Foreign Military Bases: Why I Agree With The Eggheads

By Abdu Labaran Malumfashi

This is not a rejoinder to my ‘colleagues’ open letter to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and the two leaders of the National Assembly on the citing of the US and French military bases in Nigeria.

I said ‘my colleagues’, which they are, in terms of age, but they are my grandparents in terms of the other worldly indices such as academic and economic.

I am not by any stretch of the imagination an egghead or even an intellectual for that matter, working in one of the Ivory Towers or any of the research institutions under them. I am just a Nigerian who is very much aware that the two foreign governments of US and France would not bring their military bases here to protect our country’s interests.

On May 1, 2024, the six of them wrote the open letter to cautions the addresses against agreeing to the request (what one may call DESIRE) of the US and France to cite their military bases in Nigeria.

The signatories to the open letter are the sextuplets of Professors Attahiru Jega of BUK, a former Vice Chancellor and former INEC Chairman, Abubakar Siddique head of the Centre for Democratic Development, Research and Training (CEDDERT),Zaria, Jibrin Ibrahim head of the Centre For Democracy and Development (CDD), Abuja, and Kabiru Sulaiman Chafe head of the Arewa Research and Development Project (ARDP), Kaduna, as well as Auwal Musa (Rafsanjani) leader of the Civil Society for Legislative Advocacy Centre (CISLAC) and Y.Z. Ya’u of the Centre for Information Technology Development (CITAD), Kano.

In the lengthy open letter, the intellectuals pointed out the ills of citing the foreign military bases in Nigeria.

Since the six have approached the issue intellectually, I will however, look at it from a pedestrian perspective, as I am not an intellectual.

Allowing the two countries to have their African bases cited in Nigeria would be an unwelcome development for most of my compatriots as the two countries are not our friends and have never been ones. If anything, they are some of our worst enemies on this planet.

To be sure, if you accede to their demands, you will leave us with no option but to protest and pray for your unprepared departure from the political scene, because the two countries and their friends in the Western World are definitely not in love with us and can therefore not be with us in order to protect us and or our interest. They would be around us to protect their interest, sometimes violently, whether we like it or not.

Already, many people have reacted on-line negatively to, God forbid, the prospect of citing the two foreign military bases in Nigeria.

In fact, the rumour has been making the rounds with fear and apprehension, especially in the northern part of the country, over the alleged citing of the two military bases. The sacking of foreign military bases by some countries in Africa, including Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger, has fueled the fears.

To be sure, there is palpable fear in the north because of the vivid recall of the fierce pro US stance of its citizens wherever they find themselves and the brutality of France wherever it has the chance to show its beastiality. In the event of any ‘collateral damage’ resulting in Nigerian casualties, they will whisk away their nationals involved in the incident on the pretext of ‘trying’ them at home, after which the matter will come to a close, as far as they are concerned. Their militaries would definitely operate in no less manner wherever they are stationed.

The people who would have the ‘new neighbours’ will definitely not find it easy, as they would have to go by the rules of the military bases, and, at times, they may even be taken to the home country of the particular base, whose rule has been breached and be tried there.

Even some of the black people in the Western World do not consider themselves as blacks on account of the common language they speak (share) with the whites. And they (blacks) address Africans who go there recently with condescension or even disdain, as, according to some of them, ‘our great great grandparents sold theirs into slavery’.

During the Nigerian Civil War, France took the side of the Biafra, in the hope that she would get the abundant mineral resources Nigeria is blessed with for her free use, if the side had won its cessation plan.

France is also alleged to support the activities of the bandits that have become a headache to the Nigerian government, in general and the northern part of the country, in particular. The European country is also accused of, allegedly, hiring mercenaries to assist the bandits operating in Northern Nigeria.

The mainland France has no single gold mine, but the country has the fourth largest gold reserves in the world, ‘courtesy’ of Mali, (a former French colony), which has the eighth largest gold mine in the world. France therefore ‘got’ all or most of the gold in its reserves from its former colony of Mali.

The US is not a saint either, when it comes to operating AGAINST the interest of the so called Third World countries, like Nigeria. For the US, it is either to and for them or nobody else, especially in the developing world like our country.

The US was a key player in the infamous slave trade of the 1800s, which the country only abolished in 1865 after the US Congress had passed the 13th Amendment of the Constitution, done after it had already moved thousands of blacks to what was then referred to as the ‘New World’.

In Contemporary times, the US know who is raping and wrecking Nigeria’s economy through the illegal exploitation of the crude oil, which is this country’s major official export, but is not telling us because her citizens and government are hands in gloves with some unpatriotic locals involved in the illegalities.

It is also alleged that the West, led by the US, was behind the ‘sabotage’ of the Ajaokuta Steel and Iron Company, which was started in 1979 by the administration of President Shehu Shagari because the then USSR got the contract not any country from the then western block.

There is also the fear that going along with them would add to the worry of the Northerners, who have enough woes already. It is also a sure way of ‘annoying’ the other block of the bi-polar world, who live helpfully and peacefully with Nigeria.

Of course, there will be many denials from US and France about their planned intentions, but this is expected of them so as to have the guards of their potential ‘victims’ down. Nigeria cannot afford to take chances in this matter.

Even the Federal Government, through a press statement issued by the Minister of Information and National Orientation, Alhaji Mohammed Idris, has also denied the existence of such an agreement with the two foreign governments, saying that, “The Federal Government is not in any such discussion with any foreign country. We have neither received nor are we considering any proposals from any country on the establishment of any foreign military bases in Nigeria”.

Hardly surprising too, because the federal government will not own up to the people to giving out its land for foreigners to establish their military bases on it. Besides, the minister of information and national orientation may not known everything that is happening in the government.

But as the saying goes: Where arises the smoke without a fire?

Since coming on stream of your administration, Mr. President, there has been more and more heat, literally and figuratively, in the country due to nature and some of your policies that are very harsh to most of the people. Do NOT deliberately add to the man-made harshness, please.

Anyway, while Mr. President and the few other money bags along with your families can afford to abandon the ‘burning’ Nigeria and go to any part of the world where you choose to do so, most other people who do not have the wherewithal to leave the ‘burning’ ship and go to somewhere will but remain in Nigeria and be ‘burnt’ with the country.

May God not allow it to happen.

Malam Malumfashi wrote from Abuja