THE NIGERIAN-US MILITARY PACT, ‘FINE PRINTS’ RECIPE FOR DANGER; WHITHER NATIONAL ASSEMBLY!

by

Professor Omo Omoruyi

I like President Bill Clinton and his foreign policy especially his commitment to the resolution of conflicts in many parts of the world. This feat has never extended to Africa unfortunately for reasons, which are too complex to discuss in this paper. I sincerely welcomed his decision to visit Nigeria when he did. I had thought he would have used the opportunity of his visit to informally raise with the political class the need to raise and discuss the lingering political problems afflicting the country with a view to resolving them. The visit was too much centered round President Obasanjo and did not leave any people centered legacy behind.

But he seemed to have been drawn into two uncharted waters in Nigerian politics, which are ‘the politics of the armed forces’ and ‘the politics of oil’. How did the US President get involved in these?

The US might have defined her national security interest in Africa and came to the conclusion and rightly of course, that ‘Nigeria is critical to the US National Security Interest’ and that ‘President Olusegun Obasanjo will be a trusted instrument of its implementation’. What we have here are two aspects of a policy, the goal, the US National Security Interest and the instrument of implementation, President Obasanjo.

The Nigerian President unwittingly agreed to further this goal of the US in Africa without proper consultation. This is the source of worry for me as I examine the visit of the US President. I am worried by the new situation that is gradually evolving in Nigerian foreign policy arising from President’s Cinton’s visit and the policy of unilateralism of President Olusegun Obasanjo in aid of the US goal. It is the policy of unilateralism in aid of the goal of the US that is troubling to me and I am sure should be troubling to Nigerians who still believe that the country deserves some self-respect. President Obasanjo’s policy of unilateralism is evident in many domestic policies already. Some examples would surfice. We saw how the President’s unilateral decisions evoked so many protests in the recent past. Let me cite some cases:

This is just to name a few. He operates as if there is no political party the sponsored him for election. He operates as if there are no other institutions of government. The budget process is personalized; the running of the government is also personalized.

But in foreign and defense matters anchored on the army, Nigerians should be worried because of the history of the armed forces in Nigerian politics.

The latest troubling policy of unilateralism is the decision of President Obasanjo to enter into a military pact with the US President Clinton, called the Nigeria and US Military Pact or the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU). It is evident that the Nigerian President alone with out the knowledge of Nigerians through their accredited representatives in the National Assembly did this. Call it by any name, there is a treaty of defense between Nigeria and the US. It is officially called MILLENNIUM ACTION PLAN. Under this plan, a private company in the US was assigned the following functions:

What is more politically sensitive than these issues? The US private company made up of retired generals is to ‘install civilian control over the military’, the question is how? The US private company to ‘redesign the three military branches’ again the question is within what defense needs? The US private company to ‘trim the bloated forces’, the question is who would be in and who would be out and within what defense needs? The US private company to ‘resettle the demobilized officers’ and the question is where and as what? Aren’t these politically sensitive issues that should be politically resolved? These are not matters to be handled for Nigeria. Good luck to our President!

It is evident that the National Assembly was bypassed. Even the financial arrangement for this Plan was not known to the National Assembly and the Nigerian people except what we read from the Pentagon papers, which simply said that certain amount would be provided by the US government, which would be matched by a certain sum from Abuja. For example, for the above four-point plan, the US provided a sum of 3.5 million dollars and the Nigerian government was to provide a matching sum of 3.5 million dollars to be paid to a private US Company, Military Professional Response Initiative (MPRI) based in Alexandria VA.

The source of this policy initiated by the Nigerian president is very disturbing. I am referring to details of this policy in the report published in The Dispatch of Accra of May 1, 2000. What I found insightful in this account was why the Ghana newspaper had to publish it to call attention to a new development in West African sub-region. The Ghana newspaper had to carry the Pentagon release to tell Nigerians and other African countries that the US was taking over the Nigerian armed forces and in effect saying that Nigeria was becoming the staging post of the US in the sub-region. I was not surprised with the banner headline, ‘US To Help Nigerian Revamp Its Armed Forces’. Mark you this was before President Clinton visited Nigeria; it was part of the package the US Secretary of Defense, William Cohen took to Nigeria during his maiden visit preparing for the visit of the US President.

It is evident that the Constitution was ignored. The Constitution is very clear that the National Assembly has a role to play in matters having to do with pact especially where the deployment and the use of armed forces abroad are involved. The National Assembly should rise up to its constitutional duties and demand to know many ‘fine prints’ in the military pact between Nigeria and the US recently entered into between President Obasanjo and the President Clinton. They are many. I shall be naming some as and when the occasion arises in the paper.

One would recall that a kite was flown once in the National Assembly when the newly elected members of the political class were apprehensive that they might be thrown out by the military and wanted some insurance against it. They then toyed with the idea that the nascent democracy of Nigeria should enter into a defense pact with a power that would defend the democracy of Nigeria in the event of a coup. One would recall that many Nigerians including some former foreign ministers were opposed to the use of any power including the US to defend Nigerian democracy against coup. One would also recall that this was lukewarmly denied by the Presidency. The question bothering many Nigerians is whether we are now signing this pact with the US under the guise of providing training program for some battalions of the Nigerian army and of providing 8 patrol vessels for the Nigerian navy to police the oil producing areas. This is a ruse and we are yet to be told of the full implications of the new military pact between Nigeria and the US.

The implications are far reaching and unfortunately, no one is asking questions. The two Presidential candidates in their debate enunciated the canon of the US foreign policy that America would not send her soldiers to any part of the world unless the national security interest of the US is involved. The number of the US troops is not an issue but the presence of US service personnel that is in question. The US Service personnel are very much in Nigeria and for what purpose?

There is something more in the US military presence in Nigeria than the peacekeeping and the protection of the oil installation in the Niger-Delta. There is a third aspect of the pact, which is to protect President Obasanjo against the overthrow by the military. This is a fine print. President Obasanjo might be well meaning, but there is need for him to carry Nigerians with him. There are too many questions in the new military pact between Nigeria and the US.

The US President ought to know that the defense of Nigerian democracy with President Obasanjo as its only base is too narrow. It could be counter-productive in the final analysis.

If I were an adviser to the US President, I would have warned against putting all ‘democracy eggs’ in Nigeria in one basket, that is on one person (Obasanjo). I would have told the US government that it is not in the US national security interest; speaking for myself, I would say that it is also not in Nigeria’s national security interest. The US should have explored what it could do, which she failed to do in the past to aid the democratic growth of Nigeria. What the US should do in Nigeria in particular and in Africa in general is not to build the armed forces that misruled the country and the continent in the past 50 or so years. The US policy in Nigeria in particular and in Africa in general should be anchored on the people, and not on individual Heads of State with dubious democratic credentials and the military with a history of human rights violations.

If the reliance on the US for the defense of Nigerian democracy is the plan of the two Presidents, then focusing on the rearming the military and on one person in the name of reprofessionalization is counterproductive. President Obasanjo should know that he is not just Nigerian democracy personified and that he should let that be known to the US President. The Nigerian President should let the US know that the Nigerian people in the final analysis are their defenders of their democracy. It should not come under one guise or the other. The Nigerian people should be supported to act as the final arbiter of what is in their best interest, which now or in the future would not be the armed forces in prefence to education.

The Nigerian people in the final analysis are the defenders of the democratic order. They would want to know whether the US is on their side. Is the US on the side of the Nigerian people or on the side of the President? What happens when there is a gap as is very obvious today between the aspirations of Nigerians and the shortsighted request by the President for reaming the military that ruined the country since 1966? But it is sad that the US seemed to have jumped to the side of the armed forces as defined by the President instead of the other sectors such as the social services as the Nigerian people would readily agree. The Nigerian people left to have a choice between the military and education would readily choose education. The Nigerian people are not allowed to make a choice. President Obasanjo is making the choice for them and he is not even allowing their representatives in the National Assembly to even have some say in the matter.

One is left to ask some pertinent questions. Did this not fundamentally alter the Nigerian defense and foreign policy as we used to know it? Should the President of Nigeria not allow Nigerians through their representatives in the National Assembly discuss this fundamental shift of policy? Should this not be backed by legislation? What does the National Assembly know about this? Does this not require an enabling legislation?

One should also ask where is Britain the former colonial ruler of Nigeria that trained many of Nigerian military officers in the new scheme of things? These are troubling issues in my view.

Nigeria used to have a special relation with the United Kingdom. But during the Civil War, the Soviet Union was made to replace the United Kingdom as the major arm supplier because the UK was worried about the use of the arms in the prosecution of the internal war. Since then, the suppliers of arms have been diversified to include China, Middle East and new Republics that grew out of the old Soviet Union and some private arms dealers. The US was not a major arm exporter to Nigeria except that some of the officers trained in the US military institutions. The UK and the European Union should be worried that Nigeria, the major power in the West African sub-region is now taken over by the US. African countries should also be worried that Nigeria has accepted to be the new policeman on behalf of the US, a position , which South Africa rejected.

The token sanction imposed on the military regime after the annulment forced the Nigerian military under General Sani Abacha to depend almost exclusively on North Korea and China and on some private arm dealers, who supplied the Nigerian army with all sorts of weapons with no spare parts. The Nigerian armory is today littered with varieties of arms from many countries and this imposes limitation on use and serviceability. A new situation is evolving with the introduction of what the US calls ‘military assistance’. Is the US replacing these arms? Is the US preparing to service these arms from China and North Korea?

In 1959 a generation before me at the University of Ibadan fought and won the battle to stop the proposed Anglo-Nigerian Defense Pact. The argument then was that it would unduly deny Nigeria the independence that was in the offing. More seriously, it was feared that the Defense Pact would unduly drag Nigeria into a military involvement contrary to the Nigerian national interest.

In Nigeria, we used to characterize the French West African countries, especially Senegal and Ivory Coast as the two neo-colonial territories in West Africa. They were deemed not to be free because French troops were everywhere. I wonder what those countries would be calling Nigeria today- a neo-colonial satellite of the US because of the presence of the US troops in various parts of Nigeria?

One thing Nigeria used to pride herself of is that Nigeria was not an extension of any power. This was the condition for the high profile position Nigeria took in the non-aligned movement. That seems to be disappearing today with the military entanglement with the US. Even during the civil war, Nigeria called off the bluff of the UK and bought arms for cash or with oil under a barter trade arrangement. Nigeria since 1966 has always solicited for military assistance from a position of strength throughout her history before the period of President Obasanjo. Why should that be changing today under President Obasanjo? The new US involvement in the military organization of Nigeria has many issues that should be discussed. This is a fundamental change of foreign policy. Shouldn’t the Nigerian people know about this?

Arising from the above one is forced to ask some pertinent questions. Is this US military pact within the national interest of Nigeria? Whither Nigerian Armed Forces! What is happening to the Training and Doctrine (TRADOC) of the Nigerian Army? What is our Defense Policy? If Defense Policy means identifying whom are the Nigerian enemies, one would then ask a pertinent question, who are Nigerians’ enemies? Is the US to tell us who are enemies are? What are the terms of the new ‘Defense pact’ between the US and Nigeria? What are the domestic implications of the military pact? These and other questions are the kind of issues, which the National Assembly should have been inquiring into. Can it not do it today? I think it should.

We need to know what we are getting into. One could recall the introduction of ‘military advisers’ in the Southeast Asia by the US, which later became the Vietnam War. We would recall how it all ended. We would also recall the variety of US ‘military assistance’ in Latin America. Now Nigeria is gradually becoming a US ‘Military Base’ in West Africa. Is that the role we want to play in the sub-region, the staging post for military intervention in West Africa? Is this the kind of leadership we want to provide to the region and the continent?

The US seems to forget that the Nigerian Armed Forces had an anti-human rights and anti-democratic past. Is this past redeemable? Maybe this was what prompted the Leahy’s amendment originally.

Senator Patrick Leahy is the liberal Democratic Senator from Vermont. He is an acknowledged defender of human rights worldwide. He is a firm supporter of the rights of individuals against the oppressive regimes in the world. It was out of this concern that he initiated an amendment to a Bill in the US Senate forbidding the US from supporting any military in the world with a history of human rights violation.

The US had to confront this issue in the latest decision of the US to get involved in Colombia to fight against the cocaine traffickers cum insurgency with a whooping sum of over 1 billion dollars. This is not all.

The US is sending over 500 strong military assistance team with military hardware and ammunition to assist and train the Colombia army. How the US is going to cope with the on-going human rights violation of the Colombia army in the face of the menacing cocaine traffickers and rebels also on the side of the cocaine traffickers is yet to be seen. But where does insurgency begin and where does drug trafficking begin? The boundary between drug trafficking and insurgency in Colombia is not there. Even if one wants to create one, it is porous. The decision-makers in the US would eventually find that her involvement in fighting the drug traffickers would bring the US troops into confrontation with insurgent troops. The US ought to know by now that she is getting involved in an essentially civil war in Colombia in which the drug trafficking is not only a by-product, but that it is an integral part of the insurgency. The US would sooner rather later realize that what is needed in Colombia is not more troops and killing but some kind of an internal settlement, which would involve some fundamental change in the way of life of drug traffickers. There is a need for a comprehensive settlement in Colombia involving all groups fighting for one thing or the other. The intervention of the US would not bring about a solution to the war on drug and would not bring an end to the insurgency. One can see a never-ending war on the two fronts in Colombia, because of the link between insurgency and drug.

Maybe the US realized that the US is in a war that would drag on indefinitely, hence the Colombia military intervention was conceived as part of the US war against drug. Hence it was not only thoroughly discussed by all agents of the US government, it was made part of the US law. The two political parties, Democrat and Republican were united on the policy. Hence, that was why the two Presidential Candidates (Gore and Bush) were committed to the policy during the presidential campaign. That is why the US President had to lead a bipartisan delegation including the Speaker of the US Congress (a Republican) to flag off the implementation of this highly controversial policy, whose end no one in the US can tell you in concrete terms. The fact that the policy had a bipartisan support, it would extend beyond one fiscal year and would therefore be expected to survive beyond one administration. How does this compare with the recent US policy in Nigeria? Is the Nigerian aid a parting gift from President Clinton? Does it flow from any US law? Does it have a bipartisan support in the US?

It should be noted that the US policy of armed involvement in Nigeria was not discussed within the US as a major foreign policy issue, hence it did not featuring in the campaign of the two Presidential candidates. There is evidence that the State Department briefed the House of Representatives Sub Committee on Africa on what the White House was taking to Nigeria in form of a training program. This was as far as the US could go.

To confirm that there is nothing known to law in the US, Senator Charles Hagel, Republican of Nebraska in a TV program had reason to question the rationale for sending American soldiers to Nigeria. What the US politicians would demand eventually are the fine prints, knowing the system as one does. They would also want to know if the US training program is limited to the Pentagon and the White House and some contractors of retired US Generals involved in the training. Maybe Nigerians would want to know if it would last beyond the tenure of this administration and if it is meant to last beyond the term of office of the outgoing President.

The US does not seem to understand the domestic import of her decision to offer training to a selected unit of the armed forces. Does the US know the nature and the past of the Nigerian army or it just wants to keep a blind eye to these issues? No one in the US understands the political orientation of the Nigerian army; What about its poor human rights records! It would appear that the US trainers are under the erroneous impression that they could deal with the political orientation. How could they when they do not know! They do not know it and cannot be expected to handle what they do not know.

In short, the political orientation of the Nigerian armed forces has both attitudinal and environmental components. The US cannot change any of them; they are too fundamental for the US to understand. They cannot therefore be dealt with within the US quest for her national security interest.

On the human rights violations, certainly the trainers, maybe, would want to gloss over the past anti-human rights character of the Nigerian army. This is normal any way, as human rights issues, especially in Africa are usually on the back burner compared with national security interest involving protecting the white world such as in the Balkans. The US would never commit her nationals to defend human rights issues in Africa as we found in Rwanda, Liberia and Sierra Leone in Africa and in East Timor in Asia. But the US would do otherwise in the Balkans. The US decision to get involved in Nigeria including sending some troops there should be seen as part of the US defense of her national interest and not for the good of Nigeria.

Domestically, Nigerians do not seem to understand the full implications of the US military involvement in Nigeria, except that the US was sending some military officers to ‘train some Nigerian soldiers’. What does this mean? We are told that the US is involved in what they call reprofessionlization of the Nigerian armed forces. What does this mean? This is a loaded and coded term, which involves Designing a new Strategic and Tactical Doctrine for Nigerian Military. To further complicate the issue, we could ask, what is the meaning of the term, Strategic and Tactical Doctrine? It is a relationship between three variables.

It is as simple as that. This is what we are farming to the US under the pact.

The National Assembly should have had a hearing on this question and Nigerians would have been given the opportunity to hear from the Presidency and the Ministry of Defense and other Nigerians the full implications of the US involvement in Nigeria. Why centers on the military and not on education? This is an issue of priority and it is the National Assembly that should raise this matter and it is not doing it, unfortunately.

There is no doubt in the minds of Nigerians that Nigeria ceased to have a professional army since 1966 especially after the civil war. What Nigeria has since 1966 is a political army with a regional political agenda.

No Nigerian government civilian or military since the end of the Civil War has been able to resolve the ratio of the defense budget to the national budget. Up till now no one knows how many men and officers in the Nigerian armed forces. No one knows the ratio of spending on personnel and on equipment. Nigeria does not know what is a professional army. All these issues could have been resolved if Nigeria had a defense policy.

The fierce debate as to the role of the army since the end of the war was never discussed and resolved. It was abandoned after the assassination of the Head of State General Murtala Muhmmed in February 1976 as the issue of demobilization was one of the grievances of those who spearheaded the assassination. This was complicated by the series of armed intervention in politics since 1983. These are issues, which foreign governments including the US hardly understand about the Nigerian military and politics. If Nigerian governments, civilian and military since 1970 could not change the Nigerian army from a political army to a professional army, why do we think that the US today would be able to do it under a situation where there is no defense policy? Maybe the US is to define this for us.

President Obasanjo should be reminded of his profound pronouncement on the armed forces, which he made as soon as he was released from General Abacha’s Gulag in 1998. It was a moving statement when General Obasanjo confessed how he was part of the ‘victims’ and ‘witnesses’ of the action of the highly politicized and highly ethnicized armed forces.

Mr. President was right then in 1998 when he expressed the sentiments of many Nigerians that what many Nigerians would have been calling the Nigerian Army was actually a political army whose interest was to guarantee the continued stay in power of the North. Is this what the US wants to change or perpetuate?

The way to confirm what President Obasanjo was referring to is to revisit the past of the Nigerian army and the ramparts it guards. It is a common knowledge that if the military had respect for human rights and if it were representative of all ethnic nationalities in Nigeria, the following violations of human rights would not have happened.

Maybe I should add that Dr. Ekwueme and Chief Olu Falae, like MKO Abiola met the ‘written’ qualifications for becoming the President but they did not meet the ‘unwritten’ qualifications, which General Obasanjo met. Which are these ‘unwritten’ qualifications? I dealt with these issues in my book on the annulment and in many essays and lectures that I do not wish to go into this here.

The foregoing are the ‘issues in the annulment’. They are part and parcel of the ramparts being guarded by the Nigerian army. The US Generals cannot change this fundamental fact of Nigerian politics. Only Nigerians themselves through a National Conference can do it. Would the President allow this to take place?

From what I know of the Nigerian armed forces, there can not be a democratic order in Nigeria under the prevailing composition and orientation of her armed forces. I have been writing and speaking on this subject since 1997 and it would appear that Nigerians are not listening. Do not make me a President of Nigeria under the prevailing composition and orientation of the Nigerian armed forces. I warned the newly elected President of the danger he faces from the political army. I refer to two sources for this warning. One was in an academic paper read in my behalf at Abuja in an International Conference in March 1999. The other was in the interview I granted the Tell magazine in Boston in February 1999 and published in the April 5, 1999 edition. The points expressed in these papers are still valid today.

I warned some Nigerian political leaders and some US officials who consulted me in the US after the death of General Abacha and Chief Abiola to expect the following:

that no southerner chosen or supported and loved by his people

would be allowed to be the successor to the junta.

I did not know then that General Obasanjo would be a candidate. Of course, Obasanjo was not chosen by his people. Compared with Chief Olu Falae with respect to the Yoruba and Dr. Ekwueme with respect to the Ndi Igbo, General Obasanjo was chosen by the north for the south not to meet the southern interest. General Obasanjo was chosen not as a response to the harm done to the Nigerians who voted for Chief Abiola by the annulment, but he was chosen to meet the northern interest. This in effect is continuing the annulment in another guise.

I made a second statement.

I was also sure that no northerner would be supported for now

by the southerners then after the annulment

as long as the issues in the annulment were not resolved;

that the military junta would look for a pliable southerner to

serve as a ‘canon fodder’ or a ‘bridge’

until a candidate from the north could emerge.

It was smart moves on the part of General Abdulsalami junta when it sanctioned the retired northern military officers’ decision to go for General Obasanjo as their candidate. This was how the Nigerian army faced the south with a moral dilemma. Yes, General Obasanjo is from the south in fact from the southwest, the home of the winner of the June 12, 1993 Presidential election, Chief MKO Abiola. But General Obasanjo, for reasons outside the scope of this paper, was not the choice of the Yoruba like Chief Abiola, hence he was not supported by the Yoruba. He was therefore not the candidate of the south in general and of the southwest in particular. It should be noted that there is no doubt that he is an eminent Chief and an illustrious son of Yoruba land and a close friend of Chief Abiola. I also told some American friends who asked me why General Obasanjo, a Yoruba was not loved by his people? I recall what I said then;

The south in general and the Southwest

in particular had different notion of how

to choose their representative

and that did not include General Obasanjo.

I was asked why? This was an issue, which the US could not understand when she hailed the decision of General Abubakar to go for General Obasanjo as a ‘cannon fodder’ between the armed forces and the pro-democracy forces. He was wrong as he misinterpreted the issues in the ammulment and the attitude of the south to General Obasanjo. General Abubakar should have allowed the interplay of democratic political forces to determine the successor to the junta. They erroneously thought that what he was made to do by the retired amy officers was a smart move as a response to the craze for power shift by the south especially the Southwest should be haunting him today in reirement. General Abubakar and his sponsors did not know that a shift of power, which does not come through the interplay of democratic political forces, would not succeed. This is the tragedy of what happened in 1999. 1999 could not be a substitute for 1993. Hence May 29 could not be a ‘democracy day’ no matter what effort the President makes to convince Nigerians to believe that.

It should be further noted that in furtherance of the ramparts the Nigerian army guards, it ‘military jacked’ the transition and the election and made Chef Obasanjo the President. Has the situation changed today? Is this what the US pact is meant to protect in Nigeria in the name of democracy and reprofessionalization today? These are the problems today.

The characterization of the armed forces as unrepresentative is critical to the understanding of the role of the Nigerian armed forces since 1993. This is my interpretation of the pronouncement of General Obasanjo in June 1998.

But I humbly disagree with the Nigerian President when he said in June 1998 that there were

‘still good apples within the military’

He went on

‘bad ones had (recently) gained ascendancy under Abacha’

This was a false characterization of the Nigerian armed forces. It did not reflect the facts as we know them since 1966. How do we separate the bad ones who were used to inflict untold indignities on Nigerians since 1966 from the so-called good ones? What we are asking today when the US wants to get around the Patrick Leahy’s amendment.

The Nigerian President is not correct to merely say that the bad ones became evident under General Abacha. He should have known that the bad ones had gained ascendancy in the Nigerian armed forces long before General Abacha became the Head of State. It has always been there since 1966. What had happened since the military became part of the politics of Nigeria was to turn the leadership of the armed forces into a political instrument in the hands of a regional group to guarantee its continued stay in power. Can the US change this?

In a recent interview credited to Mr. President, Mr. President confessed that General Abacha was involved in the killings of the Ndi Igbo in the north in 1966. This is correct and so what? What the President did not tell us was whether General Abacha was acting alone then and whether he was acting within some parameters. I hope Mr. President is not that naïve to think that General Abacha’s phenomenon was an isolated case. It was not. Nigerians are not that naïve to believe President Obasanjo’s characterization of the bad eggs.

There are still many Abachas in the army one should warn.

President Obasanjo should not be carried away by what happened to him in 1995. He should appreciate that General Abacha was not acting alone in what he did to him in 1995 and in what he did to others before and after 1995. He was not acting alone in what he had planned to do under his self-succession plan. He was acting in accord with a design, which was part of the issues in the annulment of the June 12, 1993 Presidential election. Was his emergence as the military Head of State on November 17, 1993 an accident or by design? I dealt with all these issues in my book, The Tale of June 12 and I do not want to repeat them.

My prescription of total demobilization and depoliticization in the language of ‘fundamental restructuring’ in my book, The Tale of June 12 has basis in empirical cases in Japan and Germany after the Second World War. The Allied Powers knew that democracy could not be anchored on the highly politicized armed forces of Japan and Germany that prosecuted the Second World War. This was why as part of the democratization plan of the Allied Powers the armed forces of these two countries were disbanded and new ones set up in their places. It was one of the safeguards against the reoccurrence of the past that these countries could not commence rearming without the approval of the Allied Powers. That prescription in my book is based on what I knew of the political orientation and the composition of the Nigerian armed forces. It would appear that ignorance of this is one of the disturbing issues in the new US policy of rearming the Nigerian armed forces with out first embarking on demobilization.

Why should the US anchor her new foreign policy in Nigeria on (a) the retraining and the rearming of the Nigerian Army and (b) the use of the US marine to rearm the Nigerian Navy? How is the new policy going to cope with Senator Patrick Leahy’s amendment that forbids the US from supporting the military anywhere in the world that has a history of human rights violations? These questions still have to be dealt with; it would appear that no one is asking these questions at the moment. The question is why?

The Clinton characterization of Nigeria’s past confirms that the past of the Nigerian armed forces ought to have included its past human rights violation. He did not say how the bad ones would be separated from the lot and commence the retraining of the Nigerian army. He did not say how the retraining or reprofessionalization program would be.

The program of retraining ought have involved the depoliticization of the orientation of the armed forces. Do the US trainers know the orientation of the armed forces that from top to bottom Nigeria has a political army and not a professional army? How do you convert a political army to a professional army short of wholesale demobilization? Do the US trainers know what is involved in the conversion process? To know the conversion process one must understand the ingredients in a political army.

My fear is that the US trainers are just rehashing the program drawn up from the US experience in the Balkans. The US trainers are either completely ignorant of or decide to adopt a benign neglect of the environment of the armed forces and the rampart being guarded by the officers since 1966 in Nigeria. Nigeria is not Croatian Republic in the Balkans. This is part of the fine prints in the pact worth inquiring into.

Yes, the officers were trained in the UK, Pakistan India, Canada since 1960s and some of the officers had some training in the US. But, this did not mean that coups were taught in these academies. The military involvement in politics has a dynamics of its own, as those who are professional coup makers would tell you. Coup d’etat has political dynamics and has nothing to do with the training offered by trainers at home or abroad.

My conclusion is that for the future

what the US is doing today would not

have effect on the prospect of coups in Nigeria.

The research findings from the Centre for Democratic Studies, an organization, which I ran 1989-95 had data that the Nigerian soldiers conceived of their career as extending to political posts like military governors/administrators of states and parastatals and commanders in peacekeeping assignments. They see political posts as avenues for moving from majors to generals with out any evidence of training; they would rather want to be political generals and become millionaires and billionaires and front men for foreign companies. They do not attach importance to up ward mobility through training or through professional assignment. They undertake professional assignment like ‘peacekeeping’ because it has foreign exchange component to it. These are areas nobody is talking about, yet knowledge of them is critical to the resolution to the kind of training the US might decide to mount for the political army of Nigeria.

The President’s retirements of those who held political posts in the past even though laudable in itself, should not have been approached that way. It certainly should not be taken as a response to two fundamental problems about the armed forces. What are these problems?

First, there is an urgent need for a fundamental restructuring of the armed forces to make the so-called Nigerian military representative of the Nigerian ethnic nationalities. The US should not be made to just assemble battalions and offer them training unless we know the composition. This is not the job of the US trainers. It is a fundamental issue, which is at the root of the survival of the federal system. This is an opportunity for the areas marginalized since 1970 to make sure that they are not left out this time and complain later. Specifically the Ndi Igbo, the minorities from the south and the Yoruba should ensure that the preeminent leadership of the army by a section of the country is not allowed to perpetuate itself at the expense of the others. The Federal Character Commission should be involved in determining the composition of each of the seven battalions to be trained by the US to ensure that they meet the Federal Character of Nigeria. Can the US trainers get involved in this politically sensitive and nationally explosive issue?

The National Assembly should ensure that the Federal Character Commission does its work. Can the Senate Committee on Defense undertake this assignment as a matter of immediate importance? This is one guarantee to ensure that we are not just producing a new set of a political army drawn exclusively from one part of the country.

Second, there is an urgent need for a fundamental reorientation of the armed forces to make the officers and men accountable to a democratic order. General TY Danjuma seems to adopt a narrow view about the training and retraining of the armed forces. It is not just on how to move officers from the use of myriad of equipment to the use of the US made equipment. It would appear that this is what the US trainers are doing according to the Minister of Defense, Lt. General TY Danjuma. The reorientation of the armed forces is more than just a conversion from one type of equipment to another. General Danjuma should have used the services of renowned professional retired Nigerian officers such as Generals Alani Akinrinade, Domkat Bali, Salihu Ibrahim and Lawrence Uwumarogie, who had no history of political involvement in the past to undertake the function of reprofessionalization of the armed forces.

Maybe it was a slip of the tongue when General Danjuma, the Minister of Defense announced that the US Marines would be involved in the re-training of the battalion on the use of American equipment for the ‘twentieth century’ instead of the for the ‘twenty-first century’. Maybe he meant to say that the US was sending to Nigeria equipment meant for the twentieth century, which are no longer in use by the US armed forces. (See The Guardian August 29, 2000).

The Minister gave figures of 2.5 million dollars for ‘equipment’ and ‘training’, but he did offer a break down into ‘equipment’ and ‘training’. He did not tell us whether this was ‘aid’ or ‘loan’. All these are part of the fine prints, which the National Assembly has right to inquire into.

The Minister also announced that the US involvement in the training program is to prepare soldiers to be used in the peacekeeping efforts in the sub-region beginning with Sierra Leone. Is this going to be permanent army of peace-keepers stationed in Nigeria, which can be called upon by the US from time to time to undertake missions on behalf of the US, which may or may not be in furtherance of the national interest of Nigeria? This is another fine print.

We are not told of the distinction between ‘a peacekeeping force’ and ‘a non peacekeeping force’? What is the special training of ‘a peace-keeping force’ and ‘a non-peace-keeping force’? Is the concept of ‘a peace-keeping force’ a ruse? What is the distinction between peace at home and peace in the sub-region? These are issues, which make one come to the conclusion that the pact seems to adopt a very narrow view of what is required to make the armed forces professional.

We are mistaking the training of officers for peacekeeping with professionalization of the armed forces for the defense of the democratic order. They are two things and we tend to mix them up for reasons, which I do not know. What is the US doing with these two ends? How are these trainers from the US planning to achieve both ends? They are two separate policy issues.

The US still has not told Nigerians its track records with respect to how to convert a political army into a peacekeeper on the one hand and a professional army on the other. All these are fine prints. We still have not known the full implications of the military pact.

TWO ARMIES: THE US AND NIGERIAN RECIPE FOR INTERNAL WAR!

The re-training of some soldiers in the use of American equipment is a recipe for another problem. What happens to the other officers who would not have the benefit of such training from the US marines? We will soon be having two types of Nigerian armed forces soon, if we are not careful and of course the two-army plan has a potentiality for internal crisis within the armed forces.

Very soon Nigeria shall be having one army prepared with American orientation and equipment and the other left to make do with equipment from myriad of countries, North Korea, Russia, Britain, etc. Why is Nigeria not training all members of the armed forces with the use of the same equipment? What happens to the tons of equipment in the armory from China, North Korea and Eastern Europe? Nigeria would soon be told to dump them into the sea and soon they would be available in various communities for use by armed robbers and leaders of ethnic communities for various inter-ethnic conflicts. Of course, the US is happy to take them away under the pretext that they are helping Nigeria to dispose of them. This is how the US study the equipment of the so-called rogue states.

This is an aspect of the policy driven by donors and not by the Nigerian national interest. Nigeria is now a dumping ground for the US ‘twentieth century’ equipment for ill-defined peacekeeping assignment. In the process Nigeria is made to meet the demands of the US National Security needs in the world and not for the defense of the democratic order in Nigeria. In the end, Nigeria through the process of this pact will be sowing seeds of disaffection within the armed forces. Will the US be available to resolve the confusion? This is a fine print.

What is frightening is the fact that the new posture of the US tends to preclude a negotiated internal settlement in Sierra Leone short of more killings.

The crisis in Sierra Leone is an internal war

involving varieties of Sierra Leone citizens.

(NOTE:For those who want to read my paper on Sierra Leone, please see, Sierra Leone: A Case of Collapsed Stae in Africa (mimeo) and also in the Nigeriaworld.com June 6 1999. It is still available for readers in the WWW)

The introduction of more soldiers from poor countries anxious to get foreign exchange and minerals from various countries with different hidden agenda as ‘peace-keepers’ will not bring about an internal peace in Sierra Leone. There is some element of truth in the allegations against the Nigerian troops in Sierra Leone as this was not new. If the officers are true to themselves, they would know that there is some element of truth in the allegations.

I counseled the President of Nigeria in an open letter that he should personally lead to evolve an internal comprehensive settlement in Sierra Leone. I warned in separate letters to the UN Secretary General, and the US President Special Envoy to Africa, Rev Jesse Jackson and the Commonwealth that the introduction of more soldiers into Sierra Leone would not bring about peace in Sierra Leone. I also counseled that the international community should push for a new notion of peace in an internal war situation like in the Sierra Leone and in the Democratic Republic of Congo to mean a comprehensive settlement involving all Sierra Leone groups. The way these wars are prosecuted is like an inter-state war. The end of an internal war should be different from and the end of an inter-state war.

The uncoordinated international army of occupation from various countries is complicating the Sierra Leone search for internal peace. This is leading to what the UN Commissioner on Refugees called the greatest humanitarian catastrophes in the UN history. Is this the end of a policy?

I support the use of Nigerian troops to monitor proper peace accord in any African country. But there is no peace yet in Sierra Leone to keep. The Nigerian President should use his position to negotiate proper peace in Sierra Leone, which eluded Sierra Leone and other West African countries since the introduction of Nigerian soldiers into these countries. If the President failed to do this where is the oversight function of the National Assembly?

I had thought that the involvement of the previous military rulers, first in Liberia and later in Sierra Leone would have been inquired into by the National Assembly after May 1999. I also thought that the National Assembly would have been involved in the further deployment of troops in Sierra Leone since May 1999. Nigerians would have been told in naira and kobo how much of was being spent in the various activities of the armed forces.

It would have been desirable that the National Assembly would have held hearings on the search for peace in Africa. I thought the National Assembly would have been in the forefront to perform its oversight function, which would have made it to push for a policy on the use of the Nigerian troops in foreign countries in accordance with the Constitution. There is at the moment no policy on the use of the Nigerian armed forces in foreign lands. It is sad that the deployment and use of the Nigerian armed forces in foreign lands is still being executed without a law, as if Nigeria is still under a military regime. Is this what we want the US to tell us?

The unilateral action of deploying and of using troops in foreign countries even under the new democracy is still an affair of the President. One wonders what would happen after the training of some battalions with the US money. Would the Nigerian ‘special force’ of peacekeepers be under the operational command of the US that is paying the price of training of the ‘special force’ and providing the force with new arms? What will be the role of the President and the National Assembly separately and jointly? These are fine prints.

Nigerians ought to be asking some other disturbing questions, which are many. Let me raise some. Would the ‘special force’ be available for other domestic assignment? Is this not troubling? Would the Nigerian army be able to command the ‘special force’? Who are those officers to use the new weapons? Who signs off on the use of special force where the use of US weapons is concerned? Who directs its use in the internal war? What is the National Assembly doing about these issues? These are fine prints in the pact.

When one hears of the amount of money spent by Nigeria in peace keeping one wonders how much of that sum was in the pockets of the various commanders and how much is in the pockets of the leaders of these countries?

The training program for the armed forces must be part of the fundamental reorientation of the political class and a fundamental restructuring of the society. The relationship between the fundamental reorientation of the armed forces and the political class on the one hand and relationship between the restructuring of the armed forces and the fundamental restructuring of the society on the other are very much neglected at the moment and in the US plan. Yet these relationships are at the root of the lingering political problems in Nigeria crying for discussion and resolution. The frequent assurance by President Obasanjo to the officers and men of the armed forces that the new dispensation is working is false.

We need to address these problems, if democracy is to survive in Nigeria. The US cannot do it for the Nigerian people. President Obasanjo should allow the Nigerian people to do it for themselves.

(NOTE: Nigerians who hailed the involvement of the US in the Nigerian affairs do not address these issues and their relationships)

A very disturbing issue is the decision of the US to provide patrol vessels for the Nigerian Navy to be used in the oil producing areas. The history of the military activity in the oil producing areas and the part played by the oil companies should have been taken into account in the decision of the US to get involved in the Niger-Delta by introducing more instruments of violence. The US is unwittingly raising the stakes in the oil producing areas for everybody. I will leave this to those concerned.

There are some fundamental issues in the politics of oil in Nigeria. The key issue centers on the ‘ownership question’, which has a long and checkered history and which the people of the oil producing areas are disputing with the Nigerian government. Is the US bent on frustrating the legitimate aspirations and demands of the people of the oil producing areas? This is another fine print in the military pact between President Obasanjo and President Clinton. Is the US bent on joining President Obasanjo and his Nigerian government in denying the peoples of the oil producing areas their claim to oil on the basis of self-determination?

For the interest of the US, the people of the oil producing areas are agitating for ‘local control over local resources including oil’, which is acknowledged in the US as cardinal to the federal system.

For the interest of the foreign investors and the US government, the six governments of the oil producing areas formed a company known as Bedrock to undertake oil exploration, exploitation and marketing. They are indirectly putting the foreign oil companies on notice that they want to have dealings with foreign oil companies in place of the Nigerian government.

They want the foreign oil companies and the US government to respect their claim to the oil in their land. Who will protect the people of the oil producing areas in the dispute between the oil producing areas and President Obasanjo’s Nigerian government? Which side would the US be?

The question that one would want to ask is whether the US knows that the US Marine would gradually be involved in the domestic issue in Nigeria. What is agonizing today is that the US is substituting for the oil companies in the supply of arms to the Nigerian army to inflict untold damage to the people of the oil producing areas who are in quest of self-determination. They want their claim over oil as the product from their land be respected just as other products were respected in the past. Because they happen to be proverbial wretched of Nigerian politics with no place in the leadership of the armed forces and no place in the political leadership of the country, they are denied their rights over the years. This is the right, which the US oil companies and now the US government want to ignore and aid President Obasanjo’s Nigerian government to ignore too.

It should be noted that it was yesterday when the US oil companies under the military regime of General Abacha were supplying arms to the military in order to get around the token sanction placed on the military by the US and the countries of the European Union after the annulment of the June 12, 1993 Presidential election and the extra0judixcial execution of the Ogoni 9. The justification then by the oil companies was that they were aiding the legitimate government at Abuja. These oil companies argued that they had to provide arms to the Nigerian army to ‘police’ their investments jointly owned with the Nigerian government in the oil producing areas. They argued that they were doing that in order to ensure the uninterrupted supply of oil to the US and the EU countries. These were laudable goals, which were bought by the US and her allies. In the process, the army used the arms provided through the US oil companies to neutralize or kill the environmental and minority rights advocates. Does the US now want to directly handle this matter under the pact?

Today it is the US government that is gradually becoming the major supplier of arms and patrol vessels to the Nigerian Navy to ‘police’ the oil producing areas. Will the US also be involved in helping President Obasanjo to kill the youth and the leaders of oil producing areas and destroy their homes? Does the President of the US know that the US would in turn be becoming part, if not the major part of the problems of those who are demanding their right in the oil producing areas of the Niger-Delta. This is an aspect of the fine prints in the pact. This will be a source of problem in the future Nigeria-US relation if the President Obasanjo ever ends his term.

The National Assemblymen and the Governors of the south-south states from the oil producing areas should get together and seek explanation from President Obasanjo before their areas are turned into a war theater. They should reject the new unilateral decision of President Obasanjo to employ the services of the US Marine in the Niger-Delta.

They should prevail on President Obasanjo to reject force as the solution to the quest by the people of the oil producing areas for resource control. All should opt for dialogue on the ownership question of oil. This is an aspect of the fine print, if President on the prompting of the US rejects this.

Finally this is an opportunity for the National Assembly to act. Since the ‘politics of the armed forces’ and the ‘politics of oil’ are two lingering political issues unresolved since 1999, Nigerians should be worried. They should seek to know what is contained in the secret pact between Nigeria under President Obasanjo and the US under President Clinton called by such term as the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU).

The appropriate Committees of the National Assembly should immediately hold public hearings on the US involvement (a) in the Nigerian armed forces and (b) in the Niger-Delta. This is an opportunity for the National Assembly to determine the true nature of Ethnic Representation in the Armed Forces and answer the question posed by those who are not represented in the armed forces such as the Ndigbo, the Yoruba and the Southern Minorities. Unless these are looked into and rectified now, the US involvement would further complicate the highly regional/ethnicized nature of the so-called Nigerian armed forces since the end of the civil war.

Of course, this is also an opportunity to deal with the ‘Ownership Question’ of Oil and the introduction of the new patrol vessels into Niger-Delta by the US.

Above all, there are many fine prints identified in this essay; I hope the National Assembly should address them in the interest of Nigerian democracy.

This paper was released to the Nigerian media immediately President Clinton concluded his trip to Nigeria in August 2000 with the hope that they would use it as a background paper for their comments on the US President’s pronouncements. I later discovered that it was published by a reputable magazine in Nigeria in full. See the NEWS, October 2, 2000.

I received many letters and e-mail messages from Nigerians at home and abroad commending the views expressed in the paper and calling on the National Assembly to take up the issues raised in the paper. The issues arising from the pact was a subject in the retirement of the Service Chiefs.

Some Nigerians also commented on the issue because of what they do not like in the Nigerian Armed Forces from its past, which is true and understandable. What is wrong with the armed forces because of the many years of its involvement in politics cannot be understood by the US Generals and hence cannot be solved the US. But the US-Nigerian military understanding should be seen within some of the issues, which I called the fine prints.

The fine prints are many and they are troubling. Can we gloss them over? The answer is no. It is my honest view that we should raise them; we should discuss them; we should resolve them. This is a function of a National Forum called by various names. It would appear that the National Assembly that should have been a forum for calling into question the fine prints is unable to do this for obvious reasons.

What I am concerned about is the need to evolve a Defense Policy and create a forum for raising, discussion and resolving some of the issues in the fine prints identified in my paper. This is the way the Defense Policy’ of a country is arrived at. Up till now, there is no known Defense Policy in Nigeria except that the Chief of Defense Staff, Vice-Admiral Ibrahim Ogohi’s promise that Nigeria would have a one by the end of the month of May 2001. The question is from where? What are the ingredients of Nigerian Defense Policy? Defense Policy is not a matter of what the soldiers want. It is what Nigerians want. The soldiers cannot define enemies for the Nigerian people. Maybe we are waiting for the US to do it for us.

I support Admiral Augustus Aikhomu’s position in the article titled ‘Integrity of the Armed Forces. He warned against what he called ‘external pollution and manipulation’. He warned that no self-respecting nation calls on another nation to tell them who their enemies are. This is in a capsule form is the defense policy of any nation; it has to do with the ‘strategic’ and ‘tactical’ doctrine of the armed forces. Procurement of arms and ammunitions, force build-up, training, reprofessionalization or what have you would have to be within the defense policy.

I am releasing my original paper immediately President Clinton hailed the military assistance to Nigeria during his visit to Nigeria for the WWW. I am adding some notes.

For those who would want to read more about it let me call their attention to two well reasoned editorials of two major newspapers, The Vanguard March 15, 2001 and The Guardian March 29, 2001.

REDEEM THE IMAGE OF THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY AS ‘A DO NOTHING INSTITUTION’. NIGERIANS NEED TO KNOW WHAT IS THE NIGERIAN DEFENSE POLICY.