| ID | 144808 |
| Title Proper | Cognitive existentialism and the global politics of state survival |
| Other Title Information | the Nigeria/Cameroun Bakassi conflict |
| Language | ENG |
| Author | Ebohon, Sylvanus Idahota |
| Summary / Abstract (Note) | This paper attempts to situate Nigeria’s capitulation to Cameroun in the Bakassi boundary conflict between the two nations within the context and logic of global politics driven by global states such as the United States of America, Great Britain, France and Germany. It makes a case for why and how a sub-regional war was averted within the Gulf of Guinea. The paper argued that although the crisis was a sub-regional inter-state boundary dispute which threatened to escalate into a sub-regional war within the Gulf of Guinea, it acquired a global stature within the context of the operational security architecture of AFRICOM that seeks to globalize security in the incipient second wave of neo-global governance. The crisis provided ample opportunity for the operationalization of the new geography of power in global politics, founded and driven by the mirror image of ‘cognitive existentialism’. The paper concludes that Obasanjo’s lowering of the Nigerian flag in Bakassi in the context of the new security architecture was fuelled more by the fears of an escalated anti-federal militant upsurge in the Niger Delta; the official records showing Bakassi as an oil axis; America’s incorporation of Bakassi into the Gulf of Guinea; the painful remembrance of the ugly Nigerian civil war experience; and America’s refusal to supply Nigeria arms in the event of a war with Cameroun, than by a global environment characterized by the low politics of environmental recreation, humanitarian intervention and the politics of human rights. |
| `In' analytical Note | Journal of Asian and African Studies Vol. 51, No. 2; Apr 2016: p.186-198 |
| Journal Source | Journal of Asian and African Studies 2016-04 51, 2 |
| Key Words | Security ; Nigeria ; Gulf Of Guinea ; Cognitive Existentialism ; Cameroun ; Bakassi |