TheCable

BY IDOKO ANIOKO

A common thread runs through the world empires that rose to their prime and later collapsed, military decline. Not taken in isolation and not a sole factor, military decline or a gradual degradation and subsequent destruction of the military of these civilizations spelt their doom. In modern times foreign powers that are interested in destroying a targeted country simply set out about destroying its army and the collapse of other vital institutions and the country becomes a matter of domino effect.

This process have been perfected to an extent that the population of the targeted country, who are most likely to suffer, are the deceived into applauding the destruction of their country. This is because the destruction of their military, contrary to being cataclysmic, is usually subtle; and where one would expect hostile entities driving the process, seemingly innocuous entities drive the process of destroying armies – hiding their destructive agenda behind the façade of being responsible international organizations.

Nigeria has been under sustained attack, which it has remarkably weathered well. But there is a limit to which the resilience can last, which makes it crucial that citizens are enlightened to understand what their country is going through and how they should not be brainwashed into becoming facilitators for the destruction of their country with a concept that is locked on “destroy the military and the country is gone” principle.

Some international organizations are at the forefront of the war on Nigeria’s corporate integrity and future. On paper and on the storefront, a respectable organization polices the adherence to human rights of the world’s citizens. It mounts pressure on governments and corporate organizations to overhaul or reform their approach to human rights issues especially in the areas of free expression, incarceration, conduct during war and other crises. It has been at the forefront of the discontinuation of the death sentence even if the convict were a murderer.

Given the unfettered access it has to the corporate media, the treatment its frequent scathing reports against certain countries get is the dream of every PR practitioner, it is able to launder its image in a way that has left large swathes of the earth’s population swearing by its name each time they perceived they have been wronged or their rights trampled upon.

Yet it is not all as it seems. It has its ugly side. Its reports are influenced more by what fate has been decided for a country or its leader than by the genuine desire to improve on the quality of freedoms its citizens enjoy. In implementing this kind of brief, particularly in the middle, the organisation has been known to look away when its favoured side is involved in committing the atrocities. By the way, the atrocities are in most cases the product of its interference in the affairs of the countries that are in crisis.

Often times, issues slew of reports demonizing the country, its leader and army with the goal of securing forceful intervention from coalition countries. Once it gets the coalition countries the excuse they have been waiting for to invade a sovereign country it reverts to carrying on as if that country never existed. Libya is a testament to this modus operandi. The travesty is that the process of sacking the supposed leader who is killing his citizens often kill more of those same citizens; the aftermath of the misplaced interventions kill even more.

In Nigeria, in reaction to client feedback, modified its approach. Its strategy, from the much that have been seen, is to continually issue reports aimed at forcing the army into a position where it is constrained in its operation against Boko Haram terrorists it is fighting in the northeast of the country. The same strategy applied to other insurgents and separatists that Nigeria’s security agencies are containing in the southeast and destructive militants in the south-south. There have been instances when it went to the extreme of harassing the Nigerian state on behalf of looters of the public tills that are in incarceration.

Its clients simply dusted up and introduced another respectable looking organization, into the project against the military in Nigeria. The anti-corruption organization wasted no time in delivering a report that promptly accuse  accused the army of being rotten beyond measure even though the incidents upon which it based that conclusion have been overtaken by events. The military services of 2017 were accused of shady deals transacted two decades ago.

The only thing left to stop this wrecking train is for Nigerians to abandon difference along religious and ethnic lines since it is the next stop on the route.

Ainoko, a peace and conflict resolution expert writes from Barnawa, Kaduna.