Scholars of international relations have always considered peace on the borders of any country crucial in understanding that country’s relations with the outside world. In this sense, it is almost a truism that the most secure border is the undefended border. Good examples of secure borders are the USA/Canadian and Shengen borders in Europe. The sign of insecurity is when borders are heavily fortified. The removal of borders between or among a group of countries is a manifestation of peace and economic equilibrium. When there is unequal economic development, removal of borders will lead to push-pull movement in which people will move in large numbers to developed and economically buoyant neighboring countries in search of economic sustenance.
The greatest development in the politics of the world since 1945 is the attempt at European economic integration as a possible prelude to full political union. This happened in a Europe where between 1870 and 1945, the two countries in the heart of that continent namely France and Germany fought three wars, the last two plunging the world into military cataclysm that led to the death of close to 50 million souls not counting those who died as a result of disease and collateral damage. This is why the advent of the European Economic Community (EEC) and its metamorphosis into the European Union has not only been studied critically all over the world, it has also provided an example to follow in other regions of the world particularly in the Americas. South East Asia, Central Asia the Pacific Rim and Africa. The ECOWAS experiment did not just come from the moon, it was well rooted in historical antecedence.
Coming nearer home, we have been seized with the question of relations among neighbors in Africa. We cannot build any economic edifice among neighboring countries unless we first establish if there is some kind of entente cordiale between two countries and among others involved in economic integration. For Nigeria, the most important country in West Africa, charity must begin on our borders. I think it was Professor Ibrahim Agboola Gambari who first used an inelegant phraseology to describe this idea as co-prosperity area. It is inelegant in the sense that it brings back the feeling of a powerful country overrunning its neighbors as was done by Japan during the events leading to the Second World War. I have been involved with others in studying our relations with our neighbors for some decades and I have written quite extensively on this. I remember writing on Nigeria-Equatorial Guinea relations and Nigeria-Cameroun relations in the 1970s as purely academic exercise without necessarily thinking of policy implications. But somehow, I have had to advice government based on what initially looked like pure academic exercise. This has been a case of relevance of research in solving problems. I remember suggesting to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs the idea of posting its most senior and knowledgeable diplomats to the capitals of our neighbors rather than to distant places like WashingtonMoscow, New York, London, Berlin, Paris, Brussels and Beijing, important as these places may be. The home front which peace on our borders implies is more important than the glamour of world capital cities. Their economic importance can be handled by well-trained commercial and economic experts in these missions. Of course ambassadors Hamzat Ahmadu and Akporode Clark were once posted to Yaunde and Niamey but these were not strictly based on the kind of policy shift I had in mind.
Relations with all our neighbors namely, Benin, Niger, Tchad, Cameroun, Equatorial Guinea, and São Tomé and Principe are important and as we have now found out with the Boko Haram insurgency, a matter of life or death for our country. If our policy towards Tchad for example had been based on sound knowledge and operated by an influential envoy in Ndjamena, we would have had reports on the gathering storm because it is clear that Boko Haram had initially its rear base of operation in Tchad. This is not surprising to me. Borno shares a common border and history with its neighbors across the frontier in the Wadai and Kanem districts of Tchad.
In the long history of Kanem-Borno dating back around 800 A.D, that is the 9th century when Sayf bin dhi Yazan founded the Sayfawa dynasty, the area has witnessed political eruptions necessitating transfer of its capitals from Njimi in the 12century to N’gazargamu in the 15th century. Borno also witnessed the invasion of the kingdom by the Fulani jihadists necessitating dynastic change from the Sayfawa to the Kanemis in 1810 to preserve the independence of the kingdom before it was again invaded by an Arab conquistador named Rabih Fadlallah who occupied the place between 1894 and 1897 before the British and the French drove him out and shared his territory into what was then called British and French Borno. Tchad itself had never from colonial times till now been stable and had never been under civil admnistration under French colonial rule it was simply referred to as Territoire militaire du Tchad. It has continued to be governed by soldiers with consequent instability necessitating Nigeria’s military intervention in the country inthe 1980s. In the absence of jobs, Chadians have always been ready to offer their services legally or illegally as fighters rather than starve at home in their inhospitable environment.
In other words, what is happening now is history repeating itself. The joint military operation has now become necessary because Nigeria has failed to protect its own territory through lack of military preparedness and diplomatic manoeuvering that should have anticipated events if we had secured our borders.
I was in Maiduguri in 1983 when Chadians invaded Borno. Major-General Muhammadu Buhari, GOC Third Division of the Nigerian Army – yes the same Buhari – rushed the 23rd Armored Brigade commanded by Joshua Dogonyaro to Baga and Doro on Lake Chad and drove the Chadian rebels out of Nigeria. This is why a person like Buhari must find the present situation galling and almost humiliating. It is too late to wish that we can solve our problems ourselves and the setting up of an AU force of 7500 soldiers may be totally unnecessary if the present operations involving the Cameroun, Niger, Tchad and ourselves can be coordinated well under the rubric of the Lake Chad Commission.
We must learn a bitter lesson from this Boko Haram insurgency which started from local grievances but has now snowballed into an international crisis drawing in Cameroun, Niger and principally Tchad and Libya as a distant source of weapons since the collapse of the Col. Khadaffi’s regime in which we foolishly supported the invasion of an African country by NATO. Perhaps I need to say that Libya is not strange to Borno because there is a large section of Maiduguri called FEZZARI originally settled by people from The Fezzan in southern Libya.
The lesson in all this is the appreciation of the nexus between foreign and domestic politics and the need for military preparedness even in time of peace, knowing that eternal vigilance is the price for liberty. Poor governance at home has its reverberation abroad. One hopes the Chadian army now fighting the Boko Haram would not be tempted in getting involved in the politics of territorial expansion and exerting political pressure on an apparent militarily exposed Nigeria. The news we have is that Chadians are already involved apparently in clandestine administration of conquered Nigerian territories.
