US president Donald Trump has threatened “that disgraced country” Nigeria with a “fast, vicious and sweet” response if they don’t take action to stop the killing of Christians, as he and a few others have alleged. Nigeria faces multiple security challenges but deaths in Nigeria are not necessarily in accordance with religion, but more about being at the wrong place at the wrong time.
Leaving aside the reasons for Trump’s dubious claims and whether his threats should be taken seriously by Nigeria, there is a real question about whether the country’s government and security agencies can actually do much about stemming the chronic violence that has plagued the country especially since civilian rule in 1999.
The naked reality is that the Nigerian government doesn’t have the will to act decisively on insecurity. The second issue is that even with the best will in the world, the security agencies have been degraded by decades of corruption. Thirdly, wherever there’s a problem, US intervention makes it worse. Fourthly, only people ignorant about how the US works think the US is in the business of saving Christians in Nigeria or elsewhere.
Going back to the first point, the lack of will from the government is related to dealing with the herdsmen conflict, which may have killed more Nigerians than Boko Haram and related terror from other Islamic extremists like Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP). This lack of will is because many senior people in the country are cattle owners and arm the Fulani militia that provides the muscle for the cattle business, and dishes out reprisals when communities disrupt the grazing of cattle. This was why former defence minister Theophilus Danjuma accused the military about seven years ago of “collusion” with the killers.
On the Boko Haram front in the northeast, the government is crippled by the reality that vice president Kashim Shettima was a Boko Haram sponsor. In 2012 Kabiru Sokoto, a Boko Haram bomber was arrested in Abuja in a house belonging to Shettima, who was governor of Borno State at the time. Shettima and other prominent politicians from his state have recorded links with the terrorists. These include Shettima’s predecessor Ali Modu Sheriff, who was accused of using Boko Haram as his “political machinery” by Najaatu Muhammad.
Senator Ali Ndume, who has represented Borno South since 2011, was arrested and charged by Nigerian security officials for links with Boko Haram. This came after the secret police arrested Boko Haram spokesman Ali Sanda Umar Konduga. The DSS said: “His arrest further confirms the service position that some of the Boko Haram extremists have political patronage and sponsorship.”
Such links may explain why some top officers in the Nigerian military have reportedly complained that their US counterparts are not keen to share intelligence with them about Boko Haram.
Najaatu Muhammad also revealed that “fighting terrorism” was a huge cash cow for the military, worth billions of dollars a year. Their looting of the military procurement budget means that frontline soldiers are ill-equipped in confronting the terrorists. So any major de-escalation in hostilities means a significant reduction in the billions of dollars security budget that the top brass loots with impunity.
