The First World War ended in 1918. The powers that fought that 'war to end all wars" met at the Versailles Palace, near Paris, to draw up a treaty to officially end the war, and assign blames. Germany was blamed and given heavy indemnity to pay to the victorious countries.

Woodrow Wilson, the American President, came to the Treaty drawing sessions with a 14 points plan that he wanted the major powers to embrace, a plan that he believed would prevent future wars and make the world safe for democracy.

The group drew up their treaty and included the formation of what it called the League of Nations.

In this League, all members agreed to meet and work against wars and to collectively sanction any country that attacked other countries. All member nations of the League were equal and none could over rule others; each had just one vote.

Apparently, the League failed in preventing the Second World War from erupting in 1939. Adolph Hitler had quaffed that the reparations that Germany was made to pay was unfair and was crippling her economy. When he came to power in 1932, Germany quietly rearmed (the treaty had limited Germany to an army of 100,000 men). When Hitler felt ready, he simply marched into the Rohr, Germany's industrial heartland that had been given to France. France or any other European power did not challenge this daring behavior by Hitler.

Emboldened, Hitler absorbed his native Austria in 1936. In 1938, he negotiated with the lackluster Neville Chamberlain, the British Prime Minister and was given the Sudenteland, the German speaking part of Czechoslovakia. This appeasement at Munich was not enough for Hitler.

Hitler signed a non-aggression treaty with Stalin (USSR) to avoid war with each other and to divide up Poland. Assured that Russia would not declare war on Germany, Hitler marched into his potion of Poland in 1939.

Western powers at that point realized that Hitler's ego was insatiable and that no amount of appeasement would stop him from attacking his neighbors, so they declared war on Germany. Hitler turned his attention westwards and marched into France in1940 in a blitzkrieg that the world had not seen the like before. He subsequently took the lowlands of Belgium and Holland and eventually marched into Scandinavia.

In 1941 Hitler's Panzers stormed into Russia and Operation Barbarosa nearly took Moscow before the Russians stopped drinking their vodka and realized that Hitler meant business, killing all of them, and taking over their land, all the way to the Urals. In his 1925 book, Mein Kampf, Hitler had said that the Slavic race were subhuman beings that had contributed nothing to human civilization. He said that if he ever came to power that he would kill off the Slavs and take over their land and or keep a few of them alive as slaves working for Germans in their new farmlands in the East. Hitler said that he would prevent Slavs from going to school or, at best, gave them no more than elementary school education, so that they would be able to read and read instructions given to them by their German Aryan masters. Hitler said that he learnt from the Americans who had killed off Indians and took over their lands and reduced Africans to slaves. He said that he was merely repeating what white Americans did to blacks, prevent them from going to school, so as to keep them ignorant and be more able to control them. Hitler planned to do to Eastern Europeans what whites did to Indians and blacks in America. Hitler admired white American racists for doing what they did to other races. He believed that they were realistic and that there was no use keeping inferior races like Africans, Jews and Slavs alive; kill them all and keep a few alive to work for you. To Hitler, this is the course of history and ought to be respected. He was merely being realistic to the course of history. He was a man of historical destiny; doing what providence ordained, kill the weak. In nature, Charles Darwin, Herbert Spenser and Spangler said that strong animals killed weak ones. Evolution progresses when the strong heartlessly killed the weak. To Hitler, the blood (genes, we would today, say) of the various races should never be mingled. Racial mixing lowered the superior races and brought them down to the lower levels, to where Africans are. As Hitler saw it, Aryans, Germans, are superior to other races and are responsible for all human civilization. (What has Africans contributed to human civilization? Trevor-Roper, Hitler's biographer, Hitler's Table talks, said that Africans had not contributed any thing to human history. And Trevor-Roper was a Cambridge don.) Kill off those who have contributed nothing to science and technology, the man said.

Of course, the Slavs dismissed Hitler's book and his planned lebensraum foreign policy as the raving of a mad man. They did not even prepare for war with him when he came to power in 1932. They lived to regret their dismissive attitude when Hitler made good on his plans and stormed into Slav lands and began killing Slavs. He killed over 25 million Russians alone; folks he said were less intelligent than his dogs.

(David Duke, the white American racist, in his various books, claims that Africans are less intelligent than dogs and that he plans to kill all of them and give Africa to white farmers. Do the idiots who rule Nigeria realize what some white folks plan to do to them? No, the idiots masquerade in the West as very important men unaware that some white men see them as sub human beings. If they had any brains in their idiotic heads they would work like driven people to develop their country, so that whites would not look down on them, rather than squander their wealth in corrupt living. If they don't wake up and start developing the black man, soon, white racist demagogues would come to power in the West and make good on David Duke's promise. Those who do not take paranoid racists like Hitler and Duke seriously usually live to regret their unprepared ness. Paranoid personalities are often intelligent, though mentally sick; they can do a lot of harm. In their pursuit of superiority, they can kill those they see as inferior to them. A paranoid Igbo chap on Naijapolitics forum is very capable of doing a lot of harm to other people. This man feels so inordinately inferior that all he lives for is to make himself seem superior to other people, to show that others are beneath him, he once tried to show that I did not go to school, so as to feel superior to me, and would kill whoever made him seem inferior.)

When Russians stop drinking and start fighting, they generally fight like the demon itself. You may easily march into mother Russia but the chances are that you may not march out alive. These people are real soldiers, provided that they are not drunk. At any rate, Russians gradually drove the Germans out of mother Russia and pushed them all the way to Berlin and eventually defeated Hitler.

The West aided Russia but, by and large, it was Russia that defeated Germany. Indeed, initially the West had sat back and waited for crazy Hitler to destroy the dreaded Bolsheviks. Hitler was a mad boy doing their dirty job of ridding the world of communism. But when the Russians discarded the nonsense of communism and embraced nationalism and fought like demons and shocked Hitler with the ferocity of their fighting, you killed them and they still came at you, undeterred by death, millions dying as German tanks mowed them down, well, the West recognized that the game was up and that Stalin was not going to be finished off by the little paranoid Austrian corporal. They joined forces with Russia and even then did not open the second front until June 1944,waiing for Russia to bleed to death, so that when the war-ended Russia would be subservient to the West.

In May of 1945, the European theater of the war ended and it took a few more months before Japan surrendered after its two cities, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, were obliterated with atomic weapons.

The victorious Americans called for a conference to replace the moribund League of Nations. The great powers had learned from the League's failures. They met at San Francisco, California and drew up the United Nations' Charter to replace the unrealistic League.

The new organization recognized power realities: not all countries are equal. Therefore, if you want to prevent war you must give the most powerful nations the right to decide when to go to war collectively. Thus, the United Nations was divided into two segments, the General Assembly where all members have one vote each and a Security Council limited to the five most powerful countries in the then world: USA, USSR, Britain, France and China. These permanent members of the Security Council had veto powers and could individually veto what the General Assembly, the mass of powerless nations, plan to do. If the five agree among themselves they can launch war against any country in the world or enact sanctions against any country.

The structure of the Security Council was recognition of political realism for, if the big boys decide to do something, the opinion of weak countries was irrelevant. As Stalin used to ask: how many tank divisions do you have? If not he did not bother talking back to you, he simply whipped you (such as occupying Eastern Europe and starting the cold war from so doing).

The General Assembly offered nations the opportunity to air their differences, to talk it out, to vent steam. It sort of is an international talk shop where folks talked all they wanted. Their talks had no power but do manage to shape world opinion.

The United Nations has other segments, such as UNESCO, UNISAFE, ILO, WHO, UNICOM, World Court at The Hague, and the recently constructed World Criminal Court and so on. These organizations play roles in coordinating the activities of an increasingly interrelated and interconnected world. They are all very useful.

There are Non-governmental organizations (NGOS) that along with the UN have made the world a safer place.

For all intents and purposes, the primary segment of the United Nations is the Security Council for it is where real decisions are made. The five big powers, in effect, determine the fate of the world.

Recently, the current Secretary General of the United Nations, Kofi Annan (by the way, the big powers agreed among themselves not to hire secretaries from their countries but from insignificant countries, so that they would be neutral errand boys for the big boys), suggested restructuring the Security Council to make it reflect current power realities. Obviously Germany and Japan (even India and Brazil) are increasingly powerful and ought to be considered for membership in the power club. Annan recommended that two African countries be represented in the Security Council.

That Annan boy must have been smoking some mind-altering substance. What African country is a powerful country? African countries collective economy is less than the economy of California in the USA, and if so, how can these poor countries stand up to the big boys? Annan, apparently, is amateurish to the ways of power politics and does not understand real politics. His recommendation is simply idealistic and silly.

Germany and Japan may be considered for the Security Council but Egypt, Nigeria and South Africa? you got to be kidding. What are those countries but starving countries, none of which can mount a military attack on the big powers?

Nigeria, one of the most corrupt countries on earth, a country that might not even make it through a few more years, unless it is cleaned up, made a lot of noises about joining the Security Council. Apparently, Obasanjo was smoking something, too. This man must be very naïve and untrained in real politics. He would spend his time better trying to industrialize Nigeria and make her economically powerful. Economic power goes with military power. When Nigeria becomes economically powerful and fund a strong military then we would be talking. If a nuclearized Nigeria demands to join the big boys, her request would be taken seriously. In the present, it was a joke for Nigeria to even take Annan's suggestions seriously.

The United Nations is funded through collection of levies on member nations. The organization assesses each country's GDP and on that basis levies it.

The annual budget of the UN is about $4 billion dollars. Since the US economy is about one quarter of the world economy, she is assessed to pay one quarter of the UN annual budget.

Nigeria is a poor country and as such pays chicken change towards supporting the UN. A country paying chomp change into UN coffers wants to be a member of the Security Council, this tells you how deluded Nigerian leaders must be. These jokers do not even know that outside Africa that their country is not even mentioned in calculation of economic or power equations. A country that produces nothing is a useless country. It depends on oil and if the West stops buying it today the country collapses. It is oil revenue that prevents Nigeria from joining other failed African economies like the Congo.

The UN also collects monies from member states and uses such money to pay for its peacekeeping functions. Some countries cannot even pay for their troops to participate in these peacekeeping functions.

Africa Union recently decided to keep the peace in Darfour province of Sudan, but does not have the money and logistics to maintain its troops in that part of Africa. It took The EU and others to pay for these activities. Money talks, apparently, corrupt Nigerian leaders do not know that. They ought to know that, after all they bankrupt their country trying to steal its money so as to become individually rich while the country is impoverished.

The average Nigerian makes $1 a day and this banana republic wants to be a member of the Security Council, a club whose citizens make $22, 000 per capita. I have not recovered from laughing from Nigeria's idiocy of setting up a committee to work towards joining the Security Council. Apparently, the jokers at Abuja are stark crazy and do not understand how the real world works. The Security Council is supposed to be for countries with powerful economies and militaries, none of which Nigeria has.

At the end of the second world, Europe was prostate and only the USA had the military and economic power to control the world. Russia had tanks but not economic clout. To the present, the Russian economy is less than that of California, a state in the USA.

America ruled the roosts in 1945. Indeed, it had to spend money (Marshal Plan) to resurrect the economies of Europe.

THE BRETTON WOODS FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS

The leaders of America learned from the great depression and sought to structure the international economy in such a manner that depression would be avoided. We live in an interdependent world and the collapse of one economy affects others. American companies are heavily invested in other countries and if those countries fail American companies would fail and drag the USA economy with them.

To avoid this from happening, America called for a conference at Breton Woods, Rhode Island. At that conference, the participants agreed to set up certain organizations to deal with the world economy (capitalist cycles of inflation and depression and recession). They set up the International Monetary Fund, The World Bank, and the International Bank for Reconstruction and General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs (which later muffed into the World Trade Organization, WTO).

Each of these monetary organizations were given functions to perform, performing which it was expected that depressions/inflations would be prevented.

Member nations of the rich economies were expected to contribute money annually to these organizations and make them available for lending to threatened economies.

The IMF is a short-term lender, the World Bank is a long-term lender and The Bank for Reconstruction was specifically designed to help reconstruct devastated economies as in war etc.

A country can borrow from the IMF and agree to repay, with interests, in a short period of time. Nigeria, for example, sometimes does not even have the money to pay it civil servants and could go to the IMF and borrow money to pay them and repay when it gets its oil revenue.

The World Bank lends for long-term projects, say ten to thirty years, such as money to build dams for electricity etc.

These world monetary institutions were not set up for third world countries. The West set them up to help themselves deal with their capitalist economies tendency to cycle from depression to inflation. But in the 1960s African countries gained their independence and joined the United Nations. They are now playing on the international scene. The problem was that they did not have the money to foot their Bills. Imagine, say, Tanzania. It does not even have money to maintain an office space in New York, to house its so-called diplomatic mission at the UN headquarters. (Rockefeller donated the building that house the UN…whoever pays the piper calls the tune, so America dictates what happens at the UN).

African countries borrowed heavily from world monetary institutions. Debt finance alone is eating up their annual revenues. Some of them do not even collect enough money in annual taxes to pay the finance charges on their debts, what more pay off the capital.

And where did the borrowings by African countries go? They went into the Kleptocrats pockets. Mobutu borrowed and spent it on himself and in buying palaces in Europe. Apparently, this jungle boy wanted to live where European nobility used to live and that kind of made him feel civilized and powerful. He would have become powerful if he offered all his countrymen education to University level, and thus help eliminate the ignorance that Africans live in.

(I am giving these lectures for free as part of my effort to reduce the ignorance Africans live in.)

Africans are unable to repay the money they owe the West. First, the West sent in economic teams to go restructure African economies, the so-called Structural Readjustment Plans of the 1980s; here folks listened to the views of Milton Friedman of the Chicago school of economics. Milton saw privatization, as the only way to make third world countries productive, not socialized economies. Privatization, selling off state owned businesses to private businessmen, is still going on in third world countries. The problem is that many African countries still do not have money to repay their debts.

These days, the battle cry is for the West to forgive Africans their debts. Obasanjo and his Finance secretary Ms Iwuala go begging the West to forgive them Nigeria's debts. The Paris club, European banks that Nigeria owes, has agreed to write off some loans.

Mr. Wolfowiz, the new president of the World Bank, is now amenable to writing off some loans for Africans. The trouble is that since the USA's government guaranteed some of these loans, the US government would have to puny up and pay the banks Africans owe.

America does not have that kind of money to do so. America itself is so indebted that it is only a matter of time before her economy collapses. America owes others eight trillion dollars and annually pays over two hundred and fifty billion dollars on debt finance. America floats because of her past good credit and her military power.

Let us say that Americans are now the universal mercenaries fighting wars to make the world safe for Asians to trade in. That is what it has come to. The cowboys are really mercenary soldiers for Korea, Japan, and China. They fight to make sure that these Asians obtain their oil from Iraq. These Asians then are able to make profits and lend money to America to run her budget deficits.

THE INTERNATIONAL COURT OF JUSTICE

Let us briefly talk about a few other organizations. The world court at The Hague. This international court of justice exists for nation states to sue each other and have the court rule on their disputes before they go to war. For example, Nigeria and Cameron have dispute over Bakasa, a region that Cameroon claims belongs to her while it is in Nigeria. The region produces oil and Cameron, apparently, wants a piece of the oil action. It claims that that region was part of Western Cameroon before the later voted in a plebiscite to join Cameroon. If so, it claims that the region belongs to Cameroon. Cameroon went to the world Court; the court ruled in its favor.

The problem is that the Court does not have a military to enforce its ruling. Generally, powerful countries ignore the Court's ruling while weak ones obey them or risk UN sanctions.

The USA routinely ignores the Court when it rules against it and in favor of some banana republic in Latin America.

INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT

The UN recently established an International criminal court. The idea is to be able to bring criminals from other nations to that court and punish them. The USA, realizing that is military could be sued, as a criminal army given the fact that it intervenes in other countries, violating UN sovereignty rules, decided not to sign the treaty establishing the court. Indeed, the USA did not even sign the treaty establishing the League of Nations even though its President was largely responsible for initiating that ridiculously unrealistic organization. The US senate is required by law to ratify any treaty the president negotiates before it becomes law in America. Where politicians do not see an overarching benefit for America, they usually refuse to ratify treaties.

KYOTO ACCORD

Recently, the world signed a treaty at Kyoto, Japan to regulate how much pollutants countries can send into the air. We live in an interconnected world. The pollutant the West puts into the air is killing Africans who do not manufacture anything.

America's industries did not want their government to sign the treaty because it would obligate them to invest billions in new technology to control and reduce pollution. They did not want to spend that kind of money so they prevailed on Washington not to ratify the Kyoto Accord.

Indeed, America has refused to acknowledge that the environment is being destroyed and that there may be global warming. The arctic ice is receding at an alarming rate, meaning that there may be environmental catastrophes in our future, such as rise in coastal waters, inundating coastal cities like Lagos.

TREATIES

This brings us to treaties. We live in an interdependent world and what one country does affects other countries. Therefore, treaties (either multilateral or bilateral) are negotiated to regulate countries conducts.

Consider the recent treaty on the seas. How far into the ocean does a country own? It used to be three miles from the country's coastland. A new treaty suggested twelve miles. America claims two-handed miles.

What are you going to do to stop the cowboy from gratifying his wishes? Can you fight America? Can you lay sanction on the world's hegemon? All you can do is talk. Talk is cheap; action is expensive. You cannot do anything to the arrogant superpower. Nigeria, for example, does not even have the capacity to board American war ships packed right off her coast.

As we talk, America patrols the Atlantic sea-lanes in West Africa. They are there to protect their oil from Nigeria, of course. Should the Ijaw militia go from-making noises to attacking Shell, BP property, the marines would land and handle them.

For our present purposes, international treaties are signed, such as treaties on Air flights …how airplanes fly into other countries, what constitutes national air space etc? The world labor organization arose to monitor labor practices all over the world and to prevent slave labor (such as Western companies paying Indian children a few rupees a day and have them work for twelve hours a day, practically enslaving them).

The various treaties signed by international groups have to be enforced. To do so, an international organization is set up. These organizations monitor the behavior of all countries. For example, if unwatched, many industrialized countries would come to the Coast of West Africa and dump their garbage into the seas (they are running out of dumpsites in their home countries). Indeed, they would dump their nuclear waste materials in Africa.

Given what we know about Nigerians, their not caring for their peoples lives, so give Nigerians a few dollars bribe and they would permit Americans to dump their nuclear waste in Nigeria. Who cares that Nigerians would die? Since when did Nigerians start caring for their own people? Isn't the function of Nigerians in life to exploit and or sell their fellow black people into slavery and pretend to be innocent?

It is thanks to international agencies that prevent the West from bribing Nigerians and dumping their waste material in Nigeria.

UNESCO does a great job spreading scientific education in poor countries. They provide laboratories and other materials for teaching science. Some African countries cannot even provide their school children with chemicals to be used in chemistry laboratories.

NGOS

In addition to the above governmental organizations are many non-governmental organizations, NGOs working to make the international world well ordered. Consider Green Peace. This group monitors what folks do in the high seas. They make sure that Japan, for example, does not over fish whales and make them extinct. Caritas, a Catholic relief organization, helped starving Biafrans. Simply stated, there are many non-governmental organizations working to make our world a good place to live in.

NIGERIA AND INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS

I have briefly highlighted some international organizations. Our next focus is on how Nigeria participates in them.

Simply stated, Nigeria is irrelevant in the international arena. Nigeria practically says nothing at the United Nations. It does not even have the guts to talk loudly in the General Assembly, not that such talks would amount to something. Making noises lets others know that one exists. Sitting in the General Assembly gallery watching debates, you would not hear the Nigerian delegate say anything. And when the wooden tongued clown says any thing at all, it would be silly.

It seems that Nigerian delegates to the UN are mostly interested in angling to be offered jobs at any of the UN agencies. Nigeria is irrelevant in world politics.

When Kwame Nkrumah was around, he made noises. Indeed, he was one of key players in the non-aligned nations group, the so-called Bandung group that President Sukano of Indonesia championed. Nigeria was conspicuously absent in such politics.

To the present Nigeria sends delegates to just about every international organization and the delegates just sit there saying nothing. Even OPEC, the oil cartel that sets oil production quotas hence influence world oil prices, which Nigeria is a member of, you would not see Nigeria's delegates say a word at its deliberations.

Watching Nigerians performance at international organizations would make you feel that Nigerians are unintelligent. They just sit there like manikins in their flowing robes.

The reason for this phenomenon probably is that there is no radical politics in Nigeria. As I write, I do not know any Nigerian radical. Nigerians play it safe. In this paper, for example, I make disparaging remarks about America. You would not find a Nigerian do so. They are too bloody cowardly to stick out their fingers afraid that they would be whacked by the powerful. When I was a college student and ran around with the communist crowds I did not see Nigerian students participate. As Winston Churchill correctly observed, if one is under thirty five and is not a socialist, one has no thinking in ones brain. One is supposed to be idealist, a dreamer in ones youth. If one is above thirty-five and is not a conservative one is not thinking either.

As one grows older, one recognizes that human nature is fixed, selfish and, as such, that man is not going to become an angel no matter what one does. Indeed, those who insist on helping people, do good, bleeding hearted liberals, are often dangerous. These folks often use government to destroy free expression.

See what liberals and lesbian radical feminists did in America with their political correctness. These women talk rubbish and if you criticize their childish views they accuse you of patriarchy and sexism. To avoid being negatively seen, you keep quiet. Advocates of unhealthy lifestyles use political correctness to essentially legislate their unnatural behaviors, to browbeat society into accepting their silly behaviors.

(I am glad that the Nigerian Anglican Church has severed relationship with the English Anglican Church. if the West is bent on self-destruction by endorsing unhealthy life styles we do not have to go along with them. To hell with political correctness. It is unnatural for a man to put his pennies into another man's anus and call that depravity sexual pleasure. These folks are insane. But political correctness requires one not to say what one thinks least one be judged homophobic, afraid of gays. No, one is not afraid of human beings but does not like some of their misguided behaviors.)

NIGERIA AND REGIONAL POLITICS

Whereas Nigeria is irrelevant in international politics, somehow, she does something in Africa's regional politics. Nigeria seems to participate in its regional organizations. Nigeria played an effective role in establishing the economic community of West African states. She plays some useful role in monitoring trade in this regional community.

Nigeria has also played some useful role in establishing the African Development Bank. She appears to be genuinely interested in making this bank work. The bank is sort of like the World Bank and is supposed to lend money to African development projects.

Nigeria plays a useful role in Africa Union. AU's predecessor, OAU, was a mere talk shop. African heads of states met in each other's capital, annually, for photo opportunities and really did not accomplish anything. They had parties at their citizen's financial expense and went home.

OAU's clause that African countries should not interfere in each other's domestic affairs permitted the OAU to do nothing as African tribes committed genocides against one another.

In 1994, the Hutus killed the Tutsis and Africa did nothing. Then again the Tutsis dominated the Hutus in both Rwanda and Burundi, even though they are the minority population, and Africa does nothing. Who cares that one African group maltreats another?

In 1967-70 the various Nigerian groups ganged up against the Igbos and the OAU did nothing. I am for a unified Nigeria and believe that it was a mistake for Ojukwu to secede from Nigeria.

I am a Pan Africanist and want a unified Africa, not a balkanized Africa. Nigeria needed to be kept together. Gowon was right in working for one Nigeria. Nevertheless, it was wrong for the Nigerians to use starvation as a policy against the Igbos. It was not necessary to have Igbos suffer kwashiorkor. African countries should have found a better way to prosecute that war and keep Nigeria together without permitting the pogrom that was unleashed against Igbos.

In so far that the OAU played some role in the liberation of South Africa from Apartheid, the liberation of Namibia from South Africa, the resolution of Savimbi's egoistic war in Angola, it was through the efforts of individual countries, but not as result of the efforts of collective Africa.

Believe it or not, hapless Nigeria played an admirable role in funding liberation fighters in Southwestern Africa. That was one shining light in the sea of darkness called Nigerian politics.

Nigeria has played a useful role in peace keeping in many African countries, such as Liberia, Sierra Leone, Tanganyika, Congo, and Sudan. On the whole, one must give Nigeria high marks for her regional politics.

Nigeria must continue working for African unity. AU should become like EU; open all African borders to free movement, not require Visa to travel to anywhere in Africa, remove tariffs and duties and permit all Africans to trade with each other and have one African currency, Afrik.

Nigeria should work tirelessly to bring about an African federation where each tribe is a state in it, like the United States. The capital of that resurgent Africa should be in Nigeria, after all one out of every four Africans live in Africa. Properly managed, Nigeria's economy would power Africa's economy.

Nigeria also plays a key role in Africa's regional non-governmental organizations. Nigeria's democracy groups, for example, model democratic criticism for all other Africans countries to imitate.

The Nigerian press is relatively free. In fact, Nigeria's Press is freer than the American Press. In America, the mainstream press will not publish what is not system maintaining. They publish your views if you praise America. Submit any article critical of America and it goes into the waste paper basket. During the lead up to the Iraq war some of us wrote against that war but the America press would not publish our views. All they did was sing George Bush's praises, talk about what a decisive leader he was and other such nonsense. They ignored his lies, the fact that he went to war under false pretenses and did not obtain the UN's approval.

The Nigerian press publishes material critical of the country's political leadership. The leaders, of course, ignore such criticism, but that is better than arresting and harassing those who critic the government. The recently concluded National Political Reform Conference witnessed a lively debate in the Press, with opposing views aired. That would never happen in America. America is a velvet dictatorship and the Press is muzzled in an indirect manner. Criticize America and the advertising revenue dries up and the paper goes out of print.

The point is that Nigeria's free Press is modeling good behavior for other African countries. Nigeria's journalists influence other African journalists.

CONCLUSION

I have briefly described salient international organizations. I have described what they do. Nigeria does not play key roles in these organizations.

Nigeria tends to play useful roles in Africa's regional politics; I say useful roles, not radical roles for Nigeria's politics is devoid of radicalism and principled behavior.

Nigeria is learning and, in time, will become a productive member of the international community. In an increasingly unified world, there will be more and more treaties to regulate our behaviors and these treaties would see the creation of international organizations to monitor them. There is no such thing as independence in our world. We are all interdependent.

Whereas it is too premature to talk of a world government, it is obvious that in the future there will be a world government. I see world federation with each ethnic group a state in it. Africa's four hundred ethnic groups would be 400 states in that world federation. But that is too far into the future to be of primary concern to us now. The future can wait. If we had a world government before African countries are developed Westerners would dominate it. I do not want Westerners to dominate Africa, not again. So we must defer world government until the playing field is equalized and Africans can play as equal members of the world community.

In the meantime, our African job is to develop Africa and restructure our inherited colonial boundaries and make them realistic of our ethnic diversity.

Ozodi Thomas Osuji

Ozodi@africainstituteseattle.org

October 21, 2005

Next lecture, #18, Extralegal Governments, October 22,

Robot  Villager

# 1 var sbtitle3122=encodeURIComponent(Ozodi Lectu...Read the full article. Posted by Robot| 17.02.2008 21:27