The Oduola Osuntokun Memorial Leadership Lecture
Series and the Efficiency of International Law: Quo Vadis?
Bola A. Akinterinwa
International peace and security has always been an ultimate objective since the time of the Franco-Prussian war of 1870-1871. Contemporary international relations began as from this date in Europe. The Hague Conferences of May 1899 and October 1907 were two different, but complementary, international treaties aimed at regulating the conduct and management of war, peace and security. The major concern was to stop the institution of war and put in place a binding international court to resolve whatever disputes through a compulsory arbitration. Both conferences could not achieve the objective of compulsory arbitration but the idea of a voluntary forum for arbitration was accepted and the Permanent Court of Arbitration was established.
And true enough, the establishment of a Permanent Court of Arbitration could not prevent World War I especially that several rules adopted at The Hague conferences were violated during the war. The war culminated in the making and signing of the 1919 Treaty of Versailles in France. Again, when Japan began her territorial expansion efforts in Manchuria in 1931 and the United States had to oppose it vehemently and with German aspirations to dominate Europe leading to the outbreak of another World War in 1939, the issues at stake went beyond the questions of maintaining international peace and security. Questions of leadership and legacy were raised. Who is a leader? Who can be a legendary or legacy leader? In what type of environment can a legacy leader be produced? How does international law impact on leadership and maintenance of global peace and security?
It is against the background of these questions that two major academic activities that took place last week at the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs are particularly interesting because of the linkages between leadership lecture series and efficiency of international law in the management of state sovereignty and security.
Oduola Osuntokun Leadership Lecture Series
Oduola Osuntokun was an educationist and a former regional Minister who read geography and graduated from the Durham University College (Fourabay College, Freetown, Sierra Leone) in 1950. He was the Minister of Works and Housing in the former Western Region, that comprised today’s Ekiti, Ondo, Osun, Oyo, Ogun, Lagos, Edo, and Delta States, from 1955 to 1966. He was a man who died to live because of the legacy he left behind, and particularly because of the inauguration of an Oduola Osuntokun Memorial Leadership Lecture Series, on Tuesday, 21st October, 2025 at the Lecture Theatre of the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs, Kofo Abayomi, Victoria Island, Lagos.
Chief Oduola Osuntokun laid a legacy of exemplary leadership, dint of hard work, and not only lived a political life devoid of chicanery, but also served as a major source of sweet inspirations. Three testaments clearly lent much credence to this observation. First, Professor Akinjide Osuntokun in his funeral oration reportedly noted that ‘my uncle, Chief J.O. Osuntokun, after serving as Minister in the Western Region from 1955 to 1966… did not have any significant funds or possess any significant property. My uncle had to go back to a secondary school to teach.’ This attestation is a reflection of honesty and objectivity of purpose. When people serve dedicatedly in Nigeria they are never rich. They only manage to survive but they are always remembered for their lifestyle that enabled good governance and maintenance of peace and security.
Secondly, it is on record that the Justice Kayode Eso panel ‘established by the reformist first military Governor of the Western region, late Adekunle Fajuyi, to probe the preceding leadership of the government in 1966’ concluded that Chief Oduola Osuntokun was exonerated of any evil doing and this was gazette. Put differently, in eleven years of political services to the people of Nigeria, Chief Osuntokun was never found wanting. This really meant that he was an impeccable personality. Thirdly, and perhaps most interestingly, the students of Amoye Grammar School in Ikere Ekiti, to which Chief Osuntokun retired to teach after the January 1966 coup that ousted the civilian government, recalled at the time of his departure from the school in 1973 as follows: ‘you did not only succeed in inculcating in us the peerless habits of honesty, dedication, charity towards others, you provided us all the gadgets with which we could reach the almighty God and be at peace with him. The physical structure of the school was transformed by you. You built both hostels for students and houses for masters. Academically, you did not leave us in the wilderness. It was a two-stream school. All the excellent contributions you made toward the growth of this school will stand as monuments of pride to you.’
Many critical points relevant to the conduct and management of international affairs are raised in this testament by students of Amoye Grammar School in Ikere. First is the inculcation of habits of honesty, dedication, and charity towards others. There was very little manifestation of dishonesty before the militarization of the Nigerian polity in 1966. Soldiers were not known on the streets. With militarization came dishonesty, armed banditry, especially following the end of the civil war on January 12, 1970 following the unconditional surrender by General Phillipe Effiong.
In modern day Nigeria, political governance is largely fraught with dishonesty. There is nothing like dedication to national duty. The dedication that there is only kills or destroys Nigeria gradually and softly. People of integrity and nobility are going into extinction and this partly explains the rationale for the establishment of a Memorial Leadership Lecture Series as a special forum to teach, train, and evolve a new generation of men of honesty and dedication, men that will not be selfish and self-serving but people who will be altruistic, community-development oriented and patriotic.
Another point raised by the Amoye students is the aspect of innovative services given by Chief Oduola Osuntokun. They said the services ‘will stand as monuments of pride to you.’ I do not share this view because Nigeria of the time of Chief Osuntokun is no more. The environment of yesterday was quite decent but there is no more decency in Nigeria of today. Professor Akinjide Osuntokun has lent much credence to my concerns by raising critical questions about the true population of Nigeria.
As Professor Osuntokun noted in his keynote address at the launching of the Memorial Leadership Lecture Series, ‘this republic is indeed overpopulated. The ascribed population load of Nigeria is 220 million and still growing. In all honesty, I don’t think we are up to that number. It is based on a UN estimate derived from a blown-up Nigerian number.’ More disturbingly, Professor Osuntokun has it that, ‘with a sense of responsibility, I witnessed the last population count in Nigeria, and I was surprised at the organized and deliberate inflation of numbers. I witnessed enumerators being bribed to deliver figures claimed to be expected by budget officials at the state and local levels before certain allocations for social amenities could be made. Villagers and their children in urban centres were compelled to contribute for the purpose of attracting development to indigenous villages.’
Without whiff of doubt, the census of the people of Nigeria has generally been controversial even before independence in 1960. The first census following the amalgamation of the Northern and Southern Protectorates in 1914 was the 1921 census which paved the way for the first nationwide township and provincial counting. The 1931 census was fraught with violence in the east and difficulties in data collection. Census figures showed that the Yoruba was more populated than others. As World War II did not allow for the holding of census in 1941, the 1952-1953 gave the North the majority population. If the censuses conducted before 1921 were largely based on administrative estimates, and if the colonial censuses were also used to manipulate political representation and resource allocation, whatever might have been built on all the pre-independence censuses in Nigeria cannot but, at best, be fraudulent in design and documentation. Consequently, the postulation of Professor Akinjide Osuntokun is valid. By implication, if the environmental conditionings of Nigeria are fraudulent, whatever legacy left behind by Chief Oduola Osuntokun and which the Amoye students believe can stand as monuments of pride are not likely to thrive in a Nigeria where the sermons of national unity, indissolubility and indivisibility of Nigeria are preached by manu militari and by force rather than by show-casing visible reasons for peaceful-coexistence. Showing the exemplary service life of Chief Osuntokun is one ideal.
In this regard, the conclusion of Professor Osuntokun’s keynote address was also thought-provoking: ‘there are many reasons why we will not have a smooth ride to the future. If, however, we change our governance approach, there is the possibility that rather than crashing, we would run into turbulence, but we will land safely.’ But can we really land safely when the attitudinal disposition of both the government and people towards the rule of law is disrespect. The culture of respecting the law is tainted by a-don’t-care attitude and more influenced by disrespect. It is against this background that we hereinafter provide an exegesis of the 46th Annual Conference of the Nigerian Society of International Law (NSIL), similarly held on the 21st October at the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs.
Efficiency of International Law: Quo Vadis?
The theme of the NSIL Conference was ‘State Sovereignty and Security in a Challenging Era: Interrogating the Efficiency of International Law.’ The first point of inquisition in this case cannot but be what relationship is there between efficiency of international law and the establishment of an Oduola Osuntokun Memorial Leadership Lecture Series? Answers to this question cannot be far-fetched. Chief Osuntokun lived and left a legacy of self-discipline, community service, patriotism, altruism, and nation-building. After his demise, the need to sustain his exemplary legacy became a desideratum, especially in building a new Nigeria of strategic autonomy.
Secondly, the Osuntokun Memorial Lecture Series cannot take place in a vacuum. They can only take place within the ambit of Nigeria’s sovereignty and territorial space. As we noted earlier that environmental politics cannot be inclement and be expecting that any goodness can still come out of it. Environmental politics has been de-oxygenated in Nigeria. Corruption has been made fantastically embarrassing. In fact, it is a new norm.
What is required to address the problematic is the issue of societal indiscipline.
As noted in the Address of Governor Babajide Olusola Sanwo-Olu of Lagos State at the opening ceremony of the NSIL Conference, ‘as a country blessed with diversity, Nigeria’s greatest strength lies in our people. If we continue to work together, respect one another, and uphold discipline in our actions, no external force can undermine our independence. This call is for Nigerians – leaders and citizens alike – to protect our sovereignty through service, innovation, and unity of purpose.’ Chief Osuntokun is precisely an embodiment of what Governor Sanwo-Olu is calling for. It is also not in any way different from the concerns of the NSIL when it raises questions about state sovereignty and security.
Governor Sanwo-Olu further explained the linkages between good leadership and state security under international law. He said that ‘the old Westphalian idea of absolute sovereignty has been forced to confront a new truth: that while States remain the primary actors in international law, no State, big or small, can solve global problems alone. As the African proverb says, “when the clouds gather, no one roof is strong enough to resist the storm.” The clouds have gathered over the nations – not just developing nations – but even the most advanced ones.’ In light of this, ‘the question, then, is no longer whether states need international law, but whether international law remains effective, relevant and fair in regulating today’s complex global realities.’
In regulating today’s complex global realities, the past cannot be completely done away with. The past must always be remembered. In fact, from the perspective of Professor Ademola Popoola, Professor of International Law and Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Nigerian Association of Law Teachers, who is quoting Dr. Louis Bickford, ‘contesting memories is inevitable because memory is important as a moral imperative, a means of strengthening democracy, ensuring accountability. It is also a means of ensuring that we do not ever forget the past and it also enables us to say never again. After all, and in the view of a former German President, Richard Von Weizsacker, whoever closes his eyes to the past becomes blind to the present. Whoever does not wish to remember inhumanity becomes susceptible to the dangers of a new infection.’
This quotation largely explains the significance of the establishment of the Chief Oduola Osuntokun Memorial Leadership Lecture Series. The lecture series cannot but have the potential to recall the principles and attributes of the late Osuntokun patriarch, relate them with the current situational realities in defining any desired future. In this regard, and more importantly, to what extent can international law effectively interrogate the current situational realities?
Professor Popoola also rightly reminded that international law operates within an international system and represents its normative system. As he put it, ‘that system encompasses states, international organisations, various associations of states, nations and even peoples struggling for their independence, and also certain state-like formations… It includes not only the subjects that have just been listed, but also relations among them (international relations): international legal and other social morality; international comity, international customs) and also mutual interactions among all the components of the international system, and between that system itself and its components.’
On the specific question on effectiveness of international law in the context of state sovereignty and security in a challenging era, Professor Popoola not only addressed the doubts over whether international Law is law, which he reaffirmed as truly a law, but also that as a law, it has also been effective regardless of its many challenges. Opinions are not the same on this matter of effectiveness of international law.
The NSIL conference was structured into seven working sessions. The first session addressed the ‘Exploitation of Child Workers in a Global Economy: How helpful is International Law?” The session was chaired by Professor Adedayo Ayoade, mni, and the paper on it was presented by Professor Iyabode Ogunniran. Professor Ogunniran submitted that international law has been helpful in various ramifications, and particularly in differentiating between child worker and child labour.
Session 2, chaired by Professor Rufus Olaoluwa, focused on human security. While Mr. Deji Olaleye spoke on “Super States and the Myth of Sovereign Equality: A New Threat to Global Security,” Professor Bola A. Akinterinwa argued in his “Unauthorised Peace Enforcement in and Disregard for International Law: The case of US President Donald Trump and Israelo-Gazan Conflict,’ that international law has not been much helpful simply because it is only the weak nation-states that respect international law while the more powerful countries only respect it at will. He drew attention to Nigeria’s foreign policy that has as objective the respect of international law and treaty obligations. In the eyes of Mr. Olaleye, the myth of sovereign equality is a major challenge to international law.
Again, as rightly recalled by Professor Popoola, ‘law cannot coerce states in matters which are primarily political. International law cannot of itself and by itself dictate the policies of states. If hostilities break out international law is criticized for not maintaining international peace, yet international law cannot prevent its own violation any more than a municipal criminal law can prevent crimes being committed, or contract law can prevent contracts being broken.’
Session 3 on Climate Change, Environmental Displacement, and State Sovereignty, on which Professor Ego Chinwuba had a deep reflection under the chairmanship of Professor Iyabode Ogunniran and Session 4 on the Efficiency of International Law under which Dr. Charles Akwen spoke on “Taiwan Soft Power Strategy through Cultural and Educational Diplomacy in Africa: A Study of Nigeria and Eswatini,” generated much controversial arguments. So were Session 5 on “International Law and Managing the Challenge of Light Arms and Weapons, chaired by Professor Bola A. Akinterinwa and Session 6 on LGBTQ on ‘Rights’ and ‘Wrongs’: Contextualising State vs. International Law Positions” on which Dr. Abiola Akiode-Afolabi spoke. The Lead Speaker of Session 5 was DIG (Rtd), Johnson Babatunde Kokumo, the Coordinator of the National Centre for Control of Arms. He underscored the many conventions on light weapons and the great efforts being made by the Government of Nigeria in containing the proliferation of the weapons.
Grosso modo, state sovereignty and security in a challenging era is a very complex topic because it is not simply about the linkages between state sovereignty and security but also about the security of state sovereignty and the nature of security that we are talking about. This cannot but be so especially that the European definition of security often underscores state security while third World scholars define security from the human factor. State security has become meaningless without human security being taken as a first priority. More importantly, whether international law is, or can be, effective in securing state sovereignty is more of a resultant from political will of the sovereign states. As noted above, international law cannot by itself compel any state action if the state does not accept to be obligated either as a Monist or a Dualist State. International law has not been effective because of the non-respect for it. In the context of Chief Oduola Osuntokun’s Memorial Leadership Lecture Series, it is a most welcome development as it is coming at a time the culture of reading in Nigeria appears to have been thrown into the garbage of history. Few people listen to lectures or read nowadays. Education through artificial intelligence or googling is not only creating intellectual laziness, but also laying a new foundation for recolonization. Probably more of public lectures on luminary people with exemplary legacies may be helpful in Nigeria, but time will tell. For as long as the United Nations will not be reformed and international law is selectively respected, effectiveness of international law will remain at best a dream.
