United States, Nigerian Army and Boko Haram

A LOT of emotions currently suffuse the controversy over the refusal
of the US to sell arms to Nigeria in the country's fight against Boko
Haram terrorists. The emotions are a waste of time. Not only do the
Americans have the right to withhold military and other aides to
Nigeria in consonance with their own laws, no amount of insult can
force them to change their mind. The Americans requested us to do a
complete ethical overhaul of our military, repudiate the
indiscriminate tactics of the terrorists which we had adopted, banish
or reduce to the minimum the corruption in our military, show a
readiness to fight, and submit ourselves to our own laws. Rather than
accept that the world does not owe us a living, and that we need to
put our act together, we indulged in blame game and gave the
unsubstantiated impression that our counterterrorism tactics were
ineffective because of the unwillingness of the Americans to sell us
arms.
Encouraged by former military ruler Gen Yakubu Gowon's emotive
contribution to the controversy, especially his ahistorical adaptation
of unsubstantiated and disputatious parallels, the Nigerian government
has impetuously cancelled the training programmes the US was
undertaking with the Nigerian Army. This is silly in the extreme. The
only one hurt is Nigeria. Apart from this, the US never barred us from
buying arms from elsewhere. So why did we at first refuse to explore
other options? And why is it that when we managed clumsily to find
other sources, such as turning to South Africa, we inevitably flouted
our own laws and, in the same breath, breached South African laws?
Until indigenes of the Northeast took up arms against the terrorists
in defence of their lives and families, was President Goodluck
Jonathan not busy blaming his army's losses on those he described
derisorily as complicit north-easterners, among whom he said Boko
Haram militants lived in freedom and pleasure? To adapt Shakespeare,
the president must be told that the fault is not in outsiders, but in
ourselves. He blames everybody else, when in reality his short
attention span, his natural inclination to embrace misrepresentation,
and total lack of depth are responsible for his inability to grapple
with Nigeria's worsening crises.

Credits}nation