he Daily Sun of Tuesday August 5, 2008 quoted United Nations’ Under Secretary –General, Professor Ibrahim Gambari as having revealed that 700 Nigerian soldiers were killed in (one month alone) January 1999, during Peace-keeping mission in Sierra Leone. Professor Gambari who reportedly disclosed this in a lecture he delivered at the Nigeria Defense College, Abuja gave the impression that he was divulging an official secret. In his words: “I hope I am not divulging an official secret and even if I do, I hope I won’t go to jail for this”.
|
 advertisement
|
We thank Professor Gambari for this revelation. However, this is as bad as it could possibly be; for a country to lose 700 soldiers in a single day, even if it were in a war. And I must confess, much as I have been trying to keep in touch with events back home, since I was driven out of the country by Abacha’s merchants of death in 1998, I did not know that Nigerian troops were still in Sierra Leone by 1999. But what makes this sad episode more intriguing is the fact that Nigeria was not at war with any country. It was “simply” keeping the peace in a neighboring war-torn country. This calls to scrutiny the conduct of the peace-keeping operations in Liberia and Sierra Leone, in the 1980s and 1990s. For instance, what protective measures were taken to ensure the safety of Nigerian soldiers on these peace-keeping missions? Were the soldiers provided with adequate military hard ware for their protection against attacks? Were the soldiers welfare adequately taken care of? How did our troops conduct themselves on the peace-keeping missions? And how much of the tax-payers money or as it applies to Nigeria, of the oil money was expended on the peace-keeping missions?
In any case, The News magazine of April 29, 1996 gives us a clue. In the cover story, HOW ASO ROCK WASTED $4 BILLION AND LIVES, the News Magazine revealed how the peace-keeping missions in Liberia and Sierra Leone were used by the Generals Ibrahim Babangida and Sani Abacha as conduit pipes in looting the national treasury. The News magazine in its April 29, 1996 issue reports: “As early as 1992, two years after former president Ibrahim Babangida committed Nigerian men and materials to keeping peace in Liberia, the campaign for Democracy (CD) had published a six- page paper on Nigeria’s participation in ECOMOG. The CD paper clearly highlighted Nigeria’s spending in Liberia and alleged that the military was using the pretense of peace-keeping to siphon huge sums of money from government coffers “.
According to the CD, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC had, acting on presidential instructions, borrowed the sum of $150 million from Citibank of London in August 1992 to effect supplies for ECOMOG operations. The NNPC got the money in form of an overdraft on its Liquefied Natural Gas currency account with Citibank repayable at an interest rate of 4.25 percent per annum”. The same month, again acting on the orders of the presidency, the NNPC spent close to N35.54 million on payments to Unipetrol, Plc, a Nigerian oil firm for petroleum products supplied to the Nigerian contingent in ECOMOG. Clearly most of the money spent on ECOMOG was released through the NNPC accounts, the NEWS report continues. In September 1990, for instance, the NNPC spent $1.3 million to supply jetA-1 aviation fuel and lubricants to the Nigerian Air force in ECOMOG .
The NEWS magazine story, quoting Abacha’s Foreign Affairs Minister, Chief Tom Ikimi reports that by May 1995, Nigeria has already spent $3 billion on the ECOMOG misadventure. However, the NEWS magazine citing informal military sources puts the figure at $4 billion.
Still, another chapter in the ECOMOG house of scandals: The NEWS reports: “ However, this heavy expenditure did not reflect in terms of the welfare of the Nigerian contingent in ECOMOG. The Nigerian battalions in Liberia, the largest portion of the West African force, are also the most indigent. The soldiers often never receive their salaries and allowances on schedule. At a point the deflated morale of the Nigerian troops was said to have impelled them to an orgy of looting. Residents of Monrovia describe Nigerian troops as the main culprits in the looting of the city”.
Even the wounded Nigerian soldiers were denied the decency accorded ( supposedly) national heroes. On this , the NEWS continues: “ Casualties were also poorly treated. Many of the soldiers wounded in Liberia were brought to Lagos. At a time, about 300 wounded soldiers were marooned for close to a year at the Military Hospital, Yaba. They protested their abandonment when moves were made to discharge them to the care of their various units. When the soldiers resisted discharge they were removed from the eight wards they previously occupy exclusively and were mixed with other patients in the hospital’s other wards.”
Little wonder the Liberians and Sierra Leoneans seem unappreciative of our monumental sacrifices in human toll and financial fortune. Our hapless West African neighbors might have felt worse off with the intervention of their big brothers who turned from saving lives to helping themselves with the property of their supposed beneficiaries.
In other parts of the world soldiers are revered and honored for the heroic and patriotic nature of their calling. By the same token their lives are taken seriously. But in Nigeria , a society where anything goes Soldiers are abused and used for all sorts of illicit missions. For instance, during the first phase of the Ogoni pacification project , Nigerian soldiers were conscripted on false pretex and taken to Ogoni to attack harmless Ogoni natives, including women and children which attacks were blamed on Ogoni neighbors such as the Andonis. Note: the strategy here was to portray the Ogonis as belligerent , always eager to fight their neighbors. Then, the alleged bellicosity of the Ogonis was used as justification for the subsequent full scale military assault on Ogoni. But here is the truth: A.M . News newspaper in its Wednesday April 5, 1995 issue reports a Human Rights Watch investigative report into the use of Nigerian soldiers in the attack on Ogoni villages in 1993. The report noted that the soldiers confessed that they were lied to that they were going to repel a Cameroonian invasion. But in their own words , some of the soldiers report: “ When we arrived at the assembly point , they suddenly changed the orders. They said we were going across to attack the communities who had been making all the trouble. According to corporal #1, a force of about 150 soldiers, composed largely of members of the Rivers State Internal Security Task Force, crossed a river into Ogoni territory on speed boats , trekked inland for some 45 minutes, and then cordoned off the Ogoni village of Kpea in an L-shaped formation . When the troops opened fire, Corporal #1 said “ I heard people shouting, crying. I fired off about one clip, but after the first shots, I heard screaming from civilians , so I aimed my rifle upwards and don’t hit anyone” . Corporal #1 confessed that “after the shooting, the troops moved into the village and , burning and looting homes”.
But here comes the fumbling Ibrahim Gambari. Listen to him
“ There was a time in the UN where some member nations tried to criticize Nigeria over its poor human rights standing. I asked them to show me any country, which has made so much sacrifice like Nigeria for international peace in one month alone”.
My suspicion is that the incident Professor Gambari was referring to is the November 10, 1995 hanging of Renown environmental and minority rights crusader, Ken Saro Wiwa and eight of his fellow Ogoni kinsmen, the Ogoni Nine. Of course, what Professor Gambari failed to admit is that the incident referred to, in the estimation of the civilized world marked the lowest point in his diplomatic career. Professor Gambari must have bashed in the euphoria of the moment before an appreciative audience. A national hero? . Not so fast. Professor Gambari might have scored a cheap credit from a peculiar audience. He might have been applauded for standing up to Nigeria’s “detractors” in the international community. But what a dumb and unintelligible presentation ? . Real diplomats across the world would be laughing at Gambari’s fumble. I could not find any correlation between a country’s sacrifice in international peace (sic) and the perpetration of human rights abuses at home. Yet, if this is all Nigeria’s top most diplomat could offer then the country’s international image is doomed, and irredeemably so. Professor Ibrahim Gambari is notorious for defending one of the crudest and most brutal military dictators with recorded grave human rights violations in human history . And this does no credit to his image as a world diplomat.
Having “courageously” revealed the government secret concerning the death of 700 Nigerian soldiers in a single day, on a peace-keeping mission, one would have expected Professor Ibrahim Gambari to call for investigation into such a scandalous episode, rather than choosing to use it to score an illogical cheap political point. This is undiplomatic, Mr. diplomat! And this unintelligent juxtaposition of unrelated events calls to question the intellectual qualification of Professor Gambari as a diplomat. However, this is not denying Professor Gambari a well deserved credit for his academic accomplishments.
Professor Gambari ought to have been concerned with the scandalous conduct of the ECOMOG operations in Liberia and Sierra Leone . If he were so concerned with the image of the country, Gambari ought to have pressed for an investigation.
Whenever, we are able to reclaim our country from the present dynasty of ruling bandits , we are going to revisit the ECOMOG scandals- how the evil trio of Generals Ibrahim Babangida, Sani Abacha and Olusegun Obasanjo in turn, used the ECOMOG misadventure to , plunder the Niger Delta oil money. We are going to demand from Babangida what he did with the 1991 Gulf War oil windfall. Also to be brought to scrutiny is what Obasanjo did with the 2000s Gulf war wind fall. And President Umaru Yar’Adua?. He has an innocuous look and naïve disposition. Looks that may deceive one into believing that the younger Yar’Adua would not eye public money. But his moves are scary. He has copied Obasanjo’s ploy of coveting the petroleum ministry, refusing to appoint a cabinet Minister for the ministry. Yet, we all know that this vital ministry has proven to be a den of corruption in Nigeria. And we have just learned from the NEWS magazine story how the coup generals-Babangida and Sani Abacha used the NNPC to siphon money from the national treasury. So whenever the present dust in the country settles, Yar’ Adua like his forebears will be called upon to render account of the jumbo oil revenue the country is making to the Nigerian people.
