By George Umuaku
Commander of the United States African Command (Africom), General Thomas Waldhauser, recently visited Abuja to reiterate America’s desire to bolster Nigeria’s leadership in Africa.
Vice President, YemiOsinbajo, emphasisedto him the support of the U.S. and said the government would welcome more its military cooperation and assistance in dealing with terrorism in the North East.
Waldhauser told the Chief of Defence Staff, General Olonisakan, that the U.S. is keen on afruitful relationship with Nigeria by stepping up assistance in training, intelligence sharing, capacity building, and hardware.
He promised the U.S. would back Nigeria to succeed in its leadership role, especially in wiping out terrorism from the West Africa sub region.
The MuhammaduBuhari administration must be careful of embracing America so as not to derail from Nigeria’s historical stand to develop an African standby force as an alternative to Africom, an American imperialist platform to secure oil and fight Islam.
Africans can use their own forces in conflicts without involvement of any foreign military assistance. Nigeria has stood on this through ECOMOG.
As we have seen in Libya and Iraq, the Americans already have well-tried tactics of changing governments.
AccommodatingAfricom in any part of Africa will only enable America to change regimes faster and easier as we saw in Cote D’Ivoire where France, with the backing of America, exploited its peace-keeping force against the legitimate government.
Abuja must understand that countries depending on the U.S.– like Israel, the European Union (EU), and Ukraine – cannot have military trade with other countries without the permission of America.
Any of these countries could suspend arms supply to another country or even cancel contracts with them to please the U.S.Washington once convinced France not to supply mistrals to Russia.
Americarefused to sell arms to Nigeria during the administration of GoodluckJonathan to fight Boko Haram. Nigeria must be alert to the new guise of a new military rapproachment.
.Umuaku writes from Lagos
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