The Nation Newspaper

Category: Dayo Sobowale

  • Rising terrorism, declining deterrence and confidence

    TO say that the terrorism of Boko Haram has soiled the good name of Nigeria as a nation of peace loving and  peaceful people in the comity of nations, is sadly for now, not an exaggeration at all.

    Indeed it is a great understatement and two events bear that out confidently and vividly over this last week. The first were the cheeky but bloody assassination attempts in Kaduna on retired General Muhammadu Buhari a former head of state and opposition politician, and Sheik Dahiru Bauchi, a Moslem cleric who had just preached in that town that day.

    The two events left several innocent people dead. The second testimonial of our descent into the abyss of terror, denting our good name as a nation, was the testimony in far away Tel Aviv, Israel, of no less a person than Israel’s PM Booyamin Netanyahu at a news conference with the UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon, on Israel’s on going slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza, where in trying to say how vicious Hamas‘ record on terror had been, ended up by proclaiming with great emphasis and finality that Hamas is like Al Qada in Pakistan, Taliban in Afghanistan and Boko Haram. Of course he did not need to mention Nigeria because Boko Haram has stolen the thunder of the bloodiest terrorist groups in the world with its peculiar and constant shedding of the blood of innocent Nigerians with impunity since it commenced its nefarious activities of saying NO to western education a few years back. That Boko Haram of our own shores of Nigeria is now the king pin of world terrorism is unbelievably great but pathetic news. Worse still is the fact that a leader of the state of Israel, a nation of the volatile Middle East whose establishment in 1948 has led to three Middle East Wars with the Arabs, now uses a Nigerian terrorist group to show how bad Hamas is as a terrorist organisation in the Middle East imbroglio. This odious comparison which gives an edge of terror – a primus inter pares of sorts — to Boko Haram, clearly shows that we Nigerians do not know yet what we are up against with Boko Haram given our complacency and business as usual side stepping, when ever the next news of Boko Haram murder and mayhem intrudes rudely and daily into our attention from the news media, as it continually does ad infinitum nowadays.

    Yet, no one in his right senses will say that Netanyahu did not know what he was saying on Boko Haram. Or that Nigerians, Nigeria or its leaders have more experience of terrorism than the Israelis that Arabs-since 1948, and Iran, have vowed to wipe off the face of the earth. Indeed compared with Israel, Nigeria’s experience with terrorism is like aclean slate, until the advent of Boko Haram which has proved ruinous indeed to our sovereign reputation and is now threatening even our collective existence mortally as individuals and collectively as a peaceful sovereign nation state. So, one is left wondering in perplexity how we all have been able to muster the courage and equanimity not to see what Netanyahu has seen in Boko Haram that we have not seen either because of our collective myopia or national astigmatism.

    Yet, again it is obvious that we are oblivious of our predicament given the danger inherent in Netanyahu’s comparison and let me show how this is so, from two utterances from our leaders, also this very week.

    The first was the statement credited to President Goodluck Jonathan at a daily post Ramadan dinner in Aso Rock where he reportedly told visiting members of the diplomatic corps that contrary to the situation in the country and all expectations, the 2015 elections will be free and fair. This was after the twin bombings in Kaduna on Wednesday this week. As the Chief Security Officer and Commander in Chief of Nigeria, the President is in a position to say what he said and guarantee that, but I am sure not many Nigerians share his confidence.

    Indeed some have said that what is needed first is a fast way to deter and crush Boko Haram before 2015 so that the 2015 elections can come in on its own terms and recognisance.

    Without any ominous strings or security premonitions attached, given the present incessant rampage and insolent impunity on the Nigerian state with the bloody bombings and attacks of Boko Haram in Northern Nigeria.

    The second statement was that credited to the Minister of State for the FCT Jumoke Akinjide who reportedly told an audience gathered to mark 100 days of the abduction of the Chibok girls that the Federal government was in a position to defeat Boko Haram as it was bringing in new strategies and buying new equipment and technologies to defeat Boko Haram. She mentioned the Safe Schools Project to secure schools in the North and said the Soft Approach of the FGN was to ensure a safe return of the girls as force alone would jeopardise their safety. Such hope and preparation are commendable. But the money for the equipment is yet to be approved by the National Assembly where some legislators hostile to the President’s request for $1 bn have charged that it could be used for 2015 elections by the president. In addition one can question the use of a soft approach given that the 200 Chibok girls are in the custody of terrorists who have scant regards for girls and have promised in the recent past to marry and sell the girls in a market they said exists.

    What type of life would the girls live after being rescued? Procrastination on their rescue has tarnished their womanhood and their chances of living a future married life tremendously and one is not surprised of media reports that some of their parents have died a premature death from high blood pressure arising merely from contemplating the plight of their dear daughters in the custody of blood thirsty and unashamedly randy terrorists.

    It is my view that the Netanyahu alarm should be treated seriously and all Nigerians should endeavour to condemn and fight Boko Haram to a definite halt. We do not need to carry arms but since this is a nation of deeply religious people and prosperous pastors there is a lot to be done that being just mere by standers. Tony Blair the former British PM provided a clue on fighting terrorism at a Labour Party Conference he addressed after the 2005 bomb attack on London by terrorists. He said that the British people must not succumb to people who want to force them to change their way of life because the US is supporting Israel or think that democracy and Islam are not compatible as this is a false belief. He said the way to fight religious militancy is to use the force of superior arguments to argue and debate against the aims and  objectives of such terrorists. This he said can be done by highlighting true religious beliefs to counter religious terrorism and promoting true legitimate politics under the rule of law. The same measures can be adopted by all Nigerians regardless of their religious leanings to tell off Boko Haram that it has no religious anchor or tenet to be killing innocent people as Islam is indeed a religion of peace and the Boko Haram menace in Nigeria is an anathema to indeed any religion as a guide for moralty and belief in the unseen God in any religion of our time.

    Similarly, Palestinians in Gaza and Jews in Israel or the diaspora should pointedly condemn the Netanyahu government in Israel and the leadership of Hamas for the obvious lack of respect for human lives inherent in

    the ongoing Israeli land incursion of Israel into Gaza.

    Both Israel and Hamas have thrown caution to the winds and are no better than blood thirsty suicide bombers in the manner and bloody costs of their present confrontation in Gaza. Put simply Israel has no moral or legitimate right to be bombing places peopled by children, women and families who are not combatants. Just as it is cruel of Hamas to be using innocent human beings as human shield in shooting rockets into Israel. Both actions are as bad as that of Boko Haram in Nigeria or the Taliban in Afghnistan or ISIS in Iraq or Syria. Killing human beings to achieve an objective when dialogue or diplomacy has not been exhausted is Barbaric and definitely Boko Haram – and both Hamas and Israel are behaving like Boko Haram in the latest bloody but avoidable confrontation in Gaza. And that too is a great shame and pity indeed.

  • Impeachment, credibility and security

    IN Nigeria this week the big news was the swift impeachment of Adamawa state Governor Murtala Nyako, his disappearance into hiding and the impending impeachment of Governor Tanko Al – Makura, in Nasarawa state where the legislators in that state have adopted the route taken by the Adamawa state house of Assembly in routing Nyako from office with brazen impunity. Of course the charges against Nyako were corruption charges and in the declared war by the federal government against corruption this would seem a step in the right direction in the anti corruption drive of the Federal government. But the there is infinitely more to the impeachment drive and charges than meets the eye as a cloud of credibility ominously darkens the horizon in this regard.

    First, the governors of both Adamawa and Nasarawa namely Murtala Nyako and Tanko Al Makura were allies of the Nigerian president and leader of the ruling PDP before they defected to the newly founded opposition APC which for now is the major headache of the PDP as it prepares for the 2015 elections in which the incumbent President is expected to declare his candidature any time from now. The impeachment drive would therefore seem like a good weapon for now to kill two birds with one stone for the ruling party. The first objective is to maim the opposition by crippling its number of state governors using impeachment as a weapon of power acquisition at and intimidation state level and political control nationally. The second is to assert at the federal level like the late Murtala Muhammed usually said in the anti corruption rhetoric that characterised his purge of the civil service then, – ‘this administration will not tolerate indiscipline, this administration will not condone abuse of office. ‘ So in effect then for Nigerian governors in the opposition the fear of impeachment is the beginning of wisdom as we head towards the 2015 presidential, state and gubernatorial elections. But then the PDP or the Federal government has forgotten that those who live in glass houses should not throw stones and that in the two pronged strategy it had adopted in winning the 2015 elections, namely military policing of elections and impeachment of opposition governors, it is behaving like the proverbial ostrich that buried its head in the sand thinking that nobody can see its body. Which is such silly folly which I will illustrate vividly here today with some events that happened just this week.

    These events were first the reaction of the international community to the Nigerian president’s $Ibn request to the National Assembly to approve for the upgrade of the equipment of the Nigerian Army to fight the menace of terrorism plaguing Nigeria called Boko Haram. The second was the reaction of former Minister of Defence retired General Theophilus Danjuma to the setting up of another massive fund namely Victims Support Fund to take care of the victims of the Boko Haram horror and their dependants. The third was the visit of the French President Francois Hollandeto West Africa, first to Ivory Coast, and Nigeria’s north easterly neighbours Niger Republic and Chad.

    Definitely I intend to use these events to illustrate the title of the day and show that the world at large is not deceived by the dubious fight against corruption in Nigeria and that that people can see through the veiled, kid’s glove being used to fight terrorism and are ready to counter this approach rather than sink with it.

    Let us start with the $ 1bn request for military equipment by first admitting that the expenditure is indeed very much required and needed. But what of the time and manner of its presentation? That certainly was in bad taste and a danger to our collective security. This was a request that should have been made confidentially to a closed joint session of the National Assembly and not on the public domain as was done Now the contents of the expenditure and the stated need of them can only gladden the stony and bloody hearts of Boko Haram as an admission by the government that the terrorist have really vanquished the Nigerian military such that it is now scavenging for funds to fight terrorism both at home and abroad. The public presentation can also dampen the morale of our military who are risking their lives to protect all of us as they would be wondering what to expect of them between now when they are ill equipped and the time the equipment would arrive for their use. To me this was like telling the terrorists to wait till our military is ready for confrontation with them which smirks of benign, avoidable negligence and a form of surrender which was not intended in the making of the public request for expenditure.

    Unfortunately as I was typing this piece I got the news that that National Assembly has gone on its usual two month vacation and is due to resume in September without considering the president’s urgent request for the $ 1bn to fight Boko Haram ,and this raises further questions. Do the Federal legislators not believe the urgency in the request? or do they not believe that the money will be used for the purposes stated? or again, is it the case that they not take the issue of Boko Haram serious enough that they can leave their approval hanging till September by which time the Chibok girls may still be missing because the military is not equipped to fight Boko Haram or find the 200 abducted Chibok girls? A sickening stench of levity and nonchalance reverberates around this urgent and unattended $Ibn request of the president and the legislators certainly owe the Nigerian public and electorate an explanation if and when they resume in September.

    For now one needs to compare this apparent legislative neglect with the pungency and urgency in the speech credited to retired General Theophilus Danjuma before the Nigerian president at the setting up of the Victims Support Fund Committee to get funds for Boko Haram victims. General Danjuma reportedly said that the war against Boko Haram was taking too long and that he called it a civil war before but people thought he did not know what he was saying and the they called it insurgency. Danjuma said the committe will not go to the Sambisa forest where the terrorists are operating except the President is ready to lead them there a Commander in Chief. Danjuma said the war should be won immediately as Boko Haram seem to be having the upper hand for now. Obviously, Danjuma a Nigerian Civil war hero knows what he has seen and heard on the handling of the Boko Haram crisis and if he had his way, given his utterances before the president, he would not be seen dead with the present approach in high places to contain this bloody terrorism destroying Nigeria so brazenly before our very eyes, like Wole Soyinka would have said.

    This Danjuma warning can also be compared with the views of our American friends especially in their Congressional hearings where US legislators are treated to information that the Nigeria military is so corrupt that the huge $6bn budget for defence has been diverted for non military purposes by the the top brass such that not enough money gets to the battle front to buy arms and ammunition for fighting terrorism. The authorities in Nigeria should debunk such information publicly and urgently if they are not true instead of keeping mute and thinking that such stories will just go away.

    Definitely they will spread like a virus on the internet instead. Next the visit of French President Francois Hollande to Ivory Coast, Niger and Chad on security matters has a story on Nigeria’s strategy on fighting security and terrorism in the region.

    President Hollande at our Centenary Celebration promised to help Nigeria fight terrorism but he has not gone to sleep over it. If anything the French have decided to take the bull by the horn and not go to sleep while there is obvious fire on their thatched roof in the region and that is why their president is on site to see things for himself. The French certainly have serious concern on terrorism in the Sahel and that is why their president will visit Niger and Chad our neighbours in the NE of Nigeria. Given the latest vacillation and delay in approving expenditure to equip our military there is every likelihood that France will give equipment and military aid to Niger and Chad such that Boko Haram will flee those nations and intensify its death grip on our NE states.

    Before, our military usually pursued terrorists on our borders in the North East far into Chad and Niger with impunity that put the fear of God into such terrorists such that they never return.

    Nowadays the reverse is the case as our borders have become porous such that Boko Haram, like Danjuma lamented, now choose where and when to strike in our entire North East of six states with three under a state of Emergency. Obvously the French are not forgetting their former colonies because of deep economic and historical ties. Their president is in our backyard in the region to show the Francophone nations that they are not alone in fighting terrorism especially as the giant they usually relied on to take the lead has for now developed feet of clay. Definitely the French policy on fighting terrorism in the three nations their president is visiting is that a stitch in time saves nine which is infinitely far superior for regional security than delayed expenditure on urgent military equipment and legislative vacation in the middle of a civil war that we still call insurgency.

  • Between electoral and executive rascality and democracy

    ELECTIONS in any democracy create or destroy power. Which in effect means that while elections can refresh power for incumbents they can also remove them from power. That was what happened in Ekiti State recently and even though the loser’s wife has protested that what happened at the election will soon be known, the fact is that power has shifted base from one party to another and from an incumbent to an incoming. That is the beauty of democracy.

    The acceptance of loss of power with equanimity and without loss of composure or face, is another potent aspect of elections that nurtures stability and continuity in governance and security. Thankfully all that was very much at play again at the last gubernatorial elections in Ekiti state and is something that we in this part of the world can be quite proud of, at least this time around.

    The reason for mutual backslapping or elationover a smooth electoral transition of power in Ekiti is not difficult to see if you monitored the reactions of politicians to some elections globally in the last week. In Indonesia’s presidential elections this week the two contestants have claimed victory in a way similar to how Former US President George Bush Jnr did on his election in 2000 for a first term of office when the results were very close when he defeated Al Gore in a close and controversial election decided by the Florida recount. Similarly in Afghanistan, the front runner in the announced election results asked for an urgent audit of the votes cast to confirm his lead while his opponent who also disputed the election results was planning to form a parallel government. This was a move which saw the US, the ‘owner’ or midwife of Afghan democracy sending its Secretary of State John Kerry scurrying back to Afghanistan to warn that any parallel government will not have US aid or US guarantee of security for Afghanistan- which both contestants know and admit is a sine qua non for any leader to rule Afghanistan at this present time.

    So, in effect, it follows that elections in some circumstances need some guarantees to facilitate their conduct and transparency and in some cases some threats, either subtle or direct, to ensure that those who get elected really get to take over power in a con-ducive environment. Surely these are the rigors or the political costs of elections and they vary from place to place. In Ekiti of recent the army was the guarantor of a free and fair election while INEC was the organiser and facilitator. In Afghanistan the US was the guarantor and in either Ekiti and Afghanistan, the contestants were left in no doubt as to the conduct expected in the elections even though the electoral body was given a free hand to operate . In Ekiti some critics have called the involvement of the army a militarisation of elections, which I think is a misnomer as soldiers did not vote. All they did was to police the election as the normal police was deemed inadequate to provide such function even though they were on the ground filly kitted like an army for any eventualities.

    Which meant that the Army in Ekiti policed the election on behalf of the police which will make such operation a mere ‘police action’ similar to the one the Federal government of former Head of State ex-General Yakubu Gowon embarked on at the beginning of the Nigerian Civil War to crush the Biafran secession. Surely that seems to have become the mode of security for state elections under INEC nowadays as it was done in Edo state before Ekiti and all things being equal it would be repeated in Oshun state elections due in August. The only snag in the comparison with the Afghan election guarantee is that while the US had no stake in who won the election in Afghanistan, the Commander in Chief of the Nigerian army is the leader of one of the parties viewing for power in the state and has even come there to campaign for the party’s candidate who eventually won.

    You have to wonder then what could have happened if the Commander in Chief’s candidate had lost or whether his losing at all was ever a part of the security guarantees for the elections. We need to mention that the police action against the Biafran rebels later metamorphosed into a full scale military action when the Biafran army proved a hard nut to track with that initial strategy.

    Aside from power shift arising from elections, real power rascality can ensue between power holders and those with whom they exercise or share power as was the case in the US this week when some US Republican Party leaders asked that US President Barak Obama should be impeached for violating the US Constitution in his use of presidential powers. Which is quite laughable considering the fact that President Obama was a professor of Constitutional law before becoming president surelyknows the limits of presidential powers. But his accusers are not joking on the charges and some senators have stoked the fire against Obama further by threatening to take him to court on similar charges. Obama in turn have called their bluff by saying that he has acted within the constitution and would be happy to have his day in court on the matter with his accusers. Of course Obama is serving his second term and cannot be frightened with the prospect of losing his powers through any presidential elections again but he is becoming a lame duck president faster than most of his predecessors in office. A lame duck president in the US is one who is ignored because he is in his last term and people are preparing for his successor as he is running out of tenure and office and is not quite relevant on issues. So Obama can afford to make himself merry with the rascality of those seeking his impeachment as his days are numbered in office anyway.

    This is not so however if a sitting president in any nation is seeking re election and a state governor stands in his way for what ever reason. This brings to mind the problem the Adamawa State governor Murtala Nyako is having over a letter he wrote recently condemning the security strategy and presidential style of Nigeria’s incumbent President and Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces of Nigeria President Goodluck Jonathan.

    As at now Governor Nyako is facing impeachment charges from his state legislature that is surely a spill over from his face off with the Nigerian president and I am sure that the Adamawa governor is fighting dearly for his incumbency even though there is no election yet in his state. Surely Governor Nyako knows very well by now what the late but very witty MKO Abiola meant when he said only a mad man will stand in front of a moving train, when he counts the cost of his altercation with the Nigeria president over the security of his state where he is the chief security officer, and that of the purview of the C- in C which covers Nigeria including Adamawa state. This has shown that even in the use and management of power and security, water must find its own level at all times as incumbencies at both state and federal levels are not certainly equal in many aspects. Especially in Nigeria where Aso Rock is the fount of power and patronage thanks to our unitary system of governance in a so called federal arrangement or constitution.

  • A New World of terrorist, militant and populist democracies

    I start today with the statement – wonders will never end – and by the time we finish with each other today on this page, I bet you will agree that I have not exaggerated, missed the point or used that otherwise innocent expression very lightly. I state that I have no doubt whatsoever in saying that under normal circumstances or what Economists will call – a ceteris paribus assumption – which is ‘all things being equal, democracy has come to be accepted globally as the style of governance most suitable for economic progress and socio political stability, because it allows through mass suffrage for the participation of the largest number of people in any society or political system. It follows therefore that whatever the conclusions I reach today, the intention here was never to doubt the efficacy or suitability of democracy as an ideology in finding solutions to the governance and leadership problems of our time. The first wonder I unleash therefore is that the former Nigerian president retired General Olusegun Obasanjo reportedly said in a BBC Hausa service interview that while some of the abducted 200 Boko Haram girls will not be released for some time, the ones to be released may be released only because they are pregnant. Which really is something that I cannot get over given the source and the gravity of the abduction not only to the parents but the civilised world at large. The second wonder was the news that the US and Iran have promised to support the government of Iraq to stop Sunni rebels that have taken over most of the North and East of Iraq from overrunning the capital Baghdad. That amazing amity of views from both US and Iran on Iraq is a major diplomatic earthquake as both nations are very strange bedfellows indeed where Iraq is concerned as they had a common enemy in Saddam Hussein the former Iraqi dictator that the Iraqi Invasion of 2003 by the US removed from power. So what has made this incredible volte face to happen? That is food for thought later. The third wonder today was the reported caution of the US Consul in Nigeria to the use of the term ‘rig and roast’ by a Nigerian leader and the lecture by the US envoy on the vocabulary of campaigns and elections in Nigeria which I find thoroughly amazing for its lack of respect for the peculiarities and political culture of the Nigerian environment with regard to elections and campaigns and on which I intend to take the distinguished diplomat on a brief excursion on this page later. Having thrown up my wonders and amazement let me now dilate on them in that order. I also want to put a label on each as I go about analysing each situation. I therefore see the the cruel fate that the former Nigerian Head of state has predicted for the abducted Chibok girls as possible only in a terrorist democracy like Iraq and Syria but definitely not yet Nigeria. I see the advance of Sunni rebels on Baghdad and the odd pair panic of the US and Iran as the symbol of a Militant democracy where stability depends on the ascendant insurgency of the day or the moment. Thirdly I see the danger pointed out by the US Consul in the context of a message of deterrence understood in the political environment of communication but lost to the good intentioned US consul, and label this Nigerian environment a populist democracy similar to the vibrant and populist democracy in Turkey under PM Reccyp Erdogan. Now let me treat my categorisations of these wonders in that order. First, it is only in a terrorist democracy that the sort of predictions made by the former head of state of Nigeria on the abducted Chibok girls can take place and the incumbent Nigerian president is well advised to take OBJ to task on the matter especially as he said that he knows how to contact Boko Haram but has not been asked to do so by the Federal government. The ugly fate he has foreseen for the girls should not be allowed to be achieved by all right thinking and God fearing people the world over. To me it is like making the abduction a fait accompli which means that the government should kow tow to terror which is something that I know the former Nigerian head of state would never have allowed if he was in power. The nonchalance attendant on that sort of fate for the Chibok girls coincide in great measure with the callous ease with which Syria’s president organised his re – election for a new term of office recently at the peak of a mindless civil war ravaging his nation, Syria. Whether OBJ is contacted or not to contact Boko Haram, he should be told in plain terms that no sincere or humane government abandons its citizens especially girls to the sort of gory future or fate he envisioned so graphically and callously during that unfortunate interview. In the next case of the Sunni Insurgents advancing on Baghdad, the US is being pragmatic in making the same call as Iran its implacable enemy. But oil is at stake here and already the price of oil has risen sharply because it is easy to see that the crises in Iraq will cut global oil supplies for some time. And I am sure there is immense consternation in the Pentagon over the inability of the Iraqi government in Baghdad to defend that nation’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. Obviously the Americans are learning that creating democracy in a foreign nation by invasion is no insurance for that democracy to thrive in the new environment. Surely the ghost of Saddam is haunting the government in Baghdad planted there by democratic elections but unable to provide the stability necessary for oil to flow through the oil life line of the west in the Straits of Homuz. This was a guarantee provided with US support by the Sunni dictator who lauded it over the Shiite majority as an antidote to Iran’s presence in the region before the US invasion removed him and put the Shiites in charge in a democratic election from which stability took a quick flight out of the window in Iraq. Now the Sunnis are returning to Baghdad and I think Saddam will be smiling in his grave at the US which removed him and is now shivering like Iran at the approach of Saddam’s protégé insurgents. That really is the wonder that may never end in military and terrorist democracies now springing up in our new world. On the ‘rig and roast‘ warning, the US envoy must be commended for his concern but the content and context of communication must be explained to him. He has rightly asked for caution as we go through the elections in June, August and 2015. But the warning is understood by those to whom it was sent given the history of campaigns and elections in the two states of Ekiti and Osun as well as the political culture of the two states. Again the Iraqi invasion by the US provides a good example of the peculiarities of political communication that US diplomats need to examine and respect. When the US captured Iraqi towns during the Iraqi invasion they left Saddam’s statues in the captured towns and proceeded but the applauding Iraqis laughed and scoffed at them in disbelief until they learnt they needed to pull down Saddam’s statue for the Iraqis to believe he was indeed gone. The same applied when Saddam’s sons were killed. The Iraqis did not believe until they saw their bodies on the streets. Nigeria is a vibrant democracy with a political culture of rigging and the message of deterrence is understood by real, past and potential riggers. Certainly the end justifies the common goal of free and fair elections that the US and Nigeria are striving to achieve and all that amazed me was the patronising posture by the US consul to be more catholic than the Pope in daring to think that he knows the pain of rigging more than the victims of several rigged elections in the areas of elections such as Ekiti and Osun states in the South west, where populist democracy is the vogue in this our Nigeria. That really was a pity.

  • NASFAT Prayer, terrorism and the politics of deceit

    I learnt of the death of the Emir of Kano this week just as I was reading a full page advertised prayer titled NASFAT PRAYS FOR NIGERIA with the sub title – Reinvigorating Godliness into Governance and Citizens Value System. This NASFAT Prayer is the underlying theme of all that I want to discuss today in the context of the above topic. I found the NASFAT prayer gripping and very brave and I think it is the first of such from a religious body in this nation that gives the vivid and clear impression that the Boko Haram menace transcends religion simply because that bloody sect does not recognise nor respect either God or humanity, in the inhuman fury with which it has waged a war of attrition and terror on Nigerians in the North East of the country, killing and maiming innocent Nigerians on a daily basis to date. Sadly the illustrious Emir of Kano was almost killed by Boko Haram for speaking up against the sect which recently killed the Emir of Gwoza. But the late Emir of Kano would smile in his grave any day if a copy of NASFAT prayer for Nigeria is shown him, as it was a pungent analysis of the problems of Nigeria and a no holds barred condemnation of Boko Haram and its claim of being a religious organisation, which was the reason the sect attempted unsuccessfully to assassinate the late Emir. Before dilating on some aspects of the NASFAT Prayer let me briefly comment on some issues on the global scene this week that lend themselves to interpretation and comments along the line of the topic of the day especially in terms of the politics and perhaps the diplomacy of deceit. The first was the news that the President and PM of Israel have sent a congratulatory messages to Egypt’s newly elected and anointed leader in the last presidential election in that nation, former army chief Abd Fattah al Sisi. Obviously the Israeli leaders are conversant with the diplomatic maxim that in diplomacy there are no permanent enemies or friends but permanent interests. Which showed clearly that Israel was perspiring nervously while the demonstrations in Egypt that overthrow former President Housni Mubarak were going on from 2011 and must have been really terrified when the Islamic Brotherhood which was an implacable of Israel won the elections after the demonstrations and President Mohammed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood assumed powers as president before being upstaged on a military coup by the army, then led by the Field Marshal Israel was swiftly congratulating as winner in the last presidential elections in Egypt. Obviously the Israelis feel more secure and safe with a military politician in power in Cairo to maintain the status quo ante, which the election of Morsi rattled. Sisi’s election would therfore ensure that the peace deal with Egypt signed during the era of late President Anwar Sadat in Egypt and PM Menachem Begin in Israel, is in place and not in any danger of violation from Cairo, to ensure peace and stability between the two most powerful nations in the volatile Middle East, a region that is definitely the boiling pot of world politics today. Similarly in France where the victorious Allies that defeated Nazi Germany commemorated the landing of the Allies in 1944 in Normandy, France, the presidents of the US, Russia and Ukraine met at the ceremony and shook hands with each other which showed the niceties as well as the deceit inherent in global diplomacy. This is because the US president, Barak Obama had accused the Russian president of violating international law when he invaded and annexed Crimea in Western Ukraine. Normally they should not be on speaking terms because the US is leading EU nations in putting in place sanctions on Russia . But the morals amongst nations is different from the morals amongst individuals. So while Barak Obama may privately think that Vladmir Putin is a lawless individual he had to shelve that in France and speak to him as President of the US in the hope that diplomacy may still make him see the annexation of Crimea differently. Similarly the newly elected President of Ukraine met Russian President Putin and they did not come to blows as their two forces are doing killing each other in East Ukraine where Russian supported rebels are trying to secede and establish a pro Russian state on Ukraine’a territory. According to reports the two president met, shook hands and promised to resolve the issues amicably which I am sure must have sorely taxed the temper of the new Ukrainean president as the innocent looking and straight faced Putin is indeed the aggressor in the way his regime has been using force and terror to intervene and disrespect the territorial integrity of Ukraine. But again the issue of morals between states and individuals calls for restraint at such moments. It is therefore on the issue of morals that we return to NASFAT’s prayer for our nation Nigeria. The prayer admits that Nigerians are a very religious and prayerful lot with Mosques and Churches in virtually every street. What is lacking, the prayer noted is‘ sincerity of faith and devotion to the requisite moral codes of conduct enjoined on the faithful by God. Incidentally the prayer concluded ruefully‘ these two are the prerequisites for prayers to be answered, irrespective of the faith of the supplicants ‘. NASFAT then went on to identify acts of immorality amongst the rulers and the ruled in Nigeria. On acts of immorality in governance NASFAT identified eight points and I will dwell on two for reasons of space. On immorality on the part of citizens NASFAT identified four points and again I will discuss two of them for obvious reasons. Let me state that each and every one of these 12 acts should form compass for every Nigerian citizen interested in the salvation of our nation and in the pursuit of a goal of the realisation of a good and decent life for all Nigerians regardless of their creed or faith. On acts of immorality in governance I have chosen –Leaders living in mansions while the masses live in slums or are outrightly homeless and – Leaders having their children receiving education in the best private schools while large numbers of public schools are neglected, while a large population of school age children roam the streets uncared for. On the acts committed by the citizens I have picked that identified as – selling of votes and good conscience for monetary gains and – preference for apathy to partaking in tasking processes, works and organisations political and social structures through which state of affairs could be positively influenced. On the issue of mansions for leaders and homelessness for the masses nothing illustrates that more than the emergence of Boko Haram in the north where for decades school children have been attending Islamic schools while ignoring formal education. As far back as 1974 I could recollect a GOC, then General Abisoye reporting a military governor of the then North East where I did my national service to then head of state General Yakubu Gowon that the North East was not participating in the Universal Primary Education scheme of the Federal government because primary school students were not going to primary schools but were in Koranic schools under dogo yaro trees in Maiduguri, the capital of the NE state then. If schools had been established then and not mounds of blocks put on ground in far places for which bureaucrats in the capital paid ghost teachers in non existent schools, there would not have been easy converts for Boko Haram and its meaning would have no attraction, as it would never have been attractive to well educated young people it found in the gaping vacuum of poverty and ignorance it has exploited so massively and so callously in the vast arid sahel of the six NE states carved out of the former NE state. On the acts of immorality committed by the citizens the issue of the immorality of vote selling speaks for itself in terms of its rapaciousness and villainy. On the issue of neglect of education in public schools and the ascendancy of private schools and universities, nothing illustrates this more than the picture of a recent award of honorary degree by a private university to the Coordinating Minister of the Economy and Finance, grinning from ear to ear as she received her award, while the news in the same medium was replete with that of several institutions of higher learning on strike for high tuition fees. Definitely NASFAT has played a role after my heart with these prayers and I doff my hat to its leaders for giving Nigerians hope that if we retrace our steps and pray to God we still have hope like Jesse Jackson said when he lost the presidential candidacy of his party in the US that God is not finished with us yet. Many thanks to NASFAT for such hope which I had thought was forlorn for Nigeria, till now.

  • Terrorism, culture and brutality

    On Nigeria’s Democracy Day May 29 President Goodluck Jonathan called on Nigeria‘s security forces to wage a ‘total war ‘ against the terrorist group Boko Haram and put an end to the impunity of terrorism and insurgency. The call was long overdue but even then, it is still appreciated that it has at last been made, if only for the records.

    More so as it is apparent that the military, amongst the security forces especially, is running out of excuses as well as ideas and stratagems to prosecute a war in a territory in which those who give it intelligence lure its forces into bloody ambushes by Boko Haram, making it look as if the famed Nigerian Army was an hostle army of occupation in its own territory in the North East, which is still a part of the territorial borders of our great nation.

    Globally amongst world leaders this week, President Goodluck Jonathan was not alone in giving the marching orders to a security apparatus that seemed to be fiddling like the famed Emperor Nero of the Ancient Roman Empire, who famously fiddled while his capital Rome, was burning.

    In Pakistan a woman was beaten to death, indeed she was stoned to death by her relatives because she married against the family wishes and Pakistan PM Nawaz Sharif ordered immediate investigation and urgent submission of the report this week as the Police were said to be standing by as the mob killing was going by.

    Which meant that the Police simply looked the other way as the crime was being committed because marriages are usually arranged by families in Pakistan and the Policemen who were in attendance outside the court house knew what they were doing and their excuse that they arrived after the crime had been committed did not jell with the Pakistani PM who has asked that those policemen around at the time be brought to book.

    Unfortunately what happened in Pakistan happened before when a government Minister was gunned down for criticising the Taliban by a policeman in his security escort while his colleagues just looked on.

    Similarly an Afghan Minister was beaten to death at the Airport in Kabul where pilgrims were waiting to be airlifted to Saudi Arabia just because some pilgrims had their flight delayed, not cancelled.

    Someone identified the unfortunate Minister as he was to board a flight on official duty and the irate pilgrims beat him to death with no one coming to the victim’s aid. The brutality in Pakistan and Afghanistan were fatal for the victims but the ongoing one in Sudan which is also outrageous and barbaric is not, at least for now.

    In that country a Sudanese woman of Ethiopian extraction was sentenced to death while pregnant for apostasy because she married a Christian and refused to divorce him which they said is against Islamic law in Sudan. The woman has delivered her baby while in prison custody this week with her first child, also an infant, and sentence is being delayed for two years to enable her take care of her baby. Which I find quite mind bogging in its cruelty and barbarity as all the world’s religion preach peace and mercy towards even enemies.

    The plight of the Sudanese woman to me is very similar to those of the abducted 200 Nigerian girls in the grim custody of Boko Haram with the wicked and ominous threat that they will be sold off in marriage like merchandise dangling over their heads as Boko Haram taunts a civilised world with more murders on a daily basis in Nigeria’s North East.

    Although Nigeria’s President Goodluck Jonathan has drawn a line in the sand for Boko Haram for threatening the gains of democracy it is to another African nation that we must look for an example of a head on solution to contain terrorism, insurgency and the sort of cultural brutality and religious bigotry in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Nigeria mentioned before.

    That nation is former Coloonel Muammar Gaddafi’s Libya where a retired general, Khalifa Haftar has taken up arms against terrorists and insurgents who he said had infiltrated government and the National Assembly of Libya. He accused the present Libyan government of being unable to contain terrorism thus being inept in maintaining the security and safety of life and property of Libyans generally. His call has been taken up by similar minded secular Libyans and Islamic insurgents like our own Boko Haram are being attacked all over Libya to bring sanity to the government and administration of that nation.

    The general has been branded a rebel by the government in Tripoli but he remained undeterred and has called for a postponement of elections due on June 25 saying that time is not conducive for this as the augean stable of Libya’s murky, bloody insurgency and terrorism has to be sanitised by force, first and foremost.

    The government in Libya has however said the elections must go on. Meanwhile the Islamist insurgents under attack by the retired general warned the US not to intervene while the US has asked its citizens in oil rich Benghazi east of Libya, where a US ambassador was killed recently, to leave the area because it was unstable in terms of security. The Islamist Insurgents on their part have warned that the US should not intervene in Libya as the consequence of such would be worse than what the US saw in Somalia and Iraq.

    Some critics have said the retired general could be a CIA agent as he fled and lived in the US when he quarrelled with the late Muammar Gaddafi. To me however his actions and motives are salutary and patriotic as he seemed focussed on achieving the stability and security of the Libyan state which has been elusive to the present government in Tripoli which so far has not been able to establish its legitimacy and relevance by containing the sanguinary and bloody insurgency of Libya’s many volatile and bloody Islamic insurgent militia.

    What the Libyan government should have done is to find common ground with the retired general who is fighting the for the government in a critical power vacuum created by the ineptitude and weakness of the government in Tripoli. Similarly the PDP government in Nigeria should find common ground with the opposition APC in fighting Nigeria’s Islamic Insurgency which is what Boko Haram truly is.

    Instead, a spokesman of the ruling party reportedly said that the demonstrations on the abducted Chibok girls was being orchestrated by the APC all over the nation. Which to me means that the PDP is directly giving kudos to APC although that was not intended.

    Any party that is involved in any demonstration on the abducted Chibok girls should be commended and saluted for such a patriotic gesture.

    That the ruling party should blame the APC for this means that the PDP is not involved in the demonstrations to bring our girls back and that is simply unpatriotic as the issue of the missing Chibok girls transcends politics and the ruling party should have joined APC in such a national assignment for the overall public good on the missing girls Certainly the PDP spokesman missed the point on the demonstrations and has only succeeded in portraying his party in very bad light on the demonstrations over the Chibok girls.

    In addition it was reported that APC was organising demonstrations because it was in power in the three North East states namely Adamawa, Yobe and Borno which are under emergency rule.

    Again that allegation missed the point. It is normal for the opposition to do what it was alleged to have done because that was the duty of a responsive and responsible political party in any such environment. It is also the duty of the government in power in Abuja to compliment such effort to show that it has not washed its hands off the missing Chibok girls or to quell rumours that it is just paying lip service to global and local efforts to find the missing Chibok girls.

    Such cooperation with the APC would have been selfless and civil on the part of the PDP and would have lent more credibility to the subsequent, new found courage of the Commander in Chief, the ruling party’s leader in declaring total war on Boko Haram. Instead of the hollow, rumbling thunder of silence, gloom nonchalance and uncertainty which greeted the threat, locally and globally especially on the issue of the missing 200 Nigerian Chibok girls.

  • Boko Haram, politics and a dishonest world

    JUDGING from headline news about daily Boko Haram killings in Nigerian newspapers this week alone, one would wander why foreign nations like the US and Britain have not asked their citizens to flee Nigeria or avoid it like a plague altogether, instead according that dubious honour with alacrity to Thailand where a coup took place during the week. Yet both Nigeria and Thailand are vibrant democracies where elections are the identifying hall marks although the difference as shown this week is that while the Thai army has suspended the constitution, it has not included the part that concerns the key part of Thailand’s stability, which is the Thai monarchy. On the other hand, in Nigeria according to reports, the army chief of finance at a military training course for army accountants lamented that the army cannot defeat Boko Haram because it was underfunded and bureaucracy was hampering the release of even the meagre funds to an embattled army expected to end the Boko Haram horror swiftly, by first finding and bringing home safely our 200 Chibok girls. Obviously the difference is clear in the workings of the democracies of Thailand and Nigeria and that is food for thought today. We will however top the menu to be served with an icing on the cake in terms of the US involvement in Nigeria and its recent criticism that only the US is helping Nigeria on Boko Haram while the globally vocal France and Britain are yet to show up in Nigeria to contain Boko Haram as announced with fanfare since the unfortunate abduction of the Chibok girls last month. In all these situations we are going to show how good faith and honesty were lacking in the governance of the nations mentioned as well as their accomplices, not only in the practice of democracy but also in the conduct of diplomacy. We end up with some comments on Egypt’s presidential elections this week end, where populist democracy is being buried as the army chief returns in a key election, in a new democracy that puts priority on the security and stability of Egypt, rather than the sort that saw out former Egyptian dictator Housni Mubarak in Egypt in 2011. Which also was the kind that the army stamped out so, nastily albeit bloodlessly in Thailand this week. Starting with Nigeria, it must be said that in spite of the Boko Haram horror and the showing of CNN reporters in the hamlets of Chibok patrolling with vigilante groups at night, the president is yet to visit Chibok even though whole world has taken the plight of the Chibok girls to heart. The reason is quite clear. One does not need presidential spokesmen to clarify that this president is seeking re election and even though containing Boko Haram is in focus, it is not in contention with that democratic pursuit .So the politics of re election must go on willy nilly and in spite of Boko Haram and the Chibok girls. This surely explains why the president was reported to have told demonstrators in Abuja that they should direct their protests on the Chibok girls at terrorists and not his government as done in other places experiencing terrorism. In addition the president cannot be expected to lose key states where elections are expected soon to a rampaging opposition that is far ahead and proactive in proffering solutions to Nigeria’s numerous socio economic and political problems while being burdened with the issue of Boko Haram when, anyway, the government has renewed the State of Emergency which the governors of the three states of the North East never wanted. More importantly the Americans have brought in drones and anti terror experts stationed in neighbouring Chad and would soon take care of Boko Haram while the business, or is it politics, of governance and re election go on as usual and undisturbed. Which makes plain common sense although the huge security and stability implications are there for all to see. Thailand’s democracy however was a different kettle of fish before the army intervention this week. Too many demonstrations by pro and anti government forces represented by the red and yellow shirts and election by proxy by the Shinawatra family of the former Prime Minster wanted for corruption in Thailand, paralysed business and the Thai economy such that ordinary Thais are relieved by the intervention of the army. Of course the Thai politicians have themselves to blame, as from Thailand’s political history they knew that the army could always come in. They could even have been invited by the monarchy which like that of Britain is very much revered in Thailand. So, in brief, on Thailand let the politicians rue their excesses in terms uncontrolled, frequent and paralysing demonstrations for now and hope to strike a deal with the military soon, so as not to prolong military rule. As said earlier, it was reported widely this week that US Secretary of State John Kerry took a rare swipe at France and Britain over their promised help to help Nigeria fight Boko Haram and find the abducted Chibok girls. John Kerry spoke at an anniversary dinner in the US and noted that France criticised the US for not attacking Syria over the use chemical weapons by the Bashar Assad regime after Kerry had elaborately shown the civilised world that the American government had ample evidence to punish Assad. Obviously Kerry was trying to tell the French who know more about the Sahel where Boko Haram is operating to be more forthcoming in helping Nigeria to fight Boko Haram as promised instead of developing cold feet at the last minute. At least the US Secretary of State wants France to use the same zeal it used to put pressure on the US to attack Syria on chemical weapons earlier, on its promise to help Nigeria fight Boko Haram in its backyard in Africa . Which really in recent times, given the decisive French military interventions in Mali and Central African Republic, is what ECOWAS sub region or the treacherous Sahel and its creeping desert where Boko Haram and militant Islamists operate with impunity, have become for France in Africa. Definitely as a concerned Nigerian I do not think the US Secretary of State is asking too much of France this time around and would appreciate a quick and positive French rethink on the matter to save Nigeria from terrorism. Lastly the presidential election in Egypt provides another dubious face of democracy very much tied to security and political stability. The presidential elections have two candidates but one of them is there just to make up the numbers. The Egyptian army is mid -wifing the delivery of its erstwhile boss former Field Marshal Fatah El Sisi as the next elected president of Egypt. Not surprisingly, move is viewed with relief and satisfaction by most Egyptians after the tumult and violence of two street revolutions that overthrew former dictator Housni Mubarak who was deposed in 2011 and replaced by elected president Mohammed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood which has now been branded and outlawed in Egypt as a terrorist organisation and its members sentenced to death en masse in recent times. Today, the fate of both Mubarak and Morsi are extremely different while that of Egypt is being put firmly in the hands of Sisi by the ongoing presidential elections. Morsi is awaiting trial for treason and in prison and the penalty for that is the death penalty. Mubarak on the other hand is in military custody and was this week fined pittance and jailed three years for corruption and massive embezzlement while in power for almost three decades. It is clear that under Sisi, Egypt will slide back to a highly controlled democracy that puts human rights at arms length while guarding and protecting jealously its stability and security against its own version of Boko Haram which is the Islamic Brotherhood which it has driven underground again by banning. So Egypt has defined its own democracy on its own terms which was what then Field Marshal Sisi told a Pentagon official when he asked the Americans to see Egypt through Egyptian eyes. Now those eyes will be converted or metamorphose to another round of Pharaonic democracy when the rituals of democracy confer the presidency of Egypt on Sisi in this presidential election in the mould of past elections that created a long line of military dictators. Its pedigree goes back to the late Gamal Abdel Nasser, Anwar Sadat, and Housni Mubarak with the Muslim Brotherhood condemned to political perdition and its formerly elected president Mohammed Morsi awaiting the call of the executioner. Really under these circumstances it is very difficult to say long live Egyptian or Pharaonic democracy. Yet, this is the destiny of Egypt in the ensuing Sisi presidency after this election. Sadly to me this is vintage democratic fraud and farce at its best and one can only wonder what will happen next in Egypt, in the name of democracy.

  • Elitism, politics and terrorism

    Despite the global furore over the abduction of over 200 Nigerian school girls in NE Nigeria, the World Economic Forum still went on in Nigeria. The CNN aired it and gave more space to the ‘Bring Back the girls‘ global movement that had a mournful Michelle Obama on board just as it showed a cheerful and confident Nigerian President, assuring the audience at the WEF in Abuja that with the global outrage on the abduction of the unfortunate girls, the end of terrorism was in sight in Nigeria – a statement no one but the Nigerian leader can believe, given the track record of Boko Haram in killing and abducting Nigerian girls with impunity in recent times. Let me state clearly that no one doubts the importance of the WEF as a forum for bringing investments into Nigeria or the potential for such good investments to create jobs and help the Nigerian economy. It is the timing and the continuation of the hosting schedule by the nation’s financial and business elites, in the grip of a super World Bank government elite, and in spite of the abduction of the 200 Chibok School girls and the slaughter of 300 Nigerians in Gamboru Ngala on the eve of the WEF in Abuja, that leaves a bad taste in the mouth. Without mincing words, it was in bad taste for Nigeria to have gone on with the hosting of the WEF while the world was looking out for how to retrieve captured Nigerian girls from Boko Haram whose leader had wickedly told a world audience that the girls would be sold into slavery in a market he said already existed. In the face of such horror our president told his audience in Abuja that not to have held the conference would have meant capitulating as it were to terrorism. I disagree with that because as at now the offer of help to the Americans and the acceptance of such by a willing President Barak Obama made the capitulation of the Nigerian state a fait accompli in terms of self – pride, patriotism and loss of sovereignty and who knows, legitimacy. I suspect that the rationale of the powerful cabal or elites that advised the president to go on with hosting the WEF at all costs including the fate of the abducted girls, was to ape what the US and Britain did on the aftermath of 9/11 and the bombing of London by terrorists. The US President at the time of the bombing of the Twin Towers of 9/11 was George Bush Jnr and he asked Americans to take to the streets and continue with their lives as staying indoors would make Al Qada to think it has succeeded in frightening Americans from continuing with their way of life. George Bush then went after Al Qada by bombing the mountains of Afghanistan from where Bin Laden was shown mocking the US on the success of the terror of 9/11. That was the beginning of the global war on terror by the US as we know it today and it is to that US which eventually and ultimately tracked down Bin Laden under President Barak Obama that we are now turning to today to help us find our lost Chibok School girls. It is however necessary, no matter how painful for our dignity as a nation to note that while the US went after the terrorists of 9/11 and is still after them 13 years after, our government’s attitude to the abduction was simply embarrassing. At his media chat on the week of the WEF the president said that he did not know where the girls were and Boko Haram had not claimed that it has abducted the girls, only for the leader of the terrorist group to show up on video the following day to claim he has ‘your girls’ and would sell them. Till today there has been no official condemnation of that Boko Haram leader’s video or any threat by the Nigerian leader to capture the Boko Haram leader dead or alive as a deterrence. Instead it was at the WEF that he made the announcement that with foreign help, the end of terrorism was insight in Nigeria and I find that in consonance with what Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka said that the Jonathan Administration had allowed the Boko Haram menace to fester by treating it with kid gloves right from the onset. How that attitude to Boko Haram is redressed very urgently from now on, will determine when the Boko Haram terror will end and not the offer of foreign help to fight terror when the heart, grit or stomach for such a decisive fight, is lacking. Indeed the Nigerian President should borrow a leaf from the reaction of the former military head of state General Muhammed Buhari who condemned the Boko Haram and the video of their leader boasting that he would sell our girls. Buhari called the Boko Haram mindless religious bigots who have nothing to do with Islam or Christianity, both of which preach peace. Buhari then called on all Nigerians to forget religion or ideologies and close ranks in fightin Boko Haram to finish. This is the sort of talk expected of the Nigerian President today to give Nigerians assurance on their common destiny and security as citizens of the same nation. In addition Buhari would be the first Northern leader in my view, to boldly condemn Boko Haram and stand up to be counted for doing so. This alone is enough to put Boko Haram on tenterhooks to take flight and know that there are still some Nigerian leaders around who would not make merry while the thatched roof of their house was on fire but are bold enough to put out the fire before outside help arrives. However the Buhari reaction is different from the attitude of most Nigerian elites on the Boko Haram abduction. Some are like the proverbial ostrich with their heads buried in the sand hoping that the issue of the abducted girls would just blow away. They are mindless of what happens to the girls as long as their own daughters are not stopped from attending school in their part of the nation. One even asked of what use was any protest in Nigeria on the abducted girls as that would not bring them back. Yet school girls in the US and European capitals and US First Lady are carrying protest cards asking for the Nigerian girls to be brought back safely. Undoubtedly Nigerian elites live in their self created bubble of wealth and riches as they can afford to create their security to a large extent given their obscene opulence in the midst of such crass poverty. They, like all elites the world over forget the ageless adage from socialism that said the rich man must sleep with one eye open as long as there are people scavenging for food in his vicinity. That is the lesson to be learnt from the humanity inherent in showing concern for the abducted Nigerian girls, without asking for any gain or any chance of their bring brought back by so doing. However it is not only in Nigeria that elites look for what is there to gain in any endeavour. It is the same the world over. But the US which has accepted Nigeria’s offer for help in fighting Boko Haram may yet help us to kill two birds with one stone. The US in coming in to help us with terrorism can also clean our Augean stable or cesspool of corruption which is the stock in trade of the Nigerian bureaucratic,political and financial elite. The track record of the US on the war on terror is clear on this. It froze the accounts of individuals, institutions and charities funding Al Qada and that broke the financial backbone of the terrorist group. That can explain the resort of terr orists to kidnapping, drugs and armed robberies. But the US Intelligence service has a wide network globally on that and it will be interesting to know what they will throw up on those funding Boko Haram in Nigeria. Especially at the highest echelon of government, as the president once admitted they had infiltrated his cabinet. On this score, there is a very pragmatic example to adapt to the Nigerian situation as the US comes in to help us fight terrorism and perhaps later corruption. In Russia whose President Vladmir Putin this week celebrated the Soviet Union’s victory at the Second World War with a parade in recently annexed Crimea, the Russian power elites close to the Russian president are already feeling some heat as a result of the Stalinist expansion scheme of their leader in breaking up neighboring Ukraine. The US has applied sanctions on Russia similar that used to fight global terrorism by closing the foreign accounts of those Russians working closely with President Putin as he supports insurrection by Russian speaking peoples in Ukraine against the legitimate and sovereign government of that nation. In addition the US has also frozen the accounts of former ministers in the regime of former pro Russia Ukraine President Yanukovich who fled after he could not contain the protests that ousted him from office as president of Ukraine. Given this US strategy on fighting corruption in Ukraine and annexation in, there is a lot to look forward to as the Americans come in to help us on terrorism. Certainly this is one Greek gift that must be heartily accepted because it is just too good to be true.

  • Balance of power – security, credibility, and technology

    Ukraine’s Interim President Oleksandr Turchynov did not mince words this week in talking of War, indeed a third World War, and he certainly knew what he was saying. He accused Russia of leading the world towards a third world war in the way the Kremlin government of President Vladmir Putin of Russia was supporting the pro Russian activists who seized government buildings in Donetsk in the east of Ukraine and successfully, with Russian aid, repelled the efforts of the central government in Kiev, the capital of Ukraine to eject them. War invariably is a product of a collapse or breach of a security system in any environment, leading to escalation of violence, a breakdown of law and order and the emergence of a massive government in ability to protect lives and property. This is a familiar situation in many parts of the world today and our duty here is to highlight some of the nations that have had in recent times to deal with security as a top priority in the last few weeks. Nigeria had a massive security meeting of all state governors on Thursday this week, over the blood letting and incessant killing of Nigerians by the blood thirsty Boko Haram, where it was resolved that the army should use all means to find the school girls abducted from a girls school in Chibok in North East Nigeria. At the meeting it was also resolved to call to order the inflammatory letter of the governor of Adamawa state who had accused the Nigerian President of genocide against the north in the way it was handling the Boko Haram menace. In reality, the language and rhetoric of war and its outbreak are as familiar as they can be chilling, hair raising and outright ominous. US Secretary of State John Kerry accused Russia over Ukraine, after a break down of agreements, of ‘distraction, deception and destabilisation. ‘In turn his Russian counterpart Foreign Minister Sergey Levrov accused the US of trying to ‘seize’ Ukraine regardless of its environment to further American and European interests at the expense of Russian security. On his Asian tour US President Barak Obama was not left out of the global beating of the drums of war. In Japan he promised that the US would stand by Japan in its bid to defend the islands in the Pacific that China has threatened to take by force from Japan because they are Chinese. In Seoul, South Korea the US President Barak Obama said that the US ‘stands shoulder to shoulder’ with the people of S Koreawhich is vintage Tony Blair at the outset of the war on terror and the invasion of Iraq by his friend President George Bush of the US- in the conflict with N Korea which has promised to do its fourth nuclear tests in defiance of global security outcry. In the heat of all these, however, I could still detect the language of lamentation, capitulation or defeat, as in a war, in this week’s explanation of Najib Razak the PM of Malaysia, in the handwringing way he tried to assure the civilised world that his nation had tried its best in the way it has, and is still looking for the Malaysian Airline plane that disappeared from the blue skies with almost 300 people recently into the vast, literally bottomless Indian Ocean. This happened in the same environment with Australia which is helping to use technology the Malaysians don’t have to look for the plane, and which this week showed the world that it still relishes having the British Royal family as Australia’s Head of State, given the warm and emotional way they received the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and their son on a two week royal tour of Australia which ended this week. My contention this week with regard to the issues I have raised and the nations involved, is that for the world to have peace there must be respect for international law on the global scene and respect for the rule of law as well as the protection of life and property in the respective nations of the world that make up the comity of nations as in the UN. The power for the observance of international law is vested in the UN Security Council where the veto resides in five powerful nations that guarantee world peace and security in a balance of power. These nations are US, UK, Russia, France and China. In member states of the UN, the government of the day guarantees the security and the safety of lives and properties of its citizens. It is in the context of international law and its violation, and the use of power of the states mentioned here today that l now proceed to make some comments on the actions and inactions of their leaders and the consequences of these. Let me start with a Shakespearean analogy on the concepts of peace and war. In Henry the fifth before the battle of Agincourt, it was said – In peace there is nothing so befits a man as modest stillness and humility. But when the blast of war blows in our airs, then imitate the action of the tiger‘. This Shakespearean advice has weathered the test of time successfully and historically. It is meant here for Nigeria’s President Goodluck Jonathan in the way he has handled the Boko Haram terror with kid gloves so far, such that it has become a monster that is now threatening the trust on which Nigeria’s unity in diversity is based. In Nigeria there is an unwritten balance of power between the north and south which the Boko Haram is using religion to disrupt, thus threatening the soul of the Nigerian nation. That balance disturbance gave rise to the Nyako outburst. To restore the balance all the president needs to do is to vanquish Boko Haram quckly and swiftly to restore confidence in his official role as Commander –in Chief of Nigeria’s Armed Forces. It is also an advice that can be beneficial for the US President Barak Obama as he pledged support to US allies in the Pacific and Asia. Indeed a White House Correspondent pointedly asked him how credible he was on promises to Japan and S Korea. The question actually made the usually articulate US president to stutter in answering. Which is to be expected when he could not toe his red line on Syria over chemical weapons and Russia has recreated the balance of terror in recent times by seizing Crimea from Ukraine and promising to protect Russian speaking peoples in the former 15 now sovereign nations that made up the former USSR. At present US reluctance in shying away from war or confrontation and preferring diplomacy to war has led to a situation that has created the spectre of a third world war just because the US allowed Russian President Vladmir Putin to have his way first in Georgia, then Syria and now Ukraine. It is now clear that the absence of war is not a recipe for peace and lamentably so too, in this matter. On a lighter note, if indeed the disappearance of a plane with over 200 people can ever be that, I see the disappearance of the Malaysian plane in a new light given the apologetic language the Malaysian leader used to explain his nation’s inability to find the plane. He said even the ‘advanced nations’ could not have conducted the search better. Which to me is a sort of climb down language from an Asian tiger that has always claimed equality in terms of economic development and wealth with the so called advanced nations before, the plane disappearance tragedy. It is even more glaring that the technology to scan the depths of the ocean floors were and are still being provided by the so called advanced nations. Which still makes one to marvel at the wisdom inherent in that timeless advice of good, old Shakespeare, on war and peace.

  • Failure of government, security and legitimacy

    THE abduction of about 90 girls by Boko Haram in a boarding house in North East of Nigeria, and the decision of some of the parents to search for their daughters, in spite of the dangers inherent in that effort, is a clear sign of a lack of confidence in government ‘s actions on the search and that is that is also a potent sign of failure of government. A government, anywhere and by definition must be able to guarantee the security of lives and property in its territory and must have the confidence and trust of its citizens in carrying out this onerous and legitimate duty. If citizens usurp this major duty of any government, then they are questioning its authority and legitimacy to protect them and that again can lead to a breakdown of law and order as well as the machinery of governance. On the global scene, a similar situation to the Nigerian one is slowly but surely evolving in the stand off between pro Russia rebels in Donetsk in East Ukraine who seized government buildings and refused to vacate them, even with the presence of federal troops sent from the capital Kiev to dislodge them. The Donestk rebels are challenging the authority of the Kiev government and provoking it to attack them in the very good hope that this will make Russian strongman President Vladmir Putin fulfil his promise this week to use force to protect Russian lives in Donetsk, just as he did when he invaded an annexed Crimea very recently. On the other hand the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation- NATO – through its Secretary General was doing its own sabre rattling on Ukraine. The SG announced that NATO has more planes in the air and more ships on the high seas to deter Russia on the Ukraine crisis. The Nigerian government and the Kiev government in Ukraine have a lot in common in their handling of these two crisis and that is impotence in confronting the challenges they face on this matter. In Nigeria the government is just unable to stop Boko Haram killing innocent lives in N E Nigeria and the the terrorists struck in Abuja during the week killing 79 people and causing the president to pay a visit to the gory site and postpone his planned visit to Ibadan for an important political rally. Yet one needs to look at the available resources and strategies of these two beleaguered governments to appreciate why they seem so powerless in asserting their authority in their environment as expected of any government worth its salt. We start with Nigeria which is facing an insurgency in the NE of the nation where Boko Haram has committed some of the worst atrocities known to mankind in killing sleeping school boys in their dormitories, bombing transit passengers at bus stations and now kidnapping school girls from their dormitories. The government has created state of emergencies in the three states most affected namely Yobe, Borno and Adamawa but this has not lessened the fury and horror of Boko Haram and one can indeed expect Northerners to constantly pray like the ancient Europeans once prayed on the approach of marauding Norsemen and Vikings that – From the fury of Boko Haram good Lord deliver us. Yet Nigeria has a vibrant army with a reputation of getting its duty done according to its history and pedigree. So why the pervasive security inability to contain Boko Haram or eliminate its threat altogether? Ostensibly the tempo and success of Boko Haram bombing has increased because a high security chief boasted that Boko Haram terror should be over by April this year when the president changed his security chiefs recently. To me however the major challenge facing the military over Boko Haram is the vastness of the land mass of the North East of Nigeria from which six states had been carved out and the inaccessibility of the Cameroon Mountains spreading from Gwoza to Mubi and beyond, which Boko Haram has turned into a veritable hideout and a terrible danger zone from which the frustrated parents of the captured school girls have now gone to retrieve their daughters in the face of evident government incapacity to rescue them from their Boko Haram captors. The poor government security performance in this abduction episode has been complicated by inconsistent statement by the military on the number of girls freed leading to a retraction which has created a global credibility problem for the Nigerian military. Evidently Boko Haram is conducting a guerrilla warfare against the Nigerian army which is used to regular warfare. Admittedly it is difficult for the army to know when and where Boko Haram will strike next. But the military needs to get intelligence by penetrating Boko Haram cells and anticipating their raids. Secondly and most importantly it can ask for US aerial military support and drones to bomb the mountain forests in Gwoza and beyond to snuff Boko Haram out of its mountain hideouts. This was what the US did in the mountains of Afghanistan after 9/11 in 2001 to drive Al Quada out of its mountain hideouts when the US discovered that Al Qada leaders including Bin Laden were hiding in those mountains. The government must carry the fight to Boko Haram in its hideout and show evidence that it is capable of maintaining the territorial integrity and peace of the Nigerian nation by eliminating its threat swiftly and efficiently or be ready to carry the stigma of inability to protect the lives and properties of its citizens, which unfortunately is its global sovereign reputation at present. Indeed this is the only way this government can save face especially with a highly concerned APC, the opposition party which asked its governors not to attend a security meeting of all state governors called by the President of the republic. By their reported decision not to attend the President’s security meeting they have distanced themselves from failure of government of the day in securing the Nigerian state and that is a major challenge for the ruling PDP as the much touted 2015 elections approach, with the Boko Haram terror dangling dangerously like the famed sword of Damocles over the neck of the incumbent Jonathan presidency. The government in Kiev like that in Nigeria is also trying to redeem its security record to be worthy of that name as expected by its citizenry but it faces an uphill task in its contiguity to Russia the super power of the region trying to create a bi polar power world, long since the demise of the former Soviet Union. The diplomatic laxity of the US over the Syrian crisis and the lack of the enforcement of the red line drawn by the US in punishing the Assad regime in Syria has emboldened Russia to annex Crimea and now move towards the dismemberment of a sovereign state like Ukraine. Very soon the US and its hard working Secretary of State John Terry will realise that Russia is using democracy to buy time and secure the security of Donestk rebels in Ukraine. Although a deal was struck in Geneva, Switzerland with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov earlier, the rebels have said they did not give their mandate to Lavrov to sign any deal for them and that they are not leaving the occupied government buildings in Donestk. John Kerry reminds me of a certain British PM Neville Chamberlain from 1937 – 1940, who flew back to Britain from Germany after a meeting with Hitler waiving a piece of paper and saying he had ‘secured peace in our time’ just before Hitler reneged and started the Second World War after signing purportedly not to invade Poland. I think the message of NATO on the readiness of its ships and planes is more relevant than the diplomatic chicanery that Russia has used to befuddle the US Secretary of State to be busy negotiating with a Russian Foreign Emissary whose principal and boss is speaking the language of war. Unless NATO goes through on its deterrent threat of military preparedness to protect Ukraine from dismemberment through Russia, any agreement with the Russian Foreign Minister will not be worth the paper on which it is written. This is because Mr Putin is ready to use force to undermine the legitimacy and authority of the Kiev government and he can only be stopped by an equal, immediate and opposite force which only NATO, if it has the stomach for it, can provide, and not any diplomatic negotiations between the US Secretary of State and his wily time buying Russian counterpart Sergey Levrov.