Nigeria: And when they were down

Oh, The grand old Duke of York,
He had ten thousand men;
He marched them up to the top of the hill,
And he marched them down again.

And when they were up, they were up,
And when they were down, they were down,
And when they were only half-way up,
They were neither up nor down.

The Grand Old Duke of York

Of trust and less

The Nigerian military has put itself in a rather difficult position of needing support whilst not being quite trustworthy. Too many times they have put a spin on stories that have turned out to be outright lies.

Their engagement with the Boko Haram militancy in north-eastern Nigeria has exposed fundamental rank and file deficiencies in the forces from low morale to not being adequately equipped to handle the insurgency.

The nursery rhyme at the start of this blog almost fully illustrates the almost futile exercise of winning anything until a radical reform of our whole military apparatus is put in place. Sadly, I do not think many well-meaning Nigerians are convinced that this regime has the will, mien or wherewithal to get this done as determined purposeful exercise, a stunt or a fluke.

An aimless march

When they were up, what we have read of is a scorched earth policy of pillage and massacre, extra-judicial killings and lawlessness, many of these highlighted by civil rights groups that there is very little to differentiate what they have done with war crimes.

When they were down, it has been barracks sacked, mutiny against generals, being under-equipped against the absurd but worryingly sophisticated tactics and weaponry of Boko Haram, soldiers let down by their generals, unnecessarily martyred as if sent into battle with their guns stopped or hands tied behind their back. The soldiers are brave because of who they are, not because of example and character exemplified by the military brass. It is a shame.

Recently, it was the wives of the soldiers who were protesting sending their husbands to war unfit for the task to which they were deployed. The real down that the military has passed off as a military manoeuvre depending on who you believe is that 480 soldiers have either fled into Cameroon in flight from Boko Haram or crossed into Cameroon in a military strategy to fight back, who knows? [BBC]

At the same time, Boko Haram declared an Islamic caliphate in Gwoza, the region where they have held sway, and even though the area is under a state of emergency, they act with impunity and writ large, the Nigerian authorities literally unable to project power and unchallenged sovereignty.

The Nigerian military have rejected the claim, but actions would matter much more than words. Ruefully, until we see something different, we have an alternative and illegal power in control in the north-eastern Nigeria.

We are not winning

Back to the nursery rhyme, it appears they’ve gone up the hill and down again, and now that they are only halfway up, they are neither up nor down. There does not seem to be plan, purpose, aim, strategy or any conceivable idea as to how the Boko Haram menace would be arrested and dealt with.

The Commander-in-Chief was ensconced in Germany on some personal retreat away from the chaos of Nigeria does not seem to be a general at war, rather he fiddles like Nero as Nigeria burns, proffering empty platitudes to the realities that Nigerians under the cosh of terror face, literally oblivious of things when buried in the cosy cocoon of Aso Rock – it is both a travesty and an atrocity.

The truth is we are shamefully and inadequately NOT winning this war against Boko Haram, no fanciful pronouncement would take away from the fact that the Nigerian forces are down and fearfully, maybe out too.

Nigeria: General T. Y. Danjuma - a very influential Nigerian

Dished out willy-nilly

Some three weeks ago a very influential Nigerian revealed an interesting power dynamic in how the resources of Nigeria were profligately handed out without accountability or scrutiny.

This man was endowing $100 million to a foundation and revealed how he made $500 million in profit [1] from the allocation of an oil block tossed to him by the then Head of State, General Sani Abacha [2].

An oil block in the general sense is a prospect that requires surveys and analysis that might yield the possibility of oil and gas which can be exploited to its full potential for great profit.

Oil for money, gas for nought

Where there is the discovery of oil, the owner of the oil block might well have hit the jackpot, unfortunately, the dearth of imagination and professional ability has also left oil blocks abandoned if gas was discovered because the infrastructure in Nigeria has not been developed sufficiently to profit from gas exploration through to the market.

General Theophilus Danjuma (rtd.) [3] was Chief of Army Staff in the 70s and the Minister of Defence between 1999 and 2003, but some 12 years ago he was influential enough to profit from the generosity of being tossed an oil block.

If he not being in government were able to get a piece of Nigeria’s resources without recourse to some due procedure by the big chief under whom power and authority is exerted for the Nigerian entire beyond any accountability, one can only wonder what those in power did and what everyone who could peddle influence could get in oil blocks and more.

A really lucky chap

The oil block that General Danjuma got was sold off on its potential for $1 billion and after paying off his dues, taxes and other matters he was left with $500 million profit that he could not find much to do with.

Many questions arise from this revelation of truth as to how Nigeria’s great fortunes and potential has been squandered off for patronage and the maintenance of power along with the quest for power by others who might want to have access to the means of doling out these resources for unspeakable amounts of wealth and amazing influence. [4]

Retired at 41

General Danjuma is 72, he had risen to the highest ranks in the army allowing him to retire at 41 – I would not suggest that he did not attain this position by merit and dint of hard work but it is rather exceptional that anyone anywhere in the world in whatever profession can retire at 41.

After retirement, he apparently did not sink into the background per se, he engaged in business activities that probably bought him some grief that he was readily able to have the sop of an oil block tossed to him by a Nigerian leader though not in our name.

It would be nice that some oil block were awarded for meritorious services to Nigeria as a whole, but no, this was all for personal enrichment at the expense of Nigerians, banditry attempting to gain respectability and even succeeding in Nigeria.

Half a billion with no sense

This oil block was award according to the time frame in 1998 and it was held on to for 10 years and sold in 2008 having not yet been exploited but having the potential persuading some other company to shell out $1 billion for it.

General Danjuma, a not so notable businessman in Africa somehow acquires liabilities totalling half a billion dollars – you wonder how he could have been under the radar for so long with no one realising he was a man of such considerable means.

Then with $500 billion in hand, this is cash in the bank, not assets as other businessmen are usually valued, he finds himself in a Midas dilemma; all this money and no sense of what to do with it – this again exemplifies the Nigerian story, so many resources, so much money, maybe so much talent but no wherewithal to do something wonderful and beneficial to the nation that supplied the means to be raped and plundered with impunity.

What oil does to Nigerian politics

Now, General Danjuma, revealed this as a microcosm of how Nigerian resources have been expended as well as the underlying psyche of why there is a quest for power by many interests that might make a grab for that power if they are not kept comfortable by sharing that largesse in a circle of the corrupt palliation of rivals and power bases.

There is no telling that this plunder continues under the stewardship of whoever is leader of the country even if it seems to be more transparent than during the military era, but a good deal of the people who claim to be leaders were once in the military, at least 3 of them have run for presidential office with one having ruled for 2 terms.

With this in the public domain, it is no wonder that there is unrest in the Niger Delta when people see the rich pickings that people with influence can take at the expense of the indigenes who suffer in squalor and penury.

It goes without saying that, if a non-player like General Danjuma could have access to an oil block and make so much money, many others would have made much more along with the usurpation that might have occurred exploiting the more viable oil blocks – the mind-boggling figures of over hundreds of billions made from oil but lost in the system cannot be far from the truth.

Prescription for good health to Nigeria too

Lest I forget, though I can no more find the source, it was General Danjuma who having fallen ill a few years ago got a prescription from his doctor to spend two weeks of recuperation in the French Riviera – now, that is a prescription I would want to swallow till I am overdosed; on the Nigerian people’s money to boot.

General Danjuma, is back in a position of great influence [5] advising the Acting President just because every Nigerian leader still has to have some influential retired general in the background to ward off other pretenders – despite this blot on General Danjuma’s seemingly questionable record, in all honesty, he is perhaps the most acceptable of all the other generals the Acting President had to choose from.

General Danjuma, was launching an endowment of $100 million to his foundation established to tackle health issues that might hopefully allow him and our comatose President to seek treatment in the country, one wonders if this is his purgatory presaging absolution.

He is left with $400 million that he could disburse to other worthy Nigerian causes and maybe persuade other looters of our resources to put something back into Nigeria or allow his children to squabble and destroy themselves fighting to be sole inheritors of the loot – such is the tragedy of power and money in Nigeria.

Sources

[1] I made $500 million from oil block -TY Danjuma

[2] Sani Abacha - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[3] African Success : Biography of Yakubu Theophilus DANJUMA

[4] The Punch:: How Nigeria lost billions of naira to discretionary – Google advisory – harmful website

BBC News - Explosions hit Nigeria oil amnesty talks

FT.com / Comment - Observer: Hu and cry over Chinese oil deals – Comment in 2006 talking about the prospect of General Danjuma making $1 billion from the oil block he was gifted by General Sani Abacha.

The Nigerian tale of two oil blocks – Some additional background to how oil blocks were retained or usurped depending on who was wielding power and influence.

[5] Danjuma to Jonathan: Act now, time is short – After his appointment as chairman of the Presidential Advisory Council.

Pambazuka - Nigeria: Executive Director - T. Y. Danjuma Foundation (TYDF) – The foundation swings into action.

Thought Picnic: The Americe First Principle in Fort Hood

No more a news junkie

But for the guest living with me whose presence helps my recuperation no end, I would not have seen anything on television since I returned from hospital about a month ago.

In fact, of all the television I have watched, most has been DVDs or a Friday night Dutch entertainment programme; I have suddenly become a non-news junkie.

I am no more interested in channel-hopping news channels seeking opinion and fulminating analysis of the events of the day.

If the breaking news is that I have won the lottery, eventually, the letter confirming the win will arrive in the post and we can do what needs to be done. One has to ask, what use is breaking news if you are not locked into a hypertensive stock market where your blood pressure undecided vacillates with the market, every minute is lived on the verge of a heart attack.

Even the diehard would soon realise the heart and mind does need respite from the pestilence of news and wars that surround us, we cannot find inner peace if we continue to bombard ourselves with the negative that masquerades as news.

Late on Fort Hood

It is this situation of deserved withdrawal that left me late on the trail of the Fort Hood killings; I refuse to give that situation any volatile labels because there is an underlying issue well below the rhetoric and public pronouncements that needs review.

The man joined what some people have called a family, the family of the United States Army and he was resident amongst his folk in the broadest sense of what family means.

As a psychiatrist, one would suppose his functions include “ministering” to the mental needs of siblings in that family who for all intends and purposes are trained to attack, kill and overrun the enemy, the survival instinct being alive and sometimes this ignores the way war and conflict changes a man into something yet to find adequate description apart from a fighting machine.

This man on certain aspects of merit had been honoured in the family, he had risen to the rank of major, so he was no idiot, he earned that rank, deserved that rank and was respected in that rank.

Accentuating his difference

However, there were other issues, the man happened to be Muslim, not that it should matter, I have close family members who are Muslim and they are no different from me, they are respectable, honest, diligent and worthy people whom I honour and treat with the utmost respect and regard.

Apparently, in his family, that is to say the US Army, this man found little acceptance, was disrespected and treated “badly”, one would assume. At least, this treatment within the family did lead to him wanting to leave the US Army but some hard-headed disciplinarian within the family thought little of considering this request and I am sorry, that person or persons are just as culpable in this act not by commission but by omission.

The family dynamic broke

The family is supposed to be a harmonious setting but if one of the siblings is ostracised for whatever reason and the parents do not act to make that sibling inclusively loved and cared for as to feel equal and accepted as equal in the family, it is a recipe of great disaster.

The superiority of the other siblings that belittles the abilities and the status of ostracised sibling usually ends up later in exchanged roles where the ostracised suddenly holds all the aces and everyone else is left begging for something they no more have the ability to keep or protect.

For all the opprobrium the Fort Hood killings would generate about religion, people of foreign descent and many other things that excite bigotry in the name of commentary and condemning a supposedly dastardly act, the problem started long before the man made Major, it started when they saw he looked different and did different things – nobody dealt with it then and now we have a monster. No excuse for the act itself but it calls for a deep soul-searching in the US Army hierarchy.

The family dynamic can only thrive when everyone is helped to feel part of the family, that responsibility first falls on those in charge like parents and then on the siblings who hopefully have good examples to follow from parents and good leadership.

American first no matter how different

It is a tragedy, no less but the triggers were pulled long before the guns downed the many unfortunate victims of a dysfunctional family situation that was allowed to thrive to the point of disaster.

The family needs to come together and ensure everyone really feels in and involved without ostracism, that would take longer than an inquiry, it would be a paradigm shift and complete change of mindset because the diversity of America would soon be fully reflected in every establishment and there would be no place to differentiate between people apart from the binding fact that you are all Americans first and Americans always.

Enlisting the dead for Iraq

Increasing the pain

No greater pain can be inflicted on those who have lost their loved ones in the Iraqi war having first received condolence letters from Donald Rumsfeld that he could not be bothered to sign before there was an outcry, the troop numbers are now so stretched that they are calling on the dead to reenlist.

For those who believe in life after death, this takes the war to a new dimension; for a Ministry of Defense that has the most sophisticated computer systems not to have a very basic database of the dead to ensure that the wrong kind of communication is not sent to those who have survived the ones that have paid the ultimate price.

I would hope that the Army surge that President Bush is contemplating excludes the figures for those dead, wounded or incapacitated.

As usual, this would be blamed on computers rather than the cretins in charge who have not been meticulous in their duties.

No! Computers cannot take the rap for stupidity – garbage in, garbage out.

Shame!

Kerry not plenty smart on the truth about cannon fodder

The truth lost out

It is a shame that when John Kerry botched that dig at the President which became a cannon fodder joke, the truth of the whole matter got consumed in the outrage that forced him to first apologise and then adopt a seriously low profile.

When you look at what he said again, and juxtapose that with the military recruitment manual - the stealth, tactics, techniques and overwhelming political power they can wield over hostile schools, someone does have to speak up coherently.

This is what he said again, “You know, education -- if you make the most of it, you study hard and you do your homework and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well. If you don't, you get stuck in Iraq.”

Now, looking at the School Recruitment Program Handbook, I came across a number of interesting points.

They will have your children any which way

The forces assert the right to gain access to all schools with the same accommodation given to other organisations that can visit schools to recruit students be it for work or further education.

The forces assert the right to have access to not just the complete roll of eligible students but their records, assessment, backgrounds and any sort of information that might help in “profiling” prospective recruits. Parents are however, given the right to request that their children be excluded from that list, students and exercise that right too, but imagine the bullying that might ensue.

Any school that denies access to the forces finds itself embroiled in a political whirlpool of increasing pressure that escalates from the council, through Congress to the Secretary of State who can overrule any local objections to granting access. It is like they really want to eat your children and there is nothing that can be done to stop them from getting at them except if the parents disagree, a blanket disagreement cannot be instituted by the school itself.

The forces plant a liaison officer in the school and the official is supposed to become the fix-it man for everything, the official is supposed to make themselves so indispensable that students, teachers, parents are almost all beholding to the official.

Sleight of hand

Then we go to the tactics of getting people into the forces.

They are to target college-capable students and get them to defer their college till they have served in the army.

Knowing that college fees are quite exorbitant, they can cajole students into the army with the promise that the army would handle all that in due course, however, you might get stuck in Iraq long before you get that fillip.

They target students in the first or second year of university who are likely to drop-out for lacking finances to finish their education – somehow, they do not go for those well into their studies because somehow, those might have smartened up about education and might have found less risky ways to sponsor and finish their education.

Snippets that make you think

Chapter 7.2.a To encourage college-capable individuals to defer their college until they have served in the Army. – How smart is this?

Chapter 6.6.b (1) To build the image with students, parents, and educators that the Army is high tech and career oriented. – Fairy tales not stark realities.

Chapter 10.1 This market is an excellent source of potential Army enlistments due to the high percentage of students who drop out of college, particularly during the first 2 years. – It is a meat market ready for Army exploitation.

Chapter 10.4.b (1) Students and/or parents are paying tuition to attend college. Personal debts can accrue and student loan repayment plans can be very appealing to these students. – Very appealing indeed, we’ll share the bill but you’ll feel the pain.

Chapter 10.7.c Focus on the freshman class because they will have the highest dropout rate. They often lack both the direction and funds to fully pursue their education. – Bottom feeder gives focus to rudderless kids and they end up where?

No Child Left Behind

When the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 was signed into law in January 2002, though the goals were to raise the standards of education for children, somewhere deep in the Act - In section 9528 (Chapter 11.3) - was the provision gave military recruiters the same access to facilities as a public secondary school provides to higher education institution recruiters, but this along with contact information can be requested, additional information can be accessed through the liaison officer embedded in the school.

As this resonates with the “Leave No Man Behind” tenet that meant that the forces never left their wounded, incapacitated or dead behind, one can only say that President George W. Bush is plenty smart and plenty brave to grant access to your children and then boldly cart them off to get stuck in Iraq.

“The members of the United States military are plenty smart, and plenty brave, and the senator from Massachusetts owes them an apology” – The President.

In the end, politicians should stop trying to be comedians, they can mess up their delivery, big time, and whilst that is plenty brave, it is usually is not plenty smart.

References

How to Pitch the Military When a War Drags On?

Commentary: Video Game Luring New Recruits

Six Questions for Eli Flyer on Military Recruiting and Abuses in Iraq

A crusading psychopath is in a war near you

A society at variance with its values

There is probably no greater disservice to the young people who sit in the war zones instigated by America than lowering the bar to entry into the army.

It now transpires that the young soldier who has been charged for the rape of an Iraqi lady and the murder of her and her family did have problems long before he was recruited into the army.

As Americans are wont to do, family background reads much into what is expected of anyone, it is a shame that knowing that sometimes broken homes with respect to the American demographic do lead to problem children and a life of failures that get up-ended by the law.

For a country that prides itself in near Puritanical piety and condemns anyone who ever falls foul of the law for life regardless of having served their just sentences, one would expect a lot more would be done in social engineering, moral education and counselling to prevent people from falling by the wayside, in the first place.

The new penitentiary – service in Iraq

A criminal record in America is a millstone around anyone’s neck, however, with the pressing need for cannon fodder to expend in wars, especially in Iraq, the blatant laxity in recruitment parameters allows for enlisting to become a shortcut to rehabilitation.

Cynically, it gets those criminals out of America to a dangerous and deteriorating war atmosphere where the instinct to live and the desire to kill become competing moral dilemmas for people who before they enlisted had no moral fibre.

Even more cynically, if that ‘so-called’ recruit becomes one of the number who end up dying in Iraq, his duty to the nation in that faraway land would count for more in all respects than his misdeeds on earth.

A boy troubled

Dear Steven Green is only 21, in some places especially in the West, it is probably only within the range of legal responsibility but hardly any other responsibility accrues than to still be studying or working to start a career.

I cannot say how many siblings Steven had, but in 2000 his mother served a jail term for drunk driving, he would have been 15 then and I do wonder if there were mitigating circumstances in law to help the family before sending his mother to the can for 6 months.

Then he got done for having possession of drug paraphernalia – don’t laugh – sometimes American charges almost make Europe the centre of moral decadence. He has also been charged with under-aged possession of tobacco and alcohol – three misdemeanours in all and he served jail time for the third – 4 days.

Where is that strict uncle?

If I may generalise generously, in strict disciplinary environments like Nigeria where I grew up, the most in punishment any one child might suffer for these “crimes” would be porting the child off to some strict uncle who would with example, mentoring, tutelage and probably corporal punishment, work on the young man to bring him to rights.

That concerted effort almost always works out right because everyone who matters gets involved in condemning wrong, praising right and easing the subconscious, if possible, to a better way of doing things.

The young man eventually becomes a ready uncle to help other wayward wards towards the right with example and experience.

In America, that uncle became the Army, after a boot camp which is supposed to demean and instil, the tool of trade is no pen for the erudite or instrument of some apprenticeship into a nominal profession, it is a gun, a gun to shoot down Iraqi insurgents, innocents and by happenstance to clean up after the pleasure of assuaging possible sexual repression.

A crusade without a name

Before, he left for Iraq, Steven Green was baptised literally, as he took religion, and many others have before going on duty – this really now smacks of a crusade and begins to makes sense when Vladimir Putin did say yesterday that Russia would not get involved in Crusades.

So, after Mr Steven Green’s last demeanour, the army dumped him in a discharge that claimed psychiatric grounds – one would think he would be put on some programme of therapy, treatment or counselling to help him become a better man.

Now, he has been completely disowned with the statement – “staining the image, the honourable image of the United States military. [1]” Honourable image? Recruiting crooks? I think someone has both perception and perspective wrong here.

Manufacturing psychopaths

But no, they took a minor criminal in America, created a rapist and murderer of him in Iraq and dumped him back in America ready to become a showcase of a bad person rather than it being a window of scrutiny on a failed and wanting criminal justice system, a rotten army recruitment policy and an unconscionable discharge and rehabilitation process.

So now he would face the full force of the law for a situation that could have been avoided had the company in which he was based been more disciplined that they would not have revelled in drink, changed clothes and committed the crimes before cleaning up with murder.

More so, if the society had, when things were going wrong arrested the decline rather that count the crimes expecting the next one to bang him up for life or cart him off to war.

Indeed, justice must be done and seen to be done with regards to the rape and murder, but the greater indictment must lay with the society that sends unstable men to war to create pathological psychopaths of them.

References

A troubled man's saga in a troubled land

Kin hope military will support soldier

Opportunities for irrelevance abound

Your rank in the Army of Relevance, Sir!

One being a collector of quotations, it is easy to recite and regurgitate quotations without finding out more about the particular persons and circumstances that lead to those gems of human wisdom and intellect encapsulated in words.

In fact, a quotation is a phrase or sentence of relevance. Relevance is a beacon; it stands out from the other group of words that give it a context to exist.

One's reference to the army stems from the time one has spent thinking of Gen. Eric Shinseki's very notable quotation.

"If you don't like change, you're going to like irrelevance even less"

One has paraphrased this to "They who hate change would hate irrelevance even more" - Every aspect of one's life has to experience a concept of evolution or irrelevance sets in - Irrelevance = Extinction. There is no time friend to be an endangered species; the endangerment was there when you ignored the trends of change.

The recruitment drills of entering the Army breaks down the individual and develops the team based on trust, enforced by authority, nurtured by respect, rewarded by promotion, reckoned by discharge and sanctioned by expulsion.

Discipline governs the ability to remain relevant in the Army and that lack of it brings sanctions that could lead to expulsion if there is no means of reprove that can convince authority of your further relevance to the Army.

Jesus identified that understanding of authority as the highest form of faith when the centurion in asking Jesus to heal his servant by speaking the words.

The Centurion reckoned himself a man who had authority by being answerable to his superiors, respectful of his peers and leading his subordinates. In that station, he was an example to all around him.

How to become irrelevant

What appears below may sound ironic; however, the full appreciation of the knowledge of anything is, knowing what it is and knowing what it is not.

Change what you cannot and leave what you can.

You read that right. There are we cannot change and things we can.

• There are people younger and smarter than you are, you cannot change your age, but you can get smart.
• These younger people will come up with the strangest and seemingly weird ideas, you may not be as radical, but your wealth of experience can help in making those ideas practical.
• Your organisation may be changing to make your circumstances untenable, but you can change your circumstances for the better without having to rely on your organisation.
• You may have been there long enough to have the delusion of being indispensable, however, if you keeled over now, after two weeks, someone better and smarter would replace you.
• What you know in terms of experience may not be valuable, but understanding how to adapt that experience to trends is most invaluable.

Be persuasive in peace but invincible at war.

Another of General Shinseki's quotes

The theory of evolution has moved on, it is no more the survival of the fittest, but the ascendancy of the smartest. The species would not change into anything other than the humans - homo sapiens sapiens - that they are. There is no point having two heads, four hands, six legs and eight reproductive organs, that type of fitness is redundant.

The greatest resource available to man is their intellectual capital - ideas, dreams, vision turned into the reality that changes humankind for the better.

New and Improved is OUT - Radical and Groundbreaking is IN.

I do not want more of the same I want something different. Enough of the tremors in office politics, what we want are earthquakes.

Radically uproot it all and build it somewhere else. Only smart buildings survive earthquakes, not mammoth edifices.

Finally, whatever game is played in the quest to remain relevant, be principled, honest, trustworthy and reliable. Those unimpeachable qualities endure after the smoke has cleared up. Those were characteristics lacking in the leaderships of Enron, Andersen, WorldCom and many more failed organisations in their heyday.

Postscript references

Tom's 60 TIBs - It's a PowerPoint

Why Associations and Consortia fail

Trends you should know to survive tough times