Like former Yugoslavia, Nigeria is today fighting a war of survival on so many fronts. The North-West is buffeted by heavily armed terror bandits, who are committing atrocities on a scale that has never been seen before. The bulk of the criminals belong to the president’s Fulani ethnic stock, who like Slobodan Milosevic’s fellow Serbians, have been accused of orchestrating a tribal, nationalistic agenda, and allegedly recruiting their kith and kin in Mali, Niger and other places in the Sahel and the Lake Chad basin to join in the unholy campaign.
A few years ago, Otpor, Serbia’s non-violent pro-democracy youth movement known for organising non-violent civic protests, decided to play a prank. They took an oil barrel and taped a picture of President Slobodan Milosevic to it. They had it set in the middle of Belgrade’s largest shopping district with a baseball bat placed on top. The activists left, sat in a corner and watched with fun as scores of shoppers lined the street, each waiting for a chance to take a swing at the dictator whom many couldn’t stand but were too afraid to criticise. As expected, the junta’s police came but couldn’t find the culprits to arrest and so they just did the only thing they could, which was to take possession of the barrel. The image of two policemen dragging the barrel would later become an internet meme in Serbia that spread like wild fire. Of course, the dictator was livid and called for the head of the opposition.
If you are a public intellectual beaming a searchlight on the excesses of public men or EndSARS protesters, the group that Nigeria’s president accused of wanting to remove him, you are tagged an enemy of the state. In the home front, if you find yourself becoming the reality check on your spouse’s surmised sex appeal, in the vast social media ecosystem of today’s make-belief world, you might also have been that enemy as well. The army of Instagram followers, who hit the “like” button on a whim in her page, is sure to make you out as the foe that is totally blinded by hatred and see no good in her.
Yugoslavia was a country located in Southeast and Central Europe for most of the 20th century. It was a melting pot of ethnicities and religions, positioned at the crossroads between the East and the West. The country’s status as a cultural mosaic was also a source of contention between these competing groups, resulting in a series of conflagrations in the early 90s that led to its disintegration.
The nation came into existence in 1918 after World War I, by the merger of the provisional States of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs, which were part of the former Kingdom of Serbia and the Austrian-Hungarian Empire. It disintegrated into the seven nation states of Slovenia, Bosnia, Herzegovina, Kosovo, Croatia, Serbia, Macedonia and Montenegro on April 27, 1992. The single most important factor that led to the disintegration of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was the Serbian nationalistic policies pursued by the former president, Slobodan Milosevic.
Milosevic served as the president of Serbia within Yugoslavia from 1989 to 1997 and president of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia from 1997 to 2000. Upon his rise to power and with the help of the Serbian media, he started to espouse Serbian nationalism, while promoting xenophobia toward other ethnicities within Yugoslavia.
As Yugoslavia was being torn apart in a bloody conflict, Western nations were unwilling to intervene until the genocide against Albanians forced many to flee into neighbouring countries, which had the potential to destabilise the entire region. As a result, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), led by the United States, citing humanitarian intervention, began an aerial bombing campaign against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia…
His whole idea was to create the greater Serbia, which meant taking over some part of Croatian land, as well as displacement of ethnic Albanians, in a manner that triggered three wars in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo. This culminated in almost a decade of bloodshed and vengeance that led to the death of more than 200,000 people and earned Mr Milosevic the sobriquet “Butcher of the Balkans.” He would later become the first sitting head of state to be charged with war crimes by the International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia and later died of heart attack in his prison cell in The Hague on March 11, 2006.
Like former Yugoslavia, Nigeria is today fighting a war of survival on so many fronts. The North-West is buffeted by heavily armed terror bandits, who are committing atrocities on a scale that has never been seen before. The bulk of the criminals belong to the president’s Fulani ethnic stock, who like Slobodan Milosevic’s fellow Serbians, have been accused of orchestrating a tribal, nationalistic agenda, and allegedly recruiting their kith and kin in Mali, Niger and other places in the Sahel and the Lake Chad basin to join in the unholy campaign. The president has been castigated for showing a great deal of restraint, reluctance and even unwillingness to tackle this raging monster headlong. His kinsmen are at war with the Nigerian state.
As Yugoslavia was being torn apart in a bloody conflict, Western nations were unwilling to intervene until the genocide against Albanians forced many to flee into neighbouring countries, which had the potential to destabilise the entire region. As a result, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), led by the United States, citing humanitarian intervention, began an aerial bombing campaign against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, even prior to the UN’s approval. The war ended on December 14, 1995 and Yugoslavia splintered, after the signing of a peace agreement known as the Dayton Accords.
Despite some striking similarities with the Yugoslavian conflict, the West is very unlikely to intervene directly in the Nigerian crisis.
Aside the general apathy towards anything Africa and the recent unsavoury experience in both Iraq and Afghanistan, the predominantly Muslim population in Nigeria’s North would likely interpret a U.S. intervention as another anti-Muslim campaign by a Christian foreign power. In addition, the porous borders of West African nations would likely render attempts at isolating the insurgency from potential foreign support futile.
In Africa, men in power are often bland, hollow and insecure, preferring to be surrounded by sycophants and hangers-on, while keeping intelligent minds at bay. Sycophants are duplicitous, constantly feeding their principals with false narratives and working overtime to convince them into believing that they are God-sent. They are the biggest enemies of their principals and pose the greatest threat to the State.
U.S. security assistance to Nigeria has sought to bolster peacekeeping efforts, improve maritime and border security, as well as combat transnational crime. Nigeria participates in the U.S. State Department’s Trans-Sahara Counterterrorism Partnership (TSCTP), an inter-agency effort to build regional counterterrorism capabilities and coordination.
Nigeria also has benefited from the provision of U.S. training and equipment to the Multi-National Joint Task Force (MNJTF) coalition in the Lake Chad Basin. A total of $451.4 million in bilateral aid for Nigeria was allocated in FY2020; nearly 90 per cent of the money, however, supported health programmes and not the military. Concerns with human rights abuses by Nigerian security personnel continue to be cited by the U.S. as an impediment to continued security assistance and counterterrorism aid.
In Africa, men in power are often bland, hollow and insecure, preferring to be surrounded by sycophants and hangers-on, while keeping intelligent minds at bay. Sycophants are duplicitous, constantly feeding their principals with false narratives and working overtime to convince them into believing that they are God-sent. They are the biggest enemies of their principals and pose the greatest threat to the State.
On the other hands, some perceived enemies are actually the real friends, with no interest in the business of sugarcoating the truth. Oftentimes, they are standing in front with a mirror to help the leader notice some blind spots if he cares to see. The EndSARS protesters made Nigeria aware of the sins against her citizens in order to force some sober reflections. The man who tells his wife the truth and not what she wants to hear is the real MVP and certainly the Otpor protesters were no enemies of Yugoslavia.
There is an epigram that goes: “When the Baboons and Monkeys heard that the Man who used to chase them away from the maize field had died, they hysterically celebrated. The following year, there was no maize that was when they painfully realised the dead Man was the Farmer” (unknown author).
The lessons of history is never too late to learn.
Osmund Agbo, a public affairs analyst is the coordinator of African Center for Transparency and Convener of Save Nigeria Project. Email: Eagleosmund@yahoo.com
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