(Name Credit: Chimamanda Adichie)
The United States of America is currently the world power (though she will soon be toppled by China). She has used her capitalist policies to create needs in the world and proferred solutions to those needs. When most nations were thinking of one-year plans, the big-ole US of A was making twenty five-year plans. They used the media to project what they
wanted done in say, five-years, and were able to achieve world power status!
With everyone who has tasted power, you know it is quite the intoxicant! It gives you this feeling of perpetual high, knowing that you can do almost anything you want and still get people to bend to your will. If you have ever hatched a plot to do something and seen how the domino toppled in place for that plot, you will know that there is a HUGE thrill in having power.
So if there is any nation powerful enough to stop insurgency in Nigeria, it has to be the US of A. Judging by their track record in freeing nations from……………HOLD UP! WAIT! WAIT!! WAIT!! America does not have that track record! Let us go down memory lane a bit.
After the 9/11 attacks on the world trade centre, the USA launched a campaign against the terror group that had purportedly bombed and killed thousands of Americans and other world citizens. The group wa(i)s called the al-Qaeda. This group was supposed to be based in Afghanistan and were under the protection of the Taliban government of that time. The USA asked the Afghan government to release Osama bin Ladin, the head of the al-Qaeda, to them so they could (kill) take him to trial. When the Afghan government refused to give him over without evidence linking him to the terror act, the USA got really pissed. At this blatant disregard for the ‘world power’, the USA proceeded to go to war with the nation, ousting the Taliban government and putting in someone that was more pliable to American policies. Good story yeah? No!!!
Go online to read the story on the war with Afghanistan and you will see that it says 2001-present, meaning the war is still on, fourteen good years after the war started! Though Afghans had relatively hard lives before the US invasion, their lives couldn’t be more terrible than it is now. The Talibans and al-Qaeda are working overtime to bring the nation to her knees. Everyday you put on your news channels, you hear of one bomb blast or the other in Afghanistan. The nation has been troubled since America invaded her.
Another glaring example is America’s supposed help to Iraqis and the world at large by ridding it of the menace of weapons of mass destruction, capable of wiping out entire regions of the world. Rewind to 2003 and the war in Iraq is born. Saddam’s government was toppled and a new government installed. Fast-forward back to today and we still haven’t found the weapons of mass destruction that they said was the reason for the war. Like her middle eastern counterpart, Iraq is still a hot zone, with bombs going off day in and day out!
So why was Nigeria, knowing this track record, too eager to ask for the help of the US of A? Why are Nigerians so ecstatic about this help Americah is obviously willing to offer? Why are we inviting a nation that is power drunk to come handle the most sensitive issue in the country? And most important of, what do they stand to gain by offering and giving this ‘help’?
And while we are at it, let us ask also why Britain and France, colonialist extraordinaire, are also so eager to help Nigeria. Are we so eager to forget how these two nations plundered Africa in the name of colonialism? How they told us they were ‘educating’ us whilst they stole our resources, our art, our produce and our people?!! Are we so blinded by movies like 24, that we are willing to let our former ‘masters’ come to the country with heavily armed military?
We need the #ChibokGirls to be found, there is no doubt about that. We need all the help we can possibly get. There is still no doubt about that. But we do not need to have our nation end up worse than she started off and colour me purple, but that is what will happen when these nations bring their ‘help’.
Wars are always won intelligently before the first bullet is fired and America is an intelligent nation.
So, oh! Americah! We urge you to ‘help’ us but we also want to let you know that we will not allow you take over our country, our oil fields, our other resources and/or our man-power. Help us, but don’t get comfortable! And if we are pushed to end up like Iraq or Afghanistan, we will fight back! We will not go back to slavery, with or without the shackles. So Americah! Help us, but don’t get comfortable!!!!!
