Physician, heal thyself: US Senate Intelligence Committee Report on CIA Torture

by Eze Eluchie

As I read through the US Senate Intelligence Committees Report on the CIA’s use of Torture, what the spy agency craftily refers to as Enhanced Interrogation Techniques (EIT), there is a palpable feeling of astonishment, shock and disbelief. 

The increasing global revulsion and condemnation about the use of diverse torture methods by the US in its treatment of its detainees, is, in the light of the very vociferous nature with which the US condemns those it refers to as rogue States who torture and terrorize people, very much expected. One immediately wonders as to what moral authority the US has to cast aspersions at North Korea, China or any other country for that matter.

The reality that the United States Government and some of her agencies spend huge sums on educational programs for law enforcement agencies in other countries, including mine – Nigeria, under the guise of imparting knowledge of human right issues and on the need to avoid torture, at a period when the agencies of the US administration are neck deep in torturing suspects and using unwholesome interrogation techniques, smirks of blatant hypocrisy.

The release of this report on the eve of the United Nations International Human Rights day is quite ironic and devastating.

The United States needs to urgently rediscover and redefine itself.

Picture: Torture (electrocution) technique.

The Jonathan Administration: Entering self-destruct mode?

by Eze Eluchie

With the ease with which terrorist elements brandish military hardware they seize from Nigeria’s military forces, it is natural to expect suppliers of such equipment to express some reservations with regards to providing more sensitive and technologically up-to-date military equipment to an army that cannot guarantee safe custody of such weapons and are prone to losing same to criminal elements or worse still, whose top brass may surreptitiously be ‘handing over’ such weapons to terrorists. Some equipment in Nigeria’s military arsenal, the prior loss of which had not been made known to the Nigerian public, which Boko Haram had displayed with glee in some of its video releases include, Tanks, Armored Personnel Carriers and endless cache of M-16 and AK-47 guns.     

The above scenario clearly founded the reluctance of United States authorities to sell “Cobra attack helicopters” to the Nigerian military – a reluctance which certainly did not augur well with the some at the helm of affairs in Nigeria.

The further escalation of the situation by Nigeria’s cancellation of ongoing Military Training exercises   for our soldiers being conducted by the United States military is an ill-thought, most unfortunate and deplorable descent into very murky waters.

The following issues immediately come into focus:

1.      Who in heavens name in the Jonathan administration suggested the discontinuation of training programs for Officers and men of the Nigerian Army by United States military authorities?

2.      What was the intended outcome of such discontinuation?

3.      Was it merely to ensure the continuations of schism with an entity the administration can least afford a confrontation with? Is there a ‘Plan B’?

4.      Considering that key allies of the US will not step in to fill the void, did those who proffered this discontinuation foresee alternative arrangements with other countries and the logistic and lingual barriers such alternatives may pose?

This discontinuation is akin to the push by some elements in the Nigerian Government, led by the present Ambassador to the United States, Mr. Adebowale Adefuye, to frustrate earlier efforts to designate Boko Haram a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO), an effort which portrayed the present administration as bereft of unified approach at tackling terror and unable to pinpoint its enemies/problems.

By all means, you can make new friends, but certainly not in the middle of a war! You stick to the folks you are familiar with and if there are differences, you amicably sort it out. Not cut off relationships!

Mr. President, if you are looking for 5^th columnists in your ranks, look no further than the source of the advice to discontinue and cut off military ties with the US. And if, per chance, God forbid, the advice and decision was initiated by your goodself, then clearly Mr. President, the administration has taken further action which appears to set it in a ‘self-destruct’ mode.

With the abundance of anarchist elements posturing as 'opposition politicians', and a full fledged terrorist onslaught at its northeastern flanks, the Nigerian Government is least equipped to take on a cunning and swift extra-powerful opponent. 

Avoid schisms. Make peace!

Picture: Training session US soldier and Nigerian soldiers

Mr. President, bring back the boys, NOW!

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.