Handling America’s scare tactics

By Tunde Asaju 

When it comes to security, nobody should take America seriously. The reasons are found in the sayings of our elders. In days gone by, a Radio Nigeria jingle reminds us that the words of our elders are words of wisdom; the wise man hears it, and gets wiser.

Our elders say that when someone promises to buy you a cool garment, watch what they are wearing. Our elders are wise except that if we live by their advice, we’re likely to miss out on Dangote, Otedola and Alakija’s generosity. None of these eternally wealthy individuals need to wear the ‘latest’ in fashion to prove their wealth.  

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Now forget Sadio Mane, the multi-millionaire footballer who dresses like a hermit. Mane made millions from football but lives like Jose Mujica. He says his stand is in solidarity with the people of Bambali, Senegal where he has sunk over $100 million building a school and a hospital. Most of his mates have underground garages filled with multi-million dollar cars, glitzy wristwatches and girlfriends with enhanced body parts.

If you see a billionaire displaying wanton wealth, like Portable Omo Olalomi who exhibits his dirty gate takings around the world, they are catching cruise. In normal terms, they are seeking undue attention. You’ll never see Dangote, Otedola, or Alakija on social media flaunting their latest Audemars Piguet, A. Lange & Sohne chronographs, the latest iPhones or their Bugatti, Ferrari and Rolls Royce. The point we are making here is that the tripe could pretend all it likes to be fat; it does not have the same texture.  

So we digress. The fact remains that in the modern world, America remains the most dangerous country on earth. The obsession of its citizens with their First Amendment rights, over vicarious duties and their fascination with hard drugs makes their country relatively the riskiest nation on the planet. Before you have finished reading this, any criminally inclined individual could walk into the closest Walmart or gun store; buy a submachine gun and ammo, load it in the parking lot and return to make humans his target practice. 

If the perpetrator is white, he could surrender to the police and eat the night’s dinner in peace. He has a better chance of standing before a judge than a black kid playing with a toy gun in his father’s yard has of making it through to the next day. That, my good friend is not racism, it is called culling. The bard believes that America’s people of colour tend to breed indiscriminately and that if their numbers are not reduced, they could upturn the divine rights of the white race from his inheritance the way the white race usurped the rights of the indigenous owners of the land. 

So, when America issued an order to its citizens living in Nigeria and South Africa to evacuate and for those on essential duty to steer clear of malls and public spots, nobody should have taken them seriously. Buhari says Nigeria is safe and that is law.  

Back to the Americans, for all their powerful technology and clairvoyant evangelicals, they have never accurately predicted where the next carnage is likely to happen. It looks like they know more about the modus operandi of other people’s insurgents than they know of their own serial murderers. 

The prediction of possible attack on Nigerian and South Africa scared the continent. Of course, they have a right to evacuate their citizens, but the right to scare Nigerians is exclusive to Muhammadu Buhari. His lacklustre handing of governance has scared potential investors, frightened professionals and forced out health workers and academics. When it comes to the right to scare citizens, African governments hate competition.

Lately, the Nigerian government has put a terminal date of December on the activities of insurgents, kidnappers, armed robbers and ritualists. Given the track record of Buhari’s promise to end Boko Haram that ended in a technical defeat, this terminal date reminds of another of the words of our elders.  

Our elders say that when a blind person threatens to stone someone, that person should be very worried. Obviously the blind person must be holding a stone or have his foot on one. Only a government that controls the tap of insecurity could; with certainty project to end it in a given time – for even America had to abandon Afghanistan. We don’t need Apostle Johnson Suleman to tell us that this regime holds the keys to the vaults of insurgency.

Be that as it may, the American scaremongering woke a sleeping giant – our incomparable propaganda minister Lai Mohammed who has long been missing in action. Lai loves to talk especially about things he knows little or nothing about. That is why most Nigerians pay him no attention. Lai argues that he has never told a lie in his life, but Nigerians know that falsehood comes with the territory. 

The moment America sneezed, out came Lai. And even for a country that grovels before America to meet its security needs, Lai came out with guns smoking. Of course he denied the omnipotence of the American intelligence on Nigeria. He asked them to mind their business and to keep their long noses out of Buhari’s soup pot. He only came short of issuing a threat of war. Nigeria hates being dictated to; but even more, it hates being corrected, directed or redirected. 

As Lai was fuming, presidential candidate Atiku Abubakar fired up his jet and flew to Washington. That Americans, including Nigerian-Americans do not vote in Nigerian elections has not deterred its wannabe president campaigning abroad. We are hoping in the spirit of reciprocity that Joe Biden would come to Abuja to flag off their midterm poll strategy if not for the prevailing scaremongering.  

As a former vice-president, Atiku is a privileged Nigerian privy to the inner workings of government and security, but he did not get the memo before taking off. Not to worry, even Zainab Ahmed, Buhari’s Finance, Budget and Planning minister was not consulted as Nigeria plans to change the colours of its currency. What more, everyone who should know better says it is not abnormal!

While we were thanking Lai for dropping the bomb on American hypocrisy, our hair of patriotism could have been standing on edge had the ‘Daura’ Secret Service, DSS, not swooped into action. In their first raid of a hideout, they fished out 35 insurgents and in a raid of an Abuja estate; they reportedly picked up two brothers. Who says the DSS couldn’t do more than scare Nigerians?  

That dynamism has nothing to do with the warning of the Americans. Mbano! It is the proactive nature of the DSS, known in the past for tackling the hecklers of those in government while insurgents are writ large. America should not claim any superiority in this onslaught. Even if it had not issued a statement, our security forces would have reacted, after all we unleashed arrested insurgents from Kuje prison and paid ransom for Abuja-Kaduna rail victims! For the sake of national survival, we hope these Americans would never keep quiet. If they do we are doomed.