Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Ribadu, under pressure to choose his cabinet in time, was reported to have retorted that there was scarcity of good honest human capacity. According to reports he said so many knowledgeable Nigerians have been compromised by those who want to use them to subvert our security and loot our economy. So it is not as if the Nigerian president is wasting time or buying it. He is busy working to live up to his mandate and his billing, especially on security and the anti corruption crusade. But he knows as well that what is what doing at all is worth doing well and I cannot agree more.
That really is the name of the game today as we look at how what seemed to have hamstrung the Nigerian president in living quickly up to the expectations of those who elected him recently seem akin to the same thing that has changed the course of world diplomacy in recent times. This is because on the global diplomatic scene solutions are not forthcoming fast enough and where they have surfaced they have been baffling and complicated, throwing up confusion in terms of expected appreciation or understanding. The result is an emerging trend of world perspectives, relations and alliances pitching strange bedfellows together in bizarre and assorted relationships both in the volatile hot spots as well as the peaceful regions of the world.
Starting with Turkey in the EU, NATO had to hold a special meeting last week to consider how to defend Turkey against the increased onslaught of ISIS which has killed several people in that nation recently. Yet Turkey has been struggling for over 50 years to become a full member of the EU in which some powerful member nations are suspicious of Turkey’s Islamic credentials and background. But now NATO is to defend an Islamist nation against ISIS in the name of humanity and for its own security.
Similarly, US Secretary of State John Kerry was busy this week explaining to US legislators why they should not throw out the Nuclear Deal the Obama government had struck with Iran. This is in spite of the fact that even the US president has sworn to veto any turn down of the deal by Congress and the Ayatollah Khameini, the real power in Iran has questioned US good intentions on the deal. So on whose side is the US Secretary of State? Definitely the US legislators are not going to take him seriously as most of them have sympathy for Israel and its security and Israel has said through its vocal Premier Benjamin Netanyahu that the Obama government has been fooled on the deal because an Iran spokesman still recently said that Iran will never recognize Israel. So the new perspective is a US government pleading for understanding of a nuclear deal with, of all nations- Iran, whose Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini called America the ‘Great Satan‘ during the Iran Hostage Crisis during the Jimmy Carter Presidency.
More bizarrely Iran and Saudi Arabia are jointly fighting ISIS on all fronts except Iraq where sectarian violence between Sunni and Shiite Muslims have made Iraq ungovernable and a doomed failed state in spite of US airstrikes to shore up the country and preserve the territorial rumps of its sovereignty. Yet it has not occurred to the ruling House of Saud which is the monarchy in Saudi Arabia or the Islamic Autocracy in Iran that they could bury the hatchet on their sectarian differences to fight a common ruinous foe that ISIS has become to them in their nations and regions of influence. Instead the Iranian Nuclear Deal made the Saudi Monarchy suspicious of US intentions although they knew that the volume of trade with the US assured that he who paid the piper should dictate the tune. Even then however given the enormity of the challenge of ISIS the two champions of Shiite and Sunni Islam should have shown each other some armistice or respite to get ISIS out of the way as quickly as possible in the interest of their religion and the welfare and security of the millions of adherents following their dictates and direction.
In the same vein the visit of the US President Barak Obama to Ethiopia a Marxist nation almost laid waste recently by IMF conditionalities which it rejected when it needed economic assistance is instructive. This time the US is asking for Ethiopian military cooperation in fighting Al Shabaab in the region on the Horn of Africa. When Ethiopia asked for World Bank loans in the past the American funding officials and bankers asked for such repayment arrangements and terms that would have crippled the Ethiopian nation and ruined its social fabric and cohesion. The present Ethiopian government rejected such anti social and anti people conditions and did things their own way and Ethiopia survived to date to be the new bride of the US in the war against Islamic terrorism now threatening the global dominance and security of the US.
Actually the visit of the new Nigerian president to Cameroun should be seen in terms of new perspectives and diplomatic vistas. After the past, bad vibes of Bakassi and the trauma of the World Court verdict favoring our neighbour our president has done well to let bygones be bygones and allow the two nations to chart a new course of détente. Of course the Boko Haram menace was a stimulant for the new cordiality and its security input are certainly undisputable. But then Francophone nations in Africa especially West Africa have always begrudged Nigeria’s size and leadership not through their own volition or disposition but because they have been culturally tied to the apron string of France their colonial master that never wanted them to be truly independent individuals capable of being on their own.
President Paul Biya is over 80 and is much older than our president but the issue of security cooperation transcends age as it has to do with the present dangers and the protection of populations and posterity. Boko Haram has penetrated both Cameroun and Nigeria with impunity in recent times and especially during the life of the last administration. We even read stories of Nigerian soldiers shedding their uniform and surrendering across the border to be returned later in humiliating fashion. The appointment of new service chiefs especially for the Army and the appointment of a new Army Chief should show unserious military personnel that it cannot be business as usual in the fight against Boko Haram.
The fact that the new Army Chief was photographed as he set his walking stick aside to do press ups in front of troops in the war zone of the North East showed that the era of pot bellied leadership of the Army is over and that indeed the days of Boko Haram are numbered under the new military leadership. That surely is another welcome perspective that should delight Nigerians in terms of the expected turn around of our security and economic fortunes under the present dispensation. Again, long live the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
