Do we still need the Commonwealth?

President Buhari’s recent trip to Malta to attend the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) has renewed once more the debate about the value of the Commonwealth to the country. I think the renewed debate builds on certain criticisms of the president for travelling “too much” or for apparently not being selective in his choice […]

President Buhari’s recent trip to Malta to attend the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) has renewed once more the debate about the value of the Commonwealth to the country. I think the renewed debate builds on certain criticisms of the president for travelling “too much” or for apparently not being selective in his choice of invitations to honour – when all is not well at home. This piece is not a contribution to that conversation. Rather the piece builds on the arguments of some that the President’s meeting in Malta – from where he left for France – was one instance of a trip that could have been ‘avoided’. In essence there is a need to properly interrogate the value of the Commonwealth to us.
The Commonwealth was formally constituted by the London Declaration of 1949 at a time when Germany and France, together with Belgium, Italy, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands were planning for what would later become the European Union. The initial expectation was to use it to ensure that Britain was not isolated in economic affairs hence Britain at that time considered inviting the Scandinavian and other European countries to join the Commonwealth so it would become a major economic common market. By the 1960s however hopes that it would be used to bolster Britain’s global power in the post-war era had become abandoned and the Commonwealth began to search for a raison d’etre. During the long struggle against apartheid rule in South Africa, it became a useful forum for the non-white members of the club to agitate against apartheid South Africa and the vestiges of colonialism in the continent. With colonialism and apartheid gone, the Commonwealth was again re-invented as a champion of democracy, good governance and human rights.
But how relevant is the Commonwealth to the world today and to Nigeria in particular?
Critics have picked holes with several things about the organization. Even the name, they argue, is an oxymoron, for it wrongly suggests that there is a pool of resources that are commonly owned by the 53 members – the same way Nigeria’s 36 states have some entitlements to the accruals from the Federation Account. In reality, much of the $10.45 trillion the countries  that make up the club produced as nominal gross domestic product (GDP) in 2014  was in actual fact produced  only by  a few of the  member countries –Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand. There is also the irony that an organization which currently brands itself as a champion of democracy has as its nominal head an unelected Queen of England – actually a Queen who has been on the throne since 1952.
Critics also argue that quite often the Commonwealth cannot uphold its ideals.   In 2013 for instance the meeting of the leaders of the Commonwealth was held in Colombo, Sri Lanka, at a time that the country’s then President Mahinda Rajapaksa was not only being widely condemned for massacring 40,000 Tamil civilians in its fight against the rebel Tamil Tigers but had also elongated his tenure by scrapping the country’s constitutionally enshrined term limits.  Again the Commonwealth could do nothing to stop Abacha from hanging Ken Saro Wiwa and others in 1995 and even after that atrocious act all it could do was to partially suspend Nigeria from the organization. In 1986 when the generality of the members voted to impose economic sanctions against the apartheid regime in South Africa, Britain demurred.
Critics of the Commonwealth have also argued that as the world globalizes – however imperfectly – new structures and centres of power are emerging and that the Commonwealth is hardly one of the remarkable ones. While conceding that the Commonwealth does bring a lot of countries together – both the rich, poor and emerging economies – they argue that so does the United Nations which has relatively greater power.  The critics equally contend that the continued attraction of the Commonwealth to Britain is because it satisfies their citizens’ nostalgia for the time in history when Britain ruled the world and boasted that the sun would never set on the British empire while for the poorer countries, especially those from Africa, it offers them a good photo opportunity with the Queen and the British Prime Minister every two years.
Despite the above criticisms, the Commonwealth still has a few things going for it:
Proponents argue that its biggest achievement is the fact of its unlikely existence. That so many former British colonies and dominions which fought hard to gain independence from Britain should be content to co-exist in a club which has the Queen of England as its head is remarkable.
The Commonwealth is also a low-budget organization, costing only around £16m ($26m) a year. It organizes fine quadrennial games, a respected annual literary prize and a respectable scholarship programme. It is also thought that colonial ties, including a common law and language, could boost trade.  By one estimate, the cost of doing business within the Commonwealth will be about 20 per cent lower than the cost of doing a similar business outside the Commonwealth.  The Commonwealth equally provides a good networking opportunity: In terms of landmass, the total landmass of its 53 members is more than 29,958,050 km2 (11,566,870 sq. miles), almost a quarter of the world land area and spans all the continents. With an estimated population of 2.328 billion, the members account for about a third of the world’s population.
There is a consensus that the Commonwealth needs to reform to make itself more relevant to the needs of its members and to be able to meet contemporary global challenges.  Yet it is also recognized that reforming the organization will be almost impossible. In whose image will it be reformed? If the rich members – UK, Australia, Canada and New Zealand – lead such a reform they will be accused of imperialism and rich world bullying. On the other hands, the preponderant poor countries want it to be transformed in the image of the European Union, with free movement of people and even common currency among the members – something the rich members will never even consider for obvious reasons. Asking emerging countries like India and South Africa to lead the reform raises the question of whether the rich members like Britain will accept to play a second fiddle in the organization to such countries.
So does Nigeria really need the Commonwealth at this time?
I will liken the Commonwealth to membership in a sports club where you have been an active member for over 50 years. The cost of membership is low and the most tangible benefit for you in the club is the treadmill you use whenever you go there – and of course the people you have cultivated their friendship or acquaintanceship over those years. It is difficult to quit such a club that has become part of you without feeling you are losing something valuable even though both the networking and exercise opportunities it provides are also available to you from other sources. In essence since the cost of our membership in the Commonwealth is rather low, we don’t  really lose much from being a member – not benefitting from the Commonwealth scholarship scheme or competing for the Commonwealth literary prizes and the Commonwealth games. On the other hand there is no evidence that countries like Zimbabwe that left in 2003 and Gambia that left in 2013 are worse or better off than they were when they were members.  The point is that we do not lose anything from being a member of the Commonwealth but it is also important that we do not have an exaggerated sense of what the Commonwealth is capable of doing for us.