A legal practitioner and lecturer in the Department of History and International Relations, Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, Anambra State, Dr Samuel Okeke, speaks on a wide range of issues including the ongoing war in Ukraine, agitations by groups in the North-East and South-East geo-political zones, Igbo presidency and amendment of the 1999 constitution, in this interview with CAJETAN MMUTA

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has gained world attention, what do you think its implications are, particularly as it relates to the diplomatic relations between Nigeria and the countries at war?

The war is quite unfortunate and it is because of the rivalry between the West and Russia; Ukraine fails to go the West and Russia will not be comfortable with a measure and that’s why Russia went to war. Though the war is not justifiable the issue is this, as the war has started the world is watching with predication; you do not know what to do with the implications in the future but what I foresee right now is that the reaction of the West may lead to catastrophe in case any western soldier gets a run with the war.

There is the possibility of a Third World War, but we doubt whether it is going to happen because, from the look of things, the West, particularly, the Americans and allied in NATO are very, very careful. They have directly or directly arranged troops to assist Ukraine.

The implication, therefore, is that there is going to be a kind of economic problem, the sanctions against Russia and the fact that Russia is the largest producer of oil and gas too, it means that Europeans have to look elsewhere and that’s where it comes to Africa and in Africa, you have a lot of resources and to me, it is an advantage at this stage because when the resources are scarce the tread of prices of oil will rise and that’s going to benefit oil-producing countries like Nigeria.

You studied in Ukraine and also spent some years there but looking at the actions of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy do you think his actions are justifiable considering what Russia wanted it (Ukraine) to do, not providing soft ground for a military base for NATO?

As a sovereign country, Ukraine should guard her independence in fairness, and under international law, there is what is called non-interference in the internal affairs of a state. So, rightly Ukraine was on the right path, it should go the way it should and the other issue is that their culture and history are interchanged. The Russian history started from Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine and what was called the Tivian root is the mother of all the Slaviate people, particularly, those of the former Soviet enclave; Belarus, Russia, Ukraine, they all berthed from Kyiv but the cessation of Ukraine in 1991 is regretted by Russia.

But Ukraine as a sovereign state and for long, over several centuries have been fighting to be sovereign and succeeded in 1991 and so they are supposed to guard their independence jealously and therefore in that case is justifiable in whatever Ukraine was intending to. But if you look at political realism, you find out that you can’t put your enemy at your doorstep and expect me to be happy when the enemy is at my doorstep. NATO is no friend of Russia and if NATO should ever come to Ukraine to stay, that’s a big threat to Russia’s existence and its supremacy in arms and ammunition. So, the Russians are justified in preventing that but not by use of force. I don’t subscribe to the use of force in prevention.

There could be other means. They could have used their gas pipeline, sanction Ukraine and then definitely threaten like China which those days used to threaten the world over Taiwan but they never go to war there. Taiwan has not been occupied by China but Taiwan still believes it is part of China. So, Ukraine should be allowed to exist without any internal interference by Russia. So, the implication is that Ukraine is right to keep its sovereignty and Russia is right also to fear it’s being subdued by a neighbour. So, there should be a balance of power between the East and the West in the matter of Ukraine.

You spoke about the possibility of the conflict snowballing into the Third World War, don’t you think Russia may want to avoid such a war knowing that NATO countries may amass their armaments against Russia?

I doubt, it depends on the leadership of the country. I think Russia is more than Third World War. The way I am seeing the issue implies that Vladimir Putin is ready for anything. In fact, from what we are seeing now and what we observed, you find out that NATO is not ready to confront Russia, it’s very clear that NATO is not ready to deploy troops to Ukraine to avoid Third World War and Russia knows it. But in case anything is going to happen, you don’t predict a war. The only thing we are afraid of is the arms and sophisticated weapons of mass destruction we have on the earth now. Otherwise, if the Third World War has just taken off, then the war should not reach its neck to go and destroy civilisation and economic progress made so far over years.

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What needs to be done in the face of the uncertainties and NATO’s seeming inactivity because Russian forces are pushing into Ukraine and countries are pulling out their citizens?

There is what we call deterrence and I think NATO has taken some measure of deterrence, they have already equipped the boundary states like Ukrainian, Latvia, Poland, these are states neighbouring Russia. They have already deployed their arms and ammunition and their troops there. That’s deterrence. The next turn is peace talk, to stop the war finally which means they should find peace talks. There was a meeting they held in Belarus a few days ago that ought to have been substantive but it wasn’t because there are still some controversies I believe they will hold another meeting and that’s the next step to take to avert more crises in the war.

The problem of insecurity in parts of the country is ravaging lives with many people living in fear, particularly, in the northeast and southeast geo-political zone going by what the IPOB/ESN and government Special Forces are doing in boundary communities of Anambra and Imo states. What is your reaction to this?

The words peace and security appear to be an illusion and everywhere in the world, there is always a problem. But the case In Nigeria becoming even everywhere is infantilised. In the North-East we have Boko Haram, later the ISWAP, and other groups assisting them. Therefore, it is becoming an international war in the North-East and then down South-East here we do not understand what is going on. The IPOB officials denied their involvement in the violence, but we all know that whosoever is doing that is posing for war too. The situation is dicey and the nation should not take it lightly.

There is a need for dialogue and there is a need for use of force because both the stick and carrot approach should be deployed. You know the stick and carrot diplomacy. So, you offer the carrot in terms of dialogue and you use the stick as a force to solve the problem in Nigeria because that’s how it starts and before you know it, the quest for secession, the same way it started in the Soviet Union, they succeeded. Now, we are seeing wars, not only in Ukraine; it has happened in Georgia and elsewhere.

The same thing is happening here; Boko Haram in Nigeria is talking about the abolition of Western education and the establishment of an Islamic state. If that happens there will be resistance too. And then down South-East, they are talking of the Republic of Biafra to come back. When it comes, there might some kind of rebellion too within the minority, the South-South region which they include in the map of Biafra will not willingly come to you, there will be a war. So, the solution is the use of dialogue to solve the problem and dialogue to dissociate and possibly referendum to determine the wishes of the people.

The quest by the South-East zone for a President of Igbo extraction is gaining momentum. What’s your stand on this?

Yes, the fact that fairness and equity should exist. In Nigeria, for now, we don’t do a thing on merit. We have a quota system. So, the presidency too should go by a quota system. Since 1999, the South-West ruled for eight years, followed by North-West and South-South.

Now, North-West again is on the saddle for eight years. Out of the six geo-political zones of the country, the South-East has never produced the President. In fairness and equity, it is supposed to come from the South-East for the next President of Nigeria. In 1999, it was very clear that Nigeria was prepared to hand over power to somebody from the South-West. That was why the presidential candidates were all from the South-West and it was the same thing that happened during Buhari’s time in 2015, everybody was from the North. Therefore, there is nothing like saying you are prepared or not, it appears that a convention has been served on the South-East to produce the next president.

What is your take from the recent approval by the National Assembly for autonomy for the legislature, local government areas, and the judiciary?

It’s a good development but you know in everything there is politics. In the first place, you know the amendment of the constitution does not go straightforward; after the debate and approval by the National Assembly, it has to be approved by at least 24 states houses of assembly of the country and we have in the South we have 17 states and the North has 19 states. So, you see the North has the upper hand in terms of endorsing the amended Constitution. It is not an easy show but it depends on the will of the people. Some people hold the view that the ongoing constitutional amendment was unnecessary and that the present government should go back to the 2014 constitutional conference report because a lot of issues troubling the nation had been treated in that report.

Do you think that conference report will bring succour to the Nigerian state?
I can say that it portends a source of succour for Nigeria but then you know that as days go by new developments spring up. The issue of agitations and quest for secession in southern Nigeria was not even a strong burning issue at that time. Now it is there, you talked about Igbo Presidency but some youths said that’s not what they want that they want Biafra. So, you need to review the Constitution in addition to reviewing reports of the constitutional conferences before so that the two developments will go hand in hand in other to produce something better.

Talking about a referendum, the United Nations Charter provides that people are entitled to self-determination and if you have read Putin’s speech before moving into Ukraine he talked about self-determination for the people of Crimea who are Russian speaking people. Do you think the UN will come in to conduct a referendum so that people can determine where they want to be in Nigeria considering the body language of the government of the day?

The issue is simple, the United Nations and International Law recognise the self-determination of a people. It was enacted in the Atlantic Charter of 1943, where the self- determination was proclaimed and you remember the controversy that followed that declaration. In the first place, when United Nations was formed, Britain and France, the colonial masters, were asked to leave their colonies and they said no, their interpretation of self-determination was based on European countries that they believe that people of the Balkans were talking about being granted self-determination policy we are talking about. Down here, the United States was not interested in colonies, and the Soviet Union the new power was not interested.

So, we were able to diplomatically compel Britain and France, Portugal, and other colonial countries to grant independence to people through the UN declaration of 1960 and granting independence to people and countries in 1960. Since then, self-determination has been legal only for those states that were colonized. So, internally, if you want to talk of self-determination for a sovereign state, it has to come through the constitution of that country or the will of the people of that country.

It is written that anybody has the right to self-determination but no country can easily cede without the consent of the government of the people. So, in Nigeria, you cannot easily have the self-determination of people as enshrined in the UN Charter and declarations and documents of international law. What is obtainable here is by the will of the state and dialogue before you talk of a referendum.

Now, talking in terms of having sensitive people in authority, what can you say about the attitude of the government given the evacuation operations by countries which began airlifting of their citizens out of Ukraine?

I think it’s quite pathetic for the government of Nigeria. I think during the government of former President Goodluck Jonathan we had what was called citizens diplomacy, which means the welfare of Nigerians all over the world should be properly taken off, even at that time too, it was even only rhetoric because it wasn’t implemented because I was in France in 2012 and I know Nigerians I met, many of them and they complained. Some even changed their passports. It was a herculean task; they could not get their passports renewed or get a new one. So, in Ukraine, we have an embassy there too but, surprisingly, our people there are complaining that the government has done nothing and the embassy has done nothing.

They are there defending and evacuating themselves. I think the government should do the needful, mobilize aircraft. We had a similar case in South Africa when the owner of Air Peace volunteered to evacuate Nigerians. They could as well beg him to go to Ukraine to evacuate our people, especially, those willing to come back because it is not good to leave them stranded in a war-torn country. It is very unfortunate.