First, they came for Libya, Now they are gunning for Niger!
On the situation in Niger
“We have been receiving French aid for 63 years, yet our country has not developed, so cutting it off from us now will not kill us, rather it will motivate us to work and rely on ourselves.” - President Ibrahim Traore of Burkina Faso
“It doesn't matter whether a cat is white or black, as long as it catches mice?” - Deng Xiaoping
It is quite unfortunate that given his inexperience and newness to the top job, Nigeria’s President Tinubu chose to surround himself with geopolitical neophytes with absolutely no knowledge/sense of history.
In 2011, Nigerians were shamed when then President Goodluck Jonathan naively agreed to support UNSC Resolution 1973 which NATO brazenly abused to launch the attack against Libya. We were told that the West promised him a permanent UNSC for Nigeria. They must have promised the same thing to another naive and illiterate African president, Jacob Zuma of South Africa.
It was an epic betrayal of Africa by leaders who ought to know better. The West never hides its intentions to lie, to cheat, to do whatever it takes to promote its interests. Why was Jonathan and Zuma so Naive to buy the lie that the West’s fight with Libya was over “democracy,” or concerns for human rights? Since when in its wretched history has the West promoted anything beyond its narrow parochial interests which its sycophantic media help to wrap in a humanitarian halo?
It beggars belief and reel with incredulity that we have Africans today, especially in leadership positions, who believe that the same people who enslaved and colonized us and treated our ancestors worse than beasts have somehow had some epiphanies that made them committed to promoting our welfare.
Ok, if slavery and colonialism were too distant for some to remember, how do we explain the situation whereby some Africans believe that the West which has killed every single progressive leader in Africa, the same West whose companies loot African resources at thieving price is the Messiah of Africa?
These are rather simple questions that anyone with even single-digit IQ ought to be able to ask.
Africa, especially West Africa, continues to reap the whirlwind from that violent imperialist agenda to steal Libyan resources.
Libya, once one of Africa’s most prosperous nations, has been reduced to a war-racked hell where modern slavery is among the leading business in town. Not to mention that looted Libyan arms have been used to support numerous insurgences on the continent.
Another serious question: Are African leaders simply incapable of learning from mistakes?
Why is Tinubu buying into the lie that those who carved Africa into illogical geographical expressions called countries are remotely interested in the interests of Africa or of Africans? The shocking and inhumane manners in which Africans are treated in Europe belittle any claim about Europeans loving us more than ourselves.
Why did a man with experience (he claimed) bought into the idea that a people who, after 500 years, continue to loot Africa’s resources are interested in promoting good governance in Africa?
What exactly informed Tinubu’s decision to become the loudest Chihuahua of Western Imperialism in West Africa?
Does Nigeria really have a dog in a superpowers fight?
As NATO and Russia and Russia and China are busy rearranging the world’s geopolitical chessboard, why can’t African leaders meet and organize how best to position the continent, so that it can gain the most advantageous position that will protect African interests?
Why did Tinubu so hastily offer Nigeria/West Africa as mere Pawns? Why did he conflate his personal interest and those of his fellow club members (presidents) in ECOWAS with those ECOWAS people/citizens?
The questions that reasonable ECOWAS should citizens ask is: Why was it that ECOWAS leaders can so speedily meet and take decisions when their members’ interests are at stake, but they cannot implement the provisions of the ECOWAS TREATY that was signed in 1975?
Forty-eight years after the signing of the Treaty, ECOWAS citizens face only extortions and humiliations at the borders Europeans erected to keep us as vassals.
And, more importantly, what stops these leaders from meeting with alacrity to find solutions to why they cannot provide their own people with food, clothes, and housing without FOREIGN ASSISTANCE after sixty (or so) years of ostensible independence?
©️Fẹmi Akọmọlafẹ
August 2023
Fẹmi Akọmọlafẹ is a farmer, writer, and published author.
His latest book, “Africa: a Continent on Bended Knees” is available on:
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Africa-Continent-Bended-Femi-Akomolafe-ebook/dp/B08FGZNJ5T
On Booknook.store: https://booknook.store/product/africa-a-continent-on-bended-knees/