WEDNESDAY COLUMN By USSIJU MEDANER
info@medaner.com, justme4justice@yahoo.com
Years back, Walter Rodney bequeathed us with his masterpiece, a book titled “How Europe Underdeveloped Africa.” Rodney was right; our continent was usurped, our people and resources taking for the use and good of the invading countries and colonisers. It was a terrible time for our people and our continents; one we cannot ever write off from the dark days of our history. And I have repeatedly asked, as I share an unpopular opinion about the European abuse of our heritage, the Berlin Conference of 1884 and the scrambling and partitioning of Africa. Was it an offense? No, because as at that time, nations conquering nations and keeping them for a keep was a norm, agreeable and acceptable by all. Wars of acquisition were accepted; the stronger exercising dominion over the weak.
But a time had come, when the chains were both morally and legally broken; when unpermitted access to territorial resources of a nation, and the control thereof, became an international offense. Since then, all control of nations by another, as popularly coined neo-colonisation, are self-inflicted wounds that the controlling nations bear no responsibility for. For sure, America was also colonised like our nations in Africa were. India was as much colonised as we were. The decision not to stay colonised and depending on the once colonial lords was a deliberate decision of India, as much as it was for the United States of America.
Today, when we found ourselves as a people and a nation under the caprice of the nations we called developed countries, it is because we allowed it. After all, a person who is responsible for you would also be entitled to controlling your life. We need to ask ourselves, these nations, are they sending down aids to us because they care about us and want to help us develop our nations? No! We saw very clearly the true intention of France towards the Anglophone African nations, for instance; continuous economic and political domination, manipulating the resources and population of their once colonies to guarantee the continuous development of France.
The concern and truth of the excessive interference and manipulative control has continued to be the undoing of our nations and continent, and until that time that we are ready to free ourselves and totally excuse ourselves from the doctrine of begging for aids and interventions from these nation, we will continue to be puppets in their hands. Africa, Nigeria, it is time to totally free ourselves. We must come to terms with the fact that we are a sovereign nation, fully entitled to and for the management of our internal affairs. We must insist by all means to have a mutual relationship and engagements that are built on equal footings. No longer beggar-receiver’s arrangement. We won’t have the audacity to ask questions if we remain at the position of beggars. Donald Trump is insulting nations right now, because they are mostly depending on America. He is pulling the plugs on assistance and aids to nations and talking down on sovereign nations because we have belittled ourselves and assume we cannot build our nations and grow our systems without help from outside.
It is now clear to us how much we have opened up ourselves to external infiltrated attacks in the name of receiving help. The recent exposition from a member of the America Parliament, to the effect that consecutive past presidents of the country were hiding under the guise of sending aids to us to weaponise insurgency, to weaken us and open us for increased exploitations and more dependency on the father Christmas they have become. But this time around, it would be absolutely inappropriate for us to keep mum on the piece of information. The governor of Borno state had raised the alarm long before now, that the international agencies on ground are more of perpetrators than they are of solution seekers. His Excellency, was crying that they were aiding the insurgents more than they were alleviating the challenges of the victims, but we refused to listen. Is it not time we should ask ourselves, how on earth did the insurgents acquire and adopt the sophistications they possessed overnight? What of the sustained funding? Where are they trained? How come with all the supposed sophistications of the developed countries, the only thing they could do for us is to give us aids to survive the attacks, and never to deploy their capacities to end the attacks? When American citizens were kidnapped by the insurgents, the country organised militarily to rescue them in record time; why haven’t they ever used the same approach to aid us?
We must recognise first and foremost the veracity of the information coming from the floor of the hollow chamber of the country’s House of Representatives. And we must definitely conclude as a country, that it is not meant only for the consumption of their people for as long as it most negatively affects us as a people and a nation. Our country has not been the same since the once peaceful Boko Haram group suddenly metamorphosed into a sophisticated terror group that transformed the entire socio-political space of our country. We can count the number of deaths, the displacements of our people from their homes and sources of their livelihoods. We can see food insecurity biting hard on us because our farmers are now unable to go to farms. The insurgency had grown wings and gave births to banditry, killer herdsmen, and directly related to increased arm bearing groups across the regions of the country.
If there is a little truth in the allegation that the American presidents were in any way aware of or ordered the funding of terrorism on our land, then, we must go to all length to unravel the extent of the involvements and the manipulations, and then engage all the available instruments to hold the country responsible for the terrors in our land. Nigeria must as a matter of urgency raise the instrument of query, mandating the US lawmakers to substantiate their allegations, with evidence. The National Assembly must raise the matter of urgent attention to set the country’s immediate responses to the revelation cum allegations. We must approach the International Court at Hague to demand for responses and answers to our questions.
And if by any means, it is established that America or any other country is directly or remotely involved in the destabilisation of other sovereign nations, that is, by spreading insecurity in our country and others, we must exert the full length of the legal means to exert punishment and compensations for their acts. Otherwise, we would expose ourselves as toothless dogs that cannot bite. It will only be appropriate that the nature and structures of our bilateral relationship with America be adjusted; we cannot afford to continue to trust a nation that would expend resources to exploit it from within for its own gains. We must find allies that are responsible, trustworthy and willing to play with us as equals. This is the time for the continent of Africa to unite more than ever; the time to see beyond the military interventions in some countries in our West Africa sub region. This is the time to weigh in on the allegations of France’ manipulations and increasing dominance on the supposed sovereign nations. We must stop the interference now and once and for all.
We must do everything needful and possible to end the occupation of these supposed nations via the article of sending aids to us. It is about time we remember the lies they use to destroy Libya; the atrocities in Iraq, and the American’s non relenting pursuit of controlling the globe by all means possible. The country is not an ally, we cannot by any means see them as a friendly nation. The only target is to exploit us to improve America’s standing in Africa and globally. Not just Obama and Biden, all American presidents had some of it and would do it again. We should remember, for all the alleged atrocities of the Binance executive against Nigeria, the American government’s only interest was and is to get them exonerated and removed from Nigeria. Shouldn’t that send us signals?
Relationships between and among nations should and must be mutually beneficial. The structure of interactions must be a basis for mutual respect and regard for sovereign identities of each other. We are giants of Africa, but we have soiled our reputation and ridiculed ourselves to the point that any country can afford to treat us anyway. There is no other reason why Canada would be bold enough to insult us by denying its visa to a high echelon in our military formation.
The NSA outburst to such diplomatic insult is commendable but not enough; redeeming our image is non-negotiable. We must send the message, not only to Canada, but to every other country that would listen, that we cannot be toiled with. Nothing short of commensurate counter actions against Canada would be enough. The Canadian ambassador must be called to offer explanations, visas of eminent Canadian officials in Nigeria must be revoked, and business relationships are to be reevaluated until Canada offers credible explanation and publicly tender an apology for denying visa to one of our nation’s military leaders which is an insult to the entire Nigeria.
The realities and expositions of the last few days should be an eye opener for us as a nation and also a continent; we cannot allow the culture of dependency on foreign aids to continue and perpetrate ourselves as willing slaves to the American and the usurping Europeans. This is the time to make the decision to stand on our own, develop on our own, decide the use of our resources in our terms and relate with them on our terms. We can do it; those nations need us far more than we need them. Let’s redeem our integrity and compete.
