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By Jibrin Ibrahim
Those of us of a certain age, ALL, recollect with pride, the moment we heard our Head of State, Murtala Mohammed declare to the world that:
“Africa has Come of age. It is no longer under the orbit of any extra continental power. It should no longer take orders from any country, however powerful.”
The speech was at the Organization of African Unity (OAU) summit in Addis Ababa, on January 11, 1976 and it pushed Africa to rise to resist US’s pernicious pro-Portuguese position in Angola, Mozambique and the rest of Southern Africa. In the run up to the Summit, the US had intensely lobbied African countries to support the pro-imperialist UNITA and FNLA as against the popular and revolutionary MPLA to form the immediate post-independence government in Angola. The speech made Africa stand on the side of progress. It also made us so proud that the time of grovelling at the doorsteps of imperialist forces were gone.
On Tuesday 27th April 2021, we were all dazed to hear our President, Muhammadu Buhari appeal to the United States to consider moving its military headquarters overseeing Africa – AFRICOM to the continent, from Germany, to better tackle growing armed violence in the region. It was a sea change in our foreign policy direction. We had neither expected nor had been prepared for the policy change. When I first saw the headline, I dismissed it as yet another fake news, then I saw it posted on President Buhari’s verified twitter handle, SIGH!!!
The U.S. Africa Command has the objective of countering transnational threats and malign actors that threaten the interests of the United States. Its purpose is first and foremost to defend the national interests of the United States – a perfectly legitimate goal to which we have always said fine, but not our African soil. For this reason, the U.S. Africa Command has always been headquartered in Stuttgart, Germany, as one of eleven U.S. Department of Defence combatant commands, each with a geographic or functional mission that provides command and control of military forces in peace and war. AFRICOM employs the broad-reaching diplomacy, development, and defence approach to foster interagency efforts and help negate the drivers of conflict and extremism in Africa.
It is a full-spectrum combatant command, responsible for all U.S. Department of Defence operations, exercises, and security cooperation on the African continent, its island nations, and surrounding waters. The area of responsibility consists of 53 African states, more than 800 ethnic groups, over 1,000 languages, vast natural resources, a land mass of 11.2 million square miles (three-and-a-half times the size of the U.S.), and nearly 19,000 miles of coastland. It’s called imperialism. It is the legacy of the massive growth of imperial power of the United States following the victory of the allied forces after the second world war. In its current incarnation, it was created by George Bush in 2007 and at that time, numerous delegations were sent to cajole Nigeria but we were steadfast in refusing to be associated with it. President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, during his State visit to the United States in December 2007 rejected the request on the ground that it would undermine our regional leadership role, our non-aligned credentials and, worse, reduce us to the status of a mere surrogate of an extra African state. The Nigerian position was so strong that even Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf of Liberia who was interested in offering her country had to back track on the issue.
There is such a broad consensus on keeping AFRICOM out of Africa at the continental, regional and national levels that the least I expect is wide consultations before such a decision is taken. Are the African Union and ECOWAS with the Nigerian President on this matter? What we know is that countries that have had American Forces on their soil – Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, Somalia, Yemen and so on have had terrible histories of prolonged civil strife. This is not necessarily due to the Americans. My point is that there is no empirical basis to show that if the Americans move in, we would be moving closer to solving our security crisis. The opposite might indeed be true. I urge caution and sober reflection on this matter. In any case, the United States is currently in a withdrawal mode in terms of its global security engagements. Trump is gone, for now, but America First is alive and kicking and solving Africa’s security challenges is not on their agenda. Our Government must develop our own home-grown strategy to address our security challenges. There is no short cut via Washington D. C.
Source — Jibrin Ibrahim, Deepening Democracy Column, Daily Trust, 30th April 2021