It is an understatement that times in our nation are very challenging for many Nigerians as they are for President Bola Tinubu. While Nigerians are strapping on a heavy cross of hunger, hopelessness, and poverty; the president is swamped with, and engulfed in, strategising how to navigate the treacherous terrain of government bequeathed to him by former President Muhammadu Buhari.
Nigerians are uncertain about what tomorrow holds for them and their children’s children. And Tinubu is also beleaguered with how he can effectively calm the people’s nerves with assertive assurances that on his watch as president; tomorrow will be alright. Tomorrow must be alright for Nigerians. But today, the country is at the bottom of the bottomless pit. With the roll-out of multiple economic bail-out policies by Tinubu’s administration, I am very hopeful that out of this deep hole; Nigeria will walk out into the sunshine of good times.
A few weeks ago, the wheels of my hope for sunshine ran into a head-on collision with a weighty and weakening wrench. It started on July 26, 2023, when the Ninjas of Niger struck. Commander of the Presidential Guard in Niger Republic, General Abdourahamane Tchiani, overthrew President Mohamed Bazoum, held the president hostage, heave-hoed him out of power, and arrested his cabinet ministers; shutting them up in the calaboose. One of the allegations of the coup-plotter Ninjas is the same vice ravaging Black Africa. Corruption. Nigeriens took to the street celebrating the desecration of democracy in the West African nation. They later filled one of the biggest stadia in the nation to the brim, throwing their support behind the invading soldiers. Who knows? They’ve probably had enough of Bazoum.
Almost immediately, a bloc of 15 West African states led by our own Tinubu issued a deadline to the junta to stand down and restore the elected president. President Tinubu has been especially vocal in demanding that the Niger military leave power and has threatened to use force if they do not. The declaration of the use of force in the neighboring country was what tossed a wrench in the wheels of my hope for a Nigeria that is likely on schedule to get out of massive mess in a year or two as projected by President Tinubu.
We may not be privy to other surreptitious reasons the president believes that the use of force is an appropriate option to resolving the impasse in Niger. But we know what a war, or any form of belligerence will mean for a nation like Nigeria now running on empty as she fights her own wars on a myriad fronts at home. If ECOWAS, led by Nigeria, fires the first shot in Niger, the move will spin our country into a free-fall down a ravaging and smothering rabbit hole. In the aftermath, Tinubu’s wise and strategically focused efforts to bail out a nation in gallimaufry of malaises will have failed.
What is a rabbit hole? It is a complicated and difficult situation, a caging quagmire difficult to get out of, and a self-inflicted but avoidable life-snuffing suffocation situation. My submission this week will address a few reasons, in my informed opinion, war in Niger may end up a bad pitch for Tinubu and the struggling and strangulated Nigeria he presides over today. I’ll give you a few reasons.
One, President Tinubu inherited a gulag of local and international debilitating debt from his predecessor. As of December 2022, Nigeria’s total public debt hit N46.25tn. Our revenue is too small to sustain our debt as it is; and there are lamentations of no food, no farthing, and no fuel. Nigerians are psychologically emasculated and physically emaciated. A full military barrage in Niger will not solve these problems. It will soar them.
Two, the bulk of farmers tilling the ground to feed Nigerians are from the seven Northern states that helm Niger. These states are Nigeria’s food security chiefs and chefs. With a mini or mega war in Niger, food supplies that aren’t even enough will immediately deplete. Farmers in these states will be forced to stay away from their farmlands where they know they will become soft and easy targets from stray and targeting bullets. Already across Nigeria is biting hunger. Anything that upgrades this fiery stage is a prelude to an escalated pandemonium.
Three; Tinubu announced to Nigerians that in the last two months, we have saved over N1tn from the removal of subsidies alone. A war in Niger means that this fund will be diverted to fighting people who are ready and willing to fight. The vision of rebuilding our infrastructure, revamping our health sector, and training young people to stave off unemployment thus becomes a dead vision.
What a military incursion means is that a possible all-out regional war may ultimately engulf the West African coast, and the Nigerian military will be in the lead to quell the coup and silence the plotters who are already enjoying an overwhelming support and goodwill of the people of Niger. A military attack by ECOWAS will be a bloody and protracted guerilla war with no end date. It’s a rabid rabbit hole for Tinubu and Nigeria. It’s a war ECOWAS will never win. Nigeria cannot afford a Niger war for one day. We are already borrowing money to live and survive. Are we going to borrow more to fight a senseless war? The Niger war is a rabbit hole we must avoid.
The war that Nigerians want Mr President to fight is the war on hunger and poverty; on dysfunctional health care system that kills Nigerians before their time; on our public schools that are nothing but public toilets; and on terrible and bad government policies that don’t make life easy for ordinary Nigerians. Who cares about Niger when we need to care about Nigerians? In international relations, national interest first is gold and silver. Nigeria is in more trouble today. Let’s focus on us. Self-first is not selfishness. It’s wisdom. That Niger skirmish will be a distraction. It is an attempt to lure Tinubu into a rabbit hole.
The Niger military leadership has announced a shutdown of its airspace. It means that air travel outside of Nigeria may be imperiled. Aviation fuel will go up because air travels outside of Nigeria will take a longer route to hit their aviation paths. The effect of this will be a spike in air fares out of Nigeria. Violating prohibited airspace established for national security purposes may result in military interception and/or the possibility of an attack upon the violating aircraft. If any aircraft dares the order, bad things may happen in the skies. The ricochet effects of a possible military belligerence from ECOWAS against the Ninjas of Niger will spiral Nigeria into a rabbit hole. It’s a war we can’t win.
In conclusion I express this truth about the man who is Chairman of ECOWAS and our president. History will not forget how Tinubu once wrestled with the beasts in the Nigerian military to restore and entrench democracy that we practise today. Alongside eminent Nigerians, this man put his life and that of his family members and friends on the line to salvage us from the high-handedness and heavy-handedness of ruling and ruining soldiers. The Niger miasma puts this president in a precarious position. He would like to be seen as a defender of democracy, and we get that. But he should run as fast as he can from this rabbit hole that Niger has become.
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