By Alexander Ekemenah, Chief Analyst, NextMoney.
There is increasing worry about the increasing military intervention in Africa – just when it was thought that this problem has been put behind long ago while marching towards democratic El Dorado. It’s giving goose pimples in the face of strategic analysts in several strategic think-tanks around the world, think-tanks that are independent-minded and not directly under the influence of their Governments.
Nigeria is being slowly encircled by military-led governments.
In the far North, there is Mali
In the Northeast Nigeria there is Mahamat Deby-led military junta in Chad.
In Sudan, two military factions are at each other’s throat, battling for supremacy. The situation there has degenerated and devolved into chaos that even the superpowers are not able to decisively stem the sandstorm of the chaos. Nobody knows when the bloodbath would stop and normalcy restored. African Union, the surrounding countries are at their wits’ end. Nigeria, the acclaimed giant of Africa, is helpless and completely handicapped in doing anything to help stop the unfolding Sudanese tragedies.
In Burkina Faso and Guinea to the West there are military-led governments who are not in a hurry to hold any form of election.
To the East there is Paul Biya-led civilian dictatorship in Cameroon that has been in power for over 40 years. On the surface, it looks solid. But dare to look deeper, there are evidences of a regime tottering only waiting for the final push to topple over into chaos. It is a well known and established fact that Cameroon is a French fiefdom!
The moment Biya (80-something year old man) dies, that country may devolved into chaos that may in turn herald military coup.
When President Idris Deby (Sr) of Chad was killed in the battlefronts in 2020 (some analysts even speculated that France had a hand in the killing – but without providing evidences) and his son, Mahamat Deby took over, his first place of call was Nigeria.
He was received by former President Muhammadu Buhari into Aso Rock.
Idris Deby was in power for almost thirty years handing over power to himself in all manipulated elections before he was consumed in internal crisis (of fighting jihadists).
Now, President Tinubu has taken over and after been made chairman of ECOWAS, he was banging the table that no coup would be “tolerated” anymore in West Africa/Africa
Hardly had he finished banging the table that those khaki boys struck in Niger Republic and sacked the President who has been adjudged to be a poor performer in governance. This is the same guy that Western powers are seemingly trying to protect against the new khaki boys in Niamey.
There are many non-performing civilian governments across the length and breadth of not only West Africa but throughout Africa.
If we follow this logic, many of these governments will be thrown out sooner or later.
It is noteworthy that in all the country mentioned above, they are facing hydraheaded/multiple internal security crisis. Nigeria is not excluded in this regard.
The only saving grace for Nigeria so far is because of the vast space that even the insurgents or terrorists cannot cover and conquer within a short time. Geography is a crucial factor here. Nigeria is also densely populated unlike many of these other countries.
Debate is already raging fiercely. I’ve not commented but watching the flows of the arguments about the fate of Nigeria in all these dramas.
Tongues are seriously wagging about our own country falling prey and into another ambush by the military, if there is any ambush anywhere at all.
The Nigerian Military High Command has consistently denied over the years any interest in pushing out the civilians. And that is because the khaki boys are allowed to go home with enormous booties without fighting real war. We know what is going on in this regard. The corruption that pervades the civilian ranks also pervades the military establishment.
I definitely oppose all military coups and all form of dictatorships. But I am very worried about these non-performing civilian governments all over the place.
My only consolation about Nigeria is that the historical conditions that brought the current civilian governments into power are still very vivid in our memory.
Interestingly, one of the leading characters that helped to chase the Nigerian military collosi back to the barracks is now the President.
He is a wily old fellow, a rough street fighter and a distant runner who probably know his onions and who may be adjudged to be fully aware of all the dangers looming or threatening from all corners..
But times have fundamentally changed in the last twenty four years. The dynamics have changed. What if this same man is outwitted by a new breed, new generation military officer who smiles at him and then trips him over from behind?
Yes, the civilian governments in Nigeria since Obasanjo’s time in 1999 is learning how to exercise control over the military. Obasanjo is a very mean character when it comes to challenging his authority. Remember how he dealt with Victor Malu and Bamaiyi and others.
Buhari Administration safeguarded itself by surrounding himself with security chiefs of the same extraction from his region – given the sullen animosity towards him from other regions of the country.
The ease with which the military high command is regularly flushed is an indication of this control.
But Nigeria is completely effete at controlling anything beyond its borders due to our internal instability and lack of economic power to impose sanctions and fundamentally weak foreign policy thrusts. Nigeria is not known to have the ability to forcefully project power (military, political, economic and diplomatic) beyond its borders
Nigeria, the Big Apple
There are very legitimate reasons to be worried about the ripple effects of what has happened in our next-door neighborhood, Niger Republic, that has been taken over by the Nigerien khaki boys and have the grossly incompetent civilian administration there booted out.
What has sipped down to us for analysis and understanding of the causative factors that gave birth to this development in Niger Republic through the media is indeed very frightful and speaks directly to what we have been experiencing in Nigeria in the last eight years with its further extension under the current administration.
The first thing that leaps to the surface in this unfolding drama in Niger Republic is the “big brother” role played by Nigeria under Buhari Administration to stabilize the Nigerien polity by pumping huge money and other resources into that country – not to mention what foreign donors have also given so far.
With what has happened, it is now very clear that Nigeria has unnecessarily wasted its investment on a country that lack internal capacity to manage its bounties efficiently and uphold itself against the possibility of military intervention.
What Nigeria did under Buhari is like dumping money and other resources into a cesspool (without transparency and accountability) because of filial relationship with that country.
It also meant that this military coup could have taken place long ago had it not been for the morsels of support from the BigBrotherNaija (and foreign donors) – going by the gross incompetence of the Nigerien civilian administration.
It is noteworthy that the coup took place during the transition period in Nigeria from one administration to another , i.e. from Buhari to Tinubu.
It’s an auspicious moment to strike. It’s a perfect timing. Nigeria is still in transit which means that Nigeria may not be able to respond with iron fist to external events of this typology (if ever it’s been able to do so before now and even whether Nigeria is ever interested in applying the sledge hammer on the Nigerien khaki boys)
The Role of Intelligence and Counter-intelligence.
What was surprising about the latest Nigerien coup was the ease with which the former President/Government are plucked off and thrown out of the Presidential Palaces – without prior knowledge by the President of the looming dangers of possible removal.
The contrary, however, happened in Mali, where the incumbent President then was not unaware of the looming coup that yanked him off the Presidential Palace but did nothing until it was too late.
In this case scenario, even foreign intelligence agencies such as American CIA, Russian FSB or French SGD are often caught unaware and off-guard essentially because their global telescopes were not homed on that country at the moment.
Intelligence and Counter-intelligence come in different gradations and sophistications adapted to various environments.
That is why, for instance, the American CIA was not able to topple Fidel Castro throughout the period of his reign. That is also why the Americans are not able to infiltrate North Korea with their moles.
Now, if a coup is coming in Nigeria, how are we sure that our intelligence services would be able to spot it ahead – where for instance we have a DSS that is busy chasing common criminals around the streets instead of focussing on its core mandate of countering foreign agents operating in the country?
It’s actually the sole statutory responsibility of Directorate of Military Intelligence (DMI) to ferret out coups – even before it manifest. But throughout the history of military interventions in Nigeria, the DMI is always part of the conspiracy. That is how Lt. General Aliyu Gusau became the grandmaster of intelligence and counter-intelligence in Africa from the time of Obasanjo military dictatorship (1976-79) till Obasanjo’s second coming again in 1999-2007.
Putting your trusted loyalists (with or without merit) in position of security high command is never an absolute guarantee against such an eventful development like coups. It in fact does not guarantee anything at all especially when a coup is carried out by junior officers with or without success. It’s even more aggravated when it’s carried out by the top echelon command which means that the Praetorian Guard of the State has turned against the State machine itself as the case is with Niger.
The coup that brought down President Mohammed Bazzoum of Niger cannot be said to be a fluke of the moment. It has been long in the making while Bazzoum and his coterie of incompetent, lazy and unintelligent ministers are gallivanting all over the place without seeing any danger looming on the horizon. Stupid lots.
They lack capacity to scan their environment for dangers. They move around in their bullet-proof Jeeps like idiots. Their antennae are not up at all. They are blind-folded by their trappings of offices.
Imagine that Finance Minister weeping like a baby when asked to account for the extraordinary financial resources put under his Ministry – otherwise he would face firing squad!
The second big issue is that Nigeria is being gradually encircled, fence-ringed, by khaki boys-led countries. How long can Nigeria withstand the shockwaves or ripple effects of this storm gradually gathering strength over the horizon? The horizon is laden with ominous dangers of Nigeria being sucked into the whirlwind of this unsavoury development of military interventions across the sub-Saharan belt.
Three. Nigeria has not disambiguated the external forces and factors that formed part of this ongoing spate of military interventions in Africa. In my view, Nigeria does not even have the capacity of a pugilist foreign policy thrusts that can be taken seriously as a measure of strength of what Nigeria can do to pull the rug off under the feet of the khaki boys anywhere outside the country. Nigeria has no economic diplomatic strength (in form of wholesale crippling or punitive economic sanctions and diplomatic isolation measures) to counter-balance the political influence of the khaki boys.
Since our independence, Nigeria did/does not have a Foreign Affairs Minister in the category of hard-nosed Otto Metternich of Austro-Hungarian Empire, Henry Kissinger, Alexander Haig or George Shultz of the United States, or that Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko that can craft foreign policy thrusts that see or go twenty or thirty years ahead of them even after they might have left the stage completely. These are globalist men and intellectual gladiators who take the world as a unit of foreign policy analysis, connecting the parts and/or dots together to form a comprehensive foreign policy.
Since independence, our foreign policy thrusts have always been that of convenience: go to the United Nations, European Union, African Union and other multilateral institutions to negotiate for puny advantages or the other and perhaps more important, wine and dine with foreign leaders. Nothing more. Very miserable and nauseating foreign policy stance.
From what has transpired so far, it may not be too far-fetched that Niger has suddenly become a global playground for superpowers such as the US, France and Russia.
We’ve read what thatcrooked, swash-buckling, sabre-rattling mercenary hireling called Yevgeny Prighozin of Wagner Military Company of Russia said about the coup in Niger in form of praise. Wagner Military Group is a further extension of the Russian State and projection of power into weak regions such as Africa.
Of course, Niger (including Chad) has always a private fiefdom of France. Remember how France hollered to the high heavens when the khaki boys in Mali had France kicked out of that country and had it replaced with Yevgeny Prighozin-led Wagnerian soldiers to help combat the jihadists in that country.
Till date, Nigeria has refused to publicly disclose the sponsors of Boko Haram insurgency and terror campaign in Nigeria – ostensibly because of the suspicion that certain elements within Government have hands in it and because of primordial religious sensitivity attached to it.
The main attraction in Niger as the case in many of those countries that have succumbed to military intervention is the vast amount of solid strategic mineral resources that are currently under high demand globally. No superpower is interested whether you are Moslem or Christian as long as they can lay their hands on your solid strategic mineral deposits.
Now, could Nigeria be a target for another military intervention given the shenaniganisms that have been going on for the past twenty four years of civilian rule (without even mentioning the unimaginable vast strategic mineral resources available in the country against the dwindling fortune of crude oil)? Has Nigeria sufficiently grown and consolidated its democratic institutions and cultural space that could serve as bulwark against military intervention? What of the massive scale of corruptions, rascality in government and governance, the vulgar opulent display of wealth by the elite amidst soul-shattering poverty for millions of Nigerians that often serve as the combustible materials for street protests and military putsch? And finally, what could be the ratio decidendi of military intervention at this point in time?
To be honest, Nigeria is not doing well at all. The quantum of economic development expected of democratic has not been delivered as dividends.
Every election has always ended up in controversy, bad blood and stomach ache such as the recently held election. The country is indeed bad shape. The country is not united in its diversities except at the top echelon of government where there is no ethnicity or tribalism in looting public treasuries and fleecing the masses
Insurgency, campaign of terror, banditry, kidnapping for ransom rage and fluctuate.
Social services, hard infrastructure facilities are at sub-optimal levels.
Despite all these inadequacies and often-annoying Government pronouncements, we have no other country than Nigeria. We stay here and die here
No to prospective military intervention in Nigeria again. Enough is enough. The military ruined this country beginning with the unnecessary bloody civil war that left sour tastes in the mouth, bitter experiences in spirit in its wake. The scars are yet to disappear despite all those nauseating historical revisionism done by those media hatchet-men to glorify what the khaki boys did while in power.
Furthermore, those Leftists, Stalinists left-overs, Putinists should stop glamorizing and ratifying military intervention.
The whole of Nigerian northern hemisphere has now succumbed to military intervention stretching from Mali, Niger, Sudan, Chad and with Burkina Faso and Guinea to the West – even with the buffer zones of Ghana, Sierra Leone, Togo and Benin.
Nigeria is being enclosed. Does Nigeria have the capacity to withstand the pressure of these events with the kind of prebendalist or predatory politics both within the civilian and military enclaves in Nigeria?
What happens when you are faced with a highly educated, urbane, sophisticated, charismatic or a maverick military officer coming up to stake his life by grabbing at Aso Rock and given our notorious historic divisive and emotion-laden civil space? The same masses that shouted “hossanah” yesterday would shout “crucify him” today. That is the phenomenal unreliability of the character of the masses.
Nigeria indeed nestle as a Big Apple waiting to fall. May it not fall!
But what happens when the Big Apple falls? Would that be the end or beginning of another Israelite journey into Canaan Land?
Niger is a trip-wire for Nigeria. Nigeria better watch its steps. There are landmines almost everywhere that can go off at any moment if we are not careful. And we cannot be too careful.
To be continued.
Increasing Military Intervention Across Africa: My Fear for Nigeria
