credible alternatives, their policies only reinforced colonial agenda. Colonial oppression, massacres and genocide of millions of indigenous Africans were extended with radical passion in the name of national security. Many intellectuals move to uncritically glorify colonial excesses and even make pyrrhic distinctions between the British, Portuguese, Belgian and the French as if oppression and genocides as categories operated strictly along those lines.

Sadly, indigenous leaders including intellectuals since 1950s – 1960s settled for perpetuating false narratives of European superiority while failing repeatedly to show positive replications on the grounds. These deluded minds only feast on their illusions in so far as their lower appetites located in narrow personal interest are satisfied. They seek legitimacy without solidarity. There was nothing for the community and the peoples. The illusion is propagated in universities, secondary and primary schools in state-sanctioned intellectual poisoning of generations via public education. Till this day, cheerleaders with numerous degrees and rabid spokespersons in high places including religions continue to wax lyrical for indigenous mass degeneration. Colonialism in all its forms have no positive, it is an inherently evil geopolitical and geoeconomic strategy implemented by European elite with premeditated mass murder from institutional violence.

Civilisational Appeal

While colonialism in all its forms is evil regardless of timeline and executor, an extended timeline opens a wider frame for appraising it without diminishing the features of its operation in Africa. There are enduring core African principles recognised across diverse communities. These are family, community, religion and learning. This is the bedrock of millennia of civilisations and developments across the continents during periods of ascendance and instability respectively. Internal contexts offer useful insights on how peoples organise and developed. A longer time frame favour broader outlines of principles and features of mechanisms. Civilisations are never static and aren’t imposed to change radically in very short periods. Africa for the most part is an exporter of life and dispenser of true nobility.

The last 500 years has validated Europe as a geography of regression for Africans whose main products and exports to Africa till this day are evil and death. All European institutions and elite are united in their conviction that their boots of impunity and oppression on the neck of Africans is normative. This is a systematic geostrategic initiative with consistent resonance and sustaining power in each generation. Unfortunately most African intellectuals prefer to disinterestedly essentialise this clear stream of intergenerational construct against the strategic interest of their peoples. They offer no counter-narrative or contrary presentations. For those whose lands and peoples where subject to the gravest holocaust for over 300 years, in the form of international trade in African persons, intellectual dishonesty is intolerable. It is not so much that European elite spare their own peoples, no. The so-called first and second world wars with millions of fatalities are indisputable testimonies. European peoples worth less than their projected profits.

The idea that European elite offer shining examples for Africa’s advancement is reprehensive. To suggest that an uncritical implementation of so-called European theories and strategies for the strategic uplifting all Africans including the dead without taking into account indigenous cosmologies, civilisational realities and unique experiential categories is fraudulent. The avoidance of asymmetrical response and critical interrogation of foreign ideas, experiences, hypothesis and theories prior to implementation is the fountain of most African intellectuals. They are not only blind to inherent goodness of Africans, they accentuate their ignorance by explicating their own ontological poverty, thoughtlessness and historical unconsciousness.

Conclusion

The current global geopolitical conflagration is a strong sign of the times, a slow transition to an irreversible phase. Our reflection reaffirm the inherent evil of colonialism and delineate Europe as a space of evil and death (for Africans collectively), its enduring primary exports to Africa. Europe is not an example, its elite are strategically conditioned to go violently against Africa’s interest. Most African intellectuals have refused or failed to acknowledge consistent facts, patterns and relationships. The currency of new reactions and tentative counter-actions in Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger are the first robust entrée to indigenous appropriation of history since the 1960s. While it is too early to draw conclusions, all the hallmarks of indigenous resistance to European elite and defacing of flag independence are undeniable in these territories.

Reflecting on Western Instability and Uncertainty from Africa

 Introduction

Observation is an empirical art influenced by complex variables connected to different  observers. Nevertheless general patterns do emerge over time despite the fact that they are limited in terms of offering specific answers to current facts on the ground. Using long durée approach, patterns of less than 500 years old carry lightweight. This is the case with observing the West i.e. United States including her protectorates (Germany, Japan, South Korea etc), United Kingdom and her underlines (Canada, Australia, New Zealand etc). Viewed from Africa, these states loom larger than life with an almost intellectual and metaphysical suffocation disconnected from reality. A critical reflection of the same data from Africa (of the rolling 500 years) in the last decade (contrary to daily fake news) reveal patterns that have been in place all the time suggesting that these capitals and their chancelleries are rather expressions of enduring human condition.

After 2011

2011 is an important year for Africa and Africans because this is the year when the last shred of collective dignity and potent sovereignty evaporated with the murder of Col Ghaddafi and the destruction of Libya. The result has been a reinforcement of regressive unjustifiable leadership across the continent but also an explosion of enormous pressure on the minority voices clamouring for true enduring change for the majority.

The intellectual class formed on uncritical ideas and poisonous hand-me-down theories from western thinkers continue to froth passionately their assumed solutions without evidence. Most in the religious sphere excluding indigenous religions continue to peddle their conflation of fake Christianity with rationalist European mantra plus gaps in true Islam. For these, salvation is Western Europe and United States. Alternative voices continue to struggle to be heard despite the absence of clear ideological footprint. Prior to 2020, celebration of stagnation and consolidation of ontological poverty turned into national treasure in Egypt, Senegal, Nigeria, Kenya, Ethiopia, DR Congo and South Africa.

On the economic front the capital sin of international trade took a divine right posture where domestic currencies are eliminated for the enthronement of the dollar and euro. In the case of Nigeria, headlines bloom with findings of billions of foreign currency in officials’ homes. Evidently the owners validate their inability to redirect resources for common good. Capital flight is most evident from the same officials that wire huge number abroad to invest in foreign economies for the wellbeing of foreigners. Apparently, governments don’t work so anything the powerful elite do in private suffices. Nothing trickles down and none will trickle down. Is it just an African problem? The same human right champions of the West look the other way as their affirmation of ‘justice’. Let us see how they have performed so far?

Western Unravelling

As Africans continue their’ suffering and smiling’ in victimhood imposed by their own leaders over the decade, the Western elite radically advanced the integration of African economies through financial technological means. This consolidation of capital accumulation and financialization is underpinned by unlimited exploitation of Africa’s mineral resources. Geopolitically, the so-called independent states were further balkanised without fixed geographies to enable seamless illegal transfers at the cost of millions of lives. All profits, blood money, capital and precious resources go north. This is the pattern. Even the French-speaking countries must obtain Paris’ approval on their central banking, fiscal and monetary policies. A comfortable place to be across generations!

Then came December 2021 when Moscow sent 2 treaties to the United States to codify the cessation of NATO eastern expansion. Moscow was rubbished with condescending impunity. This is the same smart elite that ran with legs touching the back of their heads from Kabul earlier. From February 2022 a new mechanism arrived through the barrel of the gun, the first peer-to-peer exchange between nuclear powers in the battlefield. A geoeconomic settlement of accounts rather than a geopolitical consolidation by means of war!

With the onslaught entering its 3^rd year the gloss has worn off digital pretence. This is the first conflict where the profits yield in limitation for the US. It is certainly making profit off its European vassals and satraps. Its vaunted weapons, military tactics and strategic initiatives have unravelled. In the economic heartbeat of Europe, the German elite stabbed their national interest with radio silence at the Nord Stream pipeline destruction. United Kingdom is hollowed out by funding NATO conflict while France’s compounding problems improved with expulsion from former African Sahel and the first sacking of a prime minister in generations. In South Korea recently, the president rushed to martial rule in the absence of credible national threat.

Plain Truth

Africans are observing these emerging patterns with complex dispositions. They are real and undenied. Many questions, numerous lack of answers and certain volume of daze. What is the difference between Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire and Olaf Schulz of Germany? What is the line between Kier Starmer of UK and Mohammed Said Barre on Somalia? What is dissimilar between Jean Bokassa of CAR and Emmanuel Macron of France? Nothing. They are united in unleashing destruction on their country and peoples.

This is the point that most Africans need to recover from fast. There is no such thing as civilised people, advanced populations, superior nations and all sorts. Human dignity human condition are universal. Both are irreducible. Error, impunity, corruption, glory, abuse and excellence are never up for monopoly. Development can never be imported. The first development law is the admiration of one’s being, family and people rather than material derivatives. No people need permission to stand up, to remain standing and to die standing. The same western elite that seem invincible to Africans have no qualms subjecting their own peoples to oppression and death in the name of national interest.

This is the simple lesson of our reflection.

Africa Renaissance 2.0

Introduction

A refreshed intergenerational global wind is picking up strength which is impacting every corner of the planet with various degrees of outcomes. African nations and states are not only aware of this round but are active participants in its making and benefits. Suffice to say that the global geopolitical framework that took effect after world war 2 is bursting at the seams. Growing evidence consolidates its unfitness for purpose. Now we are concerned with surveying the so-called African regional powers and their status in the short term.

A Hegemon in Self-Demotion

In the grand strategic scheme of things United States of America has run its course, given that she can no longer satisfactorily undertake without challenge self-assigned tasks of full-spectrum policing of the world. NATO-Russia and West Asian conflicts testify this fact unequivocally. Like the USSR earlier through internal disequilibrium and misuse of resources, after nearly 2 generations US has finally set her course irreversibly south. 

Africa is an unmitigated victim of this holistic imperial domination, a holdover of a continuum from the violent and brutal colonialism of rapacious Europe. Under Washington DC’s watch, virulent neocolonialism unfurled its flag as the European colonial powers played second base to her while continuing the indirect neoliberal process of mass subjugation, oppression and murder. In any case till date, few African states are excluded from the civilisation-stripping machine front-desked by indigenous elite and political assets. Only Tanzania, Botswana and Namibia remain unmolested by indigenous-led post-independence dark tunnel digging.

Big is not always Beautiful

As the Russo-Ukrainian conflict winds down inevitably, the first peer-to-peer conflict for the US with her loss acknowledged by her own leaders, its effects are already manifesting across the world including Africa. Giants don’t fall alone, they take many far and near down with them. The ripple effects of a hegemon collapse endure over time and space. Nevertheless, US will remain a top player with massive influence and colonial impunity on militarily weak satrapies in Europe, South America and Africa. However an implication suggests that such effects unfolding slowly but surely in Africa will be influenced by numerous factors and variables. In this phase, the so-regional powers are not only excluded from its fuller advantage rather display reactionary moves to consolidate their regressive patterns of state impunity.

After US destruction of Libya in 2011, Egypt’s place was reconsolidated in her orbit in north Africa. Cairo is not and will not be a space of progressive change in the short-term so far as Washington DC sustains Egyptian elite with huge military aid and other largesse. Sadat syndrome that took root from Camp David Accord eliminated Cairo as an effective force in internal and foreign affair respectively for at least 2 generations. Realistic Egyptian regional leadership died with Gamal Nasser while Anwar Sadat’s imprimatur will loom for some time. Simply put, post-Nasser Egypt has no leadership responsibilities in Africa. The year-long catastrophe in West Asia particularly the situation of Palestinians draws currency from (Sadat) Egyptian relegation of responsibility and downgrading of Palestine to a mere refugee problem. So the renewed wind of African rebirth 2.0 will pick strength with Cairo on the sidelines.

In the West African shatterbelt, the main regional power until recently was France. De Gaulle’s neocolonial architecture was refreshed by successive occupants of Elysee Palace until her strategic regression forced resources away from President Macron. In the background is the fact that Nigeria was not, is not and will be a credible power in the short-term regardless of her associated potentials. Abuja denotes a perfect role of a colonial state transformed seamlessly into an indigenous neocolonial state committed to internal destruction underpinned by reprehensive institutional violence and clinical corruption. With an elite and political carpetbaggers nourished by thoughtlessness, historical amnesia and civilisation stripping; one doesn’t need a crystal ball or be an anthropologist in October 1960 to see that the future direction pointed south. As a house with faulty foundation, only a sword of Damocles overhangs a decision to either undertake uncertain costly refoundation or continue habitation until inevitable collapse. Nigeria will watch African renaissance 2.0 with a powerful telescope.

The long eastern coastline is dripping in uncertainty to narrow down serious contenders for serious change. Ethiopia’s has cut a path out of the western swamp to the comity of nations in the nascent BRICS. Addis Ababa has certainly made an irreversible geostrategic move towards the new uncharted water of multi-nodal global geopolitical realignment. She is actually engineering and fast-forwarding a difficult structural change and framework reordering in a very hazardous neighbourhood. It is rather noteworthy that Emperor Haile Selassie clung tightly to the imposed colonial order as the enduring template for Africa’s stabilisation. His grave is undergoing tremors since his country lost its coastline and continental shelves to Eritrea. Addis Ababa is displaying boldness and assertiveness towards Africa 2.0 that deserves a careful observation.

On the southern front a sublime stability reigns with punctations of uncertainty visible across the region. Conflicts and post-conflict realities continue to dodge effective government penetrations, policy implementation and internal security. Nevertheless South Africa seem to steal thunder from its post-apartheid embedding with strategic compromise. To accuse Nelson Mandela of betrayal is an understatement. He was just a neoliberal asset, a neocolonial handbag with intergenerational blood on his hands. It is not farfetched that powerful influences in ANC suddenly decided that the latest peak moment in Palestinian-Israeli conflict offered a rare opportunity to start righting historical injustice. There is no reason to deny Pretoria’s indefatigability and defiance in withstanding full-spectrum pressure against her stand with the Palestinian file at the International Court of Justice.

Conclusion

The jury is still out on the true nature and scope of Pretoria’s strategic commitment to Africa 2.0 given that many of its current elite and political class draw inspiration and sustenance from Nelson Mandela playbook on strategic betrayal of intergenerationally oppressed peoples. In summary, our hypothesis on the resistance of regional powers to new wind of global change is still a strong invitation.  

African Leadership in the Post-United States Era

Introduction

The current story of leadership in Africa leaves a lot to be desired at all levels. Tragic and unpleasant narratives continue to dominate the continent two generations after most of the successors of colonial states gained so-called independence. What is counted as independence of nation-states are limited exclusive operations that transform the majority into victims of state aggression across the board. In this article our limited attention is on the potential opportunities implicit in United States overreach and decline. United States is the last form of western imperial colonial state.

Spectre of Colonial Mentality

Many may wonder why ‘colonial’ is mentioned two generations after the colonial era. A typical critic is fiercely seeking answers to the problem of leadership in Africa over the same period. Opposing arguments insist that the so-called independent states were equipped in statecraft plus accruing human resources over the generations. If so, why have the result been gross underperformance? Part of the problem is historical amnesia that fuel the false narrative that colonial projects were benevolent and beneficial to the people. There is no evidence in this regard.

The idea that colonial projects departed from civilisation mission to genuine investment in people-oriented values is intellectually dishonest. Not a single colonial project respected the indigenous peoples and tolerated genuine democracy, civilisation, progress and human rights. No colonial official was ever elected. Top-down bureaucratic operations, impunity, massacres and genocides were normalised in these profit-making projects. The mission statement of the project were based on false representation and devaluation of Africans. Once a peoples’ identity is questioned, their existence is appropriated.

The British, French, Portuguese, Italians, Germans and Spanish left horror legacies that continue to haunt us. The atrocities of Belgian King Leopold in DR Congo left a trail of intergenerational dehumanisation inherited by Mobutu and his successors. Similar cases dominate most of the continent. Preference of one colonial project over another is a testimony from the lunatic fringe. The so-called independence never brought holistic liberation of the peoples rather a radical regressive alteration of destinies and hybridisation of existence. People cannot give what they lack. Hence today most Africans are victims of repression, alienation, exclusion and marginalisation from leadership at all levels inherited and extended from colonial projects.  The cost is high in blood.

Items of Impossible

The fall of Kabul in 2021 signalled the end of uncontested US imperial prerogative and the decline of North Atlantic hegemony. The current loss-making conflicts in both Ukraine and Palestine simply confirm enduring patterns of irreversible decline of a panic-stricken ex-hegemon. With unsustainable public debt, decline of the US dollar, defeat in Ukraine, establishment of Iranian deterrence in West Asia, Yemeni mastery of the Red Sea and Palestinian endurance; potentials are growing for credible African renewal. 

New Conversation

Time has come for new focus and new collective sharing on the implications of dynamic geopolitical reconfigurations. Young people in West Africa are already chewing over what independence means, discerning enduring patterns for dignified existence and taking steps to advance the sanctity of their lives. For those who are still undecided, deep conversations are needed for sober assessment of the last two generations in an authentic embrace of histories. A people without active historical agency cannot stand.

US decline is significant in clarifying US citizens place in the world as normal people without exceptional qualities or manifest destiny. They built an empire with an expiry date that activated this decade for another empire to take the stage. Hence North Atlantic domination of the world for almost half a millennia is over.

African discussions must be honest, truthful, hopeful and trustworthy. Independence, dignity and sanctity doesn’t come from outside. No amount of intellectual and material investment outlines existential and ontological values of peoples in their community. A critical and deep review of the colonial project deserve penetrating exchanges because it continues to dominate conventional view of correctness and completeness despite the absence of both.

In addition, parallel discussions of indigenous legacies deserve utmost attention as foreign inputs have shown their cost in blood. True, no people have the monopoly of discernment, wisdom and knowledge. However any development not anchored on the unique experience of the people in a territory is futile. Equally when people decide to sleep with blanket of excuses for their miserable state, the status quo remains. Positive reversals don’t take long.

Any African leader at any level who is unable to factor in rapid change is irrelevant. Any leader without clear replicable plan of action, key performance indicators and critical success factors is malfeasant. Most importantly if African peoples at all levels refuse to engage, organise and mobilise for their personal and collective advancement in their unique experiences; current costs will continue to mount.

Conclusion

It is time for Africans to once again read sign of the times, take another look at ourselves in the spirit of unlearning and relearning to exchange on our status quo. Other peoples in other continents are defiantly taking their destinies in their hands. An authentic historical review of our past particularly the colonial project that unleashed our current sufferings through ugly nation-state leadership deserve urgent attention. A new narrative is essential, a narrative of independence, dignity and sanctity. Our existential and ontological constitutions are irreducible, non-negotiable and indispensable.

African Response to Vatican Slip Up

The Christian albeit Catholic world received a deserved New Year present from Africa. It is the present of theological orthodoxy and orthopraxis, with intergenerational implications. The background to this African testimony of maturity is the recent decision by the Vatican directing bishops/priests to bless homosexuals and lesbians in relationships. There's only one valid relationship in the church, marriage between one man and one woman.

If anyone was seeking for a credible sign of theological & spiritual compromise of Catholic leadership, look no further. Instead of seeking the Holy Spirit on biblical authority, trusting the Eucharist aligned with sacred tradition, worship is devolved to mere man to crush his maker in the name of progress. Just peruse the quality of post-announcement damage control by Dicastery for the Doctrine of Faith.  

You wonder what motivated this decision. A single reason, absence of faith in Jesus the Christ. 2000+ years testimony is rejected and despised. Such a radical departure from orthodox teaching should have considered a number of points including (a) reactions from Catholics in the Global majority (b) reaction of other Christians in the Global majority (c) the position of Orthodox Catholics (d) position of Muslims (e) position of global believers in all religions, cultures and creeds. Christian unity and inter-religious dialogue are seriously harmed.

That decision reflects European and North American church leadership intransigence, and their overthrow of faith to elevate pride. This decision aligned with Atlantic geopolitical currents validates the position that religion isn't a variable of importance. A final gesture to secularisation and flourishing ode to enlightenment! These views assert that for them God is indeed dead. Faith in Jesus left Europe long ago.

Then rose African bishops in solidarity and unanimity to reject the decree boldly declaring that they refuse to implement it in their dioceses based on biblical authority, sacred tradition and demand of indigenous religio-spiritual authenticity. Faithful pastors who know their faith, missions and constituencies! This is a brilliant sign with huge potentials for replication in other spheres of African endeavour. A first!

This decision destroys in a single strike the attitude of Africans Catholics to Vatican with proverbial 'yes father'. The pendulum has swung, true faith is outside of Europe and North America. There's little Christianity to learn from these spaces and from such cultures. Interestingly, the Vatican decision confirmed a recurring Marian apparitions warning of division among bishops and cardinals on orthodoxy and orthopraxis. Pope Paul VI warned about Satan in the high places.

I hope and pray for African faithful to keep up the determination and tenacity implicitly demanded by this new defence of the faith on the world stage. In the meantime prayerful celebration is worthwhile in Africa and among Africans.