Ask not what America can do for Nigeria, ask what Nigeria can do for itself

It is ironically sardonic that a country whose military fought gallantly through dense jungles coping with a long supply line helping to restore peace and order to Liberia and Sierra Leone among several countries, and which at one time ranked the fourth best infantry force in the world, now has to seek the support of a foreign superpower to destroy a bunch of rag-tag irregulars in its home territory.

I have heard military men and government officials say that Boko Haram and other insurgent groups that have held Nigeria on the jugular for up to two decades now are fighting an asymmetrical war in which the enemy does not show itself in pitch battles thereby making it extremely difficult for regular forces to engage and defeat them.

But the question to ask is; Were the forces of Charles Taylor in Liberia regular? Or were the RUF in Sierra Leone normal conventional forces? Yet with severe limitations in supply and logistical lines stretching back thousands of nautical kilometers to Nigeria and a comparatively lesser knowledge of the terrain against the opponents they faced, the Nigerian military took the fight directly to the rebels of Liberia and Sierra Leone and brought peace to those countries.

Another touch to the irony is that not only did the Nigerian military battle the odds on the battle field, they had to face the diplomatic shenanigans of the French who supported Charles Taylor from neighbouring Cote d’Ivoire with arms and communication gadgets, as well as the underground logistical support by the Americans to the Liberians to undermine Nigeria’s military efforts.

France and America, if we have not forgotten, combined to stall Nigeria’s efforts to secure the full support of the United Nations and other donor global agencies to its effort at bringing peace to Liberia.

America in particular was ironic in this regard; Liberia was a creation of America in 1847 by President Monroe (Hence the name of the capital Monrovia) to resettle slaves wishing to return to Africa. The largest rubber plantation in the world was owned and run by the American Firestone company located in the city of Akron in the state of Ohio where the well-known Firestone brand of Tires was made. Two out of three jobs in Akron were linked to the Firestone company and by extension, the massive Liberian rubber plantation owned by Firestone is indirectly responsible for the jobs in the city of Akron.

Similarly, American companies had exclusive access and rights to the gold deposits in Liberia which they have been mining for decades. Also Voice of America (VOA) maintained a very powerful relay station in Liberia from which it boosts and beams its broadcasts to Africa and beyond. And it is from this facility that the American Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) runs electronic eaves dropping operations along with the National Security Agency (NSA) of America.

Again, Liberia offers a convenient location for American shipping companies to flag their ships and run their global maritime operations cheaply and out of sight of American shipping and maritime regulatory agencies.

Yet America watched askance as Liberia bled to a slow, agonising death securing only the premises of its companies and intelligence operations.

It is unbelievable and unacceptable that the Nigerian military, under which the likes of Generals Maxwel Khobe, Dogonyaro, Malu, Kupolati, Bakut and countless other gallant officers and men operated, had not been able to subdue insurgents based within Nigeria for over 15 years. The argument that the terrorists are fighting a type of battle that is alien to the Nigerian military does not hold water. Unlike in Nigeria, the Nigerian terrain cannot by any stretch of imagination be unknown to the military. That is like saying the owner of a house does not know his own house. Secondly since the fight against the terrorists is an internal affair, the Nigerian military cannot cite the issue of long supply and logistical lines. Thirdly, unlike in Liberia and Sierra Leone, Nigeria cannot expect to face diplomatic and strategic back stabbing from any outside power in tackling this existential issue to our survival. And if such under the radar activities do exist, Nigeria is within its rights and has the capability to meet these outside threats head on.

By now 15 years is enough time for our military to develop and deploy capacities and platforms to engage the asymmetrical warfare of the terrorists that have choked off our communities killing and destroying hundreds of thousands of lives and livelihoods. We can fight them electronically, infiltrate special operatives in their midst, take out their principals, identify and destroy their command and control and supply lines. We can identify the countries that support them and diplomatically ask these countries to choose between the terrorists and or having their business interests in Nigeria closed off.

If the political will to implement these measures have been evident, we would not have been prey to the blackmail of the Americans compelling us to share military intelligence and allowing them to do what we have the proven capacity to handle by ourselves. By allowing the Americans, who we know so well from antecedents as unreliable and unprofessional in such matters, we have naively opened the door what is likely to be a pandoras box of developments that will negatively affect our national interests.

The Americans cannot lecture us on the morals of the killings taking place in Nigeria. They cannot pretend to cry and weep over the killings of any group of adherents of religious faiths more than the people of Nigeria because most of us have bloodlines across religious divides. When people are killed by terrorists all of us Christians, Muslims and others mourn because it is one of us or some of us that are dead and living that are victims of the killings. No matter how an American will feel about killings of Christians in Nigeria, he or she cannot feel more than myself for instance who is of Muslim faith and who had shared countless times in the bereavement and contributed to the funeral rites of those Christian relatives of mine killed.

Against the known and proven capacity that Nigerian military and government has to decisively tackle the terrorists scourge, it amounts to self-abnegation to outsource what we have sworn by God to do by ourselves, to a foreign power whose reliability, competence and trustworthiness are highly suspect.

Unlike the Americans bombing terrorists in Nigeria, we went into Liberia and Sierra without tomahawks and drones. Our Navy conveyed men and supplies thousands of miles to Liberia. We did a daring amphibious landing under murderous fire from well entrenched insurgents, securing a beach head and ferried our gallant soldiers into the battle front. Our Air force secured an air corridor for operations deep into enemy territory. Our men and women ably led by excellent professional officers took the fight to the insurgents like the professional soldiers they were and made them beg for mercy and promise to drop their guns and sue for peace. We did all these with our resources and against the niggling sabotage of powerful outside powers. Compare our engagements with lesser resources that ended positively in Liberia and Sierra Leone with the American involvement in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Vietnam with far more resources and the negative results in those countries. Is this the military that had to seek a foreign power to help it do its own job?

Our government and military should think twice about collaborating with the Americans on our internal security matter otherwise they and Nigeria will eventually come to grief from Americans bearing Greek gifts.

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