CHAPTER ONE

1.1       Introduction

“Globalization represents the reality that we live in a time when the walls of sovereignty are no protection against the movements of capital, labour, information and ideas nor can they provide effective protection against harm and damage” (Higgins, 1999).

This declaration by judge Rosalyn Higgins, the former president of the International Court of justice, presents the contraventional wisdom about the future of global governance. Many view globalization as a reality that will erode or even eliminate the sovereignty of nation-states.

The typical account points to at least three ways that globalization has affected sovereignty. First, the rise of international trade and capital markets has interfaced with the ability of nation-states to control their domestic economies.

Second, nation-states have responded by delegating authority to international organizations. Thirdly, a “new” international law, generated in part by these

organizations, has placed limitations on the independent conduct of domestic policies.

This development has placed Nigerian sovereignty under serious pressure. But the decline of national sovereignty is neither inevitable nor obviously desirable, Nation-states (Nigeria) maintain the current world order.

Sovereignty allows nation-state to protect democratic decision-making and individual liberties or international cooperation.

The new international law, the rise of international trade & capital market, the power of international organizations forced Nigerian sovereignty to cooperate and obey the principles of globalization.

In fact, over the past decades, globalization has become an ubiquitous term in as wide-range of academic and popular discourses.

It is a concept that ha snow been used to describe almost every aspect of contemporary life, from the complicated machinations of contemporary capitalist, to the erosion of the nation-state system and the rise of

international organizations and cooperation, to the threat posed by global culture to the local culture and tradition to the communications revolutions introduced by the new technologies such as the internet, the terms seems to capture a genuine sense of the changes that have transformed the world.

It is important to emphasize that globalization though refers to the present but it is imperative to highlight that the phenomena it describes are hardly new. For instance, there has been discussion about the possibility of a global economic order or system, a world culture or a world literature.

In the wealth of nations, Smith (1976) identifies the global character of western capitalism form as the “mutual communication of knowledge” and “an extensive commerce form all countries to all countries that would be of benefit to all parts of the world”.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) in its own line of thinking sees the concept globalization as the rapid integration of economies world-wide through trade, financial flows technology-spillover, information networks and cross cultural currents.

The world bank o its own side contends that it is about the increasingly interconnected and interdependent world, it is about the increasingly interconnected and interdependent world, it is about international trade investment and finance that has been growing far faster than national income.

It is all about technologies that as already transformed out abilities to communicate in ways that would have unimaginable in far years ago. It is all about our global environment, communicable diseases, crime, violence and terrorism. It is all about workers of all countries to develop their potentials and to support their families and job created by the greater economic integration.

However, it is crucial to ides behind his concept are very dangerous for the Nigeria as third world country, this is as a result of the fact that participation in any international affair in this new world order is justice, like a wrestling competition where the stronger would always show the weaker one way out of the ring either in life or death.

1.2       Statement of the research problem

Politically, economically, socially and culturally globalization plays an influential role in Nigeria. Its activities has resulted in the crippling of the economy, because globalization to some extent determine the price of the Nigerian commodities in the international market. Nigeria needs to develop but due to extensive dominance by the foreign powers through the activities of globalization in territorial boundaries of Nigeria (Giddens, 1999).

Nigeria as a state lacks the sovereign power to control its economy due to the lack of good governance of the Nigerian leaders, lack of control over MNCs, dependency over technological aspect, dependency over foreign powers economies, political aspect, foreign aid which resulted to indebtedness of the country. Therefore, it must be controlled by the capitalist economy through the term globalization (miller, 2003).

Similarly, with the aid of globalization capitalist economy throw Nigeria in a state of confusion on how to administer the political affairs of our country by bringing the political disruption to make Nigeria’s political and economic system ineffective and inefficient.

The primary role of globalization is to create for capitalist accumulation and ensure steady and cheap sources of raw materials and expanding markets for finished goods from the capitalist economies. Therefore, this research examines how globalization erodes the sovereignty of Nigeria.

1.3       Aim and Objectives of the Study

i.                   To examine the nature of globalization in Nigeria.