Nigeria in Uncharted Waters
by Ebenezer Obadare

In a different context, the deadly attack on the 7 Guards Battalion of the Nigerian Army Presidential Guards Brigade on the evening of Friday, July 22nd would have set alarm bells ringing in the upper echelons of Nigerian intelligence. Among the many puzzles raised by the attack, which reportedly left three soldiers wounded and eight dead, is the question of how the assailants got wind of the elite unit’s coordinates. Are there insiders within the Nigerian armed forces feeding intelligence to the gunmen and bandits who have laid siege on the Nigerian state as some politicians and military experts have suggested?

In any event, the weariness with which reports of the attack were received suggests that the Nigerian public has become accustomed to the established sequence whereby yet another audacious attack on a military or civilian target is routinely followed by the authorities’ half-hearted assurance that the perpetrators would be hunted down and brought to book. The attack on the army’s elite unit comes only three weeks after yet unidentified gunmen ambushed an advance party of President Muhammadu Buhari’s convoy in his home state of Katsina, while another group of bandits invaded the Kuje medium-security prison in Abuja and freed more than 400 inmates. No arrests have been made in connection with those incidents.

While the attack on the Guards Brigade was followed this time by a military counterattack in which at least thirty terrorists were reportedly killed, President Buhari’s decision to travel immediately afterward to Liberia for the country’s 175th independence celebrations gave teeth to critics’ accusation that the president and his immediate circle are detached from the plight of the average Nigerian. Between the last quarter of 2021 and the first half of 2022, President Buhari is reported to have taken twenty foreign trips, eleven of which have occurred in the past five months.

Frustration at Buhari’s lack of urgency and the authorities’ continued failure to find an answer to the bloodletting in the country was the apparent trigger for the six-week ultimatum issued to Buhari last week by senators of the opposition People’s Democratic Party (PDP) to find a solution to the worsening insecurity or face impeachment. While the threat of impeachment is likely to remain just that—it doesn’t look like the opposition can muster the numbers, and the process is too rigorous anyhow—the disaffection it encapsulates is widely shared in a country where, for a growing crowd, civic life has more or less collapsed.

While the administration has described the threat of impeachment as “ridiculous,” it seems obvious that, without decisive state intervention, matters will come to a boil before long. What are the likely scenarios if President Buhari does not impose himself on the situation and the killings and kidnappings continue?

One possibility is a war of all against all in which it is not entirely clear who is fighting whom or in the name of what. The large number of arms already available in the country—70 percent of an estimated five hundred million Small Arms and Light Weapons (SALW) found in the West African subregion is currently in circulation in Nigeria—means that we cannot rule out this possibility. Just last week, and in seeming confirmation of the country’s unenviable status, the Nigerian Senate passed a bill “to establish the National Commission for the Coordination and Control of the Proliferation of Small Arms and Light Weapons.” In recent months, at least three state governors (Aminu Masari of Katsina State, Samuel Ortom of Benue State, Bello Matawalle of Zamfara State) and one principal officer of the House of Representatives (Majority Leader Alhassan Ado Doguwa) have either encouraged residents to take up arms in self-defense or explicitly affirmed the constitutional right of citizens to take up arms to resist bandit attacks.

It is not far-fetched to imagine a legitimate uprising against bandits spilling over into something totally different, an eventuality that, in turn, could allow the many organized private militias and vigilante groups currently operating in the shadows to come out into the open.

Another likely scenario is a military takeover anchored on the pretext of restoring law and order. While this will constitute a massive setback for the country and reverse the admittedly modest democratic gains of the past couple of decades, it is not outside the realm of possibility, as we have seen with the successful putsches in Chad, Mali, Guinea, Sudan, and Burkina Faso. Significantly, those takeovers occurred against the background of rampant corruption, economic woes, widening insecurity, and widespread disaffection in the affected countries. Furthermore, and worryingly, they were greeted with wild jubilation by young people who were fed up with the civilian administrations’ venality and constant dithering.

This is not to suggest that Nigeria is destined to go the way of its subregional counterparts. First, it is a very complex country with a far more robust and sophisticated civil society; besides, there is very little appetite for a military takeover in a country that has experienced, literally speaking, the worst that the proverbial man on horseback has to offer. At any rate, the Nigerian military, emblematic of all that is wrong with the Nigerian state, is disorganized and rotten to the core. In a nutshell, it would be an extremely difficult task for any military adventurer to persuade the generality of Nigerians that the armed forces can suddenly accomplish what, until now, and with all the resources at their disposal, they’ve proved incapable of accomplishing.

That said, the Buhari administration is tempting fate by allowing the security situation in the country to degenerate to a point that Nigerians no longer feel safe and would rather take the law into their own hands. A May 2022 poll by the Abuja-based NOIPolls revealed that 68 percent of adult Nigerians believe that the country is “grossly insecure,” compared with 29 percent who believe that the country is “somewhat secure” and three percent who see the country as being “very secure.”

A variant of the military takeover scenario is a regime change instigated from within the current administration.

Why?

In the first place, there are indications that a section of the northern establishment is not entirely satisfied with the emergence of Bola Tinubu as the standard bearer of the All Progressives Congress (APC), an outcome that it fought tooth and nail until the last minute. For those among the northern elite who still entertain hopes of stymieing Tinubu, the gathering mobilization against a Muslim-Muslim ticket offers one final opportunity. Nor is the same elite all too happy with Atiku Abubakar (the PDP candidate) either, viewing him as too unreliable. A regime-change from within (as risky a scenario as an out-and-out military takeover) will appeal to this political constituency and hand it the opportunity it desperately craves to reset the political clock.

Because we are dealing with Nigeria, there is the not negligible possibility that none of these will happen, and that, with the Buhari administration content to run down the clock (the president has been speaking of how desperate he is to return to his farm in Daura), the country will straggle toward the February 2023 election, though at the cost of deepening misery and a tremendous loss of innocent lives.

Given how many times in its history the country has beaten the odds and pulled back from the brink, this should not come as a surprise.

This publication is part of the Diamonstein-Spielvogel Project on the Future of Democracy

THE WATERS ARE CLEARLY CHARTED AND IT SHOULD BE HE WHO KNOWS THAT TAKES CHARGE.

The timeless words and philosophy of Socrates comes to mind and applicable.

IF YOU READ "Complacency Hatred and Subversion". IT IS AVAILABLE HERE ON Nairaland. SMART AND INTELLEIGENT PEOPLE ALREADY IN TE KNOW AND AWARE OF ALL AND ANY SUBTLE MANOUVERS TO TRUNCATE THE CHOICE OF THE PEOPLE, ONE MORE TIME.

Time has changed.

OBI Datti we want

Hmmm. Though i am a tinubu supporter, but the future of his country scares me under APC.

Are you sure we should not let Peter Obi take it from here?

Vulturereloaded:
Hmmm. Though i am a tinubu supporter, but the future of his country scares me under APC.

Are you sure we should not let Peter Obi take it from here?

STOP THE DECIEVING YURSELF. YOU ARE NOT A Tinubu SUPPORTER. RATHER, ANOTHER OBIrodent.

I did not even know how bad the situation is in Abuja until a friend returned from there yesterday and told me. Everywhere was militarized including their conference center in the heart of Abuja!

He was forced to enter flight and paid 105,000 because the roads are dangerous.

Yet some BATstards still want Boko Haram patron called Shitima to enter Aso rock?! What would be the fate of millions of Nigerians if these evil souls succeed in bringing BAT and Shettima into aso rock? Won't they start hijacking planes, moving from house to house kidnapping and slashing throats? Who will save Nigerians by then?!

It shall never be well with anyone still supporting this criminal and terrorist partner in APC.

skywalker240:

Hush

The opinions of Vampire bats are not needed here

Neither do we want your Agbado munching teracuta

ANOTHER FOUL PEROSN Obirodent, PRESUMABLY.

Your pervert personae give you out, with droplets of foul sense wherever you passed.

Mickykarim:


ANOTHER FOUL PEROSN Obirodent, PRESUMABLY.

Your pervert personae give you out, with droplets of foul sense wherever you passed.

Dumbo

It's P-E-R-S-O-N

am not surprised, dumb Illiterates and touts are his followers

Little wonder y'all called urchins

Broke tout, i can change your life if only you could ask.

skywalker240:

And the broke tout went to copy a post he must have read somewhere to prove that it can speak Queen's English

All words in bold gave you out (now am expecting a heavy editing from the next copied post)


Let me tell you something kid, i can see through your frailty and self esteem

I can tell you are a broke lowlifer and that's why am urging you to accept my proposal

I repeat, I can feed you and I'll pay you better than 30k you always hope to get from the Agbado teracuta


Broke hungry kids coming up to nairaland to form woke

LITTLE FELLOW, LET'S HAVE THE EDITING AND THE SOURCE OF THE COPY.

I shall tarry awhile for you to prove you are not lesser than human.

COME ON, MR. BUFFOON. LET THE WORLD KNOW THAT YOU HAVE A NAME TO PROTECT AND PRESERVE, PROVIDED YOU HAVE ANY IN THE FISRT INSTANCE.

Lest I forget. I still have more lessons for you in English language.

AGAIN, TELL THE WHOLE WHILE WORLD THAT YOU ARE NOT A BASTARD BY PRSENTING EVIDENCE WITH LINK TO WHERE THE COPY AND EDITING IS FROM, OR ARE YOU?

Mickykarim:


ALL THE HOGWASH OF A THRASH BIN PERSON.

Meaningless streams all the way.

BY THE WAY, YOU ARE YET TO REDEEM YOUR BASTARD IMAGE.

You meant the bastard who couldn't use condoms on the wide basing pvssy hoe you call moma

skywalker240:

You meant the bastard who couldn't use condoms on the wide basing pvssy hoe you call moma

YOUR WORTHLESS LIFE IS ALL ABOUT THE KIND OF MALE DOGS THAT MADE YOU IN A GUTTER. WITH A VERY HIGH PROBABILITY.

All because I have proven to be above your entre lineage and forebears in all forms and ramifications including the superiority and mastery in English language.

YOU LTTLE FELLOW AND LESSR THAN HUMAN WHO COULD ONLY POSSIBLY PASS FOR A GUTTER ELEMENT.

Your entire essence and mentality is to project the TYPE of PARENTS who contaminated humanity with your foul essence.

TAKE ANOTHER LOOK AT MY POSITIONS TO YOUR USELESS LIFE AND COMPARE IT TO THE ENDEMIC NUISANCE YOU HAVE BEEN.

The difference has been made clear to you DOG.

Mickykarim:


YOUR WORTHLESS LIFE IS ALL ABOUT THE KIND OF MALE DOGS THAT MADE YOU IN A GUTTER. WITH A VERY HIGH PROBABILITY.

All because I have proven to be above your entre lineage and forebears in all forms and ramifications including the superiority and mastery in English language.

YOU LTTLE FELLOW AND LESSR THAN HUMAN WHO COULD ONLY POSSIBLY PASS FOR A GUTTER ELEMENT.

Your entire essence and mentality is to project the TYPE of PARENTS who contaminated humanity with your foul essence.

TAKE ANOTHER LOOK AT MY POSITIONS TO YOUR USELESS LIFE AND COMPARE IT TO THE ENDEMIC NUISANCE YOU HAVE BEEN.

The difference has been made clear to you DOG.

This time the dumbass will change it to entries.


Continue

Broke soul

The loud mouthed bastard is now pained, Yes i know i have hit the nerve

Go cry to the bastard that won't wear condoms before bringing calamity to mother nature

Why the hell did he inserted his gonococcus, staphylococcus infested pin head pencil into the smello, Pacific ocean, watery, candida, green yeast infested pvssy?

Now everything about you reeks of staphylococcus, gonococcus, yeast candida

Even your post too, am sure it affected your brain too (it's evident in your vile, post)

Common kid, i have a job for you, if you're bigger you wouldn't have replied, but alas you're not

More 3 by 4 plywood for your momma as she masturbate

Sorry pencil dick condom piercing bastard ain't Man enough, hence she resorts to mad men and whatever could satisfy the green yeast Pacific ocean she calls pvssy.

My advice, work on your bitterness kid

Having staphylococcus for a brain is appalling.

skywalker240:

This time the dumbass will change it to entries.


Continue

Broke soul

The loud mouthed bastard is now pained, Yes i know i have hit the nerve

Go cry to the bastard that won't wear condoms before bringing calamity to mother nature

Why the hell did he inserted his gonococcus, staphylococcus infested pin head pencil into the smello, Pacific ocean, watery, candida, green yeast infested pvssy?

Now everything about you reeks of staphylococcus, gonococcus, yeast candida

Even your post too, am sure it affected your brain too (it's evident in your vile, post)

Common kid, i have a job for you, if you're bigger you wouldn't have replied, but alas you're not

More 3 by 4 plywood for your momma as she masturbate

Sorry pencil dick condom piercing bastard ain't Man enough, hence she resorts to mad men and whatever could satisfy the green yeast Pacific ocean she calls pvssy.

My advice, work on your bitterness kid

Having staphylococcus for a brain is appalling.

PAINED WITH WHAT? THE TRENCH AND ROT THAT OUZES OUT OF A DEMENTED IDIOT WHO IS AS DYSLEXIC AS HELL AND SOLD THE PORTRAIT OF THE PERVERTS THAT MADE HIM CONTAMINATE THE EARTH.

Mickykarim:


PAINED WITH WHAT? THE TRENCH AND ROT THAT OUZES OUT OF A DEMENTED IDIOT WHO IS AS DYSLEXIC AS HELL AND SOLD THE PORTRAIT OF THE PERVERTS THAT MADE HIM CONTAMINATE THE EARTH.

Keep crying

It doesn't change any fact that your momma gat a smello, that's only gets satisfaction from mad men and 3 by 4 plywood, heck her pvssy can even swallow the whole community

Accept my offer kid.

You're doing yourself more harmful bitterness still living under the roof of that pencil dick idiot that is actually a failure from the womb and probably to the grave

I'll feed y'all