When you hear the word, ‘abracadabra’ instantly what comes to mind is magic. The word is a lingo of magicians to conjure mysteries through the use of supernatural force. This word has no meaning beyond this for me until I started to take more than a cursory look at the evolution of Nigeria especially since the advent of civilian government in 1999. In this country, there is no planning, no process or law. Things just happen by magic, abracadabra!
What we have in Nigeria is not democracy. It is an aberration that can best be described as a civilian government, a bunch of ‘agbada’ wearing, visionless, selfish, and mindless ninnies occupying positions. And the government is headed by a puppet-in-chief who goes by the nomenclature, president. None of the puppet-in-chief has ever emerged through an open, transparent, and democratic process. The puppet-in-chiefs starting from Olusegun Obasanjo in 1999 to the present, stone-cold Muhammadu Buhari are all foisted on the nation by both local and international puppeteers hence none has truly governed to develop and emancipate the Nigerian nation. It’s no rocket science why naira is 480 to a dollar today, all the economic models or policies we naively accepted were meant to impoverish us and stifle our growth.
Nigeria is in a sorry state today because of the successive spineless and gullible puppet-in chiefs. The international puppeteers on the aegis of the Paris Club sold the Olussegun Obasanjo administration a dummy under the guise of debt relief. This was a debt that accumulated on a tripod of corruption, unfairness, and criminal terms. Even a caveman would not have accepted the terms and the accounting principles used in calculated Nigeria’s debt. The puppeteers threw the bait and the puppets from all corners of Nigeria went to town shouting hurray! The puppeteers’ ventriloquist whispered the benefits of the payment. We are told after the payment and the remaining debt was forgiven, it will be a direct flight to economic El Dorado. Without the empirical verification of the benefits and due diligence on the impact, Nigeria agreed. And so, we parted with $12b which represented a discount of 60 percent of our accumulated debt of $30b. In a country where more than 70% lives on less than a dollar a day and the unemployment rate among the highest in the world. The much-promised growth and development both in the short and long term never came to fruition. This was a reminiscence of the disastrous and catastrophic policy forced on Nigeria by the World Bank in the 80s called SAP, structural adjustment programme which eventually turned out to be ‘steps against progress. The puppeteers smiled to the bank while we sunk deeper into the doldrums of pain and hopelessness. In 2018, Nigeria overtook India as the country with the largest population of people living in extreme poverty in the world with an estimated 90milllion Nigerians.
The conflict in the Niger Delta might have created a bunch of millionaire thugs and some overnight billionaires both in government and outside it, but the biggest beneficiary is the multinational oil companies and the international puppeteers. The genuine agitation by the Ogonis, Ijaws, Itserikis, Urhobos, Isikos, Liages, Ikwerres, Ekpeyes ,Ogulaghas and other ethnic nationalities in the Niger Delta which Ken Saro Wiwa was killed for, was hijacked by people who were just acting a script. The goons were provided ammunition and leeway to media outlets to spew nonsense thinking they are fighting for a cause. While the drama was going on, countless vessels berthed on the Nigerian shore currying away millions upon millions of barrels of crude oil. The international puppeteers surely must have given out pittance to collaborators. None of those vessels were hijacked by pirates even though it was at a time pirates’ activities were rife and rampant on the Atlantic Ocean. Did you ever ask yourself why there was no broad coverage of the conflicts in the Niger Delta by the international? Or any international efforts for mediation? The conflict abated not because of any policy of the government, it was because the price of crude oil plummeted and the business was no longer viable. The amnesty programme was just another conduit to siphon money and enrich the boys. It is so bastardized that every criminal in Nigeria now is asking for one.
The propensity for the international media to report anything good about Africa, most especially Nigeria is very low. It’s no surprise why the story of the kidnapped Chibok girls gained notoriety in 2014. There was a frenzy in the international media to report the story. It was juicy, salacious, scandalous, and dirty. Above all, it is Islamic terrorism at its ugliest splendour, an opportunity to characterize the religion as a behemoth of evil.
Boko Haram, the Islamic terrorist group which kidnapped the Chibok girls has continued to operate in Nigeria to date. This group has killed in Nigeria, Niger, Chad, and Cameroon. For almost 10 years now, the military has not been able to kill the leader of the group or inflict damage that will incapacitate the organization. Boko Haram has turned its hideout in the Sambissa forest into an impenetrable fortress. Yet, the US was able to monitor the communication of Osama bin Laden and watch his movement via satellite. It blocked the sources of funding of his terrorist organization, Al-Qaeda. The French deployed its army to Mali to fight Islamic terrorists in the Maghreb. Why are there no efforts to cut Boko Haram’s funding? Is Shekau’s phone traceless? Why is Nigeria’s supposed satellite, NigComSat 1, and others in orbit not able to track the movement of Boko Haram in the Sambissa forest? Why is the US, European and other satellites in orbit not doing the same? How come the US mobilized a global military coalition, go into Syria to fight Al-Qaeda and the same cannot be done for Boko Haram? Territorial integrity my foot! Boko Haram’s network and operation are not as sophisticated as that Al-Qaeda, I wonder why this sore was allowed to fester for so long.
The Nigerian government was even denied sales of some military hardware because of the allegation of abuses levelled against the military by Amnesty International. Do you think it’s a mere coincidence that Nigeria’s security problems got compounded? In 2015, all we were talking about was how to stop Boko Haram expansion as it continued to take swathes of land after another, bombing and kidnapping people. Today, we’ve added banditry and marauding herdsmen. There are confusion and unease in the land. In 2015, the epicentre of the security problem was the northeast, majorly Bauchi state, now it’s the whole country. Are you surprised that the president who a few years ago was boastful and loquacious about ending the insecurity in Nigeria suddenly lost his mojo? Nigeria is on a chessboard with many players of variant interests.
How do you explain the recent spate of kidnappings of hundreds of students from their schools and their releases a few days later after some alleged negotiation? The Nigeria police and military could not find the bandits yet an Islamic cleric, Sheik Gumi was able to go into the forest and spent 3 days discussing with criminals? The ubiquitous satellite that sees and tracks terrorists in other parts of the world is blind when it rotated over Nigeria to see Abubakar Shekau and his blood-thirsty gangs? How on earth can over 270 kidnapped children with their captors and vehicles not be seen on satellite? These are mind-boggling questions. Are the puppeteers using insecurity for economic gains? What is the end goal of the international community? Is this about uranium, petroleum, gold, phosphate, iron, and other natural resources available in this region?
All the criminal elements operating in Nigeria are well funded, armed with better logistics than that of the government. They all have international and governmental supports no doubt. Governments all over the world sometimes tell a half-truth to their citizenry but the Buhari’s administration has turned lying into statecraft and insincerity into a virtue. The puppeteers manufactured conflict in the Niger Delta, Boko Haram was conjured up in 2009 which enables terrorism and banditry to flourish in the north, the herdsmen onslaught in the south which has increased tribal sentiments so much so that talks of ethnic nationalities rent the air. There have been no serious efforts both local and international to address the multiple layered problems of insecurity in Nigeria, it’s all half-hearted deception and lies. The next conflict to conjure will be a religious war! And it’s at the door.
