Monday 27 July 2015

THE LEAHY'S LAW AND WAR AGAINST BOKOHARAM BY TUNDE ADENUGA

The recent development that has engrossed the media as part of the outcome of the President trip to the United States was to an extent expected by me.
The President embarked on this trip majorly on our economy, recovery of our stolen funds by past leaders and the security situation which has claimed nothing less than 20,000 innocent lives in the space of 7 years.

The security situation of the country was so bad even Mr President had to respond to one of the questions of Amanpour on CNN that there won't be much focus on the economy until we get the security in place(para phrased). To a large extent, I agree with Mr President even though some quarters would have challenged him on the impact of multi-tasking skill in a nation management.
It was made clear to Mr President that America would not be of much support for us on this war especially in the area of weapons acquisition. In their words as I quote"
Leahy in a statement titled, “Buhari’s Mis-Directed Criticism of the Leahy Law on Human Rights released on Thursday alleged:

“It is well documented by the State Department and by respected human rights organizations that Nigerian army personnel have,
for many years, engaged in a pattern and practice of gross violations of human rights against the Nigerian people and others, including summary executions of prisoners, indiscriminate attacks against civilians, torture, forced disappearances and rape. Rarely have the perpetrators been prosecuted or punished.
With this, our military will be supported in other areas including training, logistics etc but not in weapon acquisition. Not only in the United States alone, other allies countries like Israel Britain etc have been instructed not to sell to us. A cobra helicopter was blocked from Israel to Nigeria last year by the US.

All this information was blocked from the public domain by the last administration. No wonder, we began to source for weapons with raw cash in South Africa which brought more shame and embarrassment to the country. As a result, our money was ceased by the South African government.
If you can remember clearly, over 180 bokoharam suspects were released by this current administration few weeks back. President Buhari also made a promise to look into the human right allegation against our military men and bring to justice anyone found culpable. I guess all these gestures were to create an impression ahead of his trip to the US but non of these could fly before the American government.

TIME TO SWALLOW HARD TRUTH
If anyone rated Nigeria as the most corrupt nation in the world years back, I might not go into any argument. But a Nigerian would carry bombs in his body to blow himself . I will argue with my last drop of blood. Because of our suffering and smilling slogan. Even when Abdul Mutalab wanted to bring down the Delta aircraft in Detroit, I still said the the reason he couldn't succeed was because he was a Nigerian. That Nigerians don't die like that .

Then, how did we come to this as a people? Everyone of us should be held accountable and not our leaders alone. We brought our selves this far. I stand to be corrected. Let assume there were truly human right abuse cases carried out by our military, I don't think any agent of the international Amnesty group witnessed it. They gathered their report from statements made by you and I.
Why? Because of selfish interest, political sabotage, winch hunting, corruption, do it die politics to mention few. Some of us did all this out of ignorance but today the United States would not sell weapons to you.

Some of the videos we watched on youtube where some guys in our military uniform slaughtering people were not uploaded by bokoharam. but you and I did.
The late senator from Borno, Ahmed Zenna publicly accused our military on the floor of the house for genocide against the north for political reason two years ago. He forgot that Amnesty International was keeping those records. When the last administration was passing the bulk instead of taking urgent and adequate measure to curb the spread, it didn't know that Amnesty International was keeping record. Rather, it was shifting blame on opposition. He didn't even believe the Chibok issue was real initially.

When elder statemen especially in the north were making inflammatory statement that "war against Bokoharam is a war against the North and the declaration of state of emergency in the north east was political", they never knew that Amnesty International was keeping those records and statements.
We brought ourselves to this point. Today we are nursing the wound. Some of us painted Nigerian military in bad light during campaign. There was nothing bad under the sun we did not say about Nigerian armed forces as if it was not the same military we would use if we win. Now it has come to hunt us. We should clean up this mess.

The Leahy's law has been opened before us today. We are now in the group of Turkey, Bangladesh, Venezuela etc that don't deserve weapons. We served into their hands. When America killed an armless Osama Bin Laden, no Amnesty International to accuse them of anything because the country was one to manage their secret and because the love and survival of the American nation was first in their hearts. Nigerians aren't patriotic. But always given self a voice.
I don't know how this will end but I pray it ends well to the glory of God alone.
God bless Nigeria
@tunde_adenuga

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