One of the
oddities peculiar to the Nigerian State is that we give out what we lack and
purchase what we have in abundance - of particular import here is our penchant to contribute to international peacekeeping and peace-enforcement missions in foreign lands whilst our homeland is afire and our seeming relentless thirst for imported refined petroleum products with our oil-rich Niger Delta region awash with cheaply available sweet Brent crude..
I was stunned
when it was brought to my attention that despite the several embarrassing loss
of territory routinely suffered by the Nigerian military to the rag-tag Islamist
terror outfit, Nigeria still remains one of the top 5 contributors to United nations
Peace Keeping (and enforcement) missions.
For several
years, the top hierarchy of the Nigerian military and their collaborators in
the relevant Federal Ministries and agencies, have used the platform of ‘international
peacekeeping and enforcement missions’, either under the auspices of the United
Nations (UN), African Union (AU) or Economic Community of West African States
(ECOWAS) as a ruse to fleece not only the hapless soldiers drafted for such
missions (who are shortchanged with regards to their payments and emoluments) but
also carve out a sizable slice of our enormous military budget for personal
pockets via the award of spurious contracts to supply all manners of articles
to ‘deployed troops’.
The involvement
of Nigerian troops had been clothed and sold as a dummy to an unsuspecting
Nigerian population under a bogus ‘Afrocentric foreign policy’ which sought to
portray Nigeria as the ‘giant of Africa’ and thus ever ready to provide troops,
personnel or whatsoever required to stabilize our neighboring ‘African brothers-States’.
Well, with
the advent of sustained Islamist terror insurgency in our northeastern region, and
the apparent inability of our Forces to effectively contain and rout the terrorists,
whatsoever arguments that might have founded the continued deployment of
Nigerian soldiers, Policemen and other
military or para-military forces outside the shores and territory of Nigeria has
been clearly debunked and rendered unreasonable.
Data available at
the United Nations Peacekeeping websites is to the effect that as at today,
Nigeria has Military and Police personnel stationed at the following Missions: United
Nations Operation in Côte d'Ivoire (UNOCI), United Nations Mission in Liberia
(UNMIL), United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic
Republic of the Congo (MUNUSCO), African Union/United Nations Hybrid operation
in Darfur (UNAMID), United Nations Mission in the Republic of South Sudan
(UNMISS), United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in
Mali (MINUSMA), United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara
(MINURSO), and only Military Forces at the United Nations Interim Security Force
for Abyei (UNISFA).
Commonsense should
dictate that all Nigerian soldiers and policemen currently stationed in these
various foreign peacekeeping and peace-enforcement missions should be recalled
home immediately to contribute their quota towards saving the ‘motherland’. If they
continue to stay outside, at going rates, they may not have any country to
return to if urgent steps to reverse ongoing trends are not taken.
Mr. President and
Commander-in-Chief, it’s time to face realities: bring the boys back home, NOW!
Picture: Some Nigerian troops deployed in one of several United Nations Peacekeeping Mission where they are currently serving.
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