Guess who came calling – Nicodemus-style – at the Aso Villa the other day; Benin Republic’s President Patrice Talon. Another strongman seeking to carve democracy in his image and after his likeness in his country coming to meet President Muhammadu Buhari behind closed doors at the Presidential Villa, Abuja Thursday last week. Although reports said that the meeting came moments after he arrived at the forecourt of the presidential villa at 11.35am, the agenda was not made public. Coming however in the wake of the April 28 parliamentary election which shut out the opposition parties and the accompanying clampdown on their leaders culminating in the restrictions imposed on former President Boni Yayi – a development which notable leaders in the sub region have since condemned – there can be no guessing what the discussion was all about.
Chair of Wole Soyinka Centre for Investigative Journalism, Professor Ropo Sekoni, also a visiting member of this newspaper’s editorial board first drew home to me the unmitigated travesty going on in Benin via an open letter titled – Call from the international scientific community to Patrice Talon, president of the Republic of Benin. The missive, penned by scholars and activists drawn from the international scientific community and the international community of artists and intellectuals which include himself, Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka, Henry-Louis Gates Jr. Sekoni and nearly two score others was a clarion call on Talon to end the charade.
Months after that letter, Talon continues to play deaf. More than that, he has, thus far, done well to hold down any challenge – including getting his soldiers to mow down demonstrators who dared to protest. By the way, this individual was elected in 2016 at a time his predecessor was supporting another candidate. Think of this happening in a country whose practice of multi-partysm – once upon a time – could have been deemed a model.
Today, the country sits, precariously on the edge. Only 11 days ago, Olusegun Obasanjo, and his Ghanaian counterpart, John Kufuor, had rallied for the intervention of the African Union and the Economic Community of West African States. The duo, while acknowledging the “general feeling of violation of the individual and collective liberties which has invariably culminated in the restrictions currently imposed on former President Boni Yayi and some other opposition leaders”, concluded chillingly: “The ongoing political crisis appears to be worsening the security and humanitarian situation which might open a floodgate to terrorist incursion that will lead to further destabilisation of the West-African sub-region”.
Until last week, the country’s Big Brother and neighbour, was practically (at least officially) missing in action. Not a word on the political travesty or the killings that have accompanied it; not on the threatening anarchy – perhaps a case of Big Brother choosing not to fight other people’s fires when its abode is engulfed in conflagration. Yet, much as one would readily acknowledge the feelings of those who would baulk at the idea of the country poking its nose into what is going on next door at a time the country’s hands are already bloodied fighting banditry, kidnapping and other variants of insurgency, (no matter the dire situation in that enclave of 11 million people), one is quickly reminded of the proverb about feigning indifference while one’s neighbour gobbles a suspicious insect; the same would require more than a pill of endurance to keep from staying awake all night when the full effects of the toxic intake inevitably sets in. That is assuming that the country has not already, suffered enough in the hands of this listless, parasitic neighbour whose destiny, though inextricably linked to ours, continues to make good feeding on our flesh and blood.
Sure, the situation in Benin calls for drastic action. Getting former President Yayi out of the jailhouse will be an important first step. And then for President Talon to dismantle his democracy of exclusion and to undertake a fresh credible and transparent process; after all, what is democracy without a vibrant opposition and an open and transparent process?
Now, I understand why the Big Brother will be dragged in to quell the fire stoked by that wayward actor next door; which of course explains the shuttle to Abuja last Thursday. One can only hope that our president was frank and brutal in conveying the expectations of the entire civilised world to the wayfarer, hoping that reason prevails and all goes well in the end.
Remember, this is about Benin Republic a country whose relationship with our country is as insufferable as they are toxic. Never mind that Big Brother is routinely summoned to help pull their chestnuts out of the fire as exampled in the delinquency currently ravaging their polity; their leaders think its fair game to keep setting our own economic backyards on fire!
I speak here to the menace of smuggling and cross-border banditry which the country aids and abets; the associated subversion that have undermined our trade policies and in the process, reduced the swathe of our common borders to an ungoverned space; the slow, agonising death visited on our farming communities and our textile industry – all of which can only guarantee that our national aspirations would never be met.
Surely, no one could have put things better than Africa’s foremost industrialist, Aliko Dangote: “There is no country that can survive with Benin Republic as a neighbour”.
He did not exaggerate. Ask the rice producer, the palm oil producers, the textile manufacturers; all, without exception share a common story of how their businesses have wilted under the menace of smuggling with our darling ECOWAS neighbour tacitly providing facilitation.
Does anyone see why the official indifference to the existential challenge posed by the country’s policies on our country’s well-being is so galling? It seems such a long time ago when Obasanjo shut the country’s borders against Benin Republic. I couldn’t now recall the roof caving in; instead, Nigeria actually got some reprieve with smuggling and cross-border banditry taking a dive.
Sure, President Buhari couldn’t have brought up these issues at that short meeting. Or did he – considering that the matter is not only grave but has become an existential one?
Yet, the conversation is long overdue if ever the country desires to make progress. Guess it’s time to rethink elements of the farce called ECOWAS under which grave injurious, toxic trade practices are perpetrated against Nigeria; for enablers like Benin, time for the Big Brother to demonstrate that injury to her can attract severe consequences.
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