America’s Incoming Secretary Of State And Nigeria
The American President-elect Mr. Donald Trump is indeed a political mystery.
First, he emerged from the outside to defeat the original principals who dominated the Republican Party to become the presidential candidate.
He went ahead and coasted home to victory defeating almost the extant political dynasties to become the 45th President of the United States of America with effect from January 20th 2017.
The Clinton's, the Bush's, the Obama's are only but a few political institutions that Trump dealt devastating blows to emerge as US President.
Since winning the election, Donald Trump has won other laurels including one of the most talked about media ratings.
TIME Magazine recently nominated Mr. Donald Trump as the Person of the Year of 2016 and this decision understandably has drawn flacks and praises from diverse groups of observers.
But the TIME Magazine made the reportage of their choice of Donald Trump as Person of the Year in a very comical fashion when it addressed their new Person of the Year as “President of the Divided States of America.”
Writing the cover for TIME Magazine, Nancy Gibbs wrote thus: “This is the 90th time we have named the person who had the greatest influence, for better or worse, on the events of the year. So which is it this year: Better or worse? The challenge for Donald Trump is how profoundly the country disagrees about the answer.”
“It’s hard to measure the scale of his disruption. This real estate baron and casino owner turned reality-TV star and provocateur—never a day spent in public office, never a debt owed to any interest besides his own—now surveys the smoking ruin of a vast political edifice that once housed parties, pundits, donors, pollsters, all those who did not see him coming or take him seriously. Out of this reckoning, Trump is poised to preside, for better or worse.”
Like him or hate him, Mr. Donald Trump has started well by making some top level appointments that even his critics are overwhelmed with shock with the phenomenal career hierarchies of most of his choices for his cabinet.
The latest being the Secretary of State which he gave to the current managing Director of the world’s crude oil company- ExxonMobil.
Mr. Donald Trump has further compounded the shock of his critics and indeed shamed those who see him (Trump) as a climate change denier. His secretary of State is a staunch supporter of the Climate Change Treaty recently signed in the French capital of Paris.
The ExxonMobil chief executive is also close to the Russian leader Mr. Vladimir Putin who has largely not been in good diplomatic terms with the eight yearlong President Barack Obama's vanishing Presidency.
The British press captured Trumps decision thus: “Donald Trump is set to choose ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson to be the next nominee for Secretary of State.
Mr. Tillerson, 64, emerged as Mr. Trump's top pick for the position in recent days. He has faced significant criticism for apparent ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin.” (Source: www.independent.co.uk ).
The Choice of Secretary of State must have put to rest the doubts critics have expressed regarding President-elect Donald Trump's disposition on the vexed issue of Climate Change Treaty which the United Stated joined other nations to sign as aforementioned.
The British press also observed that while he led ExxonMobil, Mr. Tillersonexpressed his support for the Paris climate agreement, wherein countries around the globe vowed to cut their carbon emissions, brokered in part by Sec of State John Kerry.
The President-elect, however, said that he will back away from the agreement. This pick of a Secretary of state which is the top most diplomat in the incoming administration is a clear shift from the hard line position of Donald Trump on Climate Change.
The company also acknowledged the existence of climate change, and agreed with the science behind the crisis. Mr. Tillerson himself has stated the importance of addressing it.
"We believe that addressing the risk of climate change is a global issue," he said in May during a company shareholder meeting.”
Basically, our focus in this piece is on what impacts this choice will make on Nigeria with regards to our place as one of the largest crude oil rich nations. The outgoing secretary of State Mr. John Kerry is not known to have played positive diplomat role in Nigeria. Apart from the fact that Nigerians are expecting so much from the incoming Secretary of state in the United States of America, there’s also the need for the restive situations in the crude oil rich Niger Delta region to be brought to a constructive end for the overall benefit of all.
In the last one year and half since the current government in Nigeria came on board, the armed militants resumed heavy hostility and bombing of crude oil pipelines in the crude oil rich Niger Delta to a level that Nigeria lost over 60 percent of her source of external revenues which became worst with a tumbling in global crude oil prize. But Organization of Oil Producing Nations recently cut down the production quotas of her member state thus forcing crude oil prize to skyrocket. But the bombing of crude oil facilities in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria means that the impacts of this upward swing in the asking price of crude oil internationally wouldn't be felt in Nigeria except something fast is done to resolve these renewed hostilities. This is where the incoming top US diplomat is expected to mediate a lasting truce.
The Muhammadu Buhari’s administration is said to have invested billions of Nigerian cash in searching for Crude oil resources in the Chad basin and much of Northern Nigeria even as the government is building pipelines from Niger Republic to Kaduna refinery to pump in crude oil for refining since the dominant Crude oil producing areas of the South is said to be beyond reach due to heightened activities of oil militants. Buhari has to the consternation of the US government deployed armed soldiers to wage battles against the armed militants bombing oil pipelines. The US government favours peace talk.
The incoming Secretary of state as a renowned Crude oil dealer would work for peace and not war in the Niger Delta region hopefully.
The West including the American based Crude oil companies such as Exon Mobil have substantial stakes in the onshore and offshore sectors of the Nigerian oil crude industry so the choice of this Crude oil baron is significant and would impact negatively or positively on Nigeria.
Most Nigerians are optimistic that the coming of the ExxonMobil executive as top diplomat of America under Donald Trump will be positively remarkable for us. There's a reason for this wave of optimism.
Firstly, the major demands of the Niger Delta militants are for fairness and justice in the ownership structure of the Crude oil wells located in their backyards which are largely controlled by politicians and ex-military Generals from Northern Nigeria who exploited their proximity to past military despots in Nigeria to gain control over crude oil wells located deep inside of Niger Delta region.
If the new Secretary of State is not as divisive as the outgoing Secretary of State Mr. John Kerry, then the crisis in the Niger Delta could speedily be resolved so production could pick up and the environmental rights of the people of Niger Delta restored. America may also resume big time purchase of Nigeria crude oil which Barack Obama significantly cut down with the discovery of other sources of crude oil production within the United States of America. But these new methods of drilling crude oil is said to be harmful on the long run to the environment of the Americas. Apart from the cut in the purchasing volumes of crude oil from Nigeria the outgoing US administration has terrible image within Nigeria.
John Kerry since the last one year has played divide-and-rule politics within Nigeria by visiting and befriending only Northern governors to the chagrin of Southerners who felt betrayed.
In one of the Chapters of his phenomenal book titled: “Crude Continents: The Struggle for Africa’s Oil Prize”, the British Journalist observed as follows regarding Nigeria: “Nigeria, including its onshore, offshore and deep-water discoveries, is a key destination for exploration and development funds".
"All the super-majors and many state companies are positioned there, as are many independents (and a growing herd of Nigerian oil players). As in the recent past, its future floats on oil and gas."
"The beneficence of oil has brought not stability but contested legitimacy. Power struggles have marked the past 50 years. They have been unremitting and at times violent, as within the Niger Delta over the past decade, even as the political landscapes have altered over time. Does fragmentation and further conflict await Africa’s most populous state in coming decades? The answer will be critical to Nigeria, corporate oil, the Gulf of Guinea and Africa".
The writer observed also that: "The struggle over oil is not new. Although the situation in Nigeria improved after the abortive Biafran war of secession (a conflict over politics, ethnicity and oil), serious turmoil resurfaced in 1993. Political and economic stability remain fragile and could deteriorate further as a result of a variety of coalescing conditions: onshore conflicts, threats to the offshore, social conflict with corporate oil, ethnic divisions, Muslim/Christian divides, Sharia law in northern states, demands on the federal government for decentralization, southern discontent, irredentist pressures in Delta States that want greater control over oil, internal politics shaped by elites and military, political turmoil over democracy, economic disparities, and so on".
"Oil and issues of ethnic balance, with past military involvement in the top echelons of politics, have been the main drivers in the Nigerian landscape.”
These recorded evidential realities are some of the dynamics that the new American Secretary of state is expected to navigate so Nigeria can derive maximum benefits from our diplomatic deals with the World's richest democracy.
* Emmanuel Onwubiko is the intellectual head of Human rights writers Association of Nigeria and blogs @ www.emmanuelonwubiko.com