A time in history

“Speak softly and carry a big stick. You will go far.” African proverb.

A lot has happened since US President Trump’s outburst against what he called our disgraced country. He had threatened to take steps to protect Nigeria’s Christian population which he said is a victim of genocide. All options were on the table, from our classification as a Country of Particular Concern to military action. He touched base with his Republican Party fringes, a considerable lobby of Nigerians in the US and others in diaspora and some Nigerian clergy who had knocked on the door for a long time. It may not have been his intention, but Trump appears to have bruised very sensitive nerves: politicisation of our faiths and cultural pluralism, pervasive insecurity, a weak administration and a deeply-divided nation. Presumably he read briefs that told him that he has rattled one of Africa’s strongest nations. For a President who wants to see his imprints all over the world, the effects of Trump’s threats should boost his ego. For Nigerians living with the nightmare of a weak state, the positives are in the fact that Trump’s America has raised the bar for the Tinubu administration.

It has been a trying period. A big row broke out drowning all reason. Millions of Nigerian Muslims were outraged at suggestions that the US was only concerned over the killings of Nigerian Christians. These could be forgiven because they may have missed the genocide in Gaza with the active participation of the US. Millions of Christians actually saw a Messiah in Trump, after their experiences in the hands of some of our many tormentors or their neighbours who killed them over their faiths or their assets. They could be forgiven for expecting such charity from leader of a country where many Christians are routinely attacked during services in churches. Muslim and Christian clergy dusted old records and registers of mayhems and deaths and swamped social and conventional media with numbers and incidents, all of which now assumed sole identities as victims of hostile faiths.

People who would ordinarily be offended by the insults and threats from the US welcomed them as necessary evils, even if they demean a country they once associated with pride and great values. Nigerian government froze for days, except for tepid statements from Abuja, since President Tinubu had not seen the necessity of appointing an Ambassador to the US for two years. When a delegation was received from Nigeria in the US, a few knowledgeable heads bowed. A rookie Congressman received a team which defied convention and protocol, and sent it back with the same demands: do the needful, or we will do it for you. A meeting with the Secretary for War merely stated Nigeria’s need for US support.

Back home, the President was shown in pictures being briefed by senior military and security officers. He then declared a state of emergency on security, ordered additional recruitments into the police and military and scrambled ministers to states where school children were being routinely kidnapped. Shrill voices are still being heard in arguments over what it took to retrieve them. This, in Nigerian terms, is a staple quarrel over whether it is proper for the state and beleaguered citizens whose valued relations are kidnapped to encourage, tolerate or engage in payment of ransom. The sudden spike in kidnappings and killings since Trump’s threats now provides fertile material for national debates. Nigerians ask whether the US is involved in engineering the spike to justify its threats, or killers and kidnappers from Yobe to Ogun, from Sokoto to Imo are drawing fresh inspiration from the seeming impotence of the Nigerian state. Then, the President nominates Ambassadors in response to an outcry over the absence of heads of our diplomatic missions globally.

It will be a grave mistake if President Tinubu, governors, the military and security agencies think these measures, largely in response to Trump’s threat, will make a dent on the levels of threats to which Nigerians are exposed. The depth and spread of threats to security of life and property in Nigeria cannot be handled successfully with a few more hands and a fancy name for non-decision. What exactly does declaring an emergency on security mean? If we have to guess, it would be a radical and informed analyses of philosophy, doctrines, strategies, strengths, weaknesses, resources, leadership and objectives of our defence and security as a nation. It will involve massive changes in strategic commands; huge improvements in understanding of the nature of our many and varied threats; identifying options that are consistent with overall goals and blocking leakages and eliminating internal sabotage of key goals and overall objectives. It will involve imaginative and even high-risk strategies to eliminate many of the sources that are amenable to being settled with non-kinetic strategies, while a vastly improved kinetic capacity will be available to eliminate other threats. It will require a thorough analysis of the weaknesses that have tied down our military and security assets, while threats keep growing. The outcome of all these enquiries may suggest a sound and actionable approach which could help prepare us to deal with a problem that hints at the weakening foundations of the Nigerian State. It could also show why it is vital for today’s leadership to take major decisions to save our country from going under.

Above all, President Tinubu’s idea of an emergency response must have a time line. This is where he will have his biggest problem. Nigerians will ask how long will it take for this emergency to deliver the country from ISWAP, IPOB/ESN, BOKO HARAM, LAKURAWA, MAMUDA, kidnappings which escalate by the day, bandits who lay conditions for living or death for many communities, armed vigilante who exist to fight other vigilante and many other armed non-state actors. President Tinubu may not have sown the seeds of our rampant insecurity. He may not even have ignored its growth into the monster it is today. But it is his responsibility to bring it to an end. This, not the mass poverty, not the quarrels between faiths and regions; not the alienation of younger Nigerians, will be what Nigerians will judge his presidency against in 2027.

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