US/Nigeria Faceoff: Akinyemi, Keshi, Adebanwi, Sani Brainstorm on Way Forward

By Eric Elezuo

The Dele Momodu Leadership Centre in Ibadan came alive Thursday when prominent Nigerians took it upon themselves to brainstorm over the threat of invasion by the President of the United States of America, Donald Trump, and the redesignation of Nigeria as Country of Particular Concern (CPC) by the same United States as the result of the alleged and reported Christian Genocide ongoing in the nation.

Moderated by famous journalist, Dr. Reuben Abati, with the theme ‘How to Resolve the America-Nigeria Faceoff’, and organised by the Dele Momodu Foundation at the prestigious international arena of the Dele Momodu Leadership Centre, Ibadan the parley lived up to its billing, x-traying possible angles of mitigating the imbroglio for sustainable diplomatic relationship between the two countries.

The event featured renowned professionals in local and international diplomacy including Professor Wale Adebanwi of the University of Pennsylvania, Senator Shehu Sani, Ambassador Joe Keshi, a former Permanent Secretary of the Foreign Affairs Ministry, who once supervised the Nigerian Consulate in Atlanta, Georgia and seasoned diplomat and former Minister of External (Foreign) Affairs, Prof Bolaji Akinyemi.

Discussing the tangible impact of the diplomatic friction between Nigeria and the US on everyday Nigerians, in terms of security cooperation, economic opportunities, and other implications, Senator Sani noted that Nigeria should take the lead to solve its own problems as depending on America could be counter-productive.

“Let us solve this security problem as a national problem. Let no one think America will come here, sacrifice its resources and soldiers, to protect any faith. They don’t do that. They have never succeeded anywhere,” Sani said.

While maintaining that the bandits and terrorists do not have the consent of real Muslims to perpetrate their heinous crimes, he added that;

“But it’s a fact that Nigerian governments and security agencies and defence forces have failed to protect Muslims in Zamfara and Christians in Benue and Plateau state. That’s the fact of it. If you change the wordings and the phrases, it can change a whole meaning. There is a fundamental difference between saying terrorists operating in Benue and Plateau are the same terrorists operating in Kaduna and Zamfara states.”

He further dismissed Trump as unseriois and cannot be trusted as many of his threats have gone unaccomplished.

“And if you live by the tweet and the True Social media posting of Trump, you are likely going to be disappointed all your life. He said he’s going to invade Greenland; he has not done it. He say he’s going to invade Mexico for drug; he has not done it. He say he’s going to invade Colombia; he has not done it. He say he’s going to invade Venezuela; he has not done it,” he said.

In his own response to the issue of the first and most critical step both governments need to take to de-escalate tension, as well as the confidence-building measures Nigeria should adopt even as Financial Tomes called Nigerian diplomacy inept, Ambassador Joe Keshi started by denouncing that fact that Nigeria is a ‘strategic partner’ of the United States considering the fact that Nigeria has never got what known strategic partners of the US get.

Keshi blamed the escalation of the issues on Nigeria’s porous diplomatic framework, citing how the government did nothing Christian groups were making their representations in the US senate and other highly rated platforms.

“The truth we must tell ourselves sometimes is that in the last, probably 10 years, quite frankly, I will tell you — because I’m involved and I still reach out to the ministry — things have gone very bad with the Nigerian diplomatic service; not to talk of Nigerian diplomacy itself, completely.

“But even the ministers today do complain — the capacity is not there. Nobody wants to do any serious work. All they want to do is: they come back, they go; they want to go to posting again immediately,” Keshi lamented.

In his concluding remarks, Keshi posited a question “So you ask yourself this question: why has the Nigerian military not been able to address these security issues? Why has the government taken its eyes off the ball, realizing that the security situation is not only affecting human lives but also affecting our economy, and that something needed to be done to take care of the problem as quickly as possible?”

Also speaking, Professor Adebanwi traced the origin of the crises, blaming it on poor response to crisis, poor crisis management and management of foreign relations among others.

“The fundamental challenge is the objective reality of our security problem, and this has been going on for long. There have been different kinds of dimensions of this objective crisis that we’ve had to face in the last almost two decades. So that’s the first challenge. So, there is a problem, as you articulated in different ways when you started out. This didn’t just happen; there was a critical problem that needed to be addressed that, you know, was not addressed for a long time.

“The second issue is the management of the immediate crisis, which is the response that we received from the United States: the president, the senator who first spoke, and then the reaction of the president, and some of the issues that had been raised earlier about the mobilization within the domestic environment in the United States. And of course, this was also in response to some of the challenges in our own domestic environment in Nigeria. Some of the earlier speakers had mentioned people from some of those communities who have visited the United States and met with, you know, senators and other communities within the United States. So we have that challenge— the management of that crisis— apart from the fundamental security challenge,” he exposed.

In his exposition, the former External Affairs Minister, Bolaji Akinyemi, who presently runs a foreign policy platform called Through My Eyes, rejected the conspiracy theories of Trump’s ulterior motive in lending a helping hand, saying “I am not buying into these conspiracy theories—which we love to use as distractions when we are avoiding the core issues we should be facing.”

He added that one makes offers to take confrontation off the table, stressing that “I find nothing wrong with that.”

He noted, “If the United States needs an international peacekeeping force in Gaza—we are not looking for a clean slate anywhere in the world, definitely not in Gaza—but if the United States needs an international peacekeeping force and Nigeria can offer a battalion, I find nothing wrong with offering that. Because, in a way, Trump also needs some form of positive acknowledgment of his contributions in the world.

“Number two, we cannot deny that.
We cannot deny the fact that the Christians, Nigerian Christians, have access to American Pentecostal Christians. And while we were leaping diplomatically, they’ve managed to get through to those people and present their case to them about what’s happening.

Their own mandate, or their own core mandate, is with the Christians in Nigeria and what’s happening to them. And I don’t know how many times a loser of that…”