First,
I will like President Muhammadu Buhari to substitute one of the words
he uses in his public address for another. He uses the word “help”
whenever he refers to Western powers assisting Nigeria to overcome
insurgency in the North-East zone of the country.
Several
times, he had used the word in the same vein before his inauguration.
He also did while addressing the press at the end of the meeting of the
Lake Chad Basin Development Commission in Abuja days after he returned
from the G-7 Summit in Germany. “All of them from President Barack Obama
are willing to help us”, he had said, referring to the G-7 member
states. For the sake of the pride of this nation, and for the fact that
our boys do the fighting while outsiders support, I prefer that the
President uses words such as “assist”, “partner”, or “collaborate”. They
are better, diplomatically speaking.
Now, to
the matter at hand. The other week, the President attended a summit in
Germany, organised by the group of seven most industrialised democracies
otherwise called the G-7. Canada, France, Italy, Japan, the United
Kingdom, the United States of America and Germany were in attendance.
Buhari was one of the few African leaders invited. Russia was a member
of the club too (making it G-8), but Vladimir Putin was not invited.
Everyone knew it was because of the renewed clash between the West and
Russia over Ukraine. Interesting comments had been made about the wisdom
of not engaging the Russians on that occasion. Some reasons given were
factual, others were amusing. One was that Russia was not behaving
responsibly on the international stage, annexing the territory of
Ukraine as it did. It was also said that Russia didn’t deserve to belong
to the club in the first place because it was not a liberal democracy
in that strict sense of the word and, in any case, there are other
platforms where Russia could sit at the same table with the G-7 members.
The accused didn’t fail to respond, of course. It didn’t really need
the G-7, Russia had said, and the club wasn’t as important as the G-20
anyway, it had added.
Alright, the point that Russia wasn’t in
Germany had been established. But Nigeria was, and it’s worth noting
because the nation’s new leader was there for the first time.
Diplomatically, it means much. Nigeria can meet these leaders on another
platform if it so chooses. But meeting all of them in a remote Bavarian
village in Germany saves time, resources and energy. There are other
things being at the summit says for Nigeria apart from the “wish list”
the President was able to deliver, a thing widely reported in the
Nigerian media, but referred to as “shopping list” by the foreign media.
It’s good to dwell a little on this, because it shows part of
what’s in the summit for Nigeria. Note that there’s something in it for
the organisers, too. A safe haven for terrorists in a part of Nigeria is
an incubator for acts of terrorism in western countries. So, in the
course of the inauguration ceremony on May 29 in Abuja, the British
Prime Minister, David Cameron, had urged Buhari to come before the G-7
industrialised nations with a “wish list”. That time, Cameron had sent a
message, asking for a list of what Nigeria needed in order to overcome
its current challenges. “We are waiting for your own list,” Cameron had
said. But there was more that western nations wanted, because that
message was a follow-up. Days before he was sworn into office, the then
President-elect had been at 10 Downing Street. Then, the British PM had
made commitments and they had been about what the British were prepared
to do for Nigeria, including the fight against terrorism, power and
energy and such matters of common concern as well as what he called
“intelligence fusion” to secure Africa from global terror. He had also
raised the issue of “free trade” between the European Union and Africa;
this was encapsulated in an Agreement which Cameron said enjoyed the
support of several countries on the continent, and for which he sought
to enlist the support of Nigeria’s new leader. That angle is
understandable because after the EU rounded off negotiations with
ECOWAS, Nigeria refused to sign, raising objections to some of the
provisions.
As for Buhari’s presence in Germany, it had since
transpired that he didn’t go with every item on his wish list. In any
case, the organisers had other problems apart from Nigeria’s. There was
that push by the French and the Germans to get their fellows to reach
consensus on climate change ahead of the UN summit in Paris later in the
year. There was the other problem of debt-ridden Greece too, raised on
this page several times, but which has remained a recurring headache for
the industrialised nations. As noted, it has since become clear that
all needed items were not on the list Nigeria’s leader supposedly went
to Germany with. That was not known at the time because the media had
been awash with news of a “wish list” that the President travelled with.
As it turned out, it was the President who made it known that
not all requests had been tendered in Germany. This was because days
after he returned from the G-7 Summit, and after he had had a meeting
with members of the Lake Chad River Basin Development Commission in
Abuja, Buhari said he had ordered the nation’s service chiefs to produce
a list of the logistics needed by the military to successfully execute
the war against the Boko Haram sect, adding that the leaders of the G-7
requested for the list during his recent meeting with them. He added
that based on the request, he had informed his colleagues in the Lake
Chad River Basin Development Commission to also prepare their countries’
lists for the same purpose. Buhari further pointed out that members of
the G-7 were anxious to render assistance especially when the Boko Haram
sect declared its loyalty to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. He
also explained that the rules of engagement among the troops of the
member-states had been clearly spelt out.
That last part is the
item this piece is adding to the President’s ‘wish list’ – rules of
engagement. It’s the rule that ensures no one engages in extrajudicial
killings, no matter the kind of battle involved. Since the battle
against terrorists began in the North-East of Nigeria, allegations had
been made against the nation’s security forces prosecuting it. I had
watched a video showing extra-judicial killing of unarmed civilians in
Borno State, and I had been struck by the cold heartlessness with which
it was done. Who had carried it out was not in doubt, so there is no
argument to be made along that line. Lately, Amnesty International, a
human rights watchdog, categorically accused known names in the Nigerian
armed forces. This matter will be returned to on another occasion, and
it should be noted that the intent here is not to fail to appreciate the
work Nigerian men in uniform put into the combat to give the nation its
deserved peace. For now, I state that far more than the allegations
made about the situation in the North-East, a mentality that makes any
person in uniform treat civilians with impunity needs to be curtailed.
This is not just about the army, not just the navy or air force, it’s
about every Nigerian officer in uniform. No doubt, for any Nigerian who
has witnessed brutality being meted out to unarmed civilians by men in
uniform, human rights abuse is a matter that must be confronted with all
the political will the President can muster.
Raising this point
is crucial because as the leaders of G-7 asked for a wish list, they,
without saying it, have asked to be included on the list the President’s
guarantee that incidence of human rights abuses would not be tolerated
under his administration. Unchecked abuses even in the theatre of war
were one of the reasons most western nations had been cold about
rendering some form of assistance under the immediate past
administration. Now that they have shown renewed interest, Buhari should
ensure that their hope of a better time on human rights matters is not
dashed.
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