I should admit at once that I am not only a
contributing writer to this same newspaper but that I also count the journalist
in question a friend. That said, it would be unseemly to ‘defend’ him
against the unfortunate charge of racism, which is only a measure of our good
colonel’s desperation, but which in any case he declines to substantiate in the
course of his response. Indeed, ‘response’ is too elevated a word for what are
simply assertions. The stories we have all heard this past month concerning the
abducted schoolgirls – and by no means exclusive to the INYT - would seem to
bear out the claim that the Nigerian military is both ‘poorly trained and
armed’, as well as ‘riddled with corruption’, but which hardly goes far enough
if we are to believe what we have been reading in the Nigerian press about
Generals selling weaponry to Boko Haram, which was why soldiers at the
Maimalari Barracks in Maiduguri shot at their commanding officer.
Defending the indefensible is always a tricky
matter, which was why our good Colonel failed to mention that the views of the article
in question were not those of Mr Nossiter. The full sentence of
the original article reads as follows: ‘There is a
view among diplomats here and with their governments at home that the military
is so poorly trained and armed, and so riddled with corruption, that not only
is it incapable of finding the girls, it is also losing the broader fight
against Boko Haram.’ Clear enough, and borne out by other stories reaching us
that those same ‘governments at home’ which have ridden to our rescue are
unwilling to exchange information with the Nigerian military because they do
not trust them. This is the real indictment, and never mind what our brave boys
did or didn’t do in the past, which the colonel uses to clinch his ‘argument’,
to wit:
Describing as a weak reed, a military that fought and sacrificed so much
to extricate Liberia, a vital and longstanding ally of United States of America
from the brinks of total collapse on two occasions, reveals the viciousness of
the bias being displayed by Nossiter. This same Nigerian military which
Nossiter tried fruitlessly to ridicule fought valiantly and successfully to
bring to an end, the civil war in Sierra Leone, a former British colony and
ally. What about the successes in Darfur and Somalia? Has he also forgotten or
is he so unaware of the gallantry of Nigerian Soldiers when American troops
were being mauled by rebels in Somalia in 1994? Has he quickly forgotten the contribution
of the Nigerian military to the current peace being savoured in Mali?
It may be that our military distinguished itself in
Liberia and Sierra Leone, and that they were prepared to go into areas where
the Americans and the British cried off. That was in those days. In these days,
yet other reports – not written by Nossiter and not published in the INYT – have
suggested that all was not well with the contingent we sent to Mali:
Malian top military
officer said he had no confidence in Nigerian soldiers and called them
undisciplined and incompetent, he further stressed out in a press interview
that Nigeria would only do minimal military jobs as manning checkpoints and
loading trucks as they were not capable of fighting the Islamist extremist and jihadist
in the battle front. The military officer said though their military was not
much better it was well trained by the EU and could harness the menace.
But this will not be the first time that an
individual representing the ‘western’ press has been singled out for the sins
of the others, although this was usually the provenance of military rule in the
bad old days, when it wasn’t even necessary to write two-page letters to that
end. Alas, democracy (if that us what we are practising) is trickier, what with
all this ‘western’ talk of transparency and accountability.
The pity of it is that no one is really surprised by
the continuing revelations concerning the unfitness of our military to protect
the citizens. No institution can be exempt from the corruption we see all
around us, so much so that we are beginning to read more and more stories in
the media – both local and international – of our failing state as we approach
elections which look less and less like happening. And what would be the point?
Like the militants before them, Boko Haram is merely demonstrating that there
is no government in Nigeria, just a bunch of hooligans who are even worse than
the colonial masters they succeeded.
©Adewale Maja-Pearce
An earlier version on this piece first appeared in Hallmark,
3 June 2014
Adewale Maja-Pearce is the author of several books,
including Loyalties
and Other Stories, In My Father's Country, How many miles to Babylon?, A
Mask Dancing, Who's Afraid of Wole Soyinka?, From Khaki to Agbada,
Remembering Ken Saro-Wiwa and Other Essays, A Peculiar Tragedy, and
Counting the Cost, as well as the 1998 and 1999 annual reports on human
rights violations in Nigeria. He also edited The Heinemann Book of African
Poetry in English, Wole Soyinka: An Appraisal, Christopher Okigbo:
Collected Poems, The New Gong Book of New Nigerian Short Stories,
and Other Stories, In My Father's Country, How many miles to Babylon?, A
Mask Dancing, Who's Afraid of Wole Soyinka?, From Khaki to Agbada,
Remembering Ken Saro-Wiwa and Other Essays, A Peculiar Tragedy, and
Counting the Cost, as well as the 1998 and 1999 annual reports on human
rights violations in Nigeria. He also edited The Heinemann Book of African
Poetry in English, Wole Soyinka: An Appraisal, Christopher Okigbo:
Collected Poems, The New Gong Book of New Nigerian Short Stories,
and Dream Chasers. The House My Father Built, a
memoir, will be
published later this year.
Click here to see Maja-Pearce's amazon.com page: http://www.amazon.com/Adewale-Maja-Pearce/e/B001HPKIOU
Click here to see Maja-Pearce's amazon.com page: http://www.amazon.com/Adewale-Maja-Pearce/e/B001HPKIOU
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