Tackling terror: How to overcome French challenge

(Link on Daily Trust)

As it has often been observed, the already overstretched Nigerian military and other security agencies are simply too overstrained to decisively defeat the death and misery-unleashing Boko Haram terrorists, bandits, kidnappers and other armed groups across the country. 

At the risk of sounding pessimistic, and as much as one hopes otherwise, one cannot ignore the looming bleak scenario in the country whereby people would come to terms with counting on luck to evade or survive a terror attack, kidnapping, armed robbery and other vicious crimes rampant in society. In fact, it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to conclude that’s already the situation at the moment.  

Now, as it has always been rightly argued, Nigeria’s weak diplomacy and apparent incompetence in handling the geopolitical dimension of its worsening insecurity are equally responsible for its inability to defeat the Boko Haram terrorists for more than a decade so far. Besides, even if it decides to take the bull by the horns and embark on purposeful diplomacy to address the geopolitics of its security challenges, it will have to contend with France for influence in the Lake Chad-Sahel subregions, which are its (France) exclusive spheres of influence. 

Interestingly, countries with global or regional ambitions maintain exclusive spheres of influence within their respective regions and beyond. Geographical proximity, colonial, economic, cultural or longstanding strategic ties have always been the pretexts on which a world or regional power pursues geopolitical influence at the expenses of other countries. 

Over the past several decades, there have been a rise and fall of the influence of many countries. At the moment, the United States, France and Russia are the most influential superpowers while China is rapidly catching up. There are also regional powers struggling for spheres of influence in various regions e.g. Iran, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Israel in the Middles East, India and Pakistan in South Asia, Brazil and Argentina in South America, etc. There is also a tacit understanding among them for each to maintain its dominant influence in its spheres; face-off occurs when a country tries to extend its influence into the spheres of another. 

Anyway, for Nigeria to successfully pursue purposeful diplomacy in the Lake Chad-Sahel subregions, it necessarily needs the sovereign cooperation of the governments there to come up with efficient coordination mechanisms in intelligence-gathering and processing, and also, effective diplomatic mechanisms to collectively push for their interests in, particularly, Washington, Paris, Brussels and other capitals as well as various regional, continental and international diplomatic fora.    

That, however, is extremely challenging in the face of the dominant French influence. Besides, there are credible allegations against it in light of its highly suspicious engagements all over the subregions. For instance, in the terror-infested Mali where it maintains thousands of supposedly anti-terror troops, it’s widely believed to be involved in the massive and systematic plunder of the country’s vast gold resources while largely ignoring or at least not doing enough in tackling the terrorists. It’s equally widely accused of supporting dictators in the region solely on account of their loyalty to it.       

Though Nigeria rightly links the persistence of the Boko Haram activities, banditry and other organized crimes, to the inflow of weapons from Libya via Niger Republic and Chad, as well as the relative easiness of terrorists’ movements from and to Mali through Niger, it remains at the mercy of the powerful but reluctant France, which, after all, has maintained largely suspicious stands on Nigeria’s corporate stability since the 60s when it supported the Biafra secessionists against the federal government during the Nigerian civil war. 

Now, though obviously, Nigeria cannot withstand a face-off with France at the moment, it can overcome its challenge anyway. It simply needs to engineer some balance of influence by attracting another country with the capacity to rival France in the subregions. However, while that’s what President Buhari apparently had in mind when he recently appealed for the US intervention, he actually directed his appeal to a wrong party. Though the US already maintains a military presence with enough intelligence-gathering capabilities in the subregions and beyond, it isn’t likely to oblige President Buhari. Because under the standing tacit understanding among the superpowers, the whole of the Lake Chad-Sahel subregions is France’s exclusive sphere of influence. 

And now that Nigeria has announced that it will partner China in tackling insecurity in the country, it should attract China’s political interests in the subregions at large. It should consider entering into a strategic defence pact with it that would, among other things, allow it to have a military base(s) and intelligence-gathering units on Nigerian territories. From there it (China) can easily secure appropriate influence in the subregions and beyond by leveraging its massive investments and other economic commitments in most, if not all, the countries.  

With a rival like China deeply involved in the geopolitics and security of the subregions, France will certainly have to struggle to keep its influence. Though that wouldn’t necessarily guarantee China’s absolute commitment to supporting the countries in the subregions in their struggle against terrorists and other armed groups either, it’s most likely to be more supportive than France anyway, which would, in turn, have to be more cooperative lest it lose its influence.

In any case, while the countries in the subregions certainly need urgent and ample foreign military and intelligence support to defeat the terrorists, good governance that truly addresses the unbearable poverty across the regions remains the only strategy that guarantees sustainable peace and stability.