Foreign Policy Challenges for Nigeria 2015 and Beyond

2nd Tier Sub-National Map of Nigeria

Introduction

As the year is closing in one is apt to review Nigeria’s foreign policy performance and if possible project distinct patterns and relationship that may potentially emerge from next year. This is extremely important since 2015 will usher in a new administration which may potentially offer business-as-usual regardless whether the incumbent is returned or not; or trigger new adjustment in foreign policy posture also regardless of the national election outcomes. This article will use some of the current foreign policy files to make informed guesses taking into consideration unique domestic conditions.

Charity Begins at Home

Opening a European newspaper in the last few years presents you with a certainty; austerity. The word ‘austerity’ is now a byword for Europe or the so-called developed North illustrating a mask for political ineptitude, intellectual poverty and cultural regression. This presentation is complemented with renewed attention to Russia. So now ‘Austerity’ and ‘Russia’ are the current raison d’être for Europe. 

Similar search in South American media gives a distinct flavour of confidence and positive self-identity. A significant item is the persistent rhetoric that their individual and collective sovereignties no longer correlate with ‘US backyard’. Washington DC move to open relations with Havana is a strong testament of Latin America confidence and US weakness. China and India can both be summarised in the word; (economic) deals. There is no suggestion that singularity of word representation indicates linearity or simplicity rather that they conveys a positive vibe that dominates governance in the mentioned territories.

In the case of Nigeria; empty, shallow or personality (Godfather) politics showcases. I don’t know why there are no Godmothers in Nigeria’s personality politics but that is for another piece. This presentation in reality and in fact masks and suffocates potential positive interaction, intellectual development and positive political/economic investment/development. It foretells the story of a troubled domestic policy where apparently policies do not drive politics. Only ontological poverty mostly motivates engagement in politics despite rhetoric. While interest in policy cannot be dismissed expectant hope of positive outcome for citizens borders between resignation, apathy and taking a long view. This is the summary of ‘bruised and battered’ population for nearly 2 generations.

Taking the above paragraph into consideration it becomes obvious that effective foreign policy runs on the back of cohesive internal affairs backed-up with viable political & economic governance/implementation with all the complexities associated with it. In the case of Nigeria post-military national politics have miserably failed to trigger serious effort against regressive actions. If a few indicators are reviewed it becomes clear that domestic issues remain sub-standard; transport infrastructure, accountability on state/national resources, quality of education graduates, internal security, process management in private and public sectors.

2 words summarises geographically-nested low national performance: corruption and waste. Corrosive corruption and waste of human & material resources at industrial scale! With these set of regressive characteristics Nigeria is unable to project power coherently internally talk less of externally. The country cannot and is not perceived positively even at the base level of public diplomacy, and she becomes isolated in a complex world undergoing massive geopolitical reconfiguration. In addition, Nigeria is placed in an (apparent) immovable position unfortunately assigned to it by Western geopolitical power led by United States that condemns her to the status of ineffectual client (vassal), a geopolitical consumer and a puerile player even in her own sub-region. 

Select Points of Contention

Taking into consideration that enhanced domestic affairs and robust internal security is yet to emerge in Nigeria, Abuja can be forgiven from using confidence in internal affairs as springboard to commence full spectrum review of Nigeria’s foreign policy, posture and power projection capacities. International changes, global geopolitical reconfigurations and modification of global economic/financial architecture should be serious incentives for Abuja to get a grip. Above all in what could have been her ‘backyard’ serious developments are emerging potentially favouring cost-reduced expansion of influence.

The select areas of consideration include West Africa sub-region, relationship with OPEC, relationship with United States and relationship with China.

West Africa

Nigeria is seating on the eastern-most part of the sub-region while Cape Verde is on the most western point.  Geopolitically the area of interest includes all the territories, rich mineral resources therein, airspace and continental shelves of member-countries of Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS/CEDEAO). It is dangerous to be misled by the fact that Nigeria is the most populous, possess the biggest economy and the biggest market. See map below.

ECOWAS Member-States

In reality while the variables unravel incoherently in the region over the decade, coherent strategic posture has failed to gain traction. The loss of traction in Nigeria’s ability to project power in the sub-region in a coherent manner increased with the exit of military regimes. There are a number of reasons for this development. The defeat of US-backed South Africa forces and UNITA in Angola by Cuban-backed Angolan forces, the collapse of the apartheid regime in South Africa and subsequent decolonisation of Namibia closed the picture of anti-colonisation struggle. A subtext in the demise of cold war is equally significant. These has been the raison d’être of Nigeria’s foreign policy and its exhaustion offered a recipe for change which was not seriously considered. Accompanying the Pan-African posture was the benign pass to (France) Paris to dominate affairs in her former colonies of West Africa.

In any case Nigeria till present continues to perceive a chuck of West Africa as France ‘backyard’ even as Paris is tumbling down the tubes of geopolitical weakness and confusion.  See map below. In foreign policy and geopolitics circles, analysts are apt to regard France as Nigeria’s true neighbour as all the neighbours are former French colonies. While Lagos and then Abuja continues to extend its statecraft specifically on Anglophone countries which was maximised in her sponsorship of ECOWAS Monitoring Group (ECOMOG) during the Liberian civil, there is a constrain in flexing muscle against perceived French interest.

Nigeria's Neighbours - France

Another reason for this constrain include Lagos/Abuja’s position as a client state of United States within a nested hierarchy of geopolitical network. At a higher level of that network, French interest took precedence over Nigeria natural designs. French position is a compensation for losing WW2 allowing her room to maintain her sphere of influence without interfering with Washington DC global designs. Perfect example of this network interest is the nomination/occupation of French citizen always as International Monetary Fund Managing Director.  Seating on the West African front of French interest was a linchpin positioned in Cote d’Ivorie’s President Felix Houphoet Boigny.

Cote d’Ivorie was not only advancing French interest but also United States strategic interest hence her proactive contribution to the coup that overthrew Ghanaian President Dr Kwame Nkrumah in 1966. French interest projected through her geo-economic design of domination was crucially tied in the currency/monetary union between former French franc in the currency used by West African francophone countries; CFA. Nigeria’s room to maneuver as United States client in the sub-region was limited in principle at the time.

Fast-forward to this decade with highlights of the past including end of cold war, emergence of European Union and associated austerity of Europe; new opportunities are potentially opening up in West Africa. For starters all the francophone countries have modest economies of various bands in ‘struggling’ status.

A number of situations have emerged that present new and interesting geopolitical and foreign policy challenges to the erstwhile dominant players in the region.  Some of the significant outcomes are mentioned below;

• West Africa remains a richly resourced part of the world in human, mineral, land and marine/hydrological resources
• Cote d’Ivorie is currently a shell of its former status with unstable politics and economy after over a decade of civil war which ended in part with French military intervention under ex-President Sarkozy
• Various parts of West Africa were and are bedevilled by conflict, instability & biological warfare (Ebola) such as Sierra Leone, Liberia, Mali, Guinea and Guinea Bissau
• With France accession to EU, CFA is decoupled from Franc and in addition French economy is facing depression and will continue to face difficult times in the short and medium terms
• With United States power ebbing away with rising China in Africa vacuums are emerging in the sub-region

The above points are few items among an array of strategic opportunities of which Nigeria is taking advantage rather in an incoherent fashion. Even Abuja’s public diplomacy investment and projections have been rather trivial and introverted for example President Goodluck Jonathan’s ill-fated Paris visit on the back of Boko Haram abduction of over 200 school girls. Another example is the President’s joint visit to Ouagadougou on the back of President Compaore’s forced exit. Both actions displayed featherweight disposition, 4^th rate power projection and lingers the perception of a visionless foreign policy. A new administration should recalibrate her strategies and generate robust policies to take advantage towards a coherent geopolitical and geoeconomic expansion and dominance of the sub-region.

Relationship with OPEC

Nigeria has been a member of Oil Producing and Exporting Countries (OPEC) for a number of decades. One of the presidential aspirants was an Oil Minister in the 1970s. What is OPEC’s relevance to Nigeria in the current geopolitical climate? Does OPEC have serious leverage in determining high prices for oil dominated economies like Nigeria?

The ongoing deliberate price depression is a testament of real weakness of OPEC in a series of contracting performances. The last time OPEC displayed grit, stature and confidence as an organisation was when President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela rallied member-states for concerted action. Production was cut, prices rallied and sale of OPEC crude oil in other/basket of currency became a possibility. The current price tumble deployed as an economic weapon by an OPEC member (to counter another state that formerly deployed energy weapon) against other member-states strategic interest is dangerous.  Of course the question will always be asked of the reasons behind poor diversification of Nigerian economy away from oil and or how accounts of previous sales/investments are reinvested. They are legitimate questions which border on both strategic interest and national security.

Saudi Arabia’s [US ally] action of deliberate crude oil prices depression delegitimizes justification of OPEC existence and Abuja should commence considering its membership as well as potentially selling crude oil in a basket of currencies. Saudi Arabia’s action of over-production which Abuja endorsed in the last OPEC meeting is regressive, treasonous and threatens Nigeria’s national security. Of course Riyadh’s action is motivated by demand from Washington DC, it is doubtful that the policy was coordinated prior to implementation with Abuja. New/subsequent administrations should address this issue with great care and serious attention.

Relationship With United States

It is important to state at the outset that relationship between Nigeria and United States is unequal. This has nothing to do with ethics or morality. It is an understatement that the relationship is best captured by master-servant analogy despite diplomatic niceties placing Abuja on client status.  It is also important to construct into the argument Nigeria's client status to Washington DC include vagaries of subordination to European powers in particular as all European capitals are subservient to United States. Any interested Nigerian or foreign policy observer who has experienced first-hand the might of US power closely should ask the question, why would a US official on Capitol Hill border with Nigeria? The observer should pose the question at the height of US power and at the outset of its weakening. 

Leaving aside the questions, attention is focused on Nigeria-US relationship from the Clinton presidency which effectively allocated Nigeria a position and status of sub-regional ‘policeman’which remains unchanged.[link para 27 -31]. However attention must be focused on flickers of realism emerging from Nigeria’s diplomats after many years of pretending an equal relationship.  The idea that Abuja can robustly & effectively deflect major US foreign policy is a pipe-dream. Nigeria is seriously constrained by regressive self-identity and poverty of initiative that blind her in formulating realistic understanding of US policy towards her. In a sense Nigeria foreign policy elite are star-struck borne of unchallenged absorption of dehumanising education and biased information of imposed worldview and assimilation of glorified US objectives.

The perpetuation of near-colonial narrative/knowledge continues in the unreconstructed negative attitude to local history, dehumanisation of African identity and unquestioned glorification of everything Western/English contextualised in US ‘exceptionalism’. Truth shows that US was a slave republic that denied full humanity to Africans as a matter of law for over 300 years.  Apart from 1976 when General Murtala Muhammed challenged Dr Henry Kissinger on the merit and veracity of US exceptionalism cum suggested African irrelevance, no other Nigerian leaders have ever had a formalised defiance/defence of Nigeria’s strategic interest vis-a-vis Washington DC. With rising China and other emerging economies in Africa, US highest priority on Nigeria is security of access to crude oil and other strategic mineral resources. Beyond this point Nigeria commands very low priority in Washington DC.

Curiously Nigeria has no ethnic interlocutor in the United States politics. The Black Congressional Caucus (BCC) has transformed from a relevant ethnic power block into accessory to Washington DC aspiration for full-spectrum violence-oriented global domination including Nigeria and as such US foreign policy issues relating to Africa command less of their attention. DRC and Rwanda crises are examples of BCC puerile performance hence cannot be counted upon by Abuja. Compare them to Israeli, Irish, Armenian and Arab lobbies!

So the following questions are to be considered for future relationship with Washington DC;

• Does Nigeria want to remain a client of US and on what conditions?
• Does Nigeria want to remain the sub-regional ‘policeman’ and under what conditions?
• In a geopolitically reconfiguring world, where should US be in relation with other emerging geopolitical powers?
• What does Nigeria hope or expected from US strategically and geopolitically in the medium and long terms?
• What is Nigeria’s strategic interest with United States deployment of USAFRICOM?

Furthermore, these questions are belied by emerging evidence that Boko Haram phenomenon is far more complex. Case in point is Abuja’s allegation that former Burkina Faso President Compaore was sponsoring weapon/equipments transfer to Boko Haram. Ouagadougou, a staunch US client shrugged this allegation. The recent inconsistencies by United States to share intelligence on Boko Haram and recently reported refusal to sell weapons/equipments to Abuja on the red herring of Nigeria’s human right records add fuels to suspicion.

Complementary to these developments is the apparent meltdown of French power/interest in West Africa which is transforming the geopolitical landscape enabling her displacement by United States. Call it de-imperialisation of France! There is a US drone base in Niamey, Niger. There is another US military base in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. These US military investments present evidence of gradual physical encirclement in addition to cyber and remote sensing capabilities projections deployed against Africa particularly Nigeria.

Apart from making diplomatic statements, there is absence of coherent policy and consistent response to threats emerging from US relationship. US interest on Nigeria and Africa in general have moved from benign ambivalence to full-spectrum deployment through militarisation of the continent (resources) as part of the strategic Asian pivot to contain China. 2011 Libyan invasion by United States via NATO summarised Washington DC disposition towards Africa and Nigeria in particular. These developments make for sober reflection which Abuja is expected to counter very seriously.

Relationship with China

Chinese relationship will be enigmatic for a number of reasons. For the past 2 generations Nigeria’s political, economic, intellectual formation and world-view has been predominantly western. It is more or less an extension of intellectual colonial enterprise. The implication of this world-view is the instinctive dealing of complexity in socio-political and geopolitical diversity/difference through western lens. Such lens is bound to trigger colossal failure. The richness of pre-colonial geopolitical/diplomatic heritage is lost on current Nigeria post-colonial project.

China is operating on 2 distinct levels. One as a developing country sharing brutal colonial experience with countries of the Global South as part of geopolitical and geoeconomic strategies towards expanding her influence and maximise profit. Simultaneously it is the factory of the world since for the West basic manufacturing has lost its shine. Only high-end goods suffice to be produced in their territories! On another level Beijing is playing with the big boys with ‘Peaceful Rise’ and is apparently winning in the short and medium terms. With well crafted foreign policy and robust geopolitical focus, China is gradually altering erstwhile geopolitical, geo-security and geo-economic architectures.

How does Nigeria react to this development? Does Nigeria want to swap subservience to one geopolitical power for another? With a new geopolitical power emerging without military defeat of the former, what is Abuja’s game plan with both Washington DC and Beijing? In the short-term there is an apparent need to accommodate Chinese needs for mineral resources paid for at world market prices. On the other hand Beijing is bullish with oriental subtleties and to an extent has modest access to Abuja. There is a problem with this situation because Nigeria’s intellectual burden and worldview forestalls independent assessment. Nigeria cannot freely make strategic choice unless Abuja redefines her status/role in a US led hierarchy/network.

China rightly perceived economic opportunities in Nigeria and have invested in various sections of the national economy as well as fund major contracts with the attendant mobilisation of thousands of Chinese citizens. With Nigeria’s rich resources and income streams, what does Abuja need Beijing for?  Has Nigeria fully explored Beijing’s real economic and geopolitical weakness vis-a-vis Africa? Is Nigeria prepared for Beijing shedding of her ‘developing country’ card and its implications? The viability of people-to-people and business-to-business between the 2 countries is growing astronomically but the implications are already manifesting with massive dumping of cheap substandard/harmful products from China. Nigeria’s local industrial and manufacturing capabilities are already hurting with poor government response.

What is Nigeria’s strategic plan to utilise Beijing to nullify/moderate Washington DC design on her and on the whole of Africa? China’s influence in Africa is geopolitically anchored in Pretoria through their intercontinental alliance in BRICS with Brazil, Russia and India.

Conclusion

There should be a lot in the in-tray of new/subsequent administrations. For all the rhetoric on the ‘giant of Africa’ Nigeria remains a potential power devoid of real cohesive and consistent power. The absence of cohesive and progressive internal affair drawn from a stable economy, massive user-friendly infrastructure, efficiency transportation systems, high quality education and cost-effective bureaucracy all contribute in limiting any attempt to pursue robust foreign policy and power projections.  Probably as stated at the outset, the viable way to pursue foreign policy is to invest in stable and robust domestic affairs as a viable launch pad. Else Nigeria for all the goodwill in the world will remain a laughing stock and lightweight among the comity of nations. No amount of football tournament participation will change such negative perception.

Implications of Western ‘Evangelisation’ on the Wings of Violent Imperialism & Geopolitical Annihilation of African Peoples

Introduction

The purpose of this piece is to shed light on how Christian faith arrived in parts of Africa not on its own merit rather on the back of geopolitical savagery of Western Powers accompanying the Scramble. Reviewing history of Western Christian ‘evangelisation’ of many parts of the world requires deeper insight and careful analyses of dominant narratives (by the conquerors) of rescuing ‘savages’.  Gaps in the narratives have been smoothed over many generations of civilisation-stripped erstwhile savages who are caught in an existential struggle between advancing their own histories which conflicts with the fact that the Christianity their forefathers received was imposed by force in part. The so-called evangelisation is rather part of a geopolitical enterprise of capitalism expansion post-slavery which used the politico-military prowess to subjugate peoples to accept a new faith by force of arms. By so doing faith was not shared in peace and ‘signs and wonders’ did not manifest as endorsement of the High God of Jesus Christ.

Correct Label

While Christianity as a term connotes global spread of Jesus Christ existence/teachings, it is important to carefully isolate and delineate identities of its exponents and exporters at any given time. With regard to this narrative, the western Christianity exporters are the main supplicants i.e. Roman Catholic, National Church of England alias Anglican Communion and other Protestant denominations. These groups are the main players who engaged directly or indirectly with the Western Powers [Spain, Portugal, UK, France & Germany] plying their geopolitical trade to violently capture, destabilise and strip peoples of their civilisations.

Various Western religious labels have already notoriously participated in the ignominious dehumanisation of Africans in the over 3 centuries of international slave trade.  What they engaged in, or supported or identified with have nothing to do with faith in the High God of Jesus Christ rather a deliberate association with full spectrum geopolitical power unleashing savagery, unmitigated violence and total destruction of generations in God’s name. Blasphemy 101!

There are other labels of Christianity that did not participate or engage in this savagery and industrial violence on African peoples. These include the Orthodox Catholic Christians in their different national formations. In any case all these are the communion of faith centred on Constantinople sphere of influence that fell out with Rome in 1054 as a result of the Filioque controversy. Geopolitical weakness may have spread them such enterprise. On this point it is established that an absence exist in the universality of Christian labelling in its association with inter-generational dehumanisation and annihilation of peoples pretending to be executing divine project of evangelisation in the name of the High God of Jesus Christ. Where Eastern Christianity cannot be totally excluded from violent missions of civilisation around the world but their footprint is either absent or minuscule in Africa.

Agency of Dehumanisation/Suppression

Human beings do not give faith. Human beings have always produced contradictions, inconsistencies and struggles. They equally seek to use any opportunity to advance profound interest even at the expense of other human beings by invention superiority/inferiority classification. Even authorities within the body of Christ advance abhorrent theories as was the case on whether American Indians were real human beings in the debate between Bartolome de las Casas and Juan Gines de Sepulveda in 1550/1. 

Since the resurrection of Jesus Christ, since the passage of the last apostle and since the last phases of Christian persecution by Rome; the new opportunities afforded in the Edict of Rome in 312 by Emperor Constantine brought profound and unexpected change in self determination in faith & Christian living. It is inconceivable that this new profound association with imperial power will simply wash off without compromising some of the human contingencies of faithful. The lifting of persecution brought many benefits but no one could affirm that all attribution of God’s benevolence on this act is neutral and cost-free. By the way Constantine was not Christian as much as Cyrus didn't know God.

It would be spiritually incompetent and malevolent for anyone claiming faith in Jesus Christ to think that they can manage and handle competently a power that perceives the whole world as its beef, with grand geopolitical designs and possess the best military capability. By the way in an existential struggle between temporally unlimited spiritual essence and a temporally limited powerful imperial construct, in time and space blinking was inevitable. So in many ways the final outcome may allow each party to claim victory of superiority hence international division of labour between the spiritual and the temporal allowed one party to control the order for a fixed period of time while the other party compromise biding time for the long haul in the then Christendom. It was more complex than that.

When the dust settled a Christianity devoid of internal cohesion and its leaders started piggybacking political power ever since and at times became totally dependent on it for very simple things like affirmation of faith components. With subsequent reconfiguration of politics in context and in space, Western Christianity has continued to leak independence and increasingly become subordinated to political power. In any case it is not unusual for western Christianity to be devoid of temporal power even blessing temporal power immoral enterprises, actually it is the real deal though not the final manifesto. Treaty of Westphalia is a testament of such subordination after temporal separation from (Western) Holy Roman and (Eastern) Byzantine Empires associations/control of the human component of the Body.

Colonialism Evangelisation

It will not be puritanical to question the assumed methods of mass evangelisation currently accepted after generations as normal. After all man is not just matter, but equally spirit. Therefore evangelisation is supposed to be an experiential spiritual war in essence not an intellectual/academic exercise. In any case the question can be stretched further to critic the viability of forced conversion of peoples as a secondary effect of imposition of colonialism via industrial violence and sustained dehumanisation. This has happened in different parts of the world, in the Americas, even after the Apparition of Our Lady of Guadalupe in 1531. The unique feature of this apparition or ‘signs and wonders’ for the faithful then and now is the clear manifestation of divine design within the ontological and cultural context of the target population. An overthrow of the erstwhile spiritual order without firing a shot! The case for inculturation was dealt a massive blow even then! Whose culture is superior to be inculturated into and whose culture is inferior to be de-culturated?

There was a clear manifestation that the High God of Jesus Christ is not a white man which fits perfectly with Pauline conclusion that in Christ there are no distinctions. The essence of the High God of Jesus Christ is manifested to peoples in their own unique circumstance and not by vicious imposition of superiority complex in the name of God. Therefore evangelisation, conversions and mass conversions are actions of the High God of Jesus Christ that cannot be imposed with industrial violence, murderous annihilation of peoples and unquestioned acceptance of errors.

The template for individual conversion can be extracted from the sacred scripture in the case of Cornelius. There is no evidence of inhibition of the Holy Spirit on his person as a result of his ethnicity, status and origins. Defying human expectations and narrow conclusion, the High God of Jesus Christ revealed himself sufficiently from His immense salvific economy for Cornelius conviction, acceptance and conversion. No gun was pointed to his head neither were his interlocutors in a hurry to cover the next territory to consolidate fresh spatial gains.

The whole of Act of the Apostles of the sacred scripture is replete with examples of post-resurrection mass conversions. What is very clear in each example is that this new faith is the spring up of devotion in a dominant geopolitical superstructure called Rome. The human agency of the new movement did not assign or ascribe to itself anything beyond testament to the High God of Jesus Christ. They were not backed up by any geopolitical power, military arsenals, and multinational corporate interests.

They saw to it that there are souls to be converted in their unique economic, political, social and environmental situations only. These conversions took place mostly if not in all case with the expression of interlocutors’ evidence through the power of the Holy Spirit manifesting in ‘signs and wonders’ of miracles which suspend & defy physical law, scientific laws and overcoming/overriding default malevolent spiritual orders. At these manifestations of divine order in miracles including projecting positive impacts on personal and collective circumstances, conviction and conversion is effected through baptism of the Holy Spirit complimenting prior baptism of water which is insufficient.

It is the contention of this article what is ignorantly portrayed as successful evangelisation of peoples or ‘savages’ on the back of geopolitical destructions and industrial violence is corrupt, decadent, immoral, regressive and innately unchristian. Imposition of new knowledge, learning methods, cultural milieu, new languages and new worldviews which may trigger abandonment of questionable sociological practices cannot be equated to Christianity or conversion. They are mere works devoid of the spirit. Most of the interlocutors who were on these evangelical missions post-international slave trade were ordinary men who were awed by foreign experience and limited knowledge of the Other.

Many of them were oblivious of the potency of the Holy Spirit, most were divorced from the reality of the sacred scriptures examples in the Acts of the Apostles. These positions were most devastating with western European secular and anti-God educational methods that dismiss the divine, the Holy Spirit and any disposition that opens the door to positive spirituals. In the name of eschewing scandal and maintain order as if God can be imprisoned in structures, evangelisation and conversion missions are reduced to routines drafted in manuals and huge texts of questionable relevance. Above all the end doesn't justify the means. There is nowhere in the sacred texts and Tradition that support annihilation of peoples because they are not Christians. All the wars of crusade, wars against heretics, wars of conquests in God’s name, all the genocides, international slave trade and colonialism if pursued in God’s name are intrinsically unchristian, false, devilish and delusional.

Abandoned Leftovers

The main objective of evangelisation is not to bring soul to God, rather to enable the High God of Jesus Christ to reveal himself to each soul. The enabling process include availability of free space, free time and unfettered awareness to allow for uncompromised exchange, processing of information, examination of issues/contradictions, presentation of evidence (‘signs and wonders’) and making informed decision based on freewill.  This is not an ideal that should be dismissed under careless ruse of false philosophical and regressive theological development. It is a spiritual investment for an individual, for a family and for communities. Conversion based on baptism of water and Holy Spirit frees the converted from among other things the erstwhile dominant (malevolent) spiritual order.

One of the outcomes of the colonialism backed evangelisation is its clear incompleteness. Of course it was invested and rolled out to buttress geopolitical and geoeconomic objectives in space and time, the preciousness of time meant that standard of true conversion was eliminated. In a conflict of huge human annihilation, lives are protected if one/communities converted under duress. It is called self-determination. Change of disposition for apparent material consolation is enough to maintain a façade of faithfulness, avoid apparent social ostracisation and accelerate social mobility in a new system. Big church buildings and huge turnover of attendees do not signify successful evangelisation and true conversion. Since the spiritual order was untouched and the deities remained in place, the façade of evangelisation was and remains a farce.

Positive change in material possession is not the true sign of conversion to the High God of Jesus Christ. The near dormancy of invoking the Holy Spirit forcefully to clear the path, the vibrancy of dependency on human intellect, the full adoption of human methods/structure and near ignorance of humility versus arrogance becomes cogs in the wheel of true conversion. Those who pretended conversion to save their lives continued to serve various deities until they deceased without clear transfer to their subsequent generations. Then the first receptor received baptism of water on their death bed like Emperor Constantine if they are lucky. Now for most pretenders, only the same baptism of water suffice ignoring and defy that of the Holy Spirit. The children devoid of baptism of the Holy Spirit have been brainwashed in the new educational/learning/knowledge systems to disregard their historicity and ontology to the point of leading malevolent attacks on their own now perceived inferior and devilish origins.

A number of processes evolved and emerged in this outcome. The powerful deities left unpropitiated and devoid of devotees & supplicants reacted and continue to react in various ways. Profoundly their reactions always triggered as temporal reflex or by living human agent are malevolent displayed through various wicked projections, manipulations and negative outcomes. Untimely deaths, unprecedented loss of fortune/greatness, division in families/extended families, confusion among erstwhile united communities, massive fear of the unknown, serious illnesses defying medical knowledge that rather gouge huge resources, marital problems, business misfortune and many other negative & distressing situations are examples of malevolent spiritual reaction.

These experiences manifest regardless of status, level of attainment, wealth, education, location or distance from origin and authority. Malevolence of negative spiritual forces is not respecter of persons. Malevolent spirits/deities are not specific to Africa, they are a global phenomenon in case any fool dismiss them from the so-called developed world. For examples what motivates abortion? A murderous condemnation of the unborn in industrial scale as solution for the problems of the living!

Most of these issues are dismissed as nonsense, inventions, psychological, emotional and improbable by the so-called learned and educated ‘Christians’. The so-called educated mind/victim is caught in an existential struggle to explain and dismiss real experience simultaneously. Sadly he/she is already exposed on 2 fronts; an imposter of his ontology and origin unable to understand and defend oneself from raging onslaught, and a nominal Christian who is uninitiated into the power of the Holy Spirit to enable him/her to understand and successfully defeat the malevolent forces and their agents. Their efforts to engage their priests and pastors for help collapse on the fact that these priests/pastors are not only ignorant but are trained to be ignorant and doubtful. Yes, doubtful of the true power and essence of the High God of Jesus Christ by those perceived as first soldiers in the front line.

Conclusion

The whole presentation or narrative that colonialism was accompanied by successful evangelisation and conversion of peoples especially in Africa needs to be revisited from the true Christological and Holy Spirit perspectives using Act of the Apostles are reference. As ignorance abound, misery will continue to pile on the innocent and the misled.