A vote against US strike

In a curious way, the United States missile strikes on so-called “ISIS-linked targets” in Sokoto on Christmas Day has had a welcome but strange cathartic effect on Nigeria’s political temperature, which had been boiling both online and offline for months since the controversy about “Christian genocide” started. Nevertheless, I hereby cast my vote against the […]

In a curious way, the United States missile strikes on so-called “ISIS-linked targets” in Sokoto on Christmas Day has had a welcome but strange cathartic effect on Nigeria’s political temperature, which had been boiling both online and offline for months since the controversy about “Christian genocide” started. Nevertheless, I hereby cast my vote against the strike, even if after the fact.

We are in a global era when great powers use all kinds of pretexts and rhetoric to cover their real motivations for invading other countries in violation of the international law and order which they themselves established. For this reason alone, this unprecedented event must be examined from different perspectives, even if doing so could invite being tagged with crude labels and generalisations merely for daring to unfollow the herd and expressing a contrarian view. The writer’s job is not to speak only when it is convenient or to submit to the discursive orthodoxies of the day, however emotionally appealing they may be.

There are three reasons for my vote. First of all, beyond the superficial language of fighting terrorism, which is otherwise welcome, the strikes represent Nigeria’s growing slavish tendencies towards foreign powers. Since 1960, Nigeria has always maintained good relations with most countries of the world in all ramifications, but following Nkrumah’s principle of “non-alignment”, we also took care to remain independent of foreign powers. In Africa, Nigeria was a leader, and we led by example in standing up for African solidarity and self-determination for all countries. For these values, Nigeria spent billions of dollars, and some of our soldiers paid the ultimate price. But we earned the respect of Africa and the world.

In recent years, by contrast, Nigeria has been acting like a country in a mental crisis, at home or abroad. Consider these recent events. Nigeria is conducting military operations in neighbouring countries at the behest of France. The President of Nigeria wrote to the French President requesting for “help” to fight terrorism, at the very time that other African countries are kicking out the French for the same reasons. Our government has handed out Nigeria’s tax administration to France in an agreement signed not in Aso Rock or our Ministry of Finance, but at the French Embassy in Abuja; that is, on French territory.

The chairman of a major Nigerian political party is calling out to U.S. President Trump to come fix Nigerian democracy, precisely at a time when many Americans are saying Trump is a threat to their own democracy. Nigeria’s Senate President is querying himself as morally and politically unfit to criticise Trump’s position on Nigerian issues, at a time when South African leaders are standing up to Trump for peddling another false narrative of genocide in their country. Meanwhile, Nigerians have embraced and are celebrating a narrative of victimhood devised by foreign powers for their own ends, right when a majority of South Africans are rejecting a similar false narrative of victimhood as too divisive for South Africa.

All of these are indications of a country losing its head and mind, a country unable to identify its purpose in the world, let alone to pursue it. Nigeria’s founding fathers must be turning in their graves for our recently discovered slavishness to anything foreign, including false narratives that are clearly detrimental to our own stability.

As for me, I insist that Nigeria must acquire the capacity to solve our problems by ourselves, be it counter-terrorism, tax administration, democratic development or whatever. We cannot continue to remain ignorant of what can be known, and is known elsewhere in the world. A country of 230 million people cannot survive or thrive by remaining ignorant the capacities for national survival and progress. We certainly cannot continue to depend on the goodwill of other countries in a global arena where might is fast becoming right, as we are seeing in Venezuela today.

If since 2009, we had been serious about acquiring the capacities for dealing with insurgent non-state actors at military, intelligence, and narrative levels, we would have been done with Boko Haram by now, and banditry would not have arisen. The Nigerian state must train itself to become more competent at solving today’s national problems, and at transferring skills for future ones. However emotionally appealing the current narrative environment is to some, for Nigeria, this reality of self-assertion and self-reliance would not go away in a world dominated by self-interest.

Secondly, Nigerians must reject the framing of the U.S strikes. The idea that the U.S is throwing bombs in Nigeria to “protect Christians” is the most divisive and dangerous rhetoric ever for a country with the most fragile and volatile composition of Christians and Muslims in the world. If the intent is genuinely to help Nigeria—if “help” has any meaning in international politics—then the rhetoric must be to “protect all Nigerians” against terrorists or whoever. But if foreign “help” is framed as siding with only one half of a divided country, then it is unwelcome and must be rejected as unsuitable for our particular circumstance.

Mass violence is almost always a creation of false narratives, as was the case among the Hutus and Tutsis in Rwanda in the 1990s, both of whom, we must add, were and still are Christian. This rhetoric is simply too divisive for Nigeria, and portends nothing but greater danger. This is why Nigeria must also reject the escalating comments by Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu at the weekend about Israel coming to “protect Christians” in Nigeria. That sounds like the whole point of this controversy: to provide the Israeli government with a convenient cover for deflecting global attention away from Gaza. Given the global reputational and public relations disaster that has followed Israel’s operations in Gaza, anything that can help deflect attention would be a strong motivation for Israel, including messing up Nigeria in the name of false narratives.

Nigeria has always had a friendly diplomatic, business, and cultural relations with Israel, as we do with Palestine. This is fine. But we must be careful not to turn ourselves into merely a rhetorical device or propaganda tool for achieving Israel’s foreign policy objectives. The pitfalls for Nigeria are simply too high and too hot. Our political history reveals more than enough examples of the dangers of being caught up in other countries’ high-water politics dressed in religious robes. If Netanyahu wants to protect Christians, he can start with the Christians and churches he has been bombing in Gaza. After all, that is the birthplace of Jesus.

Nigeria is now in the grip of emotional hysteria about religion. But religion is not much of a driving factor in modern international politics. Sudan is a largely Muslim country, but the civil war devastating it right now was instigated by another Muslim country, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and mainly to extract Sudanese gold on the cheap. The destruction of Yemen, a Muslim country, by three other Muslim countries—Saudi Arabia, UAE, and Iran—is also mainly about flexing political muscles and show strength in the context of Middle East regional politics. Russians and Ukrainians are Orthodox Christians, but are still at war. Christian President Trump has just invaded Venezuela, a country of 34 million Christians, on the false pretext of fighting drug cartels. Christian Europe is right now preparing for what many openly say is a likely war with Christian Russia.

If we must, we can squabble against each other about religion at home, but such squabbles must not stray into our foreign policy or be manipulated by other countries for their own motives. After all, there is no such thing as a free meal in international politics. The U.S, France, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan or whoever will not fight terrorism in Nigeria for free, and we must determine the actual costs clearly. The real world is not a playground of innocent children but a competitive marketplace for selfish adults. Nigeria must not act the part of the former.

Finally, all of these things are happening this way because President Bola Ahmed Tinubu believes that divisive narratives fit his strategy for 2027. The President used “Muslim-Muslim ticket” to win in 2023, but now hopes to win 2027 with “Christian genocide”, “Christian persecution” and “protecting Christians”, in a country where Christians control all sectors of life regardless of who is president. This is why Tinubu has not done more than whisper opposition to this narrative.

However, while both narratives are false, they are not equal. The President knows that, but he appears so consumed by winning at all costs he overlooks the fact that his silence is tacit complicity. But what does it benefit a President to win an election by throwing his country into flames?