BREXIT: Cameron’s E.U. Deal and its Implications

A vote in regard to whether Britain should withdraw from the European Union is an epic event; one which if in the affirmative would profoundly shape its destiny for a generation.

My first impression is that David Cameron has not obtained the 'unique' status which he promised to extract from Brussels to mollify those who favour continued membership under a looser arrangement.

1. If the preamble in the original founding document which aims for an "ever closer union" is not explicitly re-worded so far as Britain is concerned, for instance in regard to future treaties, then Cameron would obviously not have secured a singular status for Britain.

The Schuman-Monnet ideal of "closer union" is after all often seen as the theoretical blueprint for an eventually federated European family of nations.

2. The EU Charter of Fundamental Rights from which the United Kingdom initially opted out recently became incorporated into British law. The provisions effectively replicate most of the major provisions of the European Convention on Human Rights.

The ECHR regime has provided similarly emotion-laced public discourse on the loss of Parliamentary Sovereignty to a supra-national legal body. If Cameron has not reinstated an opt out, it would mean that even if Britain renounced the ECHR, it would be bound to follow the tenets of human rights law created by EU institutions.

It is important to note that EU law is 'stronger' than ECHR law. Under the ECHR treaty, member nations promise to incorporate human rights law into their national laws. They are required merely to take into account the decisions of the European Court of Human Rights. However, British courts are bound to apply the laws emanated from the European Union.

3. The operation of the 'Common Agricultural Policy' which absorbs a great deal of the EU budget and which has favoured France could also be added to the list. If reform of this is not a factor in Cameron's deal, then it falls short.

My view is that Britain should either be completely in or completely out. More importantly, that is how the other countries led by Germany and France see it. As Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was often reminded, the organisation cannot function in the form of a "two-track" system; this notwithstanding the mechanism of opt-out clauses in treaties.

France and Germany have been at the heart of the formation of a union of European nations because of the historical rivalry between both nations. The blood spilled during the Franco-Prussian War, the Great War and the Second World War testify to this.

The underlying almost forgotten rationale for the creation of the EU is thus the preservation of a previously elusive peace on the European continent. But membership of this brand of supra-national entity was always going to come with a price.

The bargain is simply this: in return for the benefits of economic, social, cultural, technological and political co-operation, that is peace and mutual prosperity, each member state must consent to forfeiting part of its national law making powers. The EU thus forms a supra-national legal entity whereby the member states have established a separate and independent legal authority that is superior to their domestic institutions.

The idea of forfeiting "part" of your national sovereignty is perhaps a severe understatement to those exercised by what is considered to be the EU's inexorable drift towards being a 'super state.' It is clearly the case that the administrative and legal capacity of the original European Community has with successive treaties related to budgetary matters, economic integration and enlargement has increased manifold.

National leaders and their citizens are ambivalent about what might appear to be a choice of retaining national sovereignty and identity on the one hand or being transformed into a seemingly uniform state.

The 'Little Englander' complex or a less crude depiction of reluctant Englishmen feeling culturally and geographically apart from their continental neighbours is not the only discernible anti-European sentiment held among EU member states. For instance, German Euro-scepticism has increased given the perceived burdens it places on the German economy.

But the fundamental belief that Germany and France are at the core of the EU cannot be shaken off. France had under President de Gaulle repeatedly blocked Britain's entry into what was then the 'Common Market'. De Gaulle's rationale while based on what he claimed was Britain's "economic incompatibility" did not impress many Briton's who sensed his intransigence was based on a personal antipathy towards the Anglo-Saxon nations.

The British elite has been traditionally divided on the matter of Europe. And despite the focus on the issue being a source of disunity among the members of the Conservative Party, those on the political Left have never been unanimous in their views. Where the Right focused on national sovereignty, the anti-Common Market Left felt that there was a threat posed to working class jobs.

An impending referendum will be interesting on so many fronts. It will be one of the few times in British political history that the constitutional convention of collective cabinet responsibility will be abrogated. Government ministers will not be coerced into following a party line and will be free to campaign for either side. When a referendum was held in 1975 to decide whether Britain should remain a member after joining in 1973, the Right-wing Enoch Powell and the Left-wing Tony Benn campaigned on the 'No' side.

The British opinion polls show a fine split between the 'no' and 'yes' sides with the 'undecided' element holding the balance.

The perception of whether Cameron has secured a meaningful deal may be crucial not only to the result of the vote, but also to his political survival.

A vote to leave the EU by the British public may even have wider ramifications. Domestically, this would likely result in the permanent dismemberment of the United Kingdom. The leadership of the Scottish National Party has repeatedly asserted that it would trigger a second referendum on Scottish independence.

Britain’s exit could also spur other EU member states to leave. Whether mired in debt, burdened by administrative obligations or otherwise nostalgic for their 'sovereign' past, the precedent of a British withdrawal could trigger a psychological desire for other EU states to reacquire total control of the reins of their national destinies. 

It may also have implications for the survival of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation.

The president of the United States, Barack Obama has gone on the record several times to register his disapproval of the idea of a British departure from the EU. Obama’s position arguably reflects the view of the American political establishment which prefers to formulate policy with the EU entity rather than with individual European states. This includes Britain. It is a policy which pointedly disregards any sentiment toward their shared English-speaking heritage and the frequently touted ‘Special Relationship.’

While they are separate institutions, EU policy is often synchronized with the political and military objectives of NATO, an organisation which is led by the United States. An obvious example of this relates to United States policy towards the Russian Federation and the flashpoint that is Ukraine.

Guided by the post-Cold War policies formulated respectively by Paul Wolfowitz and Zbigniew Brzezinski, both the Wolfowitz and Brzezinski Doctrines promote the idea of maintaining American global hegemony. The latter, which is geared towards promoting the neutralisation of Russia as a military and economic competitor, is a fundamental precondition in achieving such a state of affairs.

The fomenting of the coup of February 2014 which deposed the elected government of Viktor Yanukovyc was orchestrated by the American government which clearly prodded a reluctant EU into backing it. The role of Victoria Nuland, the Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs at the State Department, was central in getting the approval of the EU in the overthrow of the Yanukovyc government. A recorded conversation she had with the American ambassador to Kiev captured her expressing her contempt for European caution through the infamous “Fuck the E.U.” remark.

The hand of the United States in essentially forcing EU nations such as Germany and France to support its policy of sanctions –despite the fact that such measures have proved to be harmful to the interests of these countries- makes it all too apparent why the United States prefers to deal with a collective body of states.

For those who are critical of the aggression and militarism apparent in American foreign policy, the United States control of NATO and by extension the EU has provided the necessary cover under which American administrations have pursued a succession of geo-political objectives that have been lacking in legal and moral justification. The refugee crisis that is presently confronting EU member states owes a great deal to NATO action in reducing Libya into a lawless state from which uncontrolled amounts of refugees can embark on perilous journeys. The Syrian Civil War, a conflict underwritten by America and NATO, has massively contributed to the waves of refugees making their way to the EU via its Mediterranean borders.

Thus the issue for Britons worried about the loss of national sovereignty to Brussels ought also to focus on the United Kingdom as a country dictated to by the United States which has used the EU as a vehicle to promote its national interests at the expense of the interests of EU member states.

Of course, they will also need to contemplate on how withdrawal can best serve Britain's national economic and political interests. Outside of the EU, it would lose a huge amount of bargaining power when dealing with other economic blocs around the globe.

A lot will be at stake on Thursday, June 23^rd when the British public make their verdict.

© Adeyinka Makinde (2016)

Adeyinka Makinde is based in London where he teaches Public Law.

Separated Powers of State - Which Body Should Have the Final Word?

The Seal of the Supreme Court of the United States

The looming battle over who will succeed the recently deceased US Chief Justice Antonin Scalia brings to mind the most famous clash between executive and judicial branches of the tripartite system of state power in the United States.

President Franklin Roosevelt accused the Supreme Court of inflicting a form of "judicial tyranny" in blocking key measures of his 'New Deal' programme. The US Constitution does not explicitly give the Supreme Court the power to strike down Acts of Congress for been unconstitutional, such power is instead implied from two articles used as the justification for the decision of the landmark case Marbury vs. Madison (1803).

Roosevelt backed down from his threat to pack the Supreme Court with justices who would favour his policies.

The UK system of Parliamentary Sovereignty is of course different from the American set up. The default position (disregarding modifications brought about by the UK's membership of the European Union and subscription to the European Convention of Human Rights) is that the highest court in the land cannot strike down an Act of Parliament.

In the United Kingdom, analogous clashes over blocked legislation historically occurred within Parliament itself which is composed of the House of Commons and the House of Lords.

In 1909, the House of Lords rejected Prime Minister David Lloyd George's Liberal Party government's 'People's Budget'. The constitutional implications were far reaching. Lloyd George threatened to appoint hundreds of new peers to outvote the overwhelmingly Tory Party-sympathetic hereditary peers.

The infuriated Lloyd George felt it intolerable for an unelected chamber to be able to block part of the programme of an elected government. Lloyd George won this battle and it led to the reform of the House of Lord's powers in relation to blocking and delaying legislation via the Parliament Act of 1911. It also introduced a 'Special Procedure' which allows the House of Commons to pass legislation without the participation of the House of Lords.

A similar struggle in the post-war period when the socialist Labour Party led by Clement Atlee embarked on a programme of nationalisation which was challenged by the conservative-leaning House of Lords resulted in the passing of the Parliament Act of 1949.

Roosevelt obviously felt that as a democratically elected President who had persuaded a democratically elected Congress to pass the relevant New Deal legislation, he had a mandate which the unelected Supreme Court justices did not have, and should not have the final word among the organs of state.

One argument against the unease about Parliamentary Sovereignty is that the most powerful arm of Parliament, the House of Commons is an elected body. On the other hand, since elected bodies may abuse the trust put in them by the electorate it appears a sound argument that legal technicians of the highest repute ought to settle constitutional questions. They should be the final arbiters; to use the parlance of the American system, serve as the 'Guardians of the Constitution'.

The problem with this of course is that the divide in American society on a range of culturally and socially sensitive issues has encouraged the politicisation of the American Supreme Court.

The process of nominating and confirming a successor to Chief Justice Scalia will once again show this to be the case.

Adeyinka Makinde (2016)

Adeyinka Makinde is a lecturer in Constitutional Law

Nigeria’s First Military Coup: My Father as a Witness to History

Sub-Lieutenant Emmanuel Oladipo Makinde stands behind Commodore J.E.A. Wey (left) and Major General J.T. Aguiyi-Ironsi (speaking) at the first press conference of the Nigerian military regime established after the overthrow of the civilian government in January 1966.

January 15^th 1966 is a date that is indelibly etched into the national memory of Nigeria. Under the pretence of a military exercise codenamed ‘Exercise Damisa’, a young army major named Chukwuma Nzeogwu led a group of soldiers on a mission to eliminate leaders of the civilian government which had ruled Nigeria since it had gained its independence from Britain in 1960.

In the Northern Region where he was based, Nzeogwu’s men assassinated the premier of the region at his home with the same occurring to the premier of the Western Region. In the then federal capital of Lagos, the prime minister was kidnapped and later murdered. The casualties were not limited to the political class. The mutineers also murdered senior military figures.

Later in the day at 12 noon Radio Kaduna broadcasted a speech which Nzeogwu had drafted.  Speaking in the name of what he styled the “Supreme Council of the revolution of the Nigerian Armed Forces”, Nzeogwu declared a state of martial law across the Northern Region.

After, in his words, “acquainting” his listening audience with the ten proclamations in the Extraordinary Orders of the Day which the Supreme Military Council had promulgated, Nzeogwu gave a rationale for the severe action he and his men were taking. They are words which would have struck a chord among most of his countrymen who listened to it and those who would later read a transcript of his speech.

Our enemies are the political profiteers, the swindlers, the men in high and low places that seek bribes and demand ten percent; those that seek to keep the country divided permanently so that they can remain in office...those that have corrupted our society and put the Nigerian political calendar back by their words and deeds.

But the major and his fellow conspirators failed in their objective of securing the reins of power across the country. While the north was firmly in his control, his co-conspirators had not managed to secure the Western Region or Lagos. Little verging on nothing had happened in the Eastern Region.

Into the vacuum created stepped in the surviving senior military officers. The General Officer Commanding the army, Major-General John T. Aguyi-Ironsi headed a meeting at police headquarters in Lagos among who were Commodore Joseph Wey, the head of the Nigerian Navy, and a number of army Lieutenant Colonels.

They discussed a range of options including the restoration of civilian rule. This was eventually ruled out because many at the meeting came to the conclusion that such an action might have prompted another coup by soldiers who were against the largely unpopular civilian government including those who may not have been connected with Nzeogwu and his circle.

The decision was made for the army to take over the governance of the country with its priority been to secure a formal transfer of power from the surviving political leaders to the military and the neutralisation of Nzeogwu who was threatening to march against them from the North.

The former was accomplished when the civilian Vice-President Nwafor Orizu, after consulting with President Nnamdi Azikiwe who was abroad, broadcast the “voluntary” decision of the cabinet to transfer power to the armed forces.

After a brief stand-off, Nzeogwu decided to subordinate himself to the authority of Ironsi and he agreed to be accompanied to Lagos where he was arrested. Ironsi formally established a Supreme Military Council on 17^th January and Nigeria’s first republic officially came to an end.

At the time of the mutiny, my father Emmanuel Oladipo Makinde had been serving in the Nigerian Navy for two years. He had previously served as an auditor for the Federal Ministry of Works before opting for a military career. He was commissioned as a sub-lieutenant and was soon appointed as the Flag Lieutenant to Commodore Wey.

Flag Lieutenant is the naval style for what military services generically refer to as an aide-de-camp. In this role, my father served as Wey’s personal assistant and office administrator at naval headquarters. But during the heightened tensions following the mutiny, he appears to have also functioned as a bodyguard.

For some years, I had been aware of the film footage below via grainy and truncated reproductions but did not make out that the naval figure wearing a holster with his service pistol half-drawn was my father.

The news report by Britain’s Independent Television News (ITN) which reported the aftermath of mutiny captures scenes both inside and outside of the heavily guarded Parliament Building in Lagos where Ironsi gave his first press conference.

At the 19 second-mark he is hovering at a checkpoint while soldiers question the occupants of a car attempting to enter the building. Then he can be seen liaising with army guards before turning around and giving a whiff of a smile in the direction of the camera when he realises that it is trained on him; this at the 25-26 second-mark.

Later on, when the senior figures in the Supreme Military Council have arrived and are inside the building, the footage captures him standing behind Wey, hands on hips and turning his head from one side to another as Ironsi fields questions from a mix of local and foreign press correspondents; this at the 54 seconds-1 min. 7 second-mark. He is visible again at the 1:47-2:03 mark.

“ITN Reporting 66: Nigeria After the Coup”

While many in the Nigerian population initially welcomed the intervention of the military into the sphere of governance, Nzeogwu’s attempted revolution succeeded in creating an atmosphere of mistrust among the ranks of the military and among the country’s multifarious ethnic groups. It would lead to a brutally contested thirty-month long civil war and military rule for twenty-nine of the thirty-three year period which followed.

The majority of the conspirators in the mutiny including Major Nzeogwu himself were ethnic Igbos. The fact that the overwhelming number of victims in the purge hailed from the north and the west of the country led many to believe that the coup had been tribally motivated.

While General Ironsi, himself an Igbo, had not been privy to the coup, certain policies and certain decisions which he would go on to make were interpreted as favouring his kinsmen.

His indecision about how to deal with Nzeogwu and his co-conspirators who were held in various prisons, his approval of a number of promotions within the army and finally his Unification Decree of May 24 1966 which altered Nigeria’s federal system to a unitary one all contributed to the concatenation of violence which spiraled into an armed conflict.

In May of 1966, a pogrom was directed at Igbo residents in the north. Then on July 29 1966, a second mutiny this time engineered by officers from the Northern Region targeted their mainly Igbo comrades for assassination and a series of summary executions were carried out. Major-General Ironsi met a gruesome fate while on a national tour. He was assassinated in the city of Ibadan, capital of the Western region.

The man who emerged as the head of state was Lieutenant-Colonel Yakubu Gowon, a Christian from the largely Muslim north. However, the military governor of the largely Igbo Eastern Region, Lt. Colonel Odumegwu Ojukwu refused to accept Gowon’s authority.

A further massacre of Igbo residents in the north in September of 1966 did not help the situation and Nigeria, the creation of imperial draughtsmen, appeared on the brink of splitting into its component parts.

In an attempt to forestall this, the military ruler of Ghana, General Joseph Ankrah invited Gowon, Ojukwu and other members of the Nigerian Supreme Military Council to the city of Aburi for a peace conference held between the 4th and 5th of January 1967. Commodore Wey was one of the invited figures and my father, now a Lieutenant, accompanied him to Ghana.

While Wey’s square-jawed, focused demeanour suggested the quintessentially stiff upper lipped military sort, he also had a gregarious and humourous side which he was often prone to display.

My father told a story about how Gowon and the rest of the military governors including Ojukwu were sitting at the conference table waiting for their host-mediator, Ankrah to enter the room to start the talks. As they sat in awkward silence, Wey decided to break the ice. He brought out a large comb and while remaining poker-faced began stroking his bald pate. Ojukwu, who had maintained an air of solemnity and circumspect silence, joined in the ensuing laughter.

The following archival footage of the aftermath of the Aburi Conference captures my father looking on in the background as Colonels Gowon and Ojukwu toast each other. He can be seen third from right from 0.22 to 0.30.

Aburi Peace Conference.

One of the issues of the Aburi conference concerned the fate of Major-General Ironsi. That he had been kidnapped and murdered by dissident soldiers just over five months earlier was beyond doubt. The problem was that the succeeding administration led by Gowon had made no reference to this fact and Ojukwu demanded that his death be formally announced to the Nigerian public.

An announcement was soon made to Nigerians and Ironsi’s remains were exhumed from the military cemetery in Ibadan and transported to Umuahia, his hometown in the Eastern Region. Commodore Wey led the delegation sent to represent the federal government and once again my father accompanied him and witnessed the funeral.

Funeral of Major General Ironsi (January 1967)

While the positive immediate aftermath of the Aburi Conference had raised hopes for a peaceful outcome to the crisis in Nigeria, the catastrophe which it had sought to avoid would come to fruition.

The Eastern Region formally declared its secession from Nigeria on 30^th May 1967.  A “police action” mounted by the federal government did not succeed in dismantling the rebel state of Biafra and so a full-blown a civil war followed which cost the lives of millions.

The war officially ended on January 15^th 1970, precisely four years after the fateful mutiny led by Major Nzeogwu.

Footnote:

My father continued his professional relationship with Commodore Wey who was promoted to Rear Admiral in 1967. Wey became the acting foreign minister which meant that my father accompanied him on trips to destinations that including the Vatican. The purpose of these travels was to drum up international support for the federal government’s prosecution of the civil war.

After the war, my father was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant Commander in 1970.  He was appointed as the Deputy-Defence Adviser at the Nigerian High Commission in London, a position he held between 1970 and 1973. During this period he got to know Colonel Murtala Muhammed, a future head of state who had led the second mutiny of 1966, while Muhammed attended the Joint Service Staff College in Latimer. In September 1975, soon after the coming-to-power of the military regime headed by Muhammed, he was appointed to a five-man panel tasked with grappling the post-civil war issue of Abandoned Properties in the three eastern Nigerian states which had comprised the old Eastern Region.

He was promoted to Commander soon after his return to Nigeria and served as Director of Supply and Secretariat, alternating his base of operations between the Ministry of Defence building in Marina Lagos and the base of the Western Naval Command in Lagos’ Apapa district. He would later become the Director of Naval Logistics.

He retired voluntarily in 1982 having attained the rank of Captain.

(c) Adeyinka Makinde (2016)

Adeyinka Makinde is a writer based in London, England.

David Bowie (1947-2016)

David Bowie etching by Adeyinka Makinde (1985)

(C) Adeyinka Makinde (2016)

Adeyinka Makinde is a writer based in London, England

OPINION: President Buhari on Boko Haram being “Technically Defeated”

Flag of Boko Haram until 2015

Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari’s recent comment made during an interview with the BBC that the Islamist terror group Boko Haram had been “technically defeated” has unsurprisingly brought a high level of criticism – not least in the light of the massacre of 80 people shortly after.

Some have been quick to draw analogies with US President George W. Bush’s now infamous victoriam declarationem aboard the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln on May 1^st, 2003 that brought an end to what he said would be “major combat operations” in Iraq. His televised address, dubbed the “Mission Accomplished” speech was of course followed by a Sunni insurgency which claimed many civilian and military lives. Twelve years later with the rise of several Islamist insurgent groups including al-Qaeda in Iraq and the so-called Islamic State, that country has defied attempts at being militarily pacified.

Buhari was referring to the re-conquest of Nigerian territory acquired by Boko Haram. The distinction is a subtle one and affords little comfort to the relatives of those who have lost their lives in the recent terror outrages.

It is instructive to remember that given the inherent dynamic related to asymmetric warfare, many insurgencies, including those which were successful in destroying the will of a national army or an army of occupation, have not had the goal of territorial conquest. The goal is often to sap the will of the opponent -politically, militarily and morally- in order to extract the relevant concessions among which ultimately would be the ceding of power. Thus Britain withdrew from Palestine in the face of unceasing attacks from the main Zionist terror groups: the Irgun and the Stern Gang.

Buhari may need reminding that the damage capable of being inflicted by a determined guerrilla movement which does not acquire territory is no less of a challenge than one attempting to challenge a national army for territory.

‘Strong ideologies’ such as those which are religiously motivated cannot be defeated without a coherent plan aimed at counter-acting the ideology and merely by the re-conquest of land or the disruption of the activities of the group’s cells.

There needs to be something more tangible in terms of ‘winning the hearts and minds’ of the population in the north east of Nigeria, especially among the disenchanted youth who form the recruiting fodder for Boko Haram.

The Nigerian military may have recaptured land ceded to the insurgents and may have muted, to use Buhari’s words, their ability as an “organised fighting force” in the battlefield, but it is only when there is demonstrable progress in the civic, psychological and economic spheres of counter-insurgency that Buhari should mention the word “defeat” albeit that it is presently qualified by the term “technically.”

(c) Adeyinka Makinde (2015)

Adeyinka Makinde is a writer based in London, England.

Bacardi and Coke

A can of Coca Cola and a bottle of Bacardi

It would be verging on the pretentious of me to speak of apéritifs and digestifs since I know too little of either. Didn't listen much when my father spoke of the former. I mean I had to watch 'From Russia, With Love' to understand the distinct matches between red wine and white wine with meat and fish respectively.

But on this point there is dissent.

Slavish insistence on such distinction alongside an attitude condemning the non-conformist to the disapprobation of 'right-thinking' members of society culminating into social ostracism may safely be said to be the sole preserve of utopian pedants and incorrigible mystics.

I indulge little with alcohol save for irregular bouts of wine drinking, but during the festive season I have tended to be partial to the consumption of a rudimentary mixture of Bacardi and Coca Cola.

For me, I guess, it serves as an apéritif, a digestif and an in-between meal drink over the festive period. It goes down well with home cooked Christmas turkey, servings of cold chicken left-overs and New Year's Day's lobster feast.

Here's to festive drinking alongside the choices of cuisine during the holiday season. ((CLINK)).

(C) Adeyinka Makinde (2015)

Adeyinka Makinde is a writer based in London, England

Tales of Food and Travel - Gelato

Gelato

Lest we forget the event-capping dessert we often take after indulging in our preferred cuisine. There is much to recommend about gelato, not least of which is that it contains less fat than conventional ice cream and has a greater proportion of whole milk.

It is, of course, another Italian-created gift to the world, and always reminds me of the aftermath of finishing a basic lasangne meal I had at an ordinary eaterie near Stazione Termini in Rome when I was waiting for a train to take me to the airport.

The waiter asked me what I wanted for dessert and I replied, "Do you have any Haagen-Dazz ice cream?" My longstanding affinity to this ostensibly European ice cream which is actually American originated got the better of me.

The waiter looked at me with a mixture of pity and despondency etched on his features. Maybe he was also a little angry and frustrated about what he might have perceived as ignorance on my part or even as impertinence.

Here I was after all in a place visibly well-stocked with all manner of gelato, semifreddo and granita in assorted flavours and colours ornately laid out with accompanying fruits and syrups; a foreigner in Italy, the fantasy land of ice cream, and I was requesting a recently invented and much hyped North American concoction of ice cream.

Shamed by his reaction and the inexorable logic behind it, I quietly took hand of the dessert menu he had handed me and soon after sheepishly asked for a Strawberry-Vanilla combo.

Viva gelato!

(C) Adeyinka Makinde (2015)

Adeyinka Makinde is a writer based in London, England