Defeating terror: The imperative of pragmatism

(Link on Daily Trust site)

The Borno State Governor, Babagana Zulum’s recommendation for the federal government to engage mercenaries in the protracted war against Boko Haram has added impetus to the debate over the feasibility or otherwise of that move. 

If, however, there one thing that Governor Zulum’s recommendation implies, it’s certainly his conclusion that the Nigerian military and other security agencies cannot eliminate Boko-Haram terrorists, bandits and kidnappers, unaided. 

Obviously, as the Governor of the worst terror-affected state, Borno, who, by virtue of his position as the state’s Chief Security Officer has unhindered access to relevant confidential security reports, Governor Zulum’s conclusion must have been based on facts. His position, therefore, explains the authoritativeness of his conclusion, which must not be taken lightly, let alone dismissed.

Besides, he was backed up by his counterparts in the Northeast who had equally arrived at the same conclusion in the light of the same confidential security reports they, likewise, have access to. 

After all, in reality, it doesn’t necessarily take access to any confidential security report to arrive at that conclusion, in the first place. The incapability of the Nigerian military to end Boko Haram insurgency is too obvious to elude any discerning “bloody civilian”, as the military men condescendingly call an individual with no military background. 

Apparently, many Nigerians find it hard to come to terms with the fact that the Nigerian military is one of the world’s weakest compared to the country’s geographical size, population, economic and geopolitical potential. It’s quite clear that the Nigerian military is grossly weak in terms of advanced unconventional warfare techniques, sophisticated intelligence-gathering and processing capabilities, and appropriate technology. 

Though combat personnel of the Nigerian military are particularly undermined by low morale due to insufficient incentives, the foregoing challenges remain the main constraints behind their inability to eliminate Boko-Haram terrorists and bandit syndicates in the country. 

Arguments against the recommendation for engaging mercenaries are largely based on unrealistic expectations of the Nigerian military capabilities, exaggerated -if not unfounded- fear of its security implications, and empty pride. 

Those arguing against it cite instances of monumental collateral damage, excessive recklessness, human right abuse and even war crimes that some mercenaries were involved in, in some countries. 

Whereas, while those are quite reasonable worries, such incidents aren't that frequent. Besides, even when they occur, they occur mostly amid the confusion of urban warfare. Fortunately enough, in Nigeria, terrorists, bandits and kidnappers are hiding in the bush and remote areas away from people.  

Others arguing against the idea are only motivated by pride, or rather, empty pride. They are under the illusion of the purported intactness of Nigeria’s sovereignty, which they assume will be jeopardized by engaging mercenaries.  

Whereas, in reality, Nigeria’s sovereignty is already grossly compromised by terrorists, kidnappers, bandits and other organized criminal gangs. Apart from the extremely few who enjoy adequate state-provided personal security, and the super-rich who can afford it, almost everybody has been literally condemned to living with the endless nightmare of being either robbed, kidnapped or killed by armed robbers, marauders or terrorists.   

Even the worries expressed over the implications of engaging mercenaries on Nigeria’s strategic national security interests aren’t realistic enough to warrant ignoring the idea altogether. 

After all, the Nigerian state is already an open book particularly to the Euro-American countries and other interested foreign governments. For instance, the way individuals among Nigerian top leadership elite are falling over themselves to impress particularly western diplomats in Abuja by unsolicitedly sharing privileged information about the country with them is enough to conclude that access to any Nigeria’s sensitive secret -if any- doesn’t necessarily require an act of espionage.  

Likewise, many rightly or wrongly aggrieved individuals and groups among the elite equally and sometimes openly reach out to the US, UK or European Union diplomats in Abuja to seek their intervention on purely national matters. 

Interestingly, some WikiLeaks leaks exposed how Robin Sanders, a former US ambassador to Nigeria was regularly updating the US Department of State in Washington of her experience with individuals among Nigeria's top political elite who were privately sharing with her unsolicited information about the country and even gossip against one another. 

Now, the bottom line is that it’s high time Nigeria began tackling its security challenges pragmatically, for it’s obvious that its military and other security agencies are simply too ill-prepared to accomplish it. Recently, the Chief of Army Staff, General Burutai, literally admitted it when he hinted that the war could persist for the next 20 years. 

Nigeria is a signatory to The United Nations International Convention against the Recruitment, Use, Financing and Training of Mercenaries, which bans engaging mercenaries. However, almost all the world’s major military powers, e.g. the US, Russia, etc, have refused to join. Also, many countries including the US and even some signatories to the Convention engage mercenaries under various disguises. 

Nigeria can, in fact, should equally engage them under whatever disguise. Alternatively, it can reach out to any country with appropriate capabilities, for assistance with advanced intelligence-gathering technology, techniques, and even covert operations, since no country is likely to deploy regular troops.

Admittedly, though, following decades of the persistent decline of Nigeria's continental and global diplomacy, one doubts if it can secure such assistance from any country.  

Interestingly, during the Nigeria civil war in the 60s, the Nigerian Head of State, General Gowon had sought military assistance from his Egyptian counterpart, Gamal Abdel Nasser who deployed a unit of the Egyptian Air Force to assist the federal troops. 

Anyway, though it’s already long overdue, yet, still it isn’t too late for Nigeria to consider a pragmatic approach in tackling the Boko-Haram terrorists, kidnappers and bandits ravaging the country.

What US rescue mission in Nigeria exposed

 (Link on Daily Trust site)

The recent United States rescue mission, on Nigerian territories, where a team of US elite commandos rescued one Philip Walton, an American citizen, from kidnappers made headlines in many countries around the world including Nigeria, of course.

The US Defence Department announced the successful early-morning rescue operation, which took place barely 96 hours after Walton’s kidnapping in Massalata, a village in southern Niger near the border with Nigeria.  

As a typical US clandestine operation, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) had tracked the kidnappers through the signals of their mobile phones while the US “Marine Special Operations elements in Africa helped locate him” as reported by ABC News.

Based on that intelligence about 30 US commandos were, according to The New York Times, “parachuted into the remote area where the kidnappers had taken Walton early Saturday morning. They hiked about three miles until they came upon the captors’ small encampment. An intense but brief gunfight followed in which one captor escaped. Walton was not harmed and whisked from the camp to a makeshift landing zone where a U.S. helicopter brought him to safety.”

The US conducts daring clandestine operations in many countries without necessarily the knowledge of their respective governments, thanks to its world’s most sophisticated espionage technology and the world’s best-trained and best-equipped undercover operatives and commandos.   

Even when it conducts such an operation in a supposedly friendly country, many a time, the US only informs the government of the country when the operation has been done already. Also, even in the event when it’s absolutely unavoidable to involve the government in some stages of the process, the US operatives would manage it in a way that the government concerned wouldn’t necessarily figure out what was going on exactly until the operation has been done. 

Sometimes, the US claims that the operation was conducted in coordination with the country where the operation has been done to save it the embarrassment of dealing with its aftermath. 

Since the beginning of the outgoing Trump administration, it has “rescued over 55 hostages and detainees in more than 24 countries” according to the outgoing President. Of course, some operations fail and sometimes the US runs out of options but to reluctantly negotiate or even pay ransom for the release of its kidnapped citizens in foreign lands.   

Regardless of the legality or otherwise of such operations, they suggest how a serious-minded government prioritizes the security, wellbeing and other interests of its citizens at any cost. They suggest the extent to which any responsible government can go to save and protect the lives of its citizens. 

Now, though the US claimed that its recent rescue operation in Nigeria was conducted with the aid of Niger and Nigerian governments, that wasn’t necessarily the case. And even if it did indeed involve Nigerian authorities in the process, the Nigerian government didn’t manage its involvement the way any responsible government with its interests in mind would have done. 

If it were elsewhere, the government would have demanded, as a precondition for its cooperation, that the rescue operation equally target other kidnappers’ campsite to simultaneously rescue many kidnapped Nigerians languishing out there.  

Yet, while the Nigerian government squandered that opportunity, it also never showed the slightest shame that it has effectively left its citizens to the mercy of kidnappers while another country rescued its kidnapped citizen on its (Nigerian) own territories. After all, Nigerians have resigned themselves to their fate in the face of government failure to protect them from bandits, terrorists and kidnappers.  

A recent incident involving a security patrol team and a group of relatives on their way to pay ransom for the release of their relatives who had been kidnapped among other Ahmadu Bello University (ABU) students while travelling to Lagos represented that miserable situation. 

One of the relatives was quoted by the Daily Trust narrating that “We met with security agents who were patrolling the area while on our way and they asked us where we were going to because it was late at night. We told them we were going on our way to pay ransom for the release of our relatives and the security agents wished us good luck” (Daily Trust, November 23, 2020). 

Even in the absence of any grounds for comparison between the US and Nigeria in terms of military, intelligence-gathering and processing capabilities, no one can rightly excuse the ineptitude of the Nigerian government in its supposed tackling of bandits and kidnappers unleashing misery across particularly the northern part of the country.

Because the criminals operate with basic communication technology and maintain a consistent hence predictable modus operandi. 

Besides, their typical manoeuvre after kidnapping people is always to hike along with the victims in the nighttime for days across the bush while hiding for the whole daytime apparently on the assumption that they cannot be detected from the sky in the nighttime. They are too clueless to realize that they are actually more exposed to aerial detection in the nighttime than the daytime. 

From whatever angle one looks at the recent US rescue mission in Nigeria, one observes the urgent need for Nigerian defence, security and intelligence strategists to prioritize intelligence-based strategies in tackling the activities of kidnappers, bandits and terrorists in the country. Such strategies are by far more effective than the current conventional personnel-intensive combat strategies.   

There was equally a display of inexcusable diplomatic naivety in Nigeria’s supposed cooperation with the US in conducting the operation without apparently anything in return.

Dynamics of Trump’s fall

(Link on Daily Trust site)

Following what was described as the tensest presidential election in the United States in more than a century, which culminated in the defeat of arguably the most controversial US president, Donald Trump, the dynamics behind his fall explained why he couldn’t evade it.

As an aspirant to the US presidency in 2016, and though an elitist and indeed wolfish capitalist to the core, Donald Trump had successfully adopted the façade of a populist politician using populist rhetoric that resonated with a significant segment of particularly the lower and middle-class conservative White Americans.    

He will go down in history as not only the first US president from outside the establishment but also the first anti-establishment populist US president. 

In other words, he would be remembered by both admirers and foes as a US president who challenged the establishment and had his own way on many occasions, earning himself the anger of a considerable section of the country’s political elite, corporate businesses, the media and even the Hollywood entertainment industry, which has produced tens of movies against him. 

After all, no sooner had his presidency begun than most of the most influential media organizations in the United States including CNN, The New York Times, The Washington Post etc. adopted Trump-bashing as their obsession ending up literally campaigning against him in the recently-concluded election. While in his relentless retaliation, he dubbed them “Fakes News”, and has since then never missed a chance to dismiss them in his attempt to discredit them. 

Interestingly, Donald Trump never got along with even his Republican Party establishment. Since 2016 when he surprisingly emerged as the Republican Party’s presidential candidate, many high-profile party members who had all along tried unsuccessfully to foil his emergence have left the party. 

Many more had similarly, albeit equally unsuccessfully, opposed his nomination for the just-concluded presidential election; and even after his nomination, tens of other senior party members e.g. John Bolton, Colin Powel and many others of their calibre declared their opposition to his reelection bid. 

Likewise, many nonpartisan statesmen, former senior diplomats, retired high-ranking military, security, intelligence officers and others had all opposed him. 

Also, many otherwise Republican voters voted for Joe Biden in what’s known in Nigerian political context as “anti-party” making trump perhaps the highest-profile victim of “anti-party” in the history of US politics. 

In short, there was an unprecedented elite gang-up against Donald Trump; a gang-up that put aside partisan differences to frustrate his reelection bid. Obviously, no politician could have prevailed over a gang-up of such influence.  

Besides, as expected, African American and other non-white American communities who have been affected the most by Trump’s controversial sabotage of the Affordable Care Act otherwise known as the Obamacare, which he systematically bastardized following his failure to get the Act repealed, voted massively against him. 

Trump’s persistent criticism of the Act was widely viewed as a show of blatant insensitivity to the peculiar plight of disadvantaged Americans most of whom come from those communities. After all, his characteristic racist utterances and insinuations, and xenophobic immigration policies had already earned him stinking notoriety among them.  

On a lighter note, that explains why the euphoria that erupted in many cities and towns across the US following the announcement of the result was particularly passionate in those communities. 

Having said that, Donald Trump has performed incredibly well for the US economy as a whole, even though the economic impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic and his poor handling of it did indeed further undermine his reelection chances.  

Though US foreign policy and its international engagements hardly influence the voting behaviour of the average American voter, he isn’t absolutely free from the underlying influence of foreign interests, which have always had interests in who becomes the US President, and have always discreetly pursued their respective interests in this regard.  

Also, though Trump's “America First” foreign policy and his protectionist economic policies have reduced US foreign involvement, which has saved a lot for the US economy, the Washington establishment sees it as an inadvertent undermining of the US global influence especially in the face of the growing influence of China and Russia on the world stage, and the growing ambitions of countries with geopolitical expansionist agendas like Iran and Turkey. 

The establishment is more interested in maintaining the superiority of the US global influence at any cost, as opposed to Donald Trump who only approaches issues from the perspective of a typical Wall Street elite capitalist. 

Now, as Donald Trump’s drama-laden presidency comes to end, he will leave the White House without necessarily conceding defeat voluntarily. And just as he has always been controversial, he isn’t likely to lead a quiet and controversy-free post-presidency life like other former presidents. 

In any case, observers would eagerly look forward to reading his memoirs; after all, being that recklessly blunt, overly insensitive and less pretending compared to mainstream politicians, his memoirs would almost certainly turn out to be the most revealing hence most controversial.  

#EndSARS: A look from afar

(Link on Daily Trust site)

No sooner had the #EndSARS protests erupted in many cities in Nigeria than a free-for-all argument over it ensued. And from the sheer amount of emotion that characterized the argument on social media where one followed it, one could imagine its intensity in a typical joint in, say, Lagos or a typical roadside majalisa in, say, Kano.

Arguments for and against the protests were churned out right, left, and centre with many folks rightly or wrongly taking it personally, which provoked bad feelings among many and indeed caused strains in both virtual and real-life friendships. Many theories were equally speculated supposedly to explain the protests.

Though everybody claimed objectivity in his stand on the protests, opinions driven by underlying prejudices dominated the atmosphere. What’s, however, clear is that regardless of the logic or otherwise of any opinion expressed or theory speculated, the incidents of the protests and its aftermath represented a clue of the implications of lawlessness in the country. 

In other words, the escalation of the protests into indiscriminate vandalization of public facilities and jail storming, which resulted in the escape of almost two thousand prisoners, and looting spree of private properties and businesses among other acts of violence against individuals and communities was a mini-picture of what the situation in the country will turn into in the event of the total breakdown of law and order. 

Whether or not the masterminds of the protests and the protesters had a hidden agenda as widely alleged, or were simply being too reckless, their actions bore the hallmarks of a subversive agenda against the already fragile corporate stability of the country. The amount of recklessness shown by the protesters was rare if not unprecedented.

In any case, they had clearly manipulated popular discontentment over the persistently worsening economic and security conditions in the country, to incite the gullible into joining the protests, which also provided violent criminals lurking around with a pretext to perpetrate their crimes after blending with the protesters.  

The protesters equally won the backing of many otherwise discerning observers with many of them effectively turning into apologists for the protesters. Likewise, many others with underlying political and/or personal interests gloated over the situation under the illusion that it would only undermine the Buhari administration.  

Having said that, one has to admit that the protests had set in against the backdrop of accumulated popular frustration frustrating enough to trigger not only protests but a spontaneous revolt for that matter. And if not for the passionate dissuasion against joining the protests by many northern Nigerian influential figures and Muslim scholars who warned of a hidden agenda behind the protests, the protests would have swept across the region and the situation would have become far worse than what occurred in southern Nigeria.  

Because SARS brutality and whatever grievances that supposedly triggered the protests in southern Nigeria cannot be compared to the situation in the particularly poverty-ravaged northern Nigeria where people have literally resigned themselves to their fate in the face of government’s failure to protect them from kidnappers, bandits and terrorists unleashing death and misery across the region.

Anyway, with the particularly blatant show of insensitivity to the worsening plight of the people in the country by the very elite who have inflicted it on them over the decades, popular frustration will definitely continue to pile up towards the boiling point where no amount of dissuasion can prevent a complete and irreversible breakdown of law and order, God forbid.

The recent incidents of discovered warehouses housing tons of assorted foodstuff meant for free distribution to the poor as Covid-19 pandemic palliatives, which, however, somehow ended up hoarded to probably be misappropriated amid unprecedented unaffordability of foodstuffs in the country suggest the worst form of nonviolent callousness that leaders can exhibit.

Admittedly, while following (on social media) the viral videos of people storming and looting the warehouses, I was torn between two conflicting thoughts; the illegality of their acts, on the one hand, and emotional feelings justifying the acts at least for the desperate among them, on the other. After all, out of sheer desperation, many otherwise decent people partook in the looting spree. However, storming and looting personal properties, private warehouses and businesses, which many people carried out during and in the aftermath of the protests were absolutely unjustifiable. But then again, this is what inevitably ensues whenever and wherever chaos reigns. 

Nonetheless, though popular frustration in the land has understandably reached unprecedented levels, it must not be handled with emotions, for that will definitely lead to anarchy. Because given Nigeria’s ever-tense atmosphere of political, ethnoreligious, regional and resource control-linked tensions, a nationwide breakdown of law and order means the breakout of irreversible anarchy in the country.  

Even in the event of the situation deteriorating to a point where the country’s corporate existence is no longer viable, under no circumstances should anarchy be justifiably resorted to in the name of restructuring, secession or separation.

By the way, the assumption that Nigeria’s collapse would give rise to viable countries in some geopolitical regions e.g. the southeast and the Niger-Delta where this assumption is more popular, is too simplistic hence unrealistic.

Though unjustifiably fragile, Nigeria’s stability remains the only guarantee for the already grossly inadequate security of life, property and dignity that we take for granted, and in no circumstances should it be jeopardized for a romanticized post-revolution Nigeria that some reckless folks are promoting.  

The recent incidents should serve as a wake-up call to the country’s leadership elite to get committed enough to arresting the worsening popular frustration in the land by addressing its root cause, which is bad governance driven by the culture of corruption and impunity. Because, after all, in the event of overwhelming chaos, they, their families and properties will be the first set of targets. And even those who would manage to flee the country will have to endure the humiliation of living as glorified refugees in foreign lands struggling with legal prosecutions for corruption and perhaps crimes against humanity to the end of their lives. 

#EndSARS protests in context

 (Link on Daily Trust site)

Now that the federal government has replaced the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) with a US-styled Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) unit in a move to address the protesters’ demands against the particularly excessive brutality of the now-defunct SARS, the growing suspicions of some ulterior subversive motives behind the protests must equally be addressed. 

Before I address this point, however, it’s important to state the obvious about the rampancy of brutality among not only the police but all security enforcement personnel in Nigeria. The police are particularly notorious in this regard only because they are closer to the people. 

Police brutality in Nigeria is effectively legalized; it’s openly perpetrated in arguably all police stations in the country. It never started with SARS, and won’t end with its mere dissolution either.   

The average Nigerian police lacks the competence to interrogate a serious crime suspect without torturing him. On the pretext of interrogation, police interrogators torture suspects, which sometimes leads to their permanent disability and even death. In fact, some suspects under police custody are extra-judicially executed.  

This situation persists against the backdrop of the deep-rooted culture of impunity in the land as well as the societal inadvertent complicity. In Nigeria, an individual, depending on his real or perceived financial status or other privileges, can “hire” the police to frame up, arrest, extort or torture anybody of less status. It isn’t uncommon to see an individual bragging about his ability to settle scores with another by unleashing the police on him. 

Besides, many of the cases that involve police brutality against individuals are purely civil cases e.g. commercial disputes, which the police shouldn’t have got involved in the first place.  

Though there are decent and professional police personnel out there, the sheer rampancy of brutality among their colleagues overshadows the professionalism of those decent police personnel. 

Police brutality in Nigeria is simply too deep-rooted to be uprooted by the mere dissolution of SARS and replacing it with SWAT, unless if by so doing the Nigerian authorities are hinting that SARS brutality was sanctioned, which obviously wasn't the case. 

Checking police brutality, therefore, cannot be achieved in isolation; it can only be achieved within the context of a comprehensive reform that focuses primarily on imposing strict professionalism on the force personnel.  

While Nigerians have the right to demand and push for that, the ongoing EndSARS protests in some Nigerian cities, which were started ostensibly to demand the dissolution of the notorious police SARS unit continue to attract suspicions as they increasingly bear the hallmarks of a typical politically-motivated subversive movement. 

The suspicions have also increased with the insistence of the protesters to carry on even after the federal government dissolved the unit. Many observers who had initially dismissed the suspicions have begun to equally suspect possible ulterior motives behind the protests. 

Besides, the more one dismisses such suspicions, the more one sees compelling reasons to validate it on accounts of the protesters’ persistently raising demands, which have gone to the extent of inciting a revolution in the country, and also the obvious media exaggeration of the protests amid tacit endorsement by some public figures who interestingly come from the South-West geopolitical zone.  

In any case, whether the protests are originally politically-motivated or not, there are growing indications of some desperate élites trying to ride the wave and manipulate the protests for their political interests at any cost. 

Many theories in this regard are flowing right, left, and centre. In the light of the growing public discontent with the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), Bola Tinubu’s ambition to be the next president of Nigeria is being seriously threatened by the growing possibility of Atiku Abubakar becoming the PDP’s candidate and eventually winning the presidency. 

It’s, therefore, quite possible that some interests groups hell-bent on averting that scenario are capitalizing on northern Nigerian establishment’s characteristic phobia about Nigeria’s disintegration to play the revaluation card as a blackmailing tool to politically blackmail the establishment into some kind of concession that would guarantee the presidency for Tinubu at the expense of Atiku.  

Unsurprisingly also, those agitating for separation in the South-East and resource control agitators are riding the wave to push for their respective agendas.  

Meanwhile, in northern Nigeria, the promptness with which the federal government bowed to the EndSARS protesters’ pressure and dissolved the unit was rightly or wrongly interpreted as an indication of its partiality against the region where many believe it (i.e. federal government) is reluctant to respond to public outcry over the persistent insurgency, banditry and kidnapping ravaging the region.  

Therefore, some northern Nigerian groups have equally called for protests to demand the end of insecurity in the region. As I write this piece (Thursday), I understand that a protest has already begun in Kano though it’s not clear how far it will go. 

However, it’s obvious that the call for protest in northern Nigeria was prompted by sheer emotion in order to spite the federal government.

While it’s high time that civil society groups in the region put maximum pressure on the federal government (within the ambit of the law) to address the persistent security concern in the region, they must not allow themselves to be manipulated by some unscrupulous groups and individuals pursuing subversive agendas disguised behind the facade of legitimate demands. 

The State Security Service (SSS) should handle this situation with the utmost seriousness before it’s too late. Nigerians cannot afford a total breakdown of law and order in the country; after all, should it occur, God forbid, only the vulnerable will bear the brunt while the elites escape with their families to safety in different countries around the world. 

Foreign governments in US politics

(Link on Daily Trust site)

As the United States presidential election draws closer, the atmosphere in the country is already pulsating with campaign activities. The first presidential debate last Tuesday between the two leading contenders, the incumbent President Donald Trump of the Republicans and Joe Biden of the Democrats has added momentum to the activities. Also, analyses and predictions continue to flow right, left, and centre.  

Meanwhile, many foreign governments are hugely interested in the election. By the way, though foreign involvement in the US elections is illegal, it's an open secret that many foreign governments have always been involved anyway. 

With the facilitation of literally all relevant US individual, institutional and corporate stakeholders, foreign involvement in American elections thrives thanks to the country’s ultra-capitalist system. 

Being the world’s biggest economy with the strongest military that, among other things, explain its dominant influence on global affairs, the matter of who occupies the Oval Office in the White House isn’t exclusively an American affair after all; it matters to many foreign governments, which have always invested hugely on various disguises through various US private sector establishments.

Depending on the prevailing circumstances at a given time, a foreign government may invest in support of one or both the candidates, for all what actually matters to it is the emergence of a friendlier, friendly or, at least, less hostile US president who wouldn’t undermine its (foreign government’s) legitimate and illegitimate interests. 

Equally, many foreign governments maintain lobby groups of influential individuals with strong and extensive connections in the corridors of the Congress, the White House, and other relevant US federal institutions, to lobby and push for legislation and policies on their behalf. 

Also, many otherwise reputable non-partisan think tanks in the US are often induced by lobbyists on behalf of foreign governments to prepare favourable or unfavourable analyses on a particular candidate(s) to subtly influence the US electorate in favour or against him. 

While some foreign governments only invest in US politics to pursue specific interests at specific times, foreign governments like those of Israel, Canada, China, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Iran, Russia, United Arab Emirates, Japan, Qatar etc. remain some of the regular clients of lobby groups in Washington. 

However, foreign governments that aren’t officially allies of the United States e.g. Russia, China, Iran, etc. maintain much more discreet approaches in this regard to avoid appearing vulnerable and at the mercy of the US policymakers.  

Anyway, now that the campaign for the 2020 US presidential election has peaked out, foreign governments interested in who wins between President Trump and Biden are already equally divided.

On the one hand, those who rightly or wrongly feel undermined or bullied by the Trump administration and have, therefore, invested for his defeat are eager to see him defeated. For instance, China, is, of course, looking forward to seeing President Trump defeated for being particularly tough on it in its lingering trade war with the United States. President Trump has over the past four years literally unleashed US economic might against China forcing it into making costly concessions and compromises. Earlier this year, he tweeted that the Chinese “are desperate to have Sleepy Joe Biden win the presidential race so they can continue to rip-off the United States, as they have done for decades, until I came along!”

Iran equally wishes President Trump lost the election. After riding the wave of an Iran-friendly and equally Arab-hating American president, Barack Obama for eight years within which the US turned a blind eye to Iran's expansionist adventures in the Middle East with the tacit support of his administration, the Trump presidency turned tough on it. 

He withdrew the United States from the UN Security Council-sanctioned nuclear deal with Iran, which rendered the deal practically ineffective despite the commitment of the remaining parties to the deal (i.e. Russia, UK, France, China, and Germany) to maintaining it. The deal would have enabled Iran to be a recognized nuclear power by 2030. He also restored the US sanctions on Iran reversing the economic recovery it had started to record following the ratification of the nuclear deal thereby triggering the persistently worsening economic conditions in the country. 

Interestingly, during the campaign for the 2016 US presidential election, and going by the then presidential candidate Donald Trump’s islamophobic/Arabophobic rhetoric, Iranians and indeed almost everybody for that matter assumed that if he won he would be extremely tough on Arabs. Iran, therefore, had thought that it would simply ride the wave to achieve its expansionist agenda in the region 

Now, other countries like Germany, Japan and South Korea, which President Trump extorts on the pretext of defending them probably equally wish he lost. Also, even the traditional US European allies, with the exception of Boris Johnson’s Britain, probably wish the same. 

On the other hand, foreign governments that have invested in Trump cannot wait to see Biden defeated. This is even though with regard to Israel, in particular, it doesn’t matter who is the American president anyway, because US commitment to protecting Israel's interests is simply too "sacred" to be neglected let alone undermined by any US president. Yet, Trump’s particularly enthusiastic support for Israel explains its preference for him.     

President Trump also remains Russia’s favourite; after all, Russia had all along supported him and hugely undermined Hillary Clinton’s chances through elaborate cyber-based espionage in 2016 and has since then got its way at the expense of the US interests as Trump watches helplessly knowing that it (Russia) maintains his election-related intelligence more damaging than what has been released, and which could cost him his position should it be fully released.  

Equally, Arab countries particularly the Gulf States e.g. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which have invested in Trump prefer him as a lesser evil compared to Biden who they suspect would be literally a reincarnation of Obama who vigorously supported the political turmoil that swept across the Arab world in 2011 on the pretext of bringing democracy to the region. 

Politicking with Palestinian cause (II)

(Link on Daily Trust site)

With the latest normalization of relations between the Kingdom of Bahrain and Israel following that of the UAE and Israel a few weeks earlier both of which were ratified in Washington a couple of days ago, it seems more Arab governments may soon follow suit. 

By the way, though Israel owes its creation and continued existence to the conspiracy of the global military powers to keep it perpetually superior militarily and technologically in the Middle East, it has always pursued normalization of relations with governments in the region to achieve, at least, diplomatic recognition. In this regard, it has always relied on, particularly, the United States, which has always deployed all persuasive tactics and blackmailing tools at its disposal to push for the normalization of relations with Israel in the region.  

Recent developments, therefore, couldn’t have come at a better time for both the US President Donald Trump and the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Both are facing politically existential threats in their respective countries, hence are exploiting the developments in their efforts to cling to power. 

Struggling for reelection in less than two months, President Trump of the US is already bragging about it in his campaign to further impress the super influential Jewish lobby groups in Washington, evangelicals, and his broader conservative and largely pro-Israel voter base. 

Likewise, Prime Minister Netanyahu of Israel who has been desperately struggling to cling to power to avoid serious corruption charges that are most likely to land him in jail once out of power is already manipulating the developments politically to mobilize enough support in hopes of achieving a comfortable win in the next parliamentary election that would enable him to form a government without having to go into a coalition, or, at worst, that would enable him to form a government in a coalition with friendlier partners. 

Meanwhile, given the particular religious significance of Palestine where Al Quds, the third of the three holy cities in Islam is located in addition to its original Arabic identity, the struggle against its occupation by the Zionists has always attracted both real activists and self-serving opportunists from among the Palestinians, rest of the Arabs, and other countries in the region and beyond. 

With the self-serving opportunists dominating the scene, all that a typical charlatan seeking cheap political popularity among Arabs and Muslims has to do in order to achieve his agenda is to feign and maintain an uncompromising stance against the Zionists and their occupation of Palestine. For a typical Palestinian political opportunist, and depending on his rhetorical skills, hypocritical moves and connections, he may be able to manoeuvre himself into the limelight and become part of the Palestinian elite many, if not most, of whom only exploit the Palestinian cause in pursuit of their respective selfish interests.   

Equally, some Arab and even non-Arab regimes have exploited the Palestinian cause in pursuit of their geopolitical agendas at the expense of the cause. 

Iran is particularly notorious in this regard. Driven by its Shiism-coated neo-Persian geopolitical expansionist agenda in the Middle East, it has, since 1979, ridden the wave of the deep-rooted anti-Zionist feelings among Arabs to promote its false anti-Zionist rhetoric laden with the empty threat of eliminating Israel. 

Of course, the rhetoric has resonated with the unsuspecting across the region, which enabled Iran to infiltrate many countries where it created armed militias loyal it through which it seeks to dominate the countries; it has already succeeded in Iraq, Lebanon, Yemen and Syria through such militias, which have grown stronger than the constituted security establishments including the military. It has also infiltrated the Palestinians where it manipulates some supposed resistance groups e.g Hamas militia in pursuit of its agenda.  

Now, I have to skip the issue of Iran-Israel mutually beneficial “enmity”, which, I am supposed to address today as promised last week; this is due to space constraint and the fact that it may entail digressing too far from the main topic. So, I will, God willing, address it in a separate piece in due course.

Meanwhile, seeing Iran’s hugely successful exploitation of the Palestinian cause in the promotion of its geopolitical agenda, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan conceived his own version of the neo-Ottoman geopolitical ambition riding the wave of the Muslim Brotherhood group to achieve it. This is, though, unlike Iranians, his strategy doesn’t involve changing people’s religious beliefs. 

However, his inconsistency with regard to the Palestinian struggle against the Israeli occupation is particularly interesting; because while he passionately criticizes Israel over its acts of brutality or policies against the Palestinians, he remains officially the closest Israeli ally among Muslim leaders anyway. Figures of trade volume and value between the two countries, the extent of diplomatic relations, military cooperation, tourism, air travel, etc., say it all in this regard. 

Now, pragmatically speaking, whether normalization of relations between an Arab or Muslim country and Israel is justified or not, it depends on what each country gets in return, and, of course, the implications of the normalization on the efforts to end the Zionist occupation of the Palestinian land.  

Accordingly, while Egypt, which retrieved its Sinai peninsula under its 1979 peace treaty with Israel, Jordan, which equally retrieved its territories and water resources under its 1994 peace treaty with Israel, and the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), which became a quasi-autonomous Palestinian authority in West Bank and Gaza following the Israeli withdraw under the Oslo Accords (I&II) in 1993/95, while they can be vindicated, the UAE, Bahrain and any other Arab country that may follow suit without appropriate value in return cannot. 

The worth or otherwise of these recent treaties and their respective implications on the Palestinian cause can only be assessed when the exact terms of the treaties are released; and even then, their merits can only be assessed based on what Israel actually implements on the ground accordingly.

Politicking with Palestinian cause (l)

 (Link on Daily Trust site)

Since the announcement of the normalization of relations between the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Israel, a few weeks ago, I have received requests from some media outlets and individuals to comment on the development and its implications on the Palestinian cause. 

Interestingly, the average observer who follows Middle East politics on only or largely the various international media that allot limited periods for Hausa news programs misses too much information, which explains his simplistic understanding of the underlying dynamics of the region's geopolitics. 

Anyway, though the protracted Arab-Jews struggle predates 1948 when global powers conspired to create the Zionist State of Israel on Palestinian territories, the 1979 controversial Egypt-Israeli Peace Treaty introduced a whole new dimension to the politics of the struggle.   

After four of the five major wars between Arabs and Israel in 1948, 1956, 1967, and 1973, Egypt, the most populous and arguably strongest Arab country, began to come to terms with the fact that a war with Israel was/is effectively a war with the global military powers combined, given the Euro-American countries' resolve to keep Israel militarily and technologically superior to the entire Arab countries.  

So, in 1979 and following years of pressure and blackmail in the name of US-brokered Egypt-Israel negotiations, Egypt recognized the State of Israel and normalized relations with it, while it, in return, retrieved its Sinai Peninsula from the Israeli occupation.  

Though Egypt’s decision provoked its fellow Arab countries, which consequently expelled it from their Arab League organization, it (i.e Egypt's decision) prompted individual countries in the region to begin looking at the struggle from, primarily, the perspectives of their respective national interests.  

In less than a decade afterwards, Arab countries restored diplomatic relations with Egypt while its membership in the Arab League was formally restored in 1989.  

And by the mid-90s, the Palestinians themselves had recognized the State of Israel under the Oslo Accords l&ll based on the United Nation's two-state solution to the conflict. Consequently, a quasi-autonomous Palestinian “state” in West Bank and Gaza Strip was created as a step supposedly designed to culminate in the creation of a sovereign Palestinian state.  

Soon afterwards, Palestinian political elites including those of the supposed armed resistance groups e.g. Hamas began struggling for the leadership of their quasi-autonomous Palestinian “state” based on either formal recognition of the State of Israel, as in the case of, say, Fatah, or tacit recognition, as in the case of, say, Hamas, as provided under the Oslo Accords that established the whole political process. And since then those of them in "power" have always enjoyed power-associated privileges including diplomatic treatment around the world, while their political opponents are always determined to take over their positions as in any typical democratic state.  

In fact, since 2007, the two major components of the quasi-autonomous Palestinian “state”, West Bank and Gaza, have been politically separate following a desperate power struggle between Fatah and Hamas that led to the violent overthrow of the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority in Gaza by the Hamas fighters; and since then the city has been under Hamas control. 

Meanwhile, while Fatah openly interacts with Israel based on formal recognition, Hamas, which "insists" on not recognizing Israel, does the same albeit largely through Qatar and Turkey. 

On the social level also, when Israel was created in 1948 many Palestinians opted for recognizing it by willingly taking its citizenship; they now constitute more than 20% of the Israeli population. 

Besides, on a daily basis, thousands of Palestinian labourers cross into Israel through its border crossings to work, which equally suggests their, at least, tacit recognition of the State of Israel; and given the chance, they wouldn’t hesitate to take Israeli citizenship. Interesting, many of them work on construction sites including the settlements that successive Israeli governments have been building on the very territories of the proposed State of Palestine in blatant defiance of the relevant UN resolutions.   

Anyway, in 1994, Jordan also signed a US-brokered peace treaty recognizing the State of Israel and normalizing relations with it. And in 1996, a year following the overthrow of the then Emir of Qatar by his son, the former Emir, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani who is the father of the current Emir, Shiekh Tamim, Qatar and Oman openly established relations with Israel when they respectively invited the then Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres to Doha and Muscat where agreements were signed between the two countries respectively and Israel.  

Also, whether it was a mere coincidence or not, the same year witnessed the establishment of the Doha-based Aljazeera satellite Channel, which was the first Arabian television channel to host Zionist leaders, politicians, and even military spokesmen who promote propaganda that undermines the established narrative of the root cause of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, which was the illegal occupation of the former's land by the latter. And since then the sight of Zionist officials on Arab TV channels has become normal. 

Now, Mauritania equally recognized Israel in 1999 and established diplomatic ties with it. And though the UAE is the latest Arab country to follow suit, it's an open secret that there have always been secretive direct or indirect contacts between Israel and literally all Middle Eastern countries. 

Meanwhile, Turkey, which, along with Iran and Israel are the only non-Arab countries in the region, and which recognized Israel since 1949, a year after its (Israeli) creation that made it the first Muslim country to do so, has maintained diplomatic, economic, military, and other strategic ties with Israel. 

Whereas, since 1979 following the Khomeini revolution in Iran, Israeli and Iran have manipulated their mutually beneficial "enmity" at the expense of the Palestinian cause and indeed the entire Arab countries in the region. 

In the conclusion this Friday, I will, God willing, highlight how Iran and Israel exploit the Palestinian cause in their mutually beneficial “enmity” to achieve their respective goals without actually undermining each another; and, of course, look at the underlying interests and dynamics behind the tendency of normalizing relations with Israel among Arab countries.

Who are Alhaji Sa’idu, Alhaji Ashiru?

(Link on DailyTrust site)

Around 2017 I learnt of a dramatic arrest of a Dubai-based Nigerian unlicensed currency exchange operator. Though I initially assumed that it was just a typical incident involving some Nigerians engaged in currency exchange without appropriate licenses, eyewitnesses’ accounts of the dramatic way the arrest was made left me suspecting other possible more serious reasons behind it; yet I never suspected anything close to what I recently learnt. 

Not long after the arrest, a “big man” elder friend of mine from Kano who had been approached by the suspect’s relatives in hopes he might be of some assistance to the suspect on account of his perceived experience with relevant procedures in the UAE contacted me in turn and introduced a brother to the suspect to me who had come to Dubai to follow up on the case.

And even after I met with him in Dubai, I was still under an assumption that the case was, at worse, a money-laundering case, which such unlicensed currency exchange operators perpetrate knowingly or unknowingly on behalf of some Nigerian home and foreign-based Internet fraudsters who capitalize on the naivety of such unlicensed currency exchange operators to implicate them in money-laundering crimes while they (fraudsters) get away with it.

Interestingly, a typical case in this regard plays out when an Internet fraudster in, say, Lagos manages to scam his victim in, say, London, however, due to the scrutiny that a Nigeria-bound money transfer particularly attracts from money transfer operators and authorities across the world on account of Nigeria’s particular notoriety in Internet fraud, the fraudster contacts a typical greed-driven but naïve Dubai-based mostly Hausa unlicensed currency exchange operator offering him a share from the money if he agrees to collect it in Dubai on his behalf.

He, (i.e. fraudster), then advises the victim to transfer the money to the Dubai-based fellow citing bogus reasons why he cannot receive it directly. The Dubai guy then receives the money, takes his share as agreed, and transfers the balance to the fraudster in Nigeria who ends up collecting the money without leaving any trace behind while the poor guy remains the actual receiver of the money according to the official records and therefore ends up being eventually traced and arrested in Dubai whenever a victim reports being scammed. 

Anyway, recently a friend of mine familiar with the arrested Dubai-based Nigerian unlicensed currency exchange operator’s case sent me a 24-page Abu Dhabi Federal Court of Appeal’s conviction and sentence against the fellow and asked me for a favour to translate it from Arabic to English as, according to him, it would be presented to a top government official who had been approached by the convict’s relatives to facilitate the Nigerian government’s intervention in hopes of securing his release by the UAE authorities.

After going through it, I discovered, among other things, that the fellow in question was actually one of a 6-man network of accomplices convicted and sentenced respectively. What, however, shocked me was the discovery that the case is entirely different from what I had assumed all along. I discovered that the convicts were, in fact, tried and convicted for funding the Boko Haram terror group in Nigeria.

However, due to the amount of workload and having concluded that there is hardly anything that the Nigerian government can do for them, I only made a one-page summarized English version of the original 24-page court file, which is full of details of many Boko-Haram funding transactions that the convicts had perpetrated at least since 2015.

I also observed that almost all the transactions were initiated by one Alhaji Sa’idu based in Nigeria who, according to the file, is a senior undercover Boko-Haram member responsible for facilitating the group’s access to funds from its sponsors. His name appears many times throughout the file.

Equally, one Alhaji Ashiru was mentioned in some of the transitions; and he is, according to the file, a Nigerian government official and yet a senior undercover Boko-Haram member who facilitates the transfer of misappropriated public funds to the group. 

The pattern of a typical transaction is that Alhaji Sa’idu would arrange an unidentified or vaguely identified Arab person on a visit to Dubai from Turkey to hand over an amount of money in US Dollars to one of the convicts who would, in turn, advise his Nigerian-based business partners to hand over the Naira equivalent of the amount to Alhaji Sa’idu. 

Though the convicts, or at least some of them, could be victims of manipulation by Alhaji Sa’idu and Alhaji Ashiru who had capitalized on their gullibility, the court file maintains their involvement anyway and, accordingly, two of them were sentenced to life imprisonment while the remaining four got a 10-year jail sentence respectively. 

Now, shocked by those discoveries, and wondering whether Nigerian authorities are aware of this case, I checked with a Nigerian diplomat friend of mine here in the UAE who promised to check in turn and get back to me.

Meanwhile, in case the Nigerian government isn’t aware, which is quite probable, it means that the duo of Alhaji Sa’idu, Alhaji Ashiru and perhaps others are probably carrying on their Boko Haram-funding facilitation activities through other accomplices and/or by manipulating other home or foreign-based Nigerian hustlers oblivious of the actual purpose of the informal financial transaction services they are providing. 

In any case, considering the sheer implications of this case on Nigeria’s security and stability, the Nigerian government doesn’t have any reasonable excuse whatsoever to justify its unawareness of it. After all, it maintains a diplomatic mission in the UAE, which is manned by supposedly trained diplomats as well as the National Intelligence Agency (NIA) operatives who are particularly responsible for preventing foreign-linked threat against Nigeria and its interests.    

Besides, regardless of whatever military measures Nigeria takes against Boko-Haram terrorists, its ability to defeat the group for good depends on its ability to identify and eliminate all its sources of funds, which can only be achieved through painstaking intelligence-gathering, accurate intelligence analyses, and proactive measures accordingly.