Whatever the outcome of the Independence Referendum in Scotland, on Thursday, will have great impact on relations among peoples outside the United Kingdom. Editor, Politics/Features, EMEKA ALEX DURU, writes.
Cameron, Miliband and Jonathan
A new chapter may be opened on Thursday, September 18, on international relations and self-determination among nation states when a referendum on whether Scotland should be an independent country from its current union with the United Kingdom (UK) will take place.
Following an agreement between the Scottish government and that of the UK, the Scottish Independence Referendum Bill, setting out the arrangements for this referendum, was put forward on March 21, 2013. It was passed by the Scottish Parliament on November 14, 2013 and received Royal Assent on December 17, 2013.
The referendum question will be: Should Scotland be an independent country? Voters can only answer yes or no.
With some exceptions, all residents in Scotland above age 16 can vote. This represents over 4 million people – only a simple majority is required to win.
According to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, Scotland was an independent country from its foundation in the Early Middle Ages. It was said to have entered into a union with England in 1707, with the Treaty of Union and subsequent Acts of Union, to form the Kingdom of Great Britain.
Subsequent developments have seen some residents of Scotland pushing for an independent country.
In the build-up to the referendum, leaders of the UK’s political establishment have been putting up efforts to situate the import of eventual Scottish independence on the future and politics of the union.
Prime Minister, David Cameron, was for example quoted by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) to have said he would be “heartbroken” in the event of a “Yes” vote, while Labour leader, Ed Miliband, said the case for the union came from the “head, heart and soul”.
TheNiche learnt that, by last Thursday, a new opinion poll had suggested 47.6 per cent of voters backing “No”, 42.4 percent “Yes”, with 10 per cent undecided.
Scholars and international relations experts see whatever that may be the result of the Scottish outing on Thursday impacting greatly on interactions among groups in some entities.
Pat Nwabunnia, a political scientist and public opinion analyst, told our reporter that the beauty of whatever that becomes the outcome of the referendum is that it would be a result arrived at without external influence or undue compulsion.
“Whether they vote ‘yes’ or ‘no’, the important thing is that the people must have spoken. They would have been allowed to decide on the form of union they had chosen,” he said.
The lesson, he said, Nigeria stands to learn from the development is that the touted indissolubility and indivisibility theories by the country’s leaders are issues that can strictly not be enforced but should be left for the people to determine on the basis of the realities of the day.
Dr. Emma Ezeocha of GenderCare Initiative, a Lagos-based non-governmental organisation, on his part, lauds the Thursday referendum in Scotland, adding, however, that the exercise would remain a pointer to the duplicity of Britain in her relations with other countries.
“This was the same Britain that stood solidly behind Nigeria during the 1969 to 1970 Civil War in duplicitous efforts at frustrating Biafran self-determination agenda. Today, she is allowing the Scots to determine whether to continue staying in the same union with her without firing a shot or instigating any crisis within Scotland,” he remarked. He stressed that with the development in Scotland, the principle of self-determination, which stronger nations had repeatedly tried to suppress, would receive a boost.
The right of nations to self-determination is a cardinal principle in modern international law, which states that nations, based on respect for the principle of equal rights and fair equality of opportunity, have the right to freely choose their sovereignty and international political status with no external compulsion or interference.
The principle, which scholars trace to the Atlantic Charter signed on August 14, 1941 by Franklin D. Roosevelt, President of the United States of America, and Winston Churchill, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, is seen to have evolved from the Peace of Westphalia. The Treaty, apart from ending the 30 years’ war (1618 to 1648) in the Holy Roman Empire, also established a new political order based upon the concept of a sovereign state governed by a sovereign and establishing a prejudice in international affairs against interference in another nation’s domestic business.
At the local level, referendum is not entirely a new phenomenon. For instance, while Cameroon and Nigeria prepared for independence in 1960, there was debate by South Cameroon nationalists on whether their best interests lay with union with Cameroon, Nigeria or total independence.
Consequently, the United Nations organised a plebiscite in the Cameroons on February 11, 1961 which put two alternatives to the people: union with Nigeria or union with Cameroon.
In the plebiscite, Northern Cameroons voted for union with Nigeria, while Southern Cameroons voted for union with Cameroon. The part that voted for union with Nigeria became the Sardauna Province that presently constitutes Adamawa State.
There are already indications that a “Yes” vote in the Scottish Referendum may quicken the push for independence of Catalonia or the Catalan countries from Spain and France. The agitators are, in fact, said to have even scheduled October 24 for their referendum. The feat may also add impetus to the desire by Lombardy nationalists for independence from Italy.
As in the process leading to the Scottish question, the 1961 plebiscite was without compulsion on the participating entities. The thinking among analysts, therefore, is that most of the presumed thorny issues confronting Nigeria can be effectively tackled by allowing the people the freedom to make decisions and informed choices.
Owolabi Ibidun, a lawyer, for example, told our reporter that for Nigeria to move out of its present knee-jerk military approach to issues, the constitution must be liberalised to give room for self-determination agenda by the constituting units.
“If this is done, the occasional threats of secession by some groups would be minimised because they would know that, much as they have right to opt out of the union, they would also be aware of the corresponding responsibilities to their people in toeing the path. But when the constitution prevents the mere mention of that option, self-seeking individuals easily throw it up to appear as champions of their people,” he said.