November 11, 2014, all newspapers in the country with pages for "World News", "Foreign News" or pages that do not carry local news, had a news item entitled "Nigeria fury over US arms refusal."
The report, credited to the BBC, said Nigeria's Ambassador to the US had "criticised Washington for refusing to sell his government 'lethal' weapons to fight militant Islamists; Nigeria needed support to deliver the 'killer punch' and not 'light jabs' against the Boko Haram group," Adebowale Ibidapo Adefuye said.
Putting Ambassador Adefuye's comment in context, the BBC reported that they were sequel to the militants seizing the Nigerian north-eastern town Mahia, and a previous "US government decision not to arm the Nigerian military because of its alleged poor human rights record."
Going down memory lane, The Chronicle recalls that in 2005, Nigerian newspapers were awash with an alleged CIA prediction that Nigeria would be a failed state and disintegrate by 2020.
That possibility turned out to be the view of a participant at a US National Intelligence Council conference, as captured in a report on it.
The conference had featured top US experts on Sub-Saharan Africa, who were asked to discuss "likely trends in the region over the next 15 years, that is, 2005-2020."
One of the experts painted the scenario of a coup by junior officers in Nigeria, which "could destabilise the country to the extent that open warfare breaks out in many places in a sustained manner."
The report painted a doomsday scenario of how West Africa could be destabilised if what happened in Liberia in the 1990s were to be experienced in Nigeria.
"If Nigeria were to become a failed state, it could drag down a large part of the West African region. Even state failure in small countries such as Liberia has the effect of destabilising entire neighbourhoods. If millions were to flee a collapsed Nigeria, the surrounding countries, up to and including Ghana, would be destabilised. Further, a failed Nigeria probably could not be reconstituted for many years, if ever, and not without massive international assistance," it said.
Now, let us fast forward to 2012, just two years ago: The same NIC of the USA listed Nigeria "as one of the top ten countries at risk of state failure."
As a background, the NIC is the centre for "mid-term and long-term strategic thinking" within the United States Intelligence Community. And the assertion on Nigeria was made in the Council's Global Trends 2030: Alternative Worlds report -- a document that comes out once per presidential administration.
Page 18 of the report says Nigeria has the 9th highest risk in the world of failing as a country by 2030. Nigeria is one of eight African countries that feature in the top ten of the list. Others are Kenya, Somalia, Malawi, Niger, Congo, Uganda, and Burundi.
According to the report, the findings were made using a Human Resilience Index (HRI), developed by Sandia Laboratories. Seven indicators are used to calculate the HRI: population growth rate, population density, caloric intake per capita, renewable fresh water per capita, arable land per capita, median age, and population health (including infant and child mortality and life expectancy).
Countries on the list are projected to have a high risk of instability, conflict, or some other type of state failure in 2030, because of their poor human ecology and resilience.
The report also mentions some positive things Nigeria can do to avoid failure.
"Nigeria is a good example of potential upside and downside risks from migration for many aspiring states. Nigeria's increasingly favorable demographic conditions offer it the opportunity to escape from the economic stagnation it has seen in the post-independence period.
"If it collects its demographic dividend in full, it could see per capita incomes treble by 2030, lifting 80 million people out of poverty. Part of that economic success would involve experiencing continued high levels of migration, as young Nigerians migrate to acquire or hone their skills abroad, before returning to join the growing middle class and contribute to the economic miracle at home.
"Policy failure, in contrast, could lead to a demographic disaster, with economic underperformance and enhanced risks of strife and conflict, creating substantially increased incentives to migrate."
Now, The Chronicle has a million-dollar question for the Barack Obama administration: Is it saying it is unaware of these recurring doomsday predictions for Nigeria by its own NIC, especially, the 2012 version?
And why is it failing to recognise Boko Haram as the doomsday trigger for the destabilisation of the whole West Africa sub-region and beyond?
The Chronicle believes strongly that the USA should supply Nigeria with whatever "lethal" weaponry she requires to counter Boko Haram.
In the ongoing forcible creation of a state within a state in Nigeria, and the human rights abuses from the militants that accompany it, the US' stated reason for denying arms to the Nigeria military is porous and indefensible, under normal circumstances, yes; but not now.
In any case, human rights abuses by the Nigerian military may easily be curtailed by appropriate re-training, whereas the same cannot be said of the other side.
The Chronicle, therefore, calls on President John Dramani Mahama, as ECOWAS Chairman, to, in collaboration with the Africa Union, intercede with America to give the Nigerian military the wherewithal it needs to effectively confront the Boko Haram menace.
The West cannot be seen to realise the gravity of the situation in Nigeria in arrears, as they did with the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, which has left the credibility of the World Health Organisation in tatters.
The time to help Nigeria to forestall doomsday is NOW. Ad statem!!!
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