Helping the UN to help Nigeria

First, I commend the improved quality of President Muhammadu Buhari’s speech in the general debate of the 73rd United Nations General Assembly last Tuesday.  Despite some grammatical shortcomings, it was a much-better effort than his three previous offerings. That said, here are six of the strangest claims he made: One: That Boko Haram challenge has […]

First, I commend the improved quality of President Muhammadu Buhari’s speech in the general debate of the 73rd United Nations General Assembly last Tuesday.  Despite some grammatical shortcomings, it was a much-better effort than his three previous offerings.

That said, here are six of the strangest claims he made:

One: That Boko Haram challenge has become worse.  

“Regrettably, many of the crises and threats to peace and security around the world which we debated last year as we did over several previous years remain unresolved.  In some cases, matters got worse.  The continuing plight of the Rohingyas in Myanmar, the protracted Israeli/Palestinian conflict, the wars in Yemen and Syria, and the fight against international and local terrorism such as Boko Haram and Al-Shabbab come to mind.”

Nigerians who dare say that the country continues to be insecure, citing the carnage of Boko Haram, Fulani herdsmen, armed robbers and kidnappers, the government issues robust rebuttals.  As part of its Boko Haram narrative, at Christmas 2017, Buhari himself gleefully announced “the final crushing of Boko Haram terrorists in their last enclave in Sambisa Forest.”

A few weeks later, the government held a celebratory Town Hall in Maiduguri in which Ministers and other top-level officials used such language group as “completely decimated…structure degraded…leadership dismantled” to describe the militant group.

‘Normalcy,’ one said, had returned to Maiduguri, but that was turned on his head on Tuesday in an admission which has not been made to Nigerians, the crushed militia is now worse.

Two: Former Libya leader Muammar Gaddafi is not behind the herdsmen killings in Nigeria, after all.   

Buhari told the General Assembly: “The terrorist insurgencies we face, particularly in the Sahel and the Lake Chad Basin, are partly fueled by local factors and dynamics, but now increasingly by the international Jihadi Movement, runaway fighters from Iraq and Syria and arms from the disintegration of Libya.”

To begin with, Libya has not disintegrated; indeed, she was scheduled to speak in the general debate last Friday.  Still, only last April in London, Buhari told Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury, concerning the herdsmen violence: “…These gunmen were trained and armed by Muammar Gaddafi of Libya. When he was killed, the gunmen escaped with their arms. We encountered some of them fighting with Boko Haram.”

However, last Tuesday, he shifted the blame to “runaway fighters from Iraq and Syria” using Libyan arms.

But of course, he was probably referring to Boko Haram rather than the herdsmen he was describing in London.  He has certainly never spoken of the herdsmen as terrorists.

But if it is Iraqi and Syrian fighters that are all over swathes of Nigeria mowing down farms and communities, the UN would be interested.  The 22nd Report of the Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team of the Security Council dated 27 July says 20,000-30,000 Islamic State militants remain in Syria and Iraq, including “thousands of active foreign terrorist fighters.”

If some of these mercenaries are in Nigeria, it is worrisome Buhari has not brought Nigeria’s full might upon them.

That UN report also disclosed how terrorists are radicalizing local populations, as well as the rising numbers of non-governmental organizations funding terrorist groups.  Member States were concerned that radicalization is increasing the threat level in the Sahel, it said, citing Boko Haram and the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) in the Lake Chad basin.  It is interesting it was ISWAP that Buhari’s government did the business of 111 Dapchi girls last March, paying a “large ransom.”

Three: The practice of Nigerians risking life and limb to migrate to Europe through hostile deserts, nations, seas and weather is their problem.

Buhari said: “A topical consequence of the current conflicts around the world is the irregular migration of affected people from the Middle East, Afghanistan and Africa to Europe…Irregular migration is not a consequence of conflicts alone, but of the effects of climate change and lack of opportunities at home.”

But while he then makes a case for international cooperation in the Lake Chad Basin “to address the root causes of the conflicts,” he says not one more word about the dearth of opportunities that is chasing Nigerians to death in the Sahara and the Mediterranean or-should they survive-to slavery, prostitution and rape.

Four: Diagnosis.  Again.

“Corruption within countries and illicit flow of funds across national boundaries have huge negative impact on the stability, peace and economic prospects of millions in developing countries…The fight against corruption, therefore, involves us all.  It is in our collective interest to cooperate in tracking illicit flows, investigate and prosecute corrupt individuals and entities and repatriate such funds to their countries of origin.”

This demonstrates how Buhari has joined the long list of Nigerian leaders whose contribution to development thinking is perpetual diagnosis of a menace they nurture by action and inaction.  Current history documents well Buhari’s double standards, two faces and a forked tongue by which corruption has mutated into a fiercer monster.

Five: the UN is our answer. 

“The only global institutional framework we have to address these challenges is the United Nations System,” Buhari said, referencing such issues as corruption, conflicts, terrorism and piracy, to be resolved by strengthening of the Organization and reform of the Security Council.  “It is high time we stop (sic) skirting round the issue and establish (sic) achievable benchmarks and time frames for [UN reforms].”

But the UN cannot solve problems for which a government lacks candor or political will.  Nigeria being a member of the Security Council would not have prevented the manipulation of the Ekiti governorship election in 2014 or the Osun election last week, for example; nor Buhari’s serial violations of the rule of law; nor his government’s ethical collapse in the issues involving former Secretary to the Government Babachir Lawal, former Pension Board boss Abdulrasheed Maina, or former Minister of Finance Kemi Adeosun.

Six: Nigeria is working hard to elevate its people.

“Nigeria has always mobilized the required human and material resources to achieve set United Nations goals, including the recently adopted 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.  We are resolute in complementing the efforts and examples of the United Nations to promote gender equality and youth empowerment as necessary pillars for sustainable development.”

Nigeria has?  How, when and by whom?  I have consistently called for an investigation of the implementation and financing of the MDGs, for instance, where at least $1bn disappeared every year, but the Buhari government has shown no interest.  For another example, Buhari insists on medical care abroad for himself: how does that serve the 2030 Agenda on health?  For yet another, his government, through its complicity in the looting of the programmes of the Global Fund in Nigeria, has cooperated in discouraging, if not dismantling, that initiative.  That is not the spelling of “resolute”.

Clearly, the UN “general debate” format has outlived the best hopes of the founders, particularly for the poorer States.  Ironically, their heavily-fleeced people are the ones whose scarce resources must sponsor large pools of diplomats and other political relatives to New York annually in return for a few minutes at the microphone.

Happy Birthday, Nigeria.

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