THE FEAR OF ONE PARAGRAPH TWIT
By Olusola Ajiboye,
A paragraph twit by President, Donald J. Trump from the White House in Washington suddenly sent the Tinubu administration scampering for cover!
What a comic show of shame for a government that has lived in delusion of grandeur for almost three, (3) out of its four (4) year tenure.
Panic now hovers a Government that fails to wake its security apparatus to its professional obligation of securing Nigerians from avoidable blood bath, mayhem and death, by a gang of ruthless psychopaths.
Bokko haram crept into Nigeria’s lexicon as a tragic narrative in 2009 and has festered like an open sore ever since. Successive governments from 2009-date, failed to put the blood suckers at bay despite humongous annual budgeting for the security agencies. Terrorism remains intractable not because the Nigerian armed forces are in want of professional competence and will-power to take it out, but for elements in government, within the security agencies, among the Elite-political class and some, influential non-state actors who have been corrupted, turned Quislings and traitors to their country.
The tragic-comedy subsists due to patent exhibition of unwillingness by political office holders at national and sub-national governments to deal incisively with sworn enemies who have turned Nigeria into a killing field.
All that victims of senseless killings have gotten were condolence messages and visits by Principal officers of government. Nigeria has become a case study of a country that protects terrorists and fights civil human rights activists.
Today, hundreds of thousands Nigerians are in IDP camps; displaced, homeless, hopeless, helpless and in despair. Horrible murders in their numbers, loss of monumental properties and homelands have become the lot of citizens in a country supposedly governed by law and the constitution.
The serial terror war against Nigerians, now a subject of one paragraph twit by President Donald Trump, has turned into verbal assaults, insinuations, sentiments and religious coloring. This is unfortunate for an African Nation reeling in the grip of mass killings.
The country is worse off for citizens who cannot find sanctuary in their own government and are being forced to look out to Washington for succor.
For a sovereign nation, it is most unfortunate. But for a beleaguered peoples trapped in misgovernance and institutional decay, there appears little or no option.
Christian genocide, the casus belli of American designation of Nigeria as a country of “particular concern” has heightened tension and set tongues wagging among Nigerians with different interpretations marred in faith – belief.
President Trump was unequivocal in his twit, “If Nigerian government continues to allow killings of Christians, we will do things to Nigeria that Nigeria will not be happy about.”
The American President immediately ordered the US Defense officials to prepare contingency options with a warning that Washington could cut off all aids to Nigeria. This includes possible military intervention to flush out all terrorists and wipe out all terror cells across the country, if ‘Abuja’ continues to vacillate in releasing names of terror sponsors and location of their cells.
Inspite of credible evidences in support of United States’ stance, this writer is not joining faith-debates on the current diplomatic dispute. I rather view victims of the unending terror as Nigerians who have been traumatized, destituted, subjected to life-span pains and horrors, Christians, muslims and animists who have lost parents, children, husbands, wives, friends, associates and loved ones. Terrorism has reversed Nigeria in all sectors. The gaps will remain unbridged for more than a century if no domestic or foreign intervention comes.
America do not negotiate with terrorists. No one should therefore expect a kid-glove response to the current security situation in Nigeria.
President Tinubu should come to terms with realities and stop listening to naysayers who will not tell him what he doesn’t want to hear.
The President should speak to issues and engage in direct conversations with Nigerians.
Terse statements by his publicists are no alternatives in a serious diplomatic faceoff with the most powerful Nation on earth.
The Yankees will fight terrorism and drug trade anywhere. No amount of blackmail will make it back-off. President Tinubu should know those he must listen to, at this critical moment in Nigeria’s history.
He needs the wise counsels of Olusegun Obasanjo, Emeka Anyaoku, Abubakar Dangiwa, Okonjo-Iweala, Dapo Fafowora, Bolaji Akinyemi, Akinwumi Adesina, Lamido-Sanusi, Aliko Dangote, Theophilus Yakubu Danjuma among other distinguished Nigerians, whose voices are respected in the global community. Nigeria is currently invisible and inaudible in the diplomatic world.
There is no auspicious time than now, for full diplomatic status with the United States and other Nations germane to Nigeria’s domestic and foreign interests. Those flagging Chinese support are not sincere with President Tinubu.
China has no record of mutually beneficial foreign relations besides systematic exploitation of mineral deposits of host nations. How many Chinese aids has Nigeria gotten? Chinese loans to Nigeria do come with too steep a price to pay. China does not deal with a country it cannot exploit.
Nothing is ambiguous in President Trump’s twit. Intervention is not Invasion. President Tinubu has a window of opportunity still opened.
He should release names of sponsors of terrorism and terror cells wherever such are located within Nigeria, instead of allowing a foreign country to do so.
Olusola Ajiboye is a veteran Journalist and Media Consultant based in Osogbo, South West Nigeria.