Chidi Amuta

Our presidential political calendar indicates May 2025 as the mid- term of the current presidential tenure. Every May 29^th is some form of birthday for our democracy. Next May is mid-term. Mid-term is wake up time, a rude reminder that time is ticking and that what began as a ceremony of innocence will soon turn into a mixture of  omissions and commissions with far reaching consequences.  In school calendar, mid-term presages the outcomes of the year end.

Ordinary Nigerians ended the year 2024 with an unusual sense of equanimity and even optimism. There was even a seeming understanding across the populace that people seem to appreciate the difficulties of a new government trying so hard to find its way around a maze of obstacles and difficulties. In spite of severe hardship, people plodded on. In spite of extreme deprivations, people refused to explode into spontaneous revolt. What Nigerians have been through in the last one year would send most other nations into endless revolts and street uprising. But our people have understood and endured. When you ask them: “how country?” they shake their heads, look up in the sky and just manage to hold back the tears! Hunger rumbles in their stomachs as they trek unimaginable distances to nowhere in particular. They are not even sure they will get to their uncertain destination as danger now lurks in every street corner. But our people still keep enduring the bad days.

Even a nationwide mobilization for a mass protest against hardship and grinding poverty did not quite garner the kind of incendiary groundswell apocalypse that was feared.  Instead, only a handful of miscreants and urchins and destitutes gathered in a few places to mouth predictable abuses at officialdom. They were quickly dispersed by the goons of state. The police did the predictable. They dispensed already issued teargas and bullets. Many fell. There were arrests of under age kids and hungry homeless people found loitering around. Those arrested were herded into detention and subsequently arraigned before jobless magistrates and confused judges.

But overall, the generality of Nigerians ushered in 2025 with uncharacteristic hope and optimism. It is not an indication of love at first sight for Tinubu and his gang. Rather, it is a growing understanding by our populace that democracy takes time to deliver its dividends. In effect, the Tinubu government would seem to have gotten more than usual tacit support from Nigerians than most of its predecessors. May be, our people are beginning to understand the sluggish pace of democratic fulfillment!

At the beginning of the New Year, there were prayers and loud supplications for some reprieve from the prevailing hardship in the New Year. If anything, there would indeed seem to be a worrisome national consensus that the Tinubu government was yet to indicate a justification for coming to power. Nigerians were united in expressing the verdict that the government had in fact merely succeeded in creating more problems than it could possibly hope to solve. Buhari flogged us with the kobo of hardship and ignored us while we wept in pain. Mr. Tinubu has brought scorpions and poisoned darts!

However, underneath the many wishes for better conditions in the New Year was an expectation that the ruling politicians would at last begin to govern and begin addressing the urgent human welfare issues that beset us instead of playing more politics.

Unfortunately, the political class seems to have lost the message in the equanimity and calm of the populace. They seem to be used to politics as a full time game and not a means to the end of solving human problems. Both the means and the end of politics are in the back pocket of the politicians.

The majority of our politicians in both the ruling party and the scattered opposition, are beginning to sound as if the 2027 campaigns have already begun.  The government of the day has been most untidy in its policies and programs.  It has mistaken uncoordinated and sporadic measures for a reform program. Incoherent pronouncements on nearly every subject are being mistaken for the expression of the collective will of a determined government. The president has made it a point of duty to be present at nearly every Boys Scout meeting around the world. People doubt whether he in fact has a Minister of External Affairs. Tinubu has accumulated more air miles than his immediate predecessor who himself attended quite a few unnecessary meetings where he hardly knew what the hell was on the agenda.

While the May Mid-term remains far, politicians are busy with politics as if 2027 is by the door. Alliances and alignments are being floated and speculated. Politicians are crisscrossing the country in search of allies and alliances. Most of them are already rehearsing their campaign themes for 2027. The vast majority of utterances and pronouncements by major politicians since the last quarter of 2024 have sounded more like campaign preps for 2027. It is as though the war has begun.

The ruling party is ramping up political promises, sounding apologetic for its serial failures to fulfill too many promises. The fractured opposition is aiming barbs at the ruling party’s rudderless governance and confused policy medley. The alternative perspective being offered by the opposition parties sounds more like cries of the mortally injured. In a political landscape with over 80 registered political parties, the one ruling party, the APC, is only being meekly countered by only two parties, the PDP and Labour Party. Even the Labour Party which is present in one miserable state house has been reduced to the flurry of tweets by its presidential candidate in the 2023 Presidential election, Mr. Peter Obi. In due credit to him, Mr. Obi is perhaps the only opposition figure in the political landscape in terms of his consistently serious attacks of the serial profligacy of the ruling government.

From the content and temper of the major political actors, the campaigns for the 2027 elections may have indeed started. Mouthpieces of the incumbent have begun to dig in into an aggressively defensive position. The hardship all over the land is being deferred to a future date that is politically convenient. The possibility of reprieve is in turn being outsourced to divine intervention. At some point recently, the idea of a nationwide prayer crusade was floated to enable Nigerians refer their predicaments to the divine. Promises that were made during the 2023 elections are now being reviewed to see which ones can be amended or deferred.

The administration’s ‘renewed hope’ agenda is itself being reviewed and renewed. A series of policy stumbles that remain uncoordinated and incoherent are being mischievously called an ‘economic reform agenda’. In the interim, a litany of hellish consequences are daily being visited on the people.  Hunger is pervasive all over the land just as the sheer cost of daily living has for many shot through the roof. A barrage f taxes, tariff hikes, charges, levies and price increases have reduced the national economy into a playground of free for all price increases, a war of everyone against everybody.

We are waiting for May and for a midterm report. It is in the nature of the four -year presidential tenure that we will soon approach the mid-term break signaled by the month of May. Like in a school calendar, Mid-term is a time for assessments and re-assessments.  It is a time to be graded but also to grade our leaders in the polity at both national and state levels. In the realm of politics, mid-term is a season of rehearsals of the politics next term.

Already, Governors elected in regular term are dissolving their cabinets and making fresh appointments from the pool of party faithful who can no longer wait for their turn at the gravy queue. The president had since rejigged his own inchoate collective of ministers and sundry appointees.

By the nature of the four -year presidential term, the assumption is that half the promises that were made in the 2023 campaigns should have been delivered by now. By all accounts, we ought by now to have begun to have a foretaste of the goodness that was promised us. Or, better still, a good number of the ills and headaches that afflicted us under Mr. Buhari should by now have started receding.

For good or for ill, the Tinubu government is literally two and half years away from its terminal date. By its very nature, a four -year presidential term has its schedule of expectations and possible attainments clearly established. The first year is time to set up an administration and set in motion a credible agenda of governance. The second and third years are for operationalizing the administration so that its definitive character is known. That is when the identity of an administration is stamped and the foundations for its possible legacy are laid. The fourth and final year is time for waging a succession campaign and winning or losing a re-election campaign. This is the year of political battles. If the administration secures a second term, it is a tenure for legacy consolidation.

By this political calendar progression, Mr. Tinubu and his gang have a little over one year to deal with the many real issues of governance and development that assail today’s Nigeria. It is a year and half to resolve so many issues that presently haunt most Nigerians. In effect, the president has a little over one year to restore a sensible exchange rate, to chase down inflation, drive away hunger from most homes, to reduce the unemployment queues, resolve a rampaging insecurity and restore the hope of Nigerians in the future of our country. Forget affordable petrol at the pump. That has gone with the wind.

My fear is that so much time has been lost in the brick bat between the ruling party and regime opponents. As we speak, the nation is yet to appoint envoys to all countries where we are represented. A number of strategic government departments are yet to be filled. The administration does not as yet have a defined foreign policy thrust. There are too many states that are yet to be visited by the president or key ministers. The economic policy and programs of the administration are still a patchwork of borrowings, interest rate jockeying , taxation gambles and tariff hikes.

In all this, there are too many new worrisome questions that Nigerians are struggling to find answers to. What does the Tinubu presidency stand for? What will this president be remembered for? What is the defining character of this presidency?

What will the month of May bring for Nigerians?

By Chidi Amuta

The “Jaguda” is a sort of rough -hewn familiar type in Nigerian urban street parlance. He is a general communal presence in such urban neighbourhoods, an outlaw that is often tolerated for his use value in times of trouble. He is a thug owned by the community in case rascality is needed. But the ‘Jaguda’ is publicly disowned when civility is back in demand. As a type, he lives dangerously, wages senseless fights and deploys vile methods and rough language to fend off dangerous adversaries. The ‘Jaguda’ is therefore a communal necessity in times of unplanned trouble requiring insane courage and deliberate rule-breaking for communal good. Communal crisis management has no code for the methods of the Jaguda. A necessary outlaw, the fellow is his own law and makes his own rules. The Jaguda’s methods are unpredictable, unscripted and unregulated by the rules of normality. He is capable of multiple risky escapades. He is a familiar rule breaker who however gets bad necessary things done. The Jaguda’s methods are usually unorthodox and even lawless but his results justify his unusual methods. Only communities in dire desperate scarcity of sensible leadership cede the throne to a Jaguda as king. The result is always a whirlwind of unimaginable consequences.

The recent triumph of Donald Trump in the US presidential elections looks like a vindication of the Jaguda as a leadership type in America’s political culture.  He has been in Washington before. The first time he defeated Hilary Clinton, he shocked the mainstream international liberal media.  In all our reading of the polls and projections, we were dead sure that Trump would be defeated. But we were dead wrong. Reflecting then on Trump’s initial victory, I felt in good company: The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Economist, Financial Times, The Cable News Network (CNN) and indeed the entire gamut of influential global media and world leaders. We all gave the Manhattan real estate merchant with a discoloured hair patch skimpy chance. It has happened again. The media and the elite gave Trump skimpy chance against Kamala Harris this time around. But we were wrong again. Trump is now a  reality that America and indeed the world has to live with and deal with.

Trump’s trail was untidy enough to deny him the presidency this time around. We concluded that a man with such a rough first term and a pile of criminal indictments and civil infractions could not possibly win a re-entry into the White House.  In mistaking politics for Sunday School morality, we were wrong again. Trump won an even more robust victory over the Democrats’ Kamala Harris, a nice, ever smiling aunty next door -type candidate of the Democrats. But see what we have? Donald Trump is US president imminent. As Garrison Keillor wrote in The Washington Post of 9th November when Trump first won, :  “Raw ego and proud illiteracy have won out, and a severely learning-disabled man with a real character problem will be president.” In the contest against Hilary Clinton back then, easily one of his signature verbal indiscretions was at the final debate when he interrupted Hillary Clinton on the debate podium: “Nasty Woman!” Now, perhaps we can all greet Trump in this euphoric moment by shouting: “Nasty man!”

Yet, whether we like it or not, both Trump I and Trump Ii are products and outcomes of democracy. As it turns out, every now and again in history, democracy delivers an illegitimate child. Adolf Hitler was one. Closer to this copy is Silvio Berlusconi, another licentious and noisy moneybag who straddled over Italy for decades. Here comes another, Trump, a loud, foul -mouthed and unstable Manhattan real estate vendor with a scant knowledge of government.

One term in the White House and four years out in the cold rough and tumble of ordinary life have reinforced Mr. Trump’s credentials as a incensed thug and unashamed rascal, a quintessential jaguda as king. He is as comfortable in the humiliation of the courtroom docks as he is in corporate boardrooms. He has now won both the Electoral College and Popular Votes by a wide margin for a return to the White House with a familiar drunken swagger. A publicly licensed thug and convicted felon is perhaps the most dangerous burden that a democracy can inflict on itself. But as they say, it is what it is. The people have spoken. We can only speculate on the prospects of a second Trump Presidency both for the US and the rest of the world.

Yet the Agbero or Jaguda as a type of political hero has in recent times emerged as a democratic outcome. It is not only in America. It has happened elsewhere. Trump has expressed an appetite to use the military to fight the “enemies within” the US, meaning his political opponents. The Pillipines” Duterte used summary executions to combats drug lords and sundry criminals and open repression to fight press freedom. Hungsry’s Viktor Orban fights his opponents as viciously as external aggressors. Vladimir Putin has virtually exterminated his political opponents, adversarial journalists and dissidents using assassinations, targeted poisoning, gangster style street executions and targeted bombings etc to ensure he remains the last man standing on the Russian power podium.

Democratic populism, illiberal democracy. Neo nationalism and creeping authoritarianism are all political and ideological contexts in which this new type of leader – the jaguda- have sneaked back into our political reality. In previous eras, fascism and communist totalitarianism and military despotism allowed for the emergence of Hitler, Mussolini and their Latin American clones.

This latest electoral victory does not absolve Mr. Trump of the heinous negatives that have become the trademarks of his previous tenure and track record. The man remains a racist, bigot, misogynist, merchant of hate and unscrupulous businessman. His political message for America at home remains a divisive one. The best that can be expected from his presidency going forward would at best be a moderation or modulation of these tendencies forced by public opinion and stiff opposition.

While waiting for formal inauguration, Trump has been rehearsing new Jaguda antics, sowing the seeds of catastrophic upheaval.  Right from the confirmation hearings on his appointments by the Senate. He has nominated a slew of controversial persons for positions for which they are either not qualified or have baggages of controversy that would make them difficult to confirm. For Health and Human Services, he has nominated Robert Kennedy Jr., a man whose controversial views on public heath issues with annoy drug and health majors. He initially nominated Mr. Matt Gaetz for Attorney General and stuck to the choice until a barrage of evidence surfaced that a Congressional committee report had indicted the man for serial misdeeds ranging from sexual harassment, sex with minors and sundry racketeering.

Similarly, he nominated Tulsi Gabbard for Director of National Intelligence , a top National Security lob even though she is a known admirer and advocate of known US adversaries like Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un. His nominee for Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, is a veteran of slim executive experience of defense and national security issues at the high level who happens to be a television anchor. Unlike in his first term when he deliberately went star hunting for people of gigantic stature, he has now opted for minimals, people who are loyal to him and would rely on his approval to get anything done. From the relative inexperience of some of his nominees to their questionable track records, there is evidence that Mr. Trump prefers to appoint mostly people whose competence and experience is thin but whose loyalty to him is unquestionable. Clearly, the confirmation hearings for most of these nominees will be turbulent on the floor of the Senate and only serve Trump to divide and rule the Senate.

In the area of foreign relations, he has been tossing potentially incendiary foreign policy propositions. He would rather make Canada an additional US state after imposing a 25% tariff  on all imports from Canada. He advances the naïve notion that the United States can use economic blackmail to turn Canada into America’s 52^nd state. He would pursue his border war agaist Mexico and hurriedly ship home illegal Mexican immigrants living in the US He would like to rename the Gulf of Mexico into the “Gulf of America”. More bizarrely, he would revoke the Panama Canal Treaty and retake control of the Canal. On Gaza, he has warned Hamas to hurry uo on the release of hostages in return for an Israeli seize fire or “all hell will be let loose” in the region. He has expressed interest in annexing Greenland as a US territory. Barely a fortnight to is second inauguration, his son, Donald Jr. ,has jetted off to Greenland on a tourism or exploratory trip. He has reiterated his first term threat to reduce US financing and support of NATO and leave the Europeans to pay most of their defense and security bills.

Taken together, the totality of Trump’s pre-inauguration foreign policy bluater has the potential of turning the world as we have known it upside down. Any attempt to forcefully take over Greenland will upset relations with Denmark, the sovereign authority over Greenland. Animosity over Greenland with Denmark would be a head-on collision with the European Union and NATO. Notjust that. The Russian share a border with Greenland and have an obviously strategic interest in the status of Greenland as a free territory for scientific and military exploits. Canada can hold out on its own and align with Mexico to mobilize the rest of the Organization of American States against US hegemony. A confrontation with Panama over the Canal will antagonize most of Latin America and earn Panama the financial support of China which is already a beneficiary of the present status of the Panama Canal.

Mr. Trump may not understand that the world as we know it is sustained on long standing alliances and alignments. The global stability on which America’s hegemony depends is built on the sustainability of these global alliances. To pursue a foreign policy that upsets many of these alliances is toturn the world upside down and keep America busy fighting fires that it may have lit by the actions of its rascally political leadership.

It is easy to dismiss these threats to our world order as part of Trump’s familiar bluster aimed at advancing his transactional style of presidency. It is a known feature of Mr. Trump’s method to increase the dramatic intensity of his reign by throwing up such hair- brained propositions. It earns him global media attention. It sends the leaders of the target countries into a panic mode. At bottom isd the inevitable question: what concession does Trump want to extract?

Meanwhile, Trump’s overloaded moral baggage remains alive in the form of his numerous court cases and legal proceedings. A New York judge has slammed an conviction on Trump in his hush money case, insisting that he remains guilty but will not serve a jail term on account of his presidential immunity. Trump’s request for a Supreme Court intervention to prevent the sentencing has fallen flat. He has hurled invectives at the judge and threatened fire and brimstone. The judge remains determined to sentence him, making him the first convicted person to be sworn in as President.

Mr. Trump is not just a casual Lone Wolf political rascal. He is a lead participant in a growing worldwide political trend. He just happens to have sprouted in a most unlikely political environment- the United States. He is pushing the extreme limits of a far right conservative tendency with the assistance of people like Elon Musk. His disruptive politics has a context. He is a disciple in a tradition where people like Nigel Farage of the United Kingdom and a bit of Marie Le Pin in France are timid advocates. Trump is a harbinger of a new version of conservative populism which is targeting liberal democracy. He is coming at his political agenda and ideological onslaught with familiar instruments-  economic nationalism, trade isolationism,  tariff barriers, strict immigration controls and the reawakening of ethnic and racial myths. Above all else, the economic nationalism of this new conservatism is likely to further enrich the super rich and keep the poor content with inflation reduction gimmicks. Trump is made more dangerous by his American location.

Yet, Trump’s single most prized leadership trait is his admiration of ‘strong’ leadership defined in terms of the ability of leaders to bend the popular will to do their personal biddings, all in the name of their nations. Trump has repeatedly brandished such counter democratic or outright authoritarian figures as Vladimir Putin, Viktor Orban, Kim Jung Un as his preferred leadership models.

This strange leadership preference is perhaps part of the interest in the dramatic essence of the Trump phenomenon. As an outcome of a democratic election, the emergence and re-emergence of Donald Trump as US President is an interesting proposition in the evolution of global democratic culture. Democracy in its glory place has given birth to an authoritarian ruler, its direct opposite aim. In other words, can a democracy in its maturation give birth to an outcome that is capable of enthroning an autocracy? Is there a possibility that authoritarianism and liberal democracy can be born by the same mother from the same womb? Political scientists may indeed encounter in Donald Trump an interesting subject matter.

Trump’s familiar assault on conventional media fits into the character of this new disruptive neo-conservative tendency. During his chaotic first tenure, he challenged the concept of the truth and fact as bedrocks of journalism we have come to know it. A man who used the power of the media to burst into political limelight has been intent on undermining the foundation of the media!

That earlier time, it took the unexpected eruption of the Corona pandemic to stop Trump from upturning the world order and upending the very foundations of America’s order. Now the Jaguda President is back with a far more convincing electoral mandate.

Trump is largely a bit of suspense theatre, an exciting departure from the humdrum drabness of politics in Washington. The man is a decisive departure from the language and mannerisms of the crass theatre of every parliament in every national seat of power.  Anticipating Trump’s impending landfall is sufficiently suspenseful theatre full of questions and uncertainties and open questions

Will he send the military after his political opponents? Will he send the US military to annex Greenland? Will he forcefully retake the Panama Canal? Will he engage China in a trade war over tariffs? Will hje impose tariff on all imports from Canada and therefore blackmail Canada into becoming the 51^st state of the US? Is he likely to arm Israel to wipe out the Palestinians of Gaza if Hamas fails to reach a seize fire agreement with Israel by the time he is inaugurated?

There is an impending historic explosion in the event that Trump 2 proceeds with some of his previewed foreign policy gambits. In a world that is faced with  a clear and present confrontation between freedom and democracy on one hand and growing authoritarianism on the other, Trump is somewhat anachronistic. Here is the leader of the so-called ‘free world’ rehearsing openly to lead his nation in the fashion of the worst authoritarians.

Chidi Amuta

Frances’s major military base in Cote d’Ivoire is billed to close down at the end of this month. The long -standing base, Port Bouet, is to be rid of its French troop occupants and is to be renamed General Quattara Thomas d’Aquinn base after an indigenous military figure. No one knows whether the French were pushed or are voluntarily fleeing. The latter possibility makes more sense in the context of recent developments in relations between Paris and its many West African client states.

Prior to now, the string of French speaking West African countries: Mali, Guinea, Burkina Faso, Niger and Chad- had severed military and even diplomatic links with France.  It is the culmination of lingering colonial economic encumbrances and France’s own domestic political and economic contradictions.

In the aftermath of these departures, a vortex of diplomatic and strategic waves have been unleashed. Jihadist military pressure from the northern parts of the Sahel have increased, leading to avoidable mounting casualties especially in Burkina Faso. Domestic political pressure has increased the demand for democratic rule as defined by new economic hardships occasioned by the bungling of the presiding military authorities. New national security arrangements masterminded by an increased presence of Russian troops in the region have crept in as well. New economic and diplomatic imperatives have been inaugurated as the military regimes struggle to adapt to new diplomatic and international realities.

Initially, the impulse of non-French West African countries led by Nigeria was to impose sanctions on the countries that fell under military coups. The UN concurred as a reflex. Threats to air links and border closures however did little to discourage the new military juntas. The willingness of black markets and other rogue financial arrangements insulated the new military regimes from the more adverse effects of regional sanctions.

One of the far reaching responses of the more daring military regimes has been to threaten the cohesion of ECOWAS, the regional economic integration bloc. An initial threat by ECOWAS to use military force to enforce compliance collapsed due to an obvious lack of military capacity and the cash poverty of most of the bloc’s member countries.  In the intervening period, the military juntas have waxed stronger and become more a daring threat to the survival of ECOWAS itself.

At the present moment, the three leading states-Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso have threatened to pull their countries out of ECOWAS. It is not just a threat but one backed by a deadline of end of January 2025. Nothing has happened so far that indicates a determination to save the 50-year old regional bloc.

Many argue that there is little or nothing in the achievements of ECOWAS that deserves to be saved.  West African economies have hardly grown, leaving little or nothing to integrate. The free movement of persons in and across the region has mostly translated into the freedom of impoverished “others” to travel into and out of Nigeria in search of opportunities that are hardly there. Otherwise, the free movement of persons has meant the free movement of jihadist insurgents and their black market arms or the migration of scraggy livestock across badly manned borders

For Nigeria, the near total evacuation of French military, diplomatic and economic presence from West Africa poses huge foreign policy challenges.  First, the imminent loss of ECOWAS is a major historical setback. Our clout as a regional leader is on its way home. The gains made in the days of ECOMOG and the restoration of peace and democracy in Liberia and Sierra Leone are about to be consigned to the dustbin of history. It must concern President Tinubu that this historic diplomatic setback will be happening under his watch as President of Nigeria.

At a time when the interest of major Western powers in Africa has been in decline for years, Nigeria stands the risk of being the remaining major Western ally in a region of global economic interest but now beset with strategic security threats of a global scope.

The Gulf of Guinea corridor linking Angola to Brazil in the Atlantic remains a zone of great importance and interest both for global maritime traffic and oil and gas energy security.

Nigeria’s geographical location places us in direct line of fire of the rampaging jihadist insurgency in the north. We share a common extensive border stretch with major theatres of jihadist threat: Niger, Chad with proximal reach with Burkina Faso and the others.

The departure of the French from these countries means that Nigeria’s northern border is now open to direct jihadist  presence and influence. We have this proximity to hold responsible for our decades long incessant insecurity from movements like Boko Haram, ISWAP and other fringe fundamentalist groups of diverse names and iterations mostly inspired by Al Queda, ISIS and their other successor groups.

Nigeria’s geo-cultural configuration with a dominantly northern Moslem and southern Christian population reinforces the strategic security threat of the present situation.  Yet the reality of the situation is one in which two major threats to global security lie at the doorsteps of Nigeria. Beside the well-known jihadist threat from the Sahel, it is significant to note that in all the countries from which the French have recently exited and the military have taken over power, the civil populace have been manipulated into waving Russian flags in the streets while jubilating to welcome military coup leaders. As recently as the late 2024 hunger protests in Nigeria, some youth were arrested for brandishing Russian flags in the streets of Kano!

The presence of Russian troops and political interest groups was heightened in the days of the Yevgeny Prikozym and his Wagner Group of mercenaries in West and Central Africa. Wagner was a combined economic extraction and military  venture. African countries were offered security assistance in return for contracts and mining rights. Over time, Wagner became an extension of Moscow’s territorial interests in Africa. Declining Western interest in parts of Africa attracted the attention of an ambitious Vladimir Putin whose escapades in Europe have been blocked in Ukraine. The attraction to Putin was heightened by the declining capacity of African military forces to protect their countries from Sahelian jihadist forces armed and funded from international terrorist sources.

Effectively then, with the departure of the French from a country as close as  Niger, Nigeria now has at its immediate northern border two unfriendly influences with active forces: Islamic jihadist ISIS affiliates  and Russian occupation forces.

In recent weeks, the military government in Niger has accused Nigeria of plotting to overthrow it. This has partly prompted recent debates as to whether Nigeria should host Western military presence in its northern states is redundant.  What we have at stake in Niger is both a national territorial integrity issue and a global sphere of influence contest.  Both pressures are essentially and urgently military before they are diplomatic in nature.   A nation must be capable of effectively protecting and defending its territorial integrity in military terms. In concert with larger interests, a nation located along a sphere of influence fault line must also be capable of collaborating with other interested parties to house an effective base for the defense of the sphere of influence. This is the effective backdrop for making sense of the foreign military base debate among Nigerian politicians.

Unfortunately, contributions to this debate from our professional military have been less than informed. It is hard for the current military establishment to argue against foreign military bases. Our professional military establishment has failed woefully to assure both Nigerians and the world that it has the capacity and integrity to  protect and defend Nigeria from the twin forces of jihadist terrorism and insurgency let alone guaranteeing a hemispheric sphere of influence contest.

In the coming months, it is a season of goings and comings in Nigeria’s immediate international relations. Our domestic political challenges may be somewhat diminished by headaches from the immediate neighborhood.