Iliyasu Gadu
Ilgad2009@gmail.com
08035355706 (Texts only)
The bald eagle is the national emblem of the United States of America and you can find it on the American dollar, public buildings, sports and just about anything that symbolizes America. The bald eagle is native to North America and is known to roam the vast expanse of the American hinterland where it fishes with consummate skill on the rivers and brooks that crisscross the Prairies.
The bald eagle is a bird of prey and to the Americans it symbolizes strength, courage, resilience and independence, attributes which Americans liken to their essence and history over the centuries emerging initially as a colony of Britain to being the most powerful nation on earth today.
To the French, the national symbol is the Cockerel which depicts the character of the French people in terms of their vigilance, courage, pride and uniqueness. You can find the Cockerel embossed on the shirts of French sports teams and products. If you do find yourself in packed stadiums or in political rallies in France, you are likely to see a Cockerel released into arena by some over enthusiastic pranksters to the shouts ‘’Vive la France’’.
Although Nigeria’s national symbol is also the eagle, in terms of substance however the Nigerian eagle, such as it is, is now for all intents and purposes caught between the talons of the American eagle and the beak of the French Cockerel.
This is due to the fact that two of the most important institutions of Nigeria’s sovereignty, Defense and Finance are now practically under the control of the Americans and French.
Just recently we came to know that a contingent of American boots of the Stuttgart, Germany-based AFRICOM Command of the United States have now been deployed in Nigeria. The explanation is that the American forces, 200 in number are here to ‘’assist’’ the Nigerian military in the fight against terrorist elements that have for sometime now laid siege on mostly the northern parts of the country. We were further told that more of these American soldiers would be deployed in the coming weeks and months in furtherance of this objective.
To discerning Nigerians this is a dangerous stage in the psychological war unleashed by the Americans on the insecurity situation on Nigeria in which the former had done most of the talking and action with Nigeria keeping mum and going along rather sheepishly in what is clearly a matter that it should call the shots.
It all started with the Americans, a country that has the crime of genocide still hanging on its head against the aborigenes and native inhabitants of the land, contriving to froth in the mouth labelling the insecurity in northern Nigeria as ‘’Christian genocide’’. Even when presented with clear evidence to the contrary and even when the Americans know that their conclusions on the insecurity were false, they still went ahead and set the stage in motion for series of actions that has now culminated in blackmailing our government into admitting American troops into our country.
Sadly, in all of these, the apex officials of our military, security and foreign affairs institutions have seemingly yielded the ground to the Americans. It was a baby-faced first term American Congressman from West Virginia who first told us with a contrived outrage and magisterial finality that what is going on in Nigeria was ‘’Christian genocide’’, to his warped, prejudiced and uniformed mind.
The Nigerian government who know better than the Americans about what is really going on pertaining to the insecurity situation in the country seemed to have suckered up to the Americans on the popular but misplaced notion that the Americans have better intelligence and capabilities to tackle the challenge.
But discerning Nigerians know that the Americans are up to a confidence act with Nigerian government, using fake moral outrage, psychological postures, and an over hyped sense of their capabilities on the Nigerian insecurity issue to advance and achieve their strategic goals in this country.
This is what has led us to the stage where the Nigerian government has allowed the Americans to deploy troops in what looks like a bridgehead to eventually setting up a military base in Nigeria.
In a similar fashion, the French are now deeply embedded in our finance system as consultants to the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS). A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed with a French Finance and tax company Direction General des Finances Publiques (DGFiP) to modernize Nigeria’s tax system through audits, compliance and capacity building using AI techniques.
In other words, the French finance agency would have a ring side look-in into our tax system which would yield to them valuable intelligence information on our fiscal system and more importantly on how we generate revenues.
Again, as with the military and intelligence arrangement with the Americans, the Tax deal with the French is based on the notion that we cannot do by ourselves. Even the small prints says that the MoU leverages on the ‘’well known French expertise in digitalizing tax issues’’.
But the optics of these issues aside, there are fundamental implications of sovereignty, statutory impropriety and dubious opportunities to consider. In the public space many try to question why we should cite sovereignty in challenging the government over yielding our critical aspects of our Defense and Finance to foreign interests. Some people even believe we have no sovereignty to defend against foreign interests of western origins because we are either inferior to them or that owe it to them to hand over what the request from us without question or consideration.
Secondly, in handing over to them what they request from us we should not even ask questions or insist that even the pretense of the due diligence required in getting the constitutional and statutory approval of the National Assembly and security clearance as done in many countries should be dispensed with.
Thirdly, for some in government this is perhaps an opportunity to latch on to the back of foreign interests to advance their political interests in the expectation that these interests will watch their backs.
In 1963, through the vigilant protests of Nigerians, the Nigerian government declined the request by Britain to establish a military base here under the proposal for a Nigeria-British Defense pact. Over the years Nigeria has steadily maintained this stance. The United States had kept up a steady request for the establishment of a base for AFRICOM operations in Nigeria which had met with a polite but firm demurral. Former Chief of Army Staff Lt. General Victor Malu during his time publicly and vehemently disagreed with President Obasanjo on this.
Against the background of what we know of the Americans in foreign lands, their presence is always disruptive, they unnecessarily intrude into the affairs of host countries and disrespect the norms and practices of the countries they are based in. I have been a witness to negative incidents involving American servicemen in Germany and Turkey as a foreign service officer in those countries. There have also been similar reports in Okinawa Japan, Clarks Airforce base in Philippines and the numerous American military bases dotted around the world.
We should be careful what we are letting ourself into inviting the Americans into this country. We should not be unmindful of the signature of American presence in Africa and indeed in the countries in our vicinity. If the Americans had a track record of positive deeds, they would not have been asked to leave our neighbouring countries.
This should serve as a lesson to us in this regard. We can continue our present level of military cooperation with the Americans as we do with other countries without having to allow them into our country under whatever guises.
