Bring My Machine Gun

Bring My Machine Gun

Ahmed Joe

Wedged between Nigeria’s tall ambition to join the league of the “20 most industrialized nations in the world” and John Negroponte’s grim forecast is AFRICOM. That however not make any where on main lands Nigeria the target domicile for the relocation of its main operational base from Germany because the Bakassi peninsula is the jewel in the crown. This virtual no nation like Diego Garcia and the Guantanamo no thanks to the so-called Green Tree Agreement that ensured the remnants of the amphibious unit of the Nigerian military and the majority Efik cray-fishermen were promptly evacuated is more ideal than Equatorial Guinea and the far flung Sao Tome & Principe where massive Brazilian capital by virtue of common Portuguese colonial heritage have promptly dominated and can therefore easily stir up local hostility. The recent attack by “unknown gunmen” on a Camerounian patrol of 21 soldiers in the Kombo Hindi and Kombo Abedimo mayoralties of the peninsula has also highlighted a fragrant violation of the said agreement by Yaoundé. Coincidentally barely a week later following vehement protestations by our military high command over its alleged culpability the Bakassi issue became “a prime matter of urgent concern” in the National Assembly.

What the rent paying commanders of AFRICOM (with a likely administrative headquarters in Morocco) seek is a deep water port, vast swaths of tropical target practice area, minimal local population (who else will do the laundry?) and relative mass inaccessibility to minimize the occurrence of terrorist attacks on its facilities and personnel there is also a market capitalization factor as we shall later see.

So who is the legitimate landlord of Bakassi that the General Accounting Office will not raise audit queries about? In unraveling that we can understand why a back bench Senator Bassey Ewa-Henshaw suddenly awakened from deep legislative slumber for in the murky waters of international politics there are no co-incidences every thing is well scripted and no thanks to the benefit of shoddy legal representation Nigeria has had at The Hague all these will ensure that there are no loose ends for any Congress oversight committee to poke its nose into in an impending election year.

The Nigerian security and military establishment lacks part of the specialized manpower and massive resources needed to effectively combat the Niger Delta insurgency to a standstill within the dictates of relative civility not because the militants remain steps ahead in self destructive recklessness and remuneration but because the U.S. is not willing to share intelligence on electronic eavesdropping, resources in combat scene forensics and detailed satellite imagery - Pentagon needs to secure for itself an immediate foothold in the middle of continental Africa and for that conveniently happen the Bight of Benin environs must remain a “gangsters paradise”.

To understand this we have to go to Sudan where the seemingly intractable crisis in the south of that country and its Darfur region is not unconnected with the rat race for hydrocarbons that has put China at an unusual advantage over key occidental players.

As Chairman Mao would once say “political power grows out of the barrel of the gun” and if the world’s sole superpower despite the recent Energy Bill signed by Mr. Bush is to remain relevant in the international oil industry, continue its global democratization mission with the zeal of self interest and fight what its own definition of terrorism it has to again carve out spheres of influence as in the days of its rivalry with the defunct Soviet Union. In 1992 shortly after Gulf War 1 the then U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz authored a strategic planning document captioned Defense Planning Guidance which strongly suggested that the US should actively discourage other nations “from challenging our leadership”. Today the most capitalized conglomerate in the world is the Chinese oil multinational CNOOC which is seeking opportunity and expanding investment with vigor. The fledging oil industry in Cameroun and landlocked Chad which in turn has a 2500km long border with Sudan are intricately linked with a network of pipelines and refineries all are hungry for investment which the Chinese are too willing to provide who can then seamlessly link the Red Sea and the Atlantic Ocean in a corridor of massive economic (later military) influence through these sub-Saharan countries right at the heart of Africa a feat no single European imperial power could achieve despite the Berlin Conference. By the way Chad’s increasing diplomatic confidence over mother France with regards child trafficking charges on some charity workers deserves closer scrutiny in the light of an emerging the dragon and the ostrich unequal alliance between Africa and China.

Nigeria has the 9^th largest crude oil reserves in the world but it is closely followed in 10^th position by China and unlike Iran the World’s number 3 our Oil services industry is not indigenous. Can increased Chinese involvement here make the difference? China by increasingly extending trade credit, canceling debts (many given at zero per cent interest), out bidding European construction giants like in the landmark NCC Headquarters Building in Abuja and the TAZARA Tanzania-Zambia Railway system and most importantly its non interference in domestic affairs ,civil rights and elections makes it a preferred strategic partner for African sit tight and “do or die” democracies and a major competitor to the World Bank/IMF in real sector growth and infrastructural development.

Even if for arguments sake a state of development emergency is declared in the Niger Delta region with 75% of Nigeria’s income appropriated there no meaningful progress will be recorded because the falcon of brigandage can no longer hear the falconer of our collective nationhood. An insurgency such as in the Niger Delta imbroglio thrives when there is an army of cheap labor that has lost the lottery of life in this case the throngs of ex-service men stressed out from camping out in Abuja for their benefits, when there is a lazy and unimaginative regional elite feasting from both Government and Oil majors and when constituted authorities loose their monopoly in the legitimate deployment of instruments of coercion. The crude oil illegally bunkered there finds readily available spot markets outside Africa. What this means is that the militancy is a smokescreen to subsidize galloping international oil prices (finally hitting a high of $100 within the first week of the new year) for certain trans-national interests who would continuously ensure the region remains in perpetual turmoil.

In the heart of Port Harcourt are a Liberation Stadium and Drive, which troops actually did the liberation? How many Ijaw graves are in the Military cemetery in that former garden city? The rest of Nigeria should not allow itself to be held hostage by creek touts and their faceless backers after all the hydrocarbon manifestation of the region is a geological consequence the Rivers Niger and Benue

Unfortunately there is a crisis of civility in the region that has brought to prominence an innate perversity that can only militarily be dealt with before any political and infrastructural appeasement should be offered to the extent the 2008 budget has been stretched to.

The Nigerian military will have to as a matter of urgency create a so-called Black Ops unit that would operate outside the characteristic inertia, publicity and the enormous cost of conventional warfare. The 1st January 2008 attacks by gunmen ostensibly under the guise of militancy at Police stations in Trans-Amadi and Borokiri, Artillery junction and a 5-star watering hole of Port Harcourt is a lame excuse to alter the perspectives of a political solution as a result of the leaked 26 page TFRH/25/G memo between the desk of the JTF commander and the DHQ in Abuja, what do they expect? Only an irresponsible government will negotiate with criminals without wanting to surgically excise them.

The Nigerian authorities however has a responsibility after returning “fire for fire” to understudy how the Indian establishment contained the Sikh insurgency that culminated in the assassination of Indira Gandhi in 1984 after Indian troops had stormed the Golden Temple at Amistar fall out of which had almost tore the sub-continent apart, today the Prime Minister and chief architect of its burgeoning Software export market that recently visited Nigeria in October 2007 is a Sikh from a political party headed by Sonia Gandhi in whose arms her mother in-law had breathed last.

Retired Rear Admiral (now late) John Poindexter a former U.S. National Security Adviser when head of the Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) created a Policy Analysis Market which is actually a terrorism futures market where the Chief Asunis are brokers and investors can speculate on attacks, assassinations and other high wire occurrences. In July 2003 the project leaked to the vigilant American press but with Orwellian news management, deft public diplomacy and skillful damage assessment control it is still business as usual.

Desert encroachment? As Jacob Zuma would say “bring my machine gun”.