The United State’s government once more showed its disdain for the Goodluck Jonathan administration and by extension our so-called fight against terror by its last week insistence that it would not sell fighter helicopters to Nigeria. The US government spokesperson was reacting to the claim by the Nigerian Ambassador to the US, Ade Adefuye, that the US had refused to sell fighter aircraft to Nigeria.
The refusal of US followed on the heels of its earlier accusation of human rights violation against Nigeria in its fight against the Northern insurgents. It should come to many Nigerians and others around the world as an irony that the US that had deployed experts to assist Nigeria in tracking down the insurgents keeping the kidnapped girls of Chibok captive would turn around to say it would not sell us fighter aircraft that could strengthen our effort.
The US is doing this after it had made it clear that its assistance to Nigeria in the face of terror would be purely technical, without deployment of ground troops. Even then, units of American soldiers were reportedly seen on ground in parts of the North shortly after the US and other Western countries showed their readiness to support our fight against the marauders up the North East several months back.
There is surely more to the cold shoulder from America than the Nigerian government is willing to acknowledge. Nigeria continues to pretend that its relationship with America is as warm as ever even when America’s body language tells everyone that is far from being the case. America has, if any, very little respect for Nigeria’s military hierarchy. That disdain might really be for the Jonathan administration as a whole. It may not have used as many words but America does see members of this administration as corrupt destroyers of the Nigerian state and is only being careful, it would seem, not to be viewed as being directly against Nigeria in this period of grave insecurity in the land.
President Goodluck Jonathan
Otherwise, it is clear Obama wants no truck with Jonathan whose deluded supporters never cease to compare him and other American leaders with. And to rub home the fact that America would rather dine with the devil than with the Jonathan administration, it has advised the latter to look for sellers elsewhere in its business of buying fighter choppers. In refusing to sell military hardware to Nigeria, America says it has not stopped us from buying elsewhere.
It simply does not want our patronage- finish! So we can take our tainted money that even South Africa with its brutal record of human rights violation under apartheid is not keen on taking, returning it to us after initially seizing it- America is telling us to take our corrupt blood money elsewhere. The blood here, for me, could only be that of ill-equipped soldiers sent to the battle front by thieving desk-bound Generals turned contractors and their civilian counterparts.
Now America has washed its hands off our case, its Western allies would follow suit, with or without America’s prompting. Canada has been saying more or less the same thing as America. The UK government with its siddon-look posture is saying nothing different. Where does this leave or take us? Nowhere but the firm embrace of China, our good old friend in the days of Sani Abacha. Without being told in such clear terms, we are back to our pariah status of the mid-1990s. This may not be too bad for a president like Goodluck Jonathan who is determined to follow Abacha’s transformational script to retain power in February 2015.
With nowhere to turn in the West, we must with our own hand carry our luggage of trouble- eleru gberu e. That’s what we are being told. The question that immediately follows is how ready or able are we to carry our security luggage. Are we able to do this with our ill-equipped, demoralised and deserting soldiers that take to their heels at merely sniffing the approach of the insurgents?
These soldiers have been losing territories and retreating in very unseemly way. Even our most senior soldier, the Chairman of the Joint Military Chiefs, Alex Badeh’s town, was taken over by insurgents. Mubi was overrun by the hordes from Sambisa forest and was only retaken by local militias. Which brings me to the role of militias in the ongoing war against terror.
Without any doubt, these groups of Nigerians have been leading the battle against terror groups of armed robbers, pipe line vandals, and more dangerous bands like those from Sambisa forest that have taken over and renamed many towns in the North East. The local militias with their crude weaponry of bows and arrows, and dane guns have been succeeding where our so-called national soldiers have been failing.
Coming from the same background as most of the bastards now terrorising the North East, their knowledge of their terrain of operation appears to be standing them in good stead.
It is the logic that makes it possible for these militias to succeed where so-called professional soldiers have failed that informed the call for state police- better knowledge of their community. But as usual the unitarists masquerading as patriotic federalists in Abuja, the very same people that created groups like those from Sambisa forest for very selfish ends, would be the first to croak about the possible abuse of local police.
But without admitting it, the Nigerian state has for long privatised the security of the country to the extent that many of these local militias have been enlisted in its security operations and have moved from being mere neigbourhood watch to carrying out actual policing duties. Militias led by Frederick Fasehun, Gani Adams and Asari Dokubo, among others, have been employed in these roles. What then is the pretence by the Nigerian state that these militias have no role to play?
As the situation of the North East is increasingly showing, the safety of Nigerians in our different communities may in the end be in the hands of these militias. They have been doing a lot for Nigerians, sustaining the security of life and property where people can no longer rely on the state.
Indeed the state has failed serially in protecting Nigerians in many parts of this country. The number of people left destitute in the North East, to take an immediate example among many, has increased exponentially since the latest surge in insurgent activities. Their saviours are the militias who are only different from the rest of our conventional security personnel for their lack of uniforms.
But as Fela told us all, uniform na cloth and na tailor dey sew am. The time might be right on us to get the militias properly equipped and into uniform.
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