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.