If there really is a political Boko Haram – aimed at making the country ungovernable for Goodluck Jonathan, preparatory to providing justification to either intimidate him out of power or forcefully removing him from office – with the recent kidnapping of 300 young girls in Nigeria by the terrorist group, they have finally got Jonathan where they want him. By his incompetent handling of the kidnap, Jonathan has betrayed Nigeria. The Nigerian elite is now the foremost and “biggest” beggars, and betrayers in Africa and the African world. Jonathan and his government have shamed African people by calling attention to themselves as a great and powerful Nigeria and then showing their behind to the world.
As I write, the United States has deployed manned surveillance aircraft over Nigeria and was gathering satellite imagery and sharing with the Nigerian government.
Two decades ago, Nigeria’s military was seen as a force for stability across West Africa. Now it haS been exposed as unable to keep security within its own borders as an Islamist insurgency in the north-east kills thousands.
If the military was as it used to be – a proud institution with a strong disdain for “bloody civilians”, Jonathan would have been in serious trouble by now. I recall that former president Olusegun Obasanjo’s famed fall-out with his then Minister of Defence, General Theophilus Danjuma was as a result of the former’s plan to Invite the US military into Nigeria and “exposing national security.”
Until now, it has rejected requests to base Africom, the US military’s African command centre, in the country. It favours funding its own, as yet unsuccessful, unmanned aerial vehicle, or drone, programme.
But under the global spotlight, and with delegations from many nations in the capital, Abuja, for the World Economic Forum for Africa last week, it has relented and allowed in foreign security experts and advisers.
In the past, President Jonathan has asked for foreign governments to “support the Nigerian government’s efforts” against Boko Haram – interpreted as a request for money.
All that has changed; Extra aid was not forthcoming then, but it may be now. The US has revealed it is flying manned surveillance missions over Nigeria to try to find more than 200 schoolgirls kidnapped by the militant Islamist group Boko Haram.
Nigeria under Jonathan, has shown the world that you are a white phantom dressed in Black, and undermining all that is great to our Motherland at this critical point in history, said Menelik Harris
A team of about 30 US experts – members of the FBI and defence and state departments – is in Nigeria to help with the search for the kidnapped girls.
“We have shared commercial satellite imagery with the Nigerians and are flying manned ISR (intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance) assets over Nigeria with the government’s permission,” said a senior US administration official.
The BBC’s Rajini Vaidyanathan in Washington says the types of aircraft deployed have not been revealed, but the US has sophisticated planes that can listen into a wide range of mobile phone and telecommunications traffic.
Will the Nigerian army be happy about this development? Have anyone examined the impact on our national security.
If the goal of this onslaught by Boko Haram is to make Goodluck Jonathan look inept, incompetent and clueless, his enemies has succeeded. If the aim is to make him fumble and take a wrong step, they got their man!
MY FEARS
A lack of investment in training, failure to maintain equipment and dwindling co-operation with Western forces have damaged Nigeria’s armed services.
“The Nigerian military is a shadow of what it’s reputed to have once been,” said James Hall, a retired colonel and former British military attache to Nigeria. “They’ve fallen apart.”
Unlike Nigerian peacekeepers in the 1990s, who were effective in curbing ethnic bloodshed in Sierra Leone and Liberia, those in Mali last year lacked the equipment and training needed to be of much use in the fight against al Qaeda-linked forces, sources involved in that mission say.
Hall said the Nigerian peacekeepers had to buy pick-up trucks and their armour kept breaking down. They spent a lot of time on base or manning checkpoints. Military education is still taken very seriously, he said, but the equipment and the training to use it have been neglected, with radio equipment in particularly short supply.
The process of decline in the military has been gradual, starting when the military seized power in the 1960s. When democracy returned in 1999, President Olusegun Obasanjo, a former military ruler, feared the army too.
“This starvation of the military has occurred since Obasanjo, as part of a strategy to ensure they couldn’t conduct more coups,” Campbell said.
“There is just a kind of hopelessness that is hanging over us,” said a military source.
Under this condition which started under the military regimes and escalated under former president Obasanjo – who seemed to have a deliberate policy of weakening the armed forces, a sense of dejection and hopelessness hangs over the military.
The fear of Niger Delta Militancy: On 08 July 2013, The Civil Liberties Organisation (CLO), Bayelsa State chapter has expressed worry over the state Governor, Seriake Dickson’s position on arms stock pile by oil thieves in the Niger Delta, saying such grave allegation should be investigated immediately as it is capable of sending wrong signals to the world.
The group was responding to Governor Seriake Dickson of Bayelsa allegation that oil theft is a threat to national security and responsible for the proliferation of arms in the Niger Delta. The governor said Militants who engage in oil theft, according to him, use the proceeds to finance their operations, recruit members, and buy arms and ammunition.
Oil bunkering and pipeline vandalism has been on the rise in the Niger Delta leading to dwindling revenue by government. Oil majors in the region have shut down or threatened to shut down some of their operations because of the vandal’s activities. The fear is that the Niger Delta militants who are now threatening that the people of the Niger Delta would make the country ungovernable if President Jonathan was not allowed to finish his term, may now be better armed than the nation’s armed forces.
The leader of the outlawed Niger Delta Peoples Volunteer Force, NDPVF, Alhaji Mujaheeden Asari-Dokubo, is a prominent canvasser of the view that his kinsmen in the oil-rich belt would foment trouble if President Goodluck Jonathan failed to secure a second term ticket in the 2015 presidential election.
He also advised northerners not to seek election into the presidency on the platform of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, and the main opposition political group, the All Progressives Congress, APC.
Asari-Dokubo said the people of the Niger Delta would not accept defeat of Jonathan unless in a free and fair contest, adding that the President must be allowed to rule for eight years.
He said: “If it is war the North wants, we are ready for them because Jonathan must complete the mandatory constitutionally allowable two terms of eight years. “At home, we have regrouped and we have put our people at alert.
In less than one hour, the way we would strike, the world will be shocked, he warned. “If anybody does anything against Jonathan, we will retaliate. What we will do will shock the whole world. We will cripple the economy of the country not only in the creeks, but also on the nation’s territorial waters, no vessel will be allowed to enter Nigeria’s territorial waters.
“Let them not try anything. If they abuse Jonathan, there is no problem, he is their President but anything that will affect the interest of the Ijaw people and the interest of the entire people of the Niger Delta will be resisted at any cost.” Asari-Dokubo also vowed that the defeat of Jonathan in a free and fair election would trigger crisis. He said: “Jonathan cannot be defeated, they cannot defeat him, they don’t have the right, every part of the country must have equal stake in the presidency of the country.
“Let them go and sleep in their houses. If they don’t, they are looking for trouble and we are going to give it to them. “It will make better sense if APC picks its presidential candidate from the South- South. With that, there will be no battle for us to fight and it will make it easier for us. Whichever way it goes, it will enable us to continue our right of uninterrupted rule of eight years, which is the minimum constitutional requirement.
“They cannot take that from the South-South and we will not accept it because every part of the country must have equal access to the various institutions of government, especially at the federal level,” he added.
It is clear that Boko Haram fighters has no monopoly of violence
ALLOWING THE WESTERN ARMY INTO NIGERIA
When I watch the international networks these days, I fear for Nigeria. What I see is exactly is the sort of momentum that I saw as develop in such countries as Libya, Syria, Egypt and Ukraine before disastrous western interventions.
Ogbuefi Ndigbo
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