Should Nigeria quit MOWCA?

A few days ago, Nigeria opted out of the Maritime Organisation of West Africa and Central Africa (MOWCA). A swift move, it is still not  clear whether it is a total withdrawal of membership or a mere stormy foot protestation from the organisation’s General Assembly’s summit. According to the spokesperson of the Federal Ministry of Transportation, the ministry that superintends Nigeria’s activities in the little known international organization, Eric Ojiekwe, Nigeria had to quit because of the electoral fraud perpetrated by the organization in the election of the Secretary– General of the organisation. Explaining how the body chose to assault its own law, Eric  said that while the rule of the organization stipulates 55years as the minimum age requirement  for election as the Secretary General of the organisation and which the Nigerian nominee complied with, the two other contestants from Guinea and Benin republic did not. Eric captured the whole saga thus: “It is sad and most depressing given Nigeria’s ardent and consistent support for MOWCA and its activities that Nigeria as a nation must take a stand against the promotion of illegality , disrespect for the rule of law and contravention of the rules regarding the election of the Secretary General of MOWCA.” …”

“Nigeria has drawn the attention of the General Assembly to the comments of MOWCA  as presented by MOWCA secretariat in the annotated agenda circulated this week to the committee of experts meeting, which confirms that Nigeria is the only country that met the age eligibility criteria(sic) that candidate must not extend 55 years. The candidate nominated by Nigeria was 55 years when nomination closed in 2020, while the candidates of Guinea was 60 years old and that of Benin was 62 years old. By this, Nigeria candidate and Director, Maritime Service, Federal Ministry of Transport, Dr. Paul Adaiku, was the only eligible candidate and should have been declared unopposed”. He lamented further: “it is noted that no member state has supported MOWCA as much as Nigeria as the records  show that she has contributed $5 million in the past 10 years with the organization not employing a single Nigerian.”

The questions which come to the fore from this narrative are the following: why did Guinea and Benin have the audacity and not the effrontery to present overage candidates knowing full well that such action is a fly in the face of the organisation’s rule? Should Nigeria have chickened out of the sub-regional body just because it lost out unfairly in winning the post of secretary general? If Nigeria joined the organisation in pursuit of her national interest, will those interests not suffer by Nigeria’s self-eviction just because of failure to secure the post of secretary? If those interests do not now worth defending, why then did the country join the organization in the first place and waste her resources to sustain an otiose body?

But before I address these and other posers further, let me provide a little background information about MOWCA, an organisation that seems remote to the public but known too well by maritime stakeholders. The organisation was established in May 1975. It was initially named the Ministerial Conference of West and Central African states on Maritime Transport. The name was changed to MOWCA in 1999. The broad goal asides its specific objectives is,” to serve the regional and international community for handling all matters that are regional in character.” It has 25 member countries, including Nigeria. Three factors possibly made the members of the organisation dare Nigeria on this matter: one, perhaps they felt that Nigeria’s candidate, though he claimed and declared he was 55 years old in 2020, might be truly and naturally  older than that, for it is globally assumed, rightly or wrongly that, Nigerians largely keep two dates of birth. Two, possibly they felt that Nigeria would not be bothered about the rule of law in the matter having read through diplomatic intelligence that the present government in Nigeria has sometimes had reasons to still keep in service those who ought to have retired from service even when they have  reached statutory age of retirement.

Three, perhaps they felt also that, Nigeria’s hegemonic tendency in the sub-region is better confronted with Machiavellian tactics. Whatever might be the reasons for this affront, methinks Nigeria should not  quit the body in haste more importantly if the interests at stake are very high. Rather, we should remain in the organisation and fight for our rightful space and place in it. To achieve this, we can temporarily suspend our financial succour to the body as America had done some time ago, to some organisations including the World Health Organization, that fell short of America’s defined national interest. This can hurt the organisation, but it can equally whipped it into line, particularly to its own rule. Also, that the organisation has not employed a single Nigerian till date in spite of its financial contributions. Though too bad, this however does not seem to me to the organisation’s fault. I will rather attribute that to the lackadaisical attitude of our foreign policy drivers, particularly the officials of the Ministry of Transport that oversee Nigeria’s role in the organisation. The questions are these: has Nigeria advocated for jobs for its citizens and got turned down? At those points, what were our reactions? Or has the organisation found Nigerian applicants incompetent?

Obviously, we have been too quiet, docile, if not unpatriotic on this for too long. If we have now realised that the organisation serves no useful purpose, we can then admit that it ought to belong to the category of international organisations which the former Minister of Finance, Kemi Adeosun, said were joined by mere ministry officials without needs assessment and the backing of the appropriate authority, and from which the country should have exited long before now. She said this when explaining the rationale behind the pulling out of Nigeria from 90 international organizations of the 310 multilateral agencies Nigeria belonged to in 2017. She said: “…and circulars needed to be issued on who can commit Nigeria because it was discovered that, it would be a director or an ambassador who attended the meeting who committed subscription on behalf of Nigeria. “ If MOWCA therefore, falls into this category, then we should exit; but if not, we should just wake up from our slumber in the organisation and defend our national interests.

• Dr. Adebisi, a political scientist, writes from Akure,Ondo State.

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