By Kayode Emola
The last thing the world needs right now is for the West African region to be engulfed in a needless war. This will not only scare the region and its fragile communities, it may create an everlasting enmity between communities and ethnic nationalities for many years to come.
Not least, this may also be a fatal blow for Nigeria’s ethnic nationalities who view each other with enormous suspicion. Whilst the Economic Community of West Africa States (ECOWAS) may believe that war is the only solution left on the table. This may prove fatal for the ousted president Mohamed Bazoum who is currently in detention as he may be hurriedly executed to complicate the current situation for the invading forces.
To be honest, we shouldn’t have been in this position in the first place, if the present and former leaders of ECOWAS have provided good leadership for their respective citizens. The community leaders feel threatened if nothing is done because it affects their own position and not because they care for the people they were supposed to serve.
Currently, soldiers from 11 West African nations are battle ready to move into the Niger Republic to restore the ousted President Mohamed Bazoum. We all know that Bazoum has been forced to sign his resignation letter by the military junta but we don’t know if he had been secretly tried for treason.
What if he has been secretly tried for treason and only waiting to be executed if ECOWAS were to fire the first shot into the Niger Republic? This will make the already precarious situation even worse as the country will become unstable, unleashing the many terrorist cells that are hibernating in their shells in various parts of the country and the entire region.
We should make no mistake that this is just a war between ECOWAS and the Niger Republic. This would in reality be a war between half of ECOWAS on one hand and the remaining half on the hand as Guinea, Mali, and Burkina Faso will stand ready to defend the new Niger Republic regime.
Let us also not forget that the Russian mercenaries ‘PMC Wagner’ are in Niger to help protect the new military regime. Such that any intervention from the ECOWAS bloc and their international allies may result in a wider conflict between world powers who are jostling for wider control of the African continent.
If we must be sincere with ourselves, our ancestors never practiced democracy, yet they governed themselves excellently for centuries if not millennia. They governed with the sincere purpose of bringing development to their people and many communities benefitted from their exemplary leadership. What we rather have today are leaders who only think of themselves, their immediate families, and their close associates.
If truth be told, every single ECOWAS head of State needed to be toppled by their military government, and the entire block given the opportunity to redraw their boundaries based on ethnic nationalities. If this were to happen, probably part of Northern Nigeria will merge with Niger Republic to form one country whilst part of Southern Nigeria will merge with Benin Republic to form one nation based on their nationality.
Other parts of the ECOWAS block may also likely see similar mergers and breakaways from the current colonial arrangement and if that is achieved would bring about true nations in the region fit for purpose for the people. It is only when this happens that we can put our hands on our chest to say we welcome democracy in its truest form.
However, your guess is as good as mine that this will never be done as we Africans have been trapped in a cocoon for many centuries and we don’t know how to free ourselves. Africa will continue to produce mediocre leaders like Mohamed Bazoum who only considers the welfare of their slave masters above the welfare of their people.
We must learn from the conflict between Russia and Ukraine and how the “special military operation” SMO has turned the region into devastation and chaos. Several lives have gone needlessly and we continue to pay with the high prices of inflation around the globe.
I will not advice the ECOWAS regional leaders not to go to war. My take is that they should embark on it immediately just as Jesus Christ asked Judas to betray him quickly so he can fulfil His life’s mission.
Maybe the break-up of Nigeria itself as a country is dependent on this war as I don’t think the ECOWAS leaders have sat down to think of the repercussions of their action. We the Yoruba people will not support the war as we will march the streets of London, Paris, New York, etc to make the world leaders know our stand against the war.
The ECOWAS leaders should realise that they are on their own if they push through with war. War is only necessary as a last result but as it stands, they have made it their one and only option. It feels to me that the regional leaders are more scared of their own military than they are of the people they were meant to serve.
I urge every Yoruba person to speak out against this needless war and to be ready to protest against any military intervention. They say two wrongs can never make a right, so how come the ECOWAS leaders are trying to use the same method (force) the junta in Niger used to install themselves in government.
If there is nothing hidden underneath, the only option should have been diplomacy, however, they have thrown diplomacy into the wind and instead opted for war. Let it not be said in the future that the war in the Niger Republic is what triggered the third world war, as I see a repeat of the World War Two situation in our hands.
We all have a responsibility to speak out now whilst there is still time for history will judge us if we keep silent on this matter. As silence will not be seen as neutrality but as siding with the oppressor. We the people will resist any form of aggression by the ECOWAS leaders as we will not stand by and see the lives of our people wasted for the benefit of our greedy leaders and their neocolonial masters.
