Editor, Politics/Features, EMEKA ALEX DURU, takes a look at involvement of foreign countries in the efforts at rescuing abducted Borno school girls, throwing to the fore implications of the action
There seems to be sense in the saying that “he that is down needs fear no fall”. But perhaps, more than that is the allegory that “he that is in a pit has little control over the volume of mud being heaped on his head”. To some extent, this is the piteous situation Nigeria has found herself in since the internalisation of the April 14 abduction of about 276 students of Government Secondary School, Chibok, Borno State, by suspected members of the Boko Haram sect. President Goodluck Jonathan is also not spared the opprobrium.
The abduction, which has laid bare the fault lines of the nation’s security network, has seen some countries signifying interest or actually registering in the efforts to rescue the girls. By the close of last week, United States of America (U.S.), United Kingdom (UK), France and China were said to have signed on in the crusade. Israel had similarly indicated interest in joining the search and rescue team.
Though experts note that involvement of the participating countries would be limited to offering training and technical assistance, government officials have literally been dancing in celebration of their intervention. The other day, for instance, Jonathan’s spokesman, Reuben Abati, was clearly upbeat as he enthused on Israel enlisting on the agenda.
Their excitement was understandable. For a president whose administration appears to be losing in the war against the insurgents, any expression of assistance, regardless of the source, offers instant succour. Experts, however, warn that there can be no free lunch at the level of international relations, stressing that the global intervention in the otherwise Nigeria’s internal affair comes with a price.
The fear has been that with Nigeria’s security architecture exposed to foreign powers, her sovereignty has been compromised, perhaps, unwittingly.
“What it means is that we can no longer have a mind of our own. These countries will henceforth see us as a puppet nation. They will constantly be reminding us that they saved us from our own people, hence we should be beholden to them,” lamented Dr. Emma Ezeocha, an expert in diplomacy and international relations in a chat with TheNiche.
In a way, Ezeocha’s fear found expression in a recent comment attributed to an American senator and former Repulican presidential candidate, John McCain, in which he was said to have charged that the U.S. should have intervened earlier in rescuing the girls, instead of waiting for an invitation from Nigeria’s government that he dismissed as almost non-existent.
“We should have utilised every asset we have; satellite, drones, any capabilities that we had, to go after them. We didn’t have to wait until a practically non-existent government of Nigeria gave us the go-ahead before mounting a humanitarian effort to rescue those 276 abducted girls,” McCain reportedly told Cable Network News (CNN) in an interview.
Ezeocha described the sarcasm from McCain as beginning of the dwindling rating that the country would be getting in its intercourse with other countries subsequently.
Journey to the unknown
Concerned analysts have identified the slow pace of action by the government on the issue as giving rise to the current messy situation it has found itself. Days into the abduction, the Jonathan-led administration seemed confused on the circumstances surrounding the action. Even some of the president’s actions and engagements did not portray the government as taking the unfortunate situation seriously.
A day after the insurgents struck, for instance, the president was sighted in Ibadan, Oyo State capital, cutting the 100th birthday cake of the paramount ruler of the city, Oba Odulana Odugade. Later in the day, he was spotted in Kano receiving defecting members of All Progressives Congress (APC) to his Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
It was in apparent reaction to the perceived inaction by the government that obviously flustered citizens and the international community engaged the Nigerian government with the #BringBackOurGirls project. The campaign, which has caught up with all segments of the society, aims at jolting the government into action to find the girls.
The April 29 rally in Abuja by women groups was what was required for the campaign to go viral. In the streets of New York, Adelaide, London, Ottawa and unlikely places such as Tehran and the Swat District of Pakistan, the campaign became the dominant issue of social and political discourse.
Prominent world figures, including the 14-year-old Pakistani education activist, Malala Yousafzai; former U.S. Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton; former British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown; and the Iranian Prime Minister, Hassan Rouhani instantly signed on to the #BringBackOurGirls effort.
Media on hand
The incident also became lead news item on the world’s media networks like CNN, Aljazeera and the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), with updates of the incident being broadcast on hourly basis.
Social media sites like Twitter and Facebook were also not left out in the campaign for more to be done to rescue the schoolgirls. Aside the push from the media, protesters from major cities in the world joined in solidarity to pressure the Nigerian authorities to rescue the girls.
Enter the ‘Big Brothers’
America set the pace in offering to help in rescuing the girls. A report in a London newspaper indicated that the U.S. was doing its utmost to help resolve the “terrible situation”, but stopped short of offering to send troops – in contrast to Britain, which expressed readiness to send Special Forces and intelligence-gathering aircraft.
Obama had said: “In the short term, our goal is obviously to help the international community, and the Nigerian government, as a team to do everything we can to recover these young ladies.”
On the specifics of the help being offered by America, White House officials stated that it was counter-terrorism strategy to Nigerian investigators in information-sharing and improve Nigeria’s forensics and investigative capacity.
The UK had also offered to assist. By the close of last week, there were reports that the assisting countries had sent in experts to partner with their Nigerian counterparts in resolving the matter.
Boko Haram undaunted
Curiously, even with the air of hope that pervaded the land, the insurgents remained unperturbed, or so it appeared. From their hide-out, members of the Boko Haram sect released a video showing the girls in their captivity. The group also baited the government, proposing swapping the girls for their members under detention. There were unconfirmed reports during the week that the government had acceded to a deal with the sect. On the other hand, the foreign assistants were said to have deployed technology towards locating the insurgents.
Beyond rescuing the girls
The interpretation among perceptive Nigerians is that the countries enlisting in the rescue agenda may not be entirely doing so from altruistic consideration. They are rather seen to be doing so in pandering to their strategic and economic interests. American economy, for instance, is known to be heavily-dependent on oil imports from Nigeria.
There are fears that allowing the insurgency by Boko Haram to fester may provoke a backlash from the South, which will, in the long run, impact on oil production from the Niger Delta. This, besides affecting oil import to the U.S., will throw American oil firms out of business. Washington is also not comfortable with what is increasingly appearing as al-Qaeda having a foothold in Nigeria through Boko Haram. The concern is that given Nigeria’s critical status in West Africa, allowing terrorists to establish an outpost in the country would spell doom for the sub-region.
For France, her consideration is not entirely different from America’s. Though her economic interests in Nigeria are not as pronounced as those of the U.S., she is said to be concerned that the kid glove treatment to Boko Haram would put her erstwhile colonial territories surrounding Nigeria into serious jeopardy. Benin, Togo, Cameroun, Chad, up to Cote d’Ivoire were French colonial outposts. Even as they are now politically-independent, France, in line with her paternalistic policies, does not take her eyes off developments in the countries. The apprehension, thus, is that Boko Haram activists can easily slip into any of the countries, if they are not effectively contained now that their menace is essentially within Nigeria.
Britain, of course, is Nigeria’s colonial master. But given her odious role in the decolonisation struggle in other African countries, especially the then apartheid South Africa, her relations with Nigeria had, at a time, nosedived. Her intervention in the #BringBackOurGirls campaign and by extension, the fight against Boko Haram, is seen as a thoughtful strategy in smoothening the rough edges of her relations with her former territory.
China’s involvement has more to do with protection of her trading interest in the country. With a history of abstention from voting, even on critical issues at the United Nations, her intervention in Nigeria is considered unusual by students of international relations. It is thus suggested that her getting involved has to do with ensuring that she does not lose Nigerian market, considered to be her largest in Africa.
Cost of external assistance
Aside Israel, the other four countries that have pledged to help – America, Britain, France and China – are permanent members of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC). The insinuation is that relying on them for assistance on tackling Boko Haram may weaken Nigeria’s push for a seat at the Council. A senior lecturer in the Department of Political Science, University of Lagos, who asked not to be mentioned, stressed that what Nigeria has shown by allowing the countries to help solve her internal problem is that she does not have the wherewithal to rub shoulders with them.
His words: “How do you expect to be considered for UN permanent seat when you lack the capacity to tackle elementary insurgency at your backyard? There is no how you can comfortably sit and dialogue with an inferior partner. They won’t take us serious. We should rather forget the so-called quest for the UN permanent seat.”
His colleague at the Department of Politics and International Relations, Dr. Tunde Oseni, however disagrees, arguing that there is nothing to fear on the foreign allies joining in fighting Boko Haram.
“I think the intervention by the Security Council of the United Nations is not a bad thing. In the first place, the Security Council was put in place to maintain security and order at the global level. And any issue of international dimension like the Boko Haram insurgency should be of interest to the Security Council. Don’t forget that Nigeria is also a member of the Security Council. So, the intervention is not in any way bad. It is in fact inevitable given the international dimension of the Boko Haram insurgency,” he said.
He added that Nigeria’s sovereignty is not under threat with the foreign intervention.
“One thing about global security is that most of the information that they may get is not even hidden from the public domain. We live in a globalised world and several of the countries in the UN have missions, embassies in Nigeria and so they get even what you call classified information on daily basis. Of course, there are still some kinds of information that shouldn’t be leaked out. I think most of the information they will be requesting for will be on insurgency issue not necessarily on other aspects of Nigeria’s sovereignty. That is my thinking,” he said.
Lagos lawyer and human rights activist, Festus Keyamo, prefers looking at the immediacy of the situation, insisting that what should be uppermost should be ensuring the release of the abducted girls. “There can’t be talk of sovereignty without people in a country.”
Jonathan’s second term on hold?
At his media chat shortly after the abduction, the president parried questions on his second term ambition, asking for time to make pronouncement on the project. Jonathan had made similar remarks in the past, even when it was obvious that his foot soldiers had been doing the leg work for him in that direction. His body language has also not shown him disowning the idea.
But with the barrage of criticisms trailing his government’s handling of the Chibok abduction saga, there are fears of his second term being put on hold. Perhaps, more than any other factor, the Chibok incidence has provided a basis for the president’s critics and opposition political parties to further their allegation of cluelessness against him.
Similar regime of disdain resonates outside the country. The Economist, a reliable London weekly, in a recent editorial, did a critique on the abduction, scoring the government low on its handling.
“Perhaps the worst aspect of the Nigerian government’s handling of the abduction is its seeming indifference to the plight of the girls’ families. It took more than two weeks before Mr. Jonathan addressed the matter in public,” the medium noted.
New York Times, one of America’s leading newspapers, in its May 6 editorial, seemed more damning in describing Jonathan’s attitude to the crisis. The paper accused the president of being slow and inept in handling the affair, accusing him of leading “a corrupt government that has little credibility”.
Commentators at home are also unsparing at the president. For example, in his outing on The Nation newspaper of Tuesday, May 13, Olatunji Dare, a columnist, pointedly told Jonathan to forget his second term ambition, accusing him of lacking the capacity and character for the office. He wrote: “It is just as well that President Goodluck Jonathan has not formally announced that he will be seeking re-election next year.
“He should not. In fact, he should go one step further and declare, today, in the manner of former U.S. President William Sherman, that he will not be a candidate for the 2015 presidential election; that if nominated, he will decline, and that if elected, he will refuse to serve.
“More than any other incident in his accidental presidency, his shambolic handling of the girls’ abduction of more than 200 girls from the Government Secondary School, Chibok, in Borno State by elements of the nihilistic terrorist organisation, Boko Haram, has called into serious question his fitness for the job”.
This, incidentally, has been the mantra of Jonathan’s critics and members of the opposition. But will the president give in?
