₦airaland Forum

ChrisKels:
Seeing how we played yesterday really makes me distaste Rohr the more. The NFF should serve him another sack letter because one is not enough. If I had his email address, I would do it for free ASAP.

Uzomarrr123:
On your TV and see those boys from Sudan

Uzomarrr123:
Can we beat Sudan?

I am still afraid o!

safarigirl:
Dem dey make assumptions based on Big name players. Some people said Morocco was sure for the semis last AFCON, na "I like to move it, move it" people still bundle those ones comot.


AFCON is literally anybody's game. Your team may be filled with brilliant players, but the lines may not fall in place the day you need them to.

See CIV with Haller, Zaha, Aurier, Pepe and co, you would think semi finals sure for them, only for you to hear that Zimbabwe or Guinea kicked them out.

MetalJigsaw:
I had sleepless nights over Eagles AFCON selection

latestnews.ng

Super Eagles interim coach, Austin Eguavoen, has admitted that he had sleepless night making his 298-man list for the forthcoming Africa Cup of Nations in Cameroon.

The Eagles will face Egypt, Sudan and Guinea Bissau in Group D.

The 2021 AFCON will hiold from January 9 to February 6, 2022, across five cities in Cameroon.

Speaking ahead of the tournament, Eguavoen said he was aware of the threats posed by the seven-time champions.

“Egypt are seven times winner and they are a team I have played against and coach against at the junior level. I know what they can bring to the table,” Eguavoen told the Nigerian Football Federation TV.

“They are not a team you can push over also every team that has qualified for the AFCON are no pushover. We are going to do everything possible to see how we can actually analyse them individually and collectively and map out a strategy. That’s what you should expect them to do as well.

“Nigeria is a big country and other teams will be planning as well.

“I think I am better as a coach now because every day that counts matters and I have watched many coaches and I have learned because we learn every day. But the thing is your opponents determine how you set up your team. So, it’s going to be a different approach against Egypt and another against Sudan and Guinea Bissau.”

“It was tough coming up with the final list and since I got the news (of taking Eagles to Cameroon) I would say I don’t sleep well because of expectations but I know not everybody wants us to succeed because they are in doubt but we will do everything humanly possible to put a smile on the faces of Nigerians” Eguavoen added.

The 56-year-old also spoke on the team’s chances of winning the AFCON despite his short time with them.

He said, “There is a team on the ground and I think this team is ready to compete anytime they are called upon. The time is quite short and we all know that but every coach has his own style and philosophy.

“With the quality of players we have I don’t think we will struggle but the only thing is there won’t be time for any friendly and that’s when you actually assess your team if they can actually do what you want or what the technical crew want. Be it as it may we just have to do what we need to do.

“The players have what it takes to win the AFCON but the journey of a thousand miles starts with a step and this is exactly what we are going to do. From day one we set up a meeting, we have to face the reality and talk to one another. Talk about where we want to be and about our goals. We are going to work hard to achieve those goals.

“So, I believe we have all it takes to go all the way but we have to take it game after game.”

The Eagles will take on Egypt in their opening game of the tournament on January 11 at the Stade Roumdé Adjia.

mkrest:
For me,the question is why call up people surplus to requirements when other departments need re-enforcement

SRAROFDAVID:
his old is he now, though his face is not showing

Cholls:
My brother I find this article really insightful.


Under the cover of counterterrorism, AFRICOM is beefing up Nigeria’s military to ensure the free flow of oil to the West, and using the country as a proxy against China’s influence on the continent.


Last month, Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari wrote an op-ed in the Financial Times. It might as well have been written by the Pentagon. Buhari promoted Brand Nigeria, auctioning the country’s military services to Western powers, telling readers that Nigeria would lead Africa’s “war on terror” in exchange for foreign infrastructure investment. “Though some believe the war on terror [WOT] winds down with the US departure from Afghanistan,” he says, “the threat it was supposed to address burns fiercely on my continent.”

With Boko Haram and Islamic State operating in and near Nigeria, pushing a WOT narrative is easy. But counterterror means imperial intervention. So, why is the Pentagon really interested in Nigeria, a country with a GDP of around $430 billion – some $300 billion less than the Pentagon’s annual budget – a population with a 40 percent absolute poverty rate, and an infant mortality rate of 74 deaths per 1,000 live births, compared to 5.6 per 1,000 in the US?

A US Naval Postgraduate School doctoral thesis from over a decade ago offers a plausible explanation: the Gulf of Guinea, formed in part by Nigeria’s coastline, “has large deposits of hydrocarbons and other natural resources.” It added: “There is now a stiff international competition among industrialized nations including the United States, some European countries, China, Japan, and India.”

Since then, the US has been quietly transforming Nigeria’s police and military into a neo-colonial force that can support missions led by the US Africa Command (AFRICOM). Buhari’s offer makes US involvement in Nigeria appear as if Nigeria is asking for help, when in fact the stage is already set for AFRICOM.

The Pentagon’s broader aim is to stop China and Russia from gaining a foothold in the continent. In the meantime, it aims to crush any and all opposition groups that disrupt energy supplies so that oil giants can continue exploiting Nigeria’s resources.

A brief history of a complex country

It’s important to get an idea of Nigeria’s ethnic and regional complexities. The country’s 206 million people, nearly half of whom are Muslim and nearly half Christian, live north of the equator in West Africa. Their country has 36 states, seven of which are coastal. The country borders Cameroon in the east, Benin in the west, Chad in the northeast, and Niger in the north and northwest.

A US Strategic Studies Institute report from the mid-‘90s describes Nigeria as “an artificial state created according to colonial exigencies rather than ethnic coherence.” Its fragility explains the country’s susceptibility to ethnic, religious, and class warfare. The majority of Nigerian Muslims are Sunni, but Islam in the country spans the spectrum, from Sufism to Salafism. The Christian population is distributed among the Protestant majority as well as Anglicans, Baptists, Evangelicals, Catholics, Methodists, and Roman Catholics. Most of Nigeria’s Muslims live in the north in 12 states whose laws are based on sharia.

Nigeria boasts hundreds of languages and ethnicities, the largest groups being the Hausa (who make up 30 percent of the population), Yoruba (15.5), Igbo (a.k.a., Ibo 15.2), and Fulani (6 percent). There are, of course, exceptions, but in general the Hausa-Fulani and Kanuri peoples tend to be Muslim and the Igbo, Ijaw, and Ogoni Christian. Islam and Christianity tend to be mixed among the Yoruba. During the late-19th century “Scramble for Africa,” the British colonized the region, Christianizing the south and leaving in place the Islamic political structures in the north both for convenience and as a useful divide and rule technique.

Black gold, British rule

Drawing up “contracts” for energy companies, the Foreign Office (FO) created a monopoly for Anglo-Persian oil (later BP) and particularly for Shell. Prospecting contracts were awarded by the FO in the late-1930s, but it was as late as 1956 that financially viable amounts of black gold were struck. Most of the country’s oil is in the southern, Niger Delta region populated by the Ijaw and Ogoni peoples, hence there is little militant Islam in Nigeria’s illicit oil sector. Shell operations began in Ogoniland in 1958.

Nigeria gained slow and painful independence from Britain in 1960. Seven years later, armed Igbo fought a war of secession in the oil-rich south to try to form their own country, the Republic of Biafra. Under a One Nigeria policy, the British supported the central regime of General Yakubu Gowon during the Biafra War (1967-70). Fighting and blockade  led to three million deaths. Biafra failed to secede.

The UK Labour government’s Commonwealth Minister, George Thomas, explained at the time: “The sole immediate British interest in Nigeria is that the Nigerian economy should be brought back to a condition in which our substantial trade and investment in the country can be further developed, and particularly so we can regain access to important oil installations.”

As the British Empire declined, the US gradually pursued the same policy in Nigeria. At first, the US considered supporting Biafra.

The Kennedy administration initiated $170 million in economic and military spending in Nigeria under a plan that continued until 1966, into the Johnson administration. William Haven North, who served as the Director for Central and West African Affairs for the US Agency of International Development (USAID) said: “The issue of supporting Biafra was also tied up with the question of oil interests; the major part of the oil reserves in Nigeria were in the Eastern Region with substantial American oil company investments.” In 1978, the US Navy’s Sixth Fleet began the regular exercises in the Gulf of Guinea that continue to the present.


Indigenous activist Ken Saro-Wiwa was arrested on phony charges and executed by a Nigerian military functioning as a private army for the Shell oil company

Enter Uncle Sam

In 1990, the Nigeria-dominated Economic Community of West African States (ECO) established a military wing, the so-called Monitoring Group (ECOMOG). The George H.W. Bush administration contributed $100 million. The succeeding Clinton White House said that for so-called peace-keeping operations in other African countries like Liberia and Sierra Leone, “Nigeria provided most of the ‘muscle’.” At this point, the seeds were sown for Nigeria’s use as a delegate for US wars in Africa.

By the dawn of the new millennium, the 3rd Special Forces Group (Army Command) was training Nigerian battalions to assist United Nations support missions. The Nigerian military enjoyed tens of millions of dollars-worth of US weapons.

Meanwhile, indigenous activists suffering under oil spills and environmental destruction established the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People. Nine of this group’s leaders, including Ken Saro-Wiwa, were later arrested on trumped up charges and executed by the national military that had been funded by Shell to act as its own private army.

The murders sparked international outrage and activists successfully pressured the US to terminate military aid. General Sani Abacha, under whose dictatorship the Ogoni Nine were hanged, established a Multinational Joint Task Force (MNJTF) to fight both activists and gangs. The MNJTF was later centered in Chad and used as a base from which to fight Boko Haram.

In 1999, Nigeria ended its military rule, at least on paper. By the mid-2000s, Human Rights Watch was wrote that, under the façade of parliamentary democracy, “the conduct of many public officials and government institutions is so pervasively marked by violence and corruption as to more resemble criminal activity than democratic governance.”

With the Ogoni, Ijaw, and other Niger Delta peoples crushed with force, some turned to violence. Following lobbying by Shell, Nigeria’s old colonial master, the UK, began spending taxpayer money on military operations to counter armed groups: £12 million between 2001 and 2014, when Campaign Against the Arms Trade (CAAT) co-authored their report. CAAT documents the UK exportation of nearly £500m-worth of weapons to Nigeria in that period, including missiles and grenades. It cites increased UK arms exports as a direct reason for the failure of the southern ceasefire. UK “security contractors” including Control Risks, Erinys, Executive Outcomes, and Saladin Security were embedded with mobile police units to crush protestors.

Nigeria and the “war on terror”

Western propaganda paid less attention to Shell’s systemic violence against the Ogoni and other peoples, focusing instead on the more headline-grabbing resistance, such as high-profile ransom kidnappings and pipeline disruption. State oppression in the drier, less fertile north, meanwhile, fed the narrative pushed by Islamic groups: that Western culture is toxic.

Founded in 2002 and led by Mohammed Yusuf who was later executed by the state, Boko Haram is officially called the Group of the People of Sunnah for Preaching and Jihad (Jamā’at Ahl as-Sunnah lid-Da’wah wa’l-Jihād). It emerged in the northeastern city, Maidugari, close to Chad and Cameroon, where it set up semi-autonomous communities. Religious graduates who studied in Sudan attempted to form similar communes but were attacked by the police. In 2009, Boko Haram members allegedly fired at a police station in Bauchi. The government response was to trigger civil war.

The MNJTF mentioned above, is described as “notorious” in a British House of Commons Library report. It was reactivated, this time to fight the Islamists. The report also notes how the Nigerian Armed Forces terrorized the civilian population with raids, arrests, and indiscriminate shelling.

The UK ramped up its training of Nigeria’s military while the US used Chad as a base for its “war on terror” operations: the Pan-Sahel Initiative (covering Chad, Mali, Mauritania, and Niger) and the Trans-Sahara Counterterrorism Partnership (which included Algeria, Morocco, Nigeria, and Tunisia). AFRICOM’s initial operations in Nigeria involved maritime training and integrating the country’s forces with those of other African nations to foster pan-African military alliances.

In its early years, AFRICOM paid little attention to Boko Haram. But this changed as the profile of attacks got bigger.

In 2011, Boko Haram launched a formal insurgency. A report published that year by the US House of Representatives Homeland Security Subcommittee on Counterterrorism and Intelligence outlined Boko Haram’s roots and the reasons for its popularity. They included “a feeling of alienation from the wealthier, Christian, oil-producing, southern Nigeria, pervasive poverty, rampant government corruption, heavy-handed security measures, and the belief that relations with the West are a corrupting influence.” It added that “[t]hese grievances have led to sympathy among the local Muslim population despite Boko Haram’s violent tactics.”

These grievances were met with the kind of violence that further fuels grievances.

The US escalates involvement

In the context of the “war on terror,” the Pentagon saw Boko Haram as an opportunity to train Nigeria’s military and employ it for its objectives. The primary US goal was ensuring that the oil-rich regions did not fall into enemy hands.

The Congressional Research Service noted that by the time AFRICOM was founded in the late-2000s, Africa “supplie[d] the United States with roughly the same amount of crude oil as the Middle East.” An Armed Services Committee report in 2011 noted: “Nigeria’s oil rich Niger Delta is a major source of oil for the United States outside of the Middle East.” The US Energy Information Administration states: “Nigeria is the largest oil producer in Africa. It holds the largest natural gas reserves on the continent and was the world’s fifth–largest exporter of liquefied natural gas.” The country has 37 billion barrels of proven crude, second only to Libya, which was bombed to pieces by the US and NATO in 2011.

Nigeria’s forces summarily executed Boko Haram’s leader Yusuf in 2009. A thesis published by the US Naval Postgraduate School notes that in addition to the assassination, “security forces killing or displacing thousands of Nigerian Muslims, is credited with swelling [Boko Haram BH]’s ranks.”

Yusuf’s deputy, Abubakar Shekau, took over and escalated a suicide bombing campaign. The Navy thesis also notes that “the actions of BH, along with other militant groups such as the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), have reduced the country’s oil production, displacing Nigeria from 5th to 8th on the list of America’s largest foreign oil suppliers.”

In 2013, the states of Adamawa, Borno, and Yobe imposed emergency powers. The Pentagon announced a $45 million-dollar budget to counter Boko Haram by training troops in Benin, Cameroon, Chad, Niger, and Nigeria. One of the consequences is that Nigeria has been transformed from a peripheral US interest to a proxy force. Years of war, mostly in the north and border regions, have led to 2.1 million internally displaced people. The World Food Program calculates that 3.4 million face hunger and that 300,000 children are malnourished.

Building a Sparta state

In June 2014, it was reported that a 650-person unit, the Nigerian Army’s 143rd Battalion, was set up on the ground and trained by US Special Forces from the California Army National Guard’s Special Operations Detachment-US Northern Command and Company A, 5th Battalion 19th Special Forces Group (Airborne). By then the Nigerian Army was active in 30 out of the country’s 36 states.

Chief of the US Army Africa’s Security Cooperation Division, Colonel John D. Ruffing, said: “It is not peacekeeping … It is every bit of what we call ‘decisive action,’ meaning those soldiers will go in harm’s way to conduct counterinsurgency operation[s].” One US soldier said: “This is a classic Special Forces mission—training an indigenous force in a remote area in an austere environment to face a very real threat.”

In 2015, Boko Haram’s leader Shekau reportedly pledged allegiance to Islamic State, rebranding the organization IS West African Province (ISWAP). A Congressional Research Service report notes that ISWAP “has surpassed Boko Haram in size and capacity, and now ranks among IS’s most active affiliates.”

It’s not as if strategists don’t understand that violence doesn’t work. They understand that violence escalates violence which can then be used as pretexts for more violence. A US Council on Foreign Relations article from 2020 notes: “the last two years have been deadlier than any other period for Nigerian soldiers since the Boko Haram insurgency began.”

As the war against Boko Haram waged on, Niger Delta gangs in the south threatened to resume attacks on oil infrastructure. US “aid” expanded to include training the Nigerian Police Force (NPF) across the country. In November 2016, 66 officers graduated from the Fingerprint Analysis and Forensics training program, an initiative run by the US Embassy in collaboration with the Office of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement and Atlanta Police Department.

In March 2017, 28 Nigerian officers graduated from courses offered by the International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs division, led by US police from Prince William County, Virginia. The program also provided “equipment, training, mentoring, and capacity-building support to various Nigerian law enforcement and justice sector institutions.”


U.S. Army soldiers deployed to Nigeria Army’s School of infantry trained more than 200 Nigerian soldiers in 2018

Expanding AFRICOM’s role

In what the US State Department calls a “whole of government” approach, military operations continued as police training expanded. In early-2018, 12 US Army soldiers, led by Captain Stephen Gouthro, trained 200 Nigerians at the Nigerian Army’s School of Infantry. Facilitated by the US Army Africa, eight Security Assistance and Training Management Organization soldiers and four 1st Brigade Combat Team soldiers shared “ground-combat tactics” with the Nigerian Army’s 26th Infantry Battalion.

In July this year, US Army Special Forces trained 25 officers of the Nigerian Navy Special Boat Service as part of JCET: a five-week Joint Combined Exchange Training program.  The Acting US Consulate Political and Economic Chief, Merrica Heaton, says that the training is designed to help the Nigerian military stop crime in the Gulf of Guinea and “counter violent extremists in the Northeast and enforce the rule of law throughout the region.”

As observers seemingly spotted the top-secret US stealth drone—Northrop Grumman’s RQ-180—over the Philippines, the Department of Defense sold nearly $500 million-worth of propeller planes to Nigeria, marking what the US Embassy and Consulate describes as “an historic level of cooperation …  between the U.S. and Nigerian militaries.” AFRICOM recently confirmed that the inauguration of twelve A-29 Super Tucanos into the Nigerian Air Force will serve a “critical role in furthering regional security and stability.”

The Pentagon allocated $36.1 million to the US Army Corps of Engineers to renovated Kainji Air Base, which will host the Super Tucanos. In addition to training simulator and small arms storage units, the Base includes “aircraft sunshades, a new airfield hot cargo pad, perimeter and security fencing, airfield lights, and various airfield apron, parking, hangar, and entry control point enhancements.”

To be continued on request!!!!!!

DOTian:
The Federal government should go and be inventive about generating forex through exports and stop this shamelessly dubious attempt at dictating to people and corporations. It's not job of the government to lecture folks on how to manage their resources, especially when the said feds have failed woefully and repeatedly on issues like making good fiscal and monetary policies. The solid mineral sector alone is capable of shoring up the forex problems of the country but crooks, herdsmen and Jihadists are allowed to solidly control this sector while ripping off the country... It's insane.?

darkelf:
Deluded fan

You're one of the noisemakers that are busy disgracing themselves on soccer on yo highlightsutube shouting Seniorman Kelz up and down like ESN thugs

Delusion is a medicine for your haunted souls....

Don't get me gong this morning. I'm not doing okay now

FreeStuffsNG:
Cc Myndd44 Lalasticala
We will not allow you kill our nairaland with toxic comments like you did with Twitter. If you can't have a decent and intellectual exchange without hauling insults then just face it when you are being reported to mods. You hide behind a keyboard and bully others with uncouth words and your bad upbringing because you think you can't be located.

deantimes:
What a bare face lie. You forgot regionalism was in existence as at then?

So the North provided money for others to get educated and chosed to be illiterates who are only good in terms of terrorism?

Only this lie has outweighed any truth that may exist in your lame submission.

mauchiz:
The Police Community Relation Committee (PCRC) advice on security dis morning pls read this it is very important:

*SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT*

TRAVELING GUIDE
The guide is for those travelling within Nigeria now or in the future.

· *Avoid going to any of the North East or North West of Nigeria no matter how important your assignment*.
The North Central is not safe. Avoid Kaduna by all means possible. Your best choice is to travel by air to any of the core-Northern states if you insist you must travel.

· *While travelling in the SW, beware of armed kidnappers and murderers.*


· They target evening and night for their operations. They are most active on weekends especially at dawn, evenings or nights on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays

· *Never travel with your family. If you must travel, don’t go with your wife and children*. Family in a car is usually prime targets, knowing resistance will be minimal.

· *If you must travel, wear smart dresses with canvass*.
The opportunity may come for you to run.

· *Always keep a dummy phone at hand while your real phone should be left in silence in your car*.
Delete all bank details in your phone.

· *Arm yourself, it may be helpful*.
You can buy dagger, multiple defense tools, gas cannon, sharp-multidrive tools and pepper spray.
Never use them unless you have a unique opportunity to attack your captors. Your attack must be to either escape or to kill your captors if possible whenever you have the chance.

· *They usually divide into two camps*.
One camp stops you in the front, the second camp waits for you to reverse before attacking from the back. If you have a heavy car that can knock and kill those at the front, please do.

· *Train yourself on the use of weapons in self-defense*.
You may find yourself in a position to use AK-47 abandoned in a hurry by kidnappers or left carelessly where you are kept in the bush.

· *They usually explore bad portions of the road, drive as fast as possible through such portions*. Be swift and decisive on the road. Do not use your phone while driving. It will distract you from concentration and keen observation.

· *Fill your tank from the point of departure*. Don’t travel alone.

· *If you are ever abducted, stay calm and cooperate but be keen to maximize any opportunity*.

· *If you are sure of escaping into the bush without your car, leave the car doors open and the ignition key on*.
This will distract the kidnappers and attract passersby.

· *The troubled spots at Yoruba land are: Ogere, Gbongan Junction, Igboho-Shaki way, Ikere-Ado road, Ife-Ibadan highway, Oyo-Ogbomosho highway, Warri-Benin highway, Ikole-Omuo-Lokoja highway; Ilorin-Egbe highway; Jebba-Bode Saadu way; Ilesa-Itaore way; Ogotun-Arakeji-Ado way.

· *If you have the chance, drive close to a lorry or trailer on the highway*.

· *Put on the local radio while travelling not listening to music*.
An important information relevant to kidnappers on the highway may filter to you.
U
· *Whenever you see herd of cows, be suspicions, keep a distance and look for a safe, swift drive through.*
May God continue to protect us Amen. Pls share it to your family and friends if you find it useful .

*MAY ALMIGHTY GOD BE WITH US AND SAVE US ALL*