Fulani Herdsmen and the British Legacy: Guilty By Community Association
Tag Archives: military
Fraternities are Viruses in Nigeria: Part 12 – Corporate Delusions
“We are bigger than U.S. Steel” many members of UCGFs (University Campus Grown Fraternities) in Nigeria will tell you, vaingloriously about their “brotherhood”. Do not take such folly seriously; it is evidence the ‘mask of sanity’ fraternities has fallen off the cliff that once held them so high. However, now they see themselves as large facsimile corporations. Just as on LinkedIn, you will see corporations that have thousands of employees, UCGFs make favourable comparisons with such organisations based on their thousands of members.
Can Buhari Win The Oil War?
The Niger Delta Avengers (NDA) may not be a praiseworthy entity to many but their emergence and defiance have provided a thorough and incisive diagnosis of the dissembling cohesion of the nation-state called Nigeria. Nigeria has never been a thoroughgoing republic but simply a geographical “convenience” of British colonial exploitation (for palm oil) and a political “convenience” of Northern Nigerian auto-colonial hegemony (for crude oil). Race and tribe have played an exceeding big role in the creation of NDA. Enduringly placing the ‘straightjacket of inferiority’ firmly upon Niger Delta people/region who never asked for it by people who have extracted its wealth in obscene amounts without considering the indigenes will generate extreme reactions. Oppressive exploitation of oil in a highly fragile state does not work forever; President Muhammadu Buhari will learn this. Continue reading
Bombing the Niger Delta Will Not Deter Bunkering
The Government of Nigeria (GON) has sought to undertake a very unusual method of stopping or deterring “oil bunkering” in the Niger Delta; the use of military bombing for minor bunkering assets. This is a true example of the famed “fire brigade” approach associated with GON when seriously challenged with problems of technical, complex or elusive nature. It is easy for the GON to deploy Joint Task Force (JTF) and other heavy-handed security outfits to the Niger Delta with ‘genocidal consequences’ to “stabilise” the nation but it is surprisingly impossible them to make substantial and sustainable developments in the region or clean-up the heinous ‘ecocide’ manifested there endlessly. Continue reading
Nigeria in Pieces: the Crushing of the Defenceless
Fela once called them vagabonds in power, VIPs. It now seems they are cowards in government, CIGs – Guynes
One really has to consider the resounding cowardice of Nigerian leaders with the monopoly of violence at their disposal since the end of the Civil War in 1970. There has been a combination of mobile police led-repression, instances of “mad dog syndrome” whereby soldiers take on ‘self-appointed license’ to punish civilians with unrestrained heavy handedness and blatant military massacres during both stratocratic and democratic administrations. In all these cases the victims are defenceless and unarmed citizens. However, why is it that when Nigerian leaders are faced by competent armed groups under their jurisdiction who readily take offensive initiative against the military they cannot be fight back successfully?
Will Bombing the Biggest Thieves Out of Existence Do the Trick?
Crimes cannot be bombed out of existence as the Government of Nigeria seems to think and practice. When purely criminal or illegal activities are committed and perpetuated in a society during peace times and they have no military or genocidal implications, ‘policing’ is the proper line of action, at least in a democracy. Continue reading
Nigeria: Globalisation Democracy and the Possibility of a Coup d’etat
The United State of America is the chief exporter of “globalisation democracy” that has seen nations around the globe both encouraged and bullied into taking on two incompatible dictates of governance policy; representative democracy and neoliberalism. Continue reading
President Jonathan’s Boko Haram Excuse Is Inadequate
When President Goodluck Jonathan claimed he had “underestimated” the Boko Haram insurgency it was the latest in a long series of things he should not have said, another public relations disaster. Underestimation of the obvious is a major signal of administrative competence. Since Jonathan is not a military person his advisers must be openly held responsible for grossly misleading the president in such a strategic and important matter. Military personnel particularly high ranking officers should know the methods and history of warfare as well strategic analysis and forecasting of enemy capabilities, numbers and accessories on a substantive level. Continue reading
The Ontology of the African VI: Thieving Patriotism
