At the Mercy of Drones and Turbans

Also published in Daily Trust

The rate at which the security situation is deteriorating across the Sahel and West African sub regions is quite frightening, as it also steadily but continuously attracts more state and non-state actors from the region and beyond, with conflicting interests, who pursue their interests and also seek to settle their scores at all cost.

For instance, the recent establishment of the deadly drones base in the neighboring Republic of Niger by the United States of America, to supposedly track down and kill terrorists operating in the region, the growing emergence of more armed gangs out there, some of which are equally deadly or even deadlier than Boko Haram and also the proliferation of other similarly organized armed groups that take advantage of the notoriety of Boko Haram to kill and cause mayhem in the name of Boko Haram, represent an alarming escalation of the level of involvement of foreign intelligence agencies and other state and non-state actors, who increasingly engage in covert activities in the region to exploit the crisis in their struggle against one another. Needless to say, they further aggravate the security situation in Nigeria and turn its terrain into proxy war battle ground where illegal arms trade flourishes also.

  

Considering the nature and circumstances of Nigeria’s security crisis, which was partially instigated by the repercussions of similar conflicts elsewhere, it is obvious that, of all the foreign actors involved, the United States and Iranian intelligence agencies are particularly active on the ground. In other words, as the focus now increasingly turns to the precarious Sahel and West African sub-regions, Nigeria, with its weight in the region and its equally fragile security condition, is becoming a ground for intelligence warfare between particularly the US and its western allies on one hand and the Iranian intelligence agencies on the other.

After all, the growing interest of Iranian intelligence in Nigeria’s affairs over the past few years reflects its tactical strategy to open as many showdown fronts as possible with the US with a view to undermining the US influence in the country and the region in general in order to blackmail it into making concessions in some perhaps completely unrelated issues e.g. its nuclear issue.

Incidentally, though Nigeria is officially on better terms with the US than the Iranians, the reality is that neither Iran nor the United States is actually concerned about Nigeria’s interests in their showdown. They effectively regard Nigeria as a mere huge but stupid entity to exploit and manipulate, period. Besides, the few exposed cases of potentially devastating covert operations in Nigeria by Iran, and its involvement in illegal arms importation into Nigeria were largely due to the fact that Nigerian government is an ally, or to put it more appropriately, a puppet to the west in general and the United States of America in particular, hence wouldn’t or rather can’t probe their intelligence activities in the country. 

     

Anyway, this intelligence warfare does not necessarily imply a permanent enmity between Iran and the United States, because the intricacy of global affairs, which inevitably results in the intersection of interests even between sworn enemies today, “compels” the US and Iran to sometimes put their differences aside, share whatever intelligence and through whatever channel necessary to achieve their mutual goals, contrary to their officially declared policies.

By the way, while the Unites States may admit and try to justify this practice in the context of its so-called pragmatism, Iran and its brainwashed apologists pretend to deny the existence of such corporation altogether. 

For instance, the United States benefitted immensely from the intelligence provided to it by Iran to invade Iraq in 2003 as a result of which they literally share control over Iraq largely through the many Iraqi puppets recommended by Iran and driven into various positions of political, military power and/or religious influence by the United Sates. Likewise, when Iran and the United States shared interest in overthrowing the Afghanistan regime in 2001, Iran provided invaluable intelligence to the US and its western allies, which helped overthrow the government of Afghanistan then.

By the way, though it officially identifies with Shi’a religious adherents, Iran would go to the extent of providing some military or intelligence support to some extremist groups who claim to belong to Sunni Muslim persuasion e.g. Alqaeda or Boko Haram in Nigeria, to keep the conflict raging as long as possible, while it on the other hand pushes for its vested interests in different issues at various international diplomatic platforms as indicated earlier. 

       

Meanwhile, out of frustration and desperation, the United States with its superior military and intelligence capabilities would go berserk deploying its notorious high-tech unmanned reconnaissance and assault drones to unleash death indiscriminately among the people, destroying their already dilapidated shelters and rendering many more people destitute, all under the pretext of fighting terrorism.

Perhaps one may wonder why so far I did not address Nigeria’s chances of influencing the events in this interwoven equation, and the role it may, or rather should, play in the whole quagmire. In reality this is due to the fact that Nigeria is presently too helpless to stand on its own feet (if it still really has one) let alone influence the course of events in a crisis like this. This is the reason why it has already been effectively sidelined in important decision-making processes that relate to the regional and African affairs.

Therefore until it reclaims itself, comes out of the pit of oblivion it has dug against itself and fallen into, stands firmly and acts responsibly, it would definitely continue to degenerate hence attract more exploitative forces of destruction, who fight their dirty wars and seek to settle their scores on its soils at the expense of its stability, progress and indeed the lives of its citizens.