₦airaland Forum

NEARLY two months ago, while giving evidence before a judicial commission on the Benue-Taraba crisis, the erstwhile Chief of Army Staff, Lt. Gen. Victor Malu, disclosed the shocking piece of news of the pauper's burial given to some 800 Nigerian soldiers killed in an ECOMOG peacekeeping operation. That latter-day revelation only served to deepen the mystery of the financial and human cost incurred by Nigeria in its 12-year ECOMOG operations. It bespeaks our terrible state of living that we are yet to know how many Nigerian peacekeeping soldiers perished in Liberia and Sierra Leone, and how much it cost the Nigerian people to save Liberians and Sierra Leoneans from themselves. The trite argument that these were brotherly expeditions embarked upon to save our West African brethren in deep trouble fails to reckon that in some ways the ECOMOG operations, headed and principally financed by Nigeria, have wrought such grievous opportunity cost that we must begin to wonder why we have to be in pain in order to make others overcome their self-inflicted anguish.

If the ECOMOG operations were cavalier undertaking by military regimes that were accountable to nobody, Nigerians are nevertheless entitled to assume that great circumspection will attend any future attempt to operationalise ECOMOG under our prevailing democracy. That assumption however may be misplaced. At the weekend, the Minister of Co-operation and Integration in Africa, Abimbola Ogunkelu, told the News Agency of Nigeria that the Federal Government was not ruling out the deployment of troops to Liberia. As a first step, he said, Nigeria was facilitating dialogue between the Charles Taylor-led government and the rebels of Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD). But where the negotiations flounder, peacekeepers will move in, although, according to Ogunkelu, "we won't get embroiled in a prolonged military intervention". The minister's statement is an amplification of that made in May by the Senegalese President, Abdoulaye Wade, who is the current ECOWAS chairman. He had said at the end of an ECOWAS extraordinary meeting in Yamoussoukvo that ECOMOG might be sent to Liberia if dialogue failed. Whereas Wade spoke of ECOMOG troops, Ogunkelu, has spoken of Nigerian troops, because "Nigeria had never shied away from the responsibility of maintaining peace in the West African sub-region". It is sad that what was a costly misadventure is now being peddled as a sub-regional responsibility by a country that wants to look great outside but is rotten internally.

The recent history of Nigeria's role as the policeman of West Africa began in 1990, a few months after Charles Taylor, then a rebel, initiated a bush war against President Samuel Doe of Liberia. I do not know what strategic interest Nigeria was pursuing in Liberia, other than the widely held view that President Ibrahim Babangida wanted to save his kindred dictator, Samuel Doe. Liberia was basically an American problem. It has been speculated, however, that the Babangida regime took up the task partly because the junta wanted a higher approval rating for itself by Washington. As the ECOMOG operation became a quagmire, there was the rationalisation that a domino effect loomed over the sub-region if the rebel onslaught succeeded. But the domino-effect that was feared was mere hallucination or bare-faced rationalisation to justify an adventure that had gone awry.


Of course, the ECOMOG operation in Liberia, which later extended to Sierra Leone (where our boys and men are still on peacekeeping mission) was a goldmine for military contractors who supplied equipment and rations. Although Nigeria was largely instrumental to the Abuja Peace Accord by which the factions in the Liberian civil war eventually agreed to a cease-fire, elections and a new government, Charles Taylor was always suspected of nursing an abiding grudge against Nigeria for delaying the harvest of his conquest that seemed well-assured against Doe before ECOMOG stepped in in 1990. If Taylor's hostility towards Nigeria was mere speculation, his maltreatment of and open confrontation with the residual ECOMOG (read: Nigerian) troops that stayed back under the terms of the Abuja settlement, showed up Charles Taylor as an ingrate soon after he was sworn in as President in 1997. This was aside reported cases of the rampant molestation of ordinary, law-abiding Nigerians resident in that country.

Is it the same Charles Taylor we want to send our boys to go and die for? Peacekeeping is not war. But it is war by another name. Inside the bushes of Liberia and Sierra Leone where children are field commanders and the rules of armed conflict are neither known nor respected, any peacekeeper in such a terrain is literally at war. If peacekeeping were not so hazardous, our boys would go on such missions and return in equal number. According to Gen. Malu, when he was ECOMOG Force Commander, he brought home 800 corpses of Nigerian soldiers killed in peacekeeping operations in Liberia. He said he directed their secret burial in order to avoid national uproar and panic. Even if the nation did not know about it at the time, the dependants and survivors of those killed were invariably thrown into misery - all because the country was pursuing some ill-defined foreign policy objective in another land from which she could never benefit.

After the Liberian operation, Nigeria was deeply involved in the Sierra Leone mission. There again, Charles Taylor displayed his treachery. He was dealing in arms and diamonds - the so-called blood diamonds - with Sierra Leonean rebels even while ECOMOG troops, mainly Nigerian soldiers, were under sniper fire. Sometime in September 2000, 59 of such Nigerian soldiers were wounded and flown to Nasr City, Egypt, for treatment. The wounded soldiers grabbed the headlines after they staged a public protest over unpaid allowances. It was on account of Charles Taylor's perfidy that the United Nations imposed sanctions on Liberia - an embargo on diamond exports and a travel ban on Taylor and his henchmen, which was recently extended for another year.

Because our premium on life is cheap, it would be no big deal if we sent our boys to go and die again for Charles Taylor and Liberians. We would have no compunction in making instant widows and orphans of the wives and children of the men and officers the Federal Government is contemplating sending to Liberia. Because we are a nation that is hopelessly wasteful, the Government is yet to calculate what it costs to train and maintain an officer or a non-commissioned officer and how much will be lost thereby if one of them was killed in the pointless mission being contemplated for Liberia. At a time when Nigerians are sick and hungry and dying, it would be the epic of waste if our soldiers were to be sent to Liberia for any peacekeeping mission now or in the near future. Linkages have been speculated between the proliferation of illicit light weapons in Nigeria and the return of Nigerian troops from peacekeeping missions abroad, particularly in West Africa. Linkages have also been speculated between the prevalence rate of HIV/AIDS among members of the armed forces and the deployment of officers and men for cross border peacekeeping missions. Ordinarily, these are worrisome social consequences which any serious government ought to be concerned about, rather than trifling with a policy measure that is bound to compound the problem. Ethnic militias are threatening to tear Nigeria asunder, and the government instead of deploying resources and time to get on top of the problem wants to play the ostrich by embarking upon Afghanistanism.

n 1991, one year after Gen. Babangida began the ECOMOG mission, he declared in a newspaper interview that he was surprised that despite the ravages it had suffered, the Nigerian economy was yet to collapse. He had expected to see immediate signs of rot and disintegration. Those signs were there, except that Gen. Babangida didn't look hard enough. As the ECOMOG operation progressed, so did the Nigerian condition worsen. Compare the exchange rate in 1990 with that of 2002. Compare the interest rate of 1990 with 2002. Social infrastructure has decayed almost beyond repair. Armed robbers are on the rampage. Electricity is a luxury. Our future is hardly assured. Fuel prices have risen several fold since 1990, because the government needed money. And the government still wants more money. This time to go and burn in Liberia? Nigerians must resist this mission.

....this article was published in Sept 2002, years before the terrorism in north and the kidnappings in east. we are worse now than we were then and we still havent learnt the lessons which those deployments and outcomes were meant to teach.

......While buttressing the level of resources Nigeria is committing to the Malian war, Jonathan said: “Nigeria controls 55 per cent of the economy of West Africa and Mali is a West African country, so we expect the Nigerian contribution to take that proportion. If we don’t show that leadership, other countries may not come up strong.

this is very significant! so if it cost france and eu $15b to procure this war, nigeria has commited to give more than half......$8.25b.

for 8.25billion dollars we could bring sanity and peace to maiduguri and the northern states.

for 8.25illion dollars we could tear down dilapidated police academy buildings and erect modern facilities and then feed the cadets plenty of fish...in a cafetaria, not on cinder blocks out in the playground.

we are spending money that has 0 return on investment and we call it regional leadership

....more like regional dummy!

joeyfire: Anybody who rejoices over the death of innocent people is stricken with a severe psychological and spiritual disorder and needs help quick. Hiding behind racism/tribalism doesn't make it any better. Nothing constructive but ppl die and a weak loser personality is cheering it on while some spineless beasts click like on the post

akintola was innocent
ademulegun and his wife and unborn baby were innocent
sodeinde was innocent
okotie eboh was innocent
maimalari was innocent
ahmadu bello was innocent
balewa was innocent

the people of mid western states massacred when biafra marched in with its flag were innocent.

all these people were the first casualties and victims of igbo deadly assault. are you remorse over their deaths?

i sincerely believe igbos should cut down their numbers in north and go home. ....or come to west, but be prepared to pay tax.

kokoA: Na wah o.. Dem kill igbo for north, dem run go home ma, dem still kill dem for east, if not how can one explain 50 dead bodies found floating in a river in Anambra? Na hausa kill dem ma? Chei!

....the ones that survive are kidnapped.

Awolowo's land of milk and honey is the only refuge thry have in nigeria,....at least for now.

on the scale of population and resource, when you compare the two conutries our military have indeed failed. our military are operating in a zone under emergency declaration and yet have failed to contain cross-border attacks from one state to the other. the failure is highlighted by the event in which a military command zone that houses many generals was attacked.

the fact that boko has remained in north and not crossed southward is by their own choice and has nothing to do with military efectiveness in containing their spread and blocking a southbound assault. if boko chooses to head south we cannot rely on our military to give us safety and security, we must depend on our various regional vigilantes to provide security.......in fact, so far, the fear of a bloody encounter with the vigilantes has been a more successful deterrent than is the fear of the military.

logicboy,

you are a manifest of a biblical truth. if you deny this truth then you will face the challenge of explaining the truth behind your presence and being. it cannot be from any later chain formations produced from the big ba ng; because it is already established that the big ba ng is an abstract. no one can explain the order that pre-dated the big ba ng or the trigger that upset the equilibrium.

Ngwakwe: The Belgian Psychopath plus Sociopath has spoken.

Which one be Egypt and Tunisia war, I thought book makers said they were Revolutions and that it caught Americans and Europeans by surprise.

....and you believe that?

Dede1: Africans are lazy, sentimental and deluded bunch of scallywags. It does not take a Belgian MP Laurent Louis to realize that the debacle in Mali is international neo-colonial plot. Any African who is afraid to deconstruct the 1884 European partition of Africa does not deserve a liter of air.

word!

take dat: Interesting Read! Though it is difficult to disprove allegations of imperialist motivations in French foreign policy but Hollande seems to have been reluctant to intervene in the crisis initially but chose to assist the Malian military with financial and logistic supports. The question is, with the imminent collapse of the Malian military to the Islamists, should France abstain from intervening in a country where its economic interests is at stake?

The war in Mali is primarily a direct consequence of state failure due to factors caused by Malians themselves. Economic interest, Western meddling and religion are secondary.

...apply that same view to the situation in nigeria.

britain is sending its military and weapons of war to fight bokoharam. other west african forces are coming in to serve under british and eu command.

give us your analysis please....

joeyfire: Its amazing how a person can have no interests in life, have nothing else to contribute to discussions than the same old tired and lame azz rhetoric over and over!

I can bet you aint getting any puzzy. You're always pissed off. Lol

...leave him alone, he is saying exactly what many people have on their tongue to say but lack the courage to utter.

its Friday, where is my mukinatou?

sallam alaikum gorgeous one!

afam,

there was no protest against your managing it. i am one of those who suggested that jarus's continued involvement should be soft and in the background to help warm you to that new assignment and possibly win your hard critics like myself to your side. it is possible that we dont like the way you manage traffic in the forum but you could excel in that other assignment and upgrde from rookie to moderator.


hey jarus, you have to stand as a godfather now, not as a godson. we all know your style and we loved it. the debate is your idea but does it belong to you or does it belong to nl? my opinion is that you serve as a consultant and support it rathern than operate and be the face of it.

if nothing stopped boko from attacking emir bayero......what do you think stops them from killing ordinary citizens, particularly one they classified undesirable element?

wtf!

let us know when una run out of hospital tales

chime was kidnapped and he is still with his kidnappers. the truth shall be revealed soon when these monkeys run out of hospital tales to tell and there is stiil no chime.

endoscopy can be both diagnostic like in endoscopic retrograde choleangiopancreatography(ercp) and surgical like in laparascopic pancreatoduodonectomy with jejunogastroesophageal anastomosis.

keep it up......obahiagbon of nl.

[quote author=Mr_Anony]Friendly advice...don't waste your time.[/quote]thank you Anony. ive not been in this section in a long time, last time i was herethere were not this many atheists and the ones back then were inquisitive for knowledge and truth. religiin section is infested now with dogmatic atheists, search-engine scholars who would rather argue than share knowledge.

can someone please remind clark nigeria is not under a military regime and we dont need edicts and decrees?

who is this op, what are you smoking?

@op,

i will follow up with the above responder and say this:

1. Allah has not made religion difficult, neither should we.
2. Allah wants us to be active members and participants in society and community. so do not abandon friends and interaction for faith....the two are joined.
3. Read the Quran frequently....even if you lack the motivation to observe the ritual prayers. Your spiritual strength is in the Quran and when your physical strength comes short, by reading, the spirit will reinvigorate you.
4. Islam is not a duty....do not force yourself .
5. Islam is love......love your God!

here are practices that may also help....

1. fast once a week
2. spend one day a week and visit maybe a children hospital or a foster home just to see what misfortune other people struggle with.
3. spend one day a week away from evwryone and everything.....be in reclusion and reflect upon life.

following the diversity and separation.....migrations of people also added to the flux.

migrations occured for different reasons. for example a river bed might sink into the ground making the zone inhabitable. all the communities that lived on the banks must therefore migrate to find new. settlements to support and subsist living. a whole city might be overtaken by war and looted and its citizens enslaved and taken away to another far away land.

i had a friend when i was in high school whose grandfather was a fulani herdsman. the father narrated stories of how the family transited back and forth five times on foot between nigeria and senegal between when he had turn 10yrs old and he clocked 22. he said it took six months each way if in good weather and climate. it took that long because they had resting points where they camped sometime a month in one location. so if in 12yrs the old man could traverse such long distance five times, you can see the endurance for long distance trekking and navigating. im sure between birth and when his father turned 10 that grandfather had already done maybe two or three trips back and forth. this is someone that posess the endurance and determination to trek from, say, nigeria to mecca.....or perhaps to iraq.. in their time people had that fortitude.

@ topic,

the answer is in the biblical narration on nimrod's ambition.

the first manuscript of nature was revealed to noah in the time of the flood. that manuscript included crypted message about social order and organization or government. in that period the land mass was one and the people spoke one language.

noah was nimrod's great-grandfather. noah> ham > cush > nimrod. the family lineage is more than this and is expanded but for purpose of this discussion i will keep it narrow. the other noah sons are japhet and sham.

noah's manuscript ended in ham's hand, who then passed it down to his sons - canaan, mizraim and cush. cush passed it down to nimrod.

the lessons of the manuscript ended in egypt (mizraim), canaan and havilah (cush) and from where it became the order for ruling mankind. hermetic teachings came from the name of "ham". all the first world orders and enlightenement and scholarship for arts and science were concentrated between these three lands. the landmass of the earth itself was one and the human language was one......until nimrod made a discovery.

nimrod had decoded and acquired far too much knowledge of the manuscript and applied his knowledge to setup a true and first imperial power. he foresaw that God would scatter the lands and the people with it and separate them from one another. he threfore ordered a skyscraper be erected as a city dwelling for multi-occupancy. if everyone lived in one land when the separation occur they will all still be together whichever land they ended on.

God then created the diverse tongues and left them alone together. not able to accomodate the diversity, the population filtered and distanced itself from others. when the land splitted and drifted apart the different tongues became natives of different lands.