Understanding Nigeria’s national interest – Kingibe

The development of our human resources to acquire scientific and technological knowledge and skills are now critical factors of our national interest if we are to survive and compete effectively in this new world where there can be only winners and losers.15. Turning to the regional environment, that we share extensive but largely uncontrolled borders […]

The development of our human resources to acquire scientific and technological knowledge and skills are now critical factors of our national interest if we are to survive and compete effectively in this new world where there can be only winners and losers.
15. Turning to the regional environment, that we share extensive but largely uncontrolled borders with four other nations presents both the challenge of avoiding frictions and the opportunity of developing harmonious good neighborly relations to expand our market and sphere of influence. Our neighbors are our first external line of defense. The way we successfully exploited this factor during the civil war and our failure to effectively do so now even when we face an unrelenting insurgency threatening our very territorial integrity, underscores this point. It reflects badly on our diplomacy and the state of our relations with our neighbors that they have not shown the expected commitment in cooperating with us in confronting the menace of Boko Haram.
16. Our national security and economic interests require us to focus not just on strengthening our relations with our immediate neighbors, but also with our neighbors in the West African Sub-region. The combined population and variety and quantum of their natural resources are no match to ours. It should concern us that although internal stability is returning to most countries in the region, there are still many challenges to consolidating the gains of recent years. Their democracies and institutions are weak, and their already fledgling economies have been further strained by the effects of the recent outbreak of Ebola. For quite some time, we have borne the burden of peace keeping, absorbing their migrating populations, and providing economic support to many of the countries in this region. We cannot, therefore, ignore to strengthen a region so vital to us as a market and as a sphere of influence.
17. This is not to say that we can ignore the rest of Africa or the world at large. Apart from the many good reasons for inter-African brotherhood and international solidarity, Africa is a vast market for our products, goods, and services, while it is to the global market that we turn not only for trade, but to acquire the knowledge and the technology we need for our development.
18. In view of the little time I have left, I would like to take a moment and return to where I began by making a remark or two about our most vital national interest which is the defense of our unity, sovereignty and territorial integrity. This is where the role of the military is paramount. Today, almost all institutions of state – Governments at all levels, the Judiciary, the National Assembly, and traditional leaders do not appear to adequately respond to the people’s yearnings and aspirations. There is a growing tendency even among our religious leaders to divide our people along the fault lines of faiths. Hitherto, the military, by its composition, its esprit de corps, training and doctrine, has been the foremost national institution. They have consequently been the last line of defense of national unity when other institutions failed. However, their traditional method of correcting real or imagined threats to national stability by direct involvement in governance is no longer tenable in the 21st international consensus on this. Recent developments in Burkina Faso and Sri Lanka are clear indicators in this regard. century. There is a national and indeed
19. The last five years or so have been testing times for even our military. Their well merited reputation for professionalism and discipline through their gallant participation in numerous peace keeping operations since Independence has been put to the test in their campaign against the insurgency ravaging the North East since 2009. Regrettably, well- meaning Nigerians who love Nigeria no less than the Military have been reluctant to make any legitimate comment about what they observe daily in the “war zones” because of the fear of being labeled unpatriotic and unsupportive of our troops. I am aware of the unconventional nature of the challenge they are confronting and the intricacies of conducting any type of warfare, let alone mastering the unfamiliar territory of an insurgency.
20. Yet, there is no denying that all is not well. That our troops are not suitably or adequately equipped and motivated cannot be disputed. Neither can there be a dispute about the problem of indiscipline in the ranks given the incidence of mutiny and the spate of courts-marshal, desertions and dismissals reported by the military themselves. In the midst of these and other internal challenges, the military appear to risk alienating the civil populations whose support they require for success as the contributions of the so called Civilian JTF to their recent victories has shown. Collective indictment of the civil leadership
of the whole region, or directly accusing some ethnic groups of encouraging the insurgency do not win hearts or minds.
21. Additionally, there is this serious gap in the proper management of war time information. It should not be the military that should inform the nation and the world of consequential developments in the war effort especially if they turn out not to be accurate. A few examples are the announcement of the release of the Chibok girls, agreement on a cease- fire with the insurgents, the liberation of Bama, and the equivocation over the recent massacre in Baga irrespective of the numbers involved.
Such pronouncements should be the responsibility of the political authorities to whom the military are subordinated such as an authoritative Civilian Defense Spokes- person, the Minister of Defense or, depending on the magnitude of the development such as proclamation of the end of the war, The Commander -inChief himself. Glaring and repeated dissemination of inaccurate information directly by the military seriously erodes credibility and confidence.
22. If in raising these issues I have touched on any raw nerves, it is not out of lack of patriotism or lack of appreciation of the difficult cross roads at which our Armed Forces find themselves. I do so only to draw attention to the need for the military to make serious internal self-appraisal of which the Defense Policy review now being undertaken is a part. This is especially so as it is not apparent that we are under any imminent threat of aggression by any outside power or by our neighboring nations as things stand. The major concern to our national interest today is the growing suspicion and disharmony among our people and the possibility of disruption to our oil region by land and sea. For now, the most immediate threat to our national interest is the Boko Haram insurgency which grew from a small band of misguided local youths to the franchise of international terror that they have become. We must draw the correct lessons from how we succeed or fail in dealing with this threat so that we might forestall or confront any similar insurrections in the future, including its resurgence in the Niger Delta.
18.Thank you for your attention.

Being a presentation by Amb. Baba Gana Kingibe At The National Defense Policy Review Interactive Session Kaduna, 21St January, 2015