Transparency International (TI) on Thursday released a report alleging
that lack of transparency in defence spending is responsible for the
continuous existence of Boko Haram and that some of the measures to be
adopted are that no nation should sell arms to the country. The report,
prepared in partnership with the Civil Society Legislative Advocacy
Centre (CISLAC), and ominously titled, “Weaponising Transparency:
Defence Procurement Reform As a Counterterrorism Strategy in Nigeria,”
warned that corruption in defence procurement is a threat to Nigeria’s
stability.
On the surface the report appears like genuine intention on the part of
an international “do gooder” that is out to ensure that Nigerians are
not short-changed of N380 billion annually by corrupt politicians and
greedy military officers who take the money under the cover of military
purchases that are either inflated, substandard or non-existent. The
true objective of the report is however hidden in plain sight. The real
intent was the demand that countries do not sell weapons to Nigeria,
which is in itself a secondary or even tertiary agenda as the real
reason for seeking to drive Nigeria into a strait is known to only those
executing that project.
To understand the duplicity in the intent of the Transparency
International’s report is to recall that it is a rehash of the report of
another project manager that appends “international” to its name.
Amnesty International had in the past, during the US Presidency of
Barack Obama, fabricated lies that were packaged as a report to block
the sales of military gears to Nigeria. The consequences of that
blockade in the Goodluck Jonathan era are well documented; it marked the
period Boko Haram grew with lightening rapidity while there were no
equipment to fight them.
The coming of President Buhari’s administration and the appointment of
the current military chiefs changed the permutation. Even without the
benefit of procurement, they looked inward and rehabilitated existing
hardware that were earlier mothballed and deployed same for degrading
Boko Haram. Along the line, the tenure of the “moderate rebels” loving
Obama ended and a more pragmatic, if overbearing, Donald Trump came and
the US again became a willing partner in the quest to defeat terrorism
with the approval to sell Super Tucanos aircraft to Nigeria among other
approvals that will place weapons in the hands of troops.
For project managers that have been contracted to ensure the growth of
extremism and terrorism as destabilization tools in Nigeria, that
development would negate contracts and bring catastrophic casualty to
the fighting forces of contrived insurgency. There is no way that is
going to be allowed to happen. The one tool that has been used to hound
the military from performing, Amnesty International, has been overused
to a point where some angry Nigerians wanted it booted out of the
country. Hence the quest to hastily find a replacement with a global
outlook and a level of acceptance that equals the level of Amnesty
International before it became damaged good. Transparency International
was the perfect choice and corruption is a good cover for it to continue
running the brief without raising red flags.
But the human factor gave this operation away. To be sure that it has a
control of the spin, Transparency International ran the partnership with
CISLAC, whose Executive Director, Auwal Rafsanjani conveniently happens
to be the Chairman, Board of Amnesty International (Nigeria). So all
the INN sympathizer did was to change vessels and continue plying his
wares as fanatical Islamic Movement in Nigeria (IMN) promoter, not
necessarily as a sectarian adherent but as someone who will throw
anything into the wheels of the military machinery for the purpose of
wrecking it and deliver a sorely needed project to his sponsors.
The exercise carried out by Transparency International in partnership
with CISLAC is therefore a fiasco even before it was presented to
resounding rejection by stakeholders. Its content is a reflection of the
past as the people guilty of the malfeasance it supposedly documented
have long left office with some standing trial. Yet it wants this to be
used as a basis to stop Nigeria getting weapons to fight terrorists and
the military institutions demonized. In the first place, researchers
that arrived at those findings are the type that did not even bother to
visit a beer parlour anywhere in Nigeria but chose to be misled by a
Rafsanjani who has links to IMN and has been openly favoured any
criminal group that has the undermining of Nigeria as its manifesto. He
is committed to tarnishing the image of the current administration using
fictitious reports and cares nothing how this affects the rest of us
that are apolitical.
Rafsanjani’s Transparency International was silent while the psychotic
looting took place under the Jonathan government and only now woke up to
Sambo Dasuki’s infractions because it needed an indictment to clock in a
milestone.
For now, the focus is to deliberately frustrate and castigate the
government’s anti-corruption crusade in recovering stolen funds.
Choosing to release the report at about the same time the rendering of
the midterm report of President Buhari’s administration is expected to
be rolled solidifies the suspicion about its dubiousness. The
President’s performance, even in the face of setbacks that are out of
human control, remains remarkable considering where the country has
been, where the country is and the improved potentials of where the
country could be in the near term.
There is therefore no doubt that the Transparency
International-CISLAC-Amnesty International report was rolled out by
elements that are out to tarnish the image of Nigeria with findings that
did not take into cognizance the reforms and measures that have been
put in place from May 2015 to date. For instance, there was no
Department of Procurement in the Army, but now it must be acknowledged
that Lt. Gen TY Buratai introduced the department and issues of
procurement are now being prudently handled.
Considering the sheer bad faith behind the report, the government should
not take investigating the motives of those behind it off the table. We
must question the motives behind the report and the call for security
sector reform which is usually for failed states. Possibly, Boko Haram
remains the leading agenda that the owners of the report do not want to
end as can be garnered from the failure to acknowledge the tremendous
progress recorded to the point that the US Secretary of State asked the
world to learn from Nigeria. It could be jealousy over the
accomplishments of Nigeria even under the harshest of conditions that
were brought about by their failed prediction of destroying the country
two years ago. They are now coming out with silly, inhuman and
irresponsible recommendations like stoppage of arms sales, denial of
visa and travel bans.
One would only wish the incumbent government would go beyond the
niceties of considering the people it is dealing with as deserving the
usual courtesies even after they have repeatedly made mincemeat of the
country. This band of thugs are determined to down the government and
the country with it, which dictates that they should not get the nice
treatment anymore.
– Agbese is a an international public affairs commentator and writes from the United Kingdom
