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Recently I watched
an agreeable bit of apocalyptic entertainment called 2012, which dealt
with the end of the world. As is common with such films, it involved
plans to save at least part of humanity from the coming Armageddon.
These centred around the G8 countries and naturally, the citizens and
artifacts that the leaders of those countries thought most important
were chosen for survival.

What was remarkable
was that there was no mention of Africa, even though one of the leading
actors in the film, Chiwetel Ejiofor, is also a Nigerian. That is, no
mention until right at the end when, with the new post-disaster
alignment of continents, the southern part of Africa was found to have
risen several thousand metres and thus was now seen to be suitable for
settlement by the survivors. It was implied that the place was empty.
(The historically alert will have noticed that we have heard this
theory of an ‘empty southern Africa’ before.)

One shouldn’t
complain of course: South America appeared in the film only so that the
collapse of Rio de Janeiro’s famous statue of Christ the Redeemer could
be shown. But at least people were shown there!

In most disaster
movie blockbusters, the fact that the only time you see a black face is
when the President of the United States is (fashionably)
African-American, is just one of the signs of how marginalised Africa
is. Perhaps we should even be glad that the notorious ‘District 9’ at
least juxtaposed the idea of Africa and Science Fiction in global
consciousness.

But if filmmakers
forget about Africa because for them, we are on the margin of their own
consciousness; what do we say about ourselves?

More specifically
what do we say about our own government which says that Africa “is the
centrepiece of our foreign policy”, and even mendaciously claims that
Africa will continue to be the centrepiece of our foreign policy!

It was not without
reason that the United States of America’s former ambassador to
Nigeria, John Campbell recently deflated our claim to be big and
important. We had not, he observed, been able to settle even the
problems erupting on our own doorstep in Niger Republic, or our
backyard in Guinea (Conakry), let alone play any meaningful role in
solving other crises on the continent, such as Darfur or Somalia.

One might, with
reason, ask how we ever could have? Our last Minister of Foreign
Affairs may have been famous (or is that notorious?) for the number of
trips he made to the US, but he only made his first official trip to
any African country in January this year when he visited some ECOWAS
countries. A further trip to Southern Africa in February hardly
suggests that there was any seriousness in the Yar’Adua administration
about Nigeria’s “concentric circles” approach to foreign policy.

According to this
policy, our foreign affairs priorities should start with our neighbours
in the inner circle, ECOWAS in the next, then Africa and last, the rest
of the world. But despite inverting these priorities and putting the US
and Britain first, Maduekwe achieved as little in those countries as
those eve-of-his-removal trips achieved in Africa.

Certainly the
visits failed to even begin to address the erosion of Nigeria’s
position and prestige in the Economic Community of West African States,
or on the continent.

While Maduekwe was
indulging himself in far-flung gallivanting, Niger Republic commenced
the construction of a dam across the River Niger that could reduce the
flow of water into Kainji Dam by as much as 70%! And despite this open
disregard for our interests, Nigeria not only watched helplessly as
President Mahmadou Tandja subverted his country’s constitution, but
when he was called to order and removed with no input from us, could
only join a chorus of demands that Niger conduct elections within six
months without any apparent concern about the posture that a
newly-elected Nigerién President might adopt towards us.

There will be those
who try to convince themselves that Acting President Goodluck
Jonathan’s trip to the US last week has done Nigeria some good; as if
Jonathan has not heard from his fellow-citizens that he needs to tackle
electoral reform and punish corruption, or as though he was there to do
much more than make up the numbers when US President Barack Obama met
him in a group of ten (!) to discuss the control and safeguarding of
nuclear materials.

But in our own
neighbourhood, a measure of our inconsequence was epitomized by the
remarks of Libya’s Muammar Ghadaffi who, whatever peace he may have
made with the West still feels free to stir up mischief in Africa (of
which he seems to see himself as some kind of uncrowned king) about
breaking up Nigeria. He even cheekily suggested that ex-President
Olusegun Obasanjo should oversee the process of creating the ‘Christian
South’ without any response from Obasanjo!

It would be a good idea for us to realise that nobody is going to
pull our African chestnuts out of the fire for us, even if we are to
abandon the concentric circles approach. And however much we intend to
outsource to the US, we are still going to have to get our own foreign
policy.