Tent, Upheavals and National Security

Introduction

The last 2 years has accelerated with precision characteristic hubris of imperialistic machine in North Africa. It is important to stress that Africa is a single continental block including her continental shelves, islands and peoples. Acts of imperial preponderance with associated metageographical reconfigurations which attempt to partition or decapitate the continent are time-constrained for each imperial power. Therefore one should not be confused with the concept of ‘Middle East’ that includes contiguous parts of Africa. Be that as it were, the focus of the piece is to highlight what amounts to geopolitical 419 in the name of ‘revolutions’ executed with clinical efficiency as it simultaneously simulates national security loses in the national security crisis.

Flag of the Tent

Tents have many meanings but more so to nomadic and desert communities. Considering the harsh climatic conditions that necessitated their emergence, functionally they are complete in the face of the elements. The howling dry winds, harsh hot storms and deadly sandstorms abet for those staying tents. It is a bastion of security in its unique place and time. Of course majority of human population who have been relatively sedentary have cultivated superiority in their perceptions of tents as fit only for the less Other.

In the last few decades, tents warmed their way into international diplomacy in a curious way. For many observers it represented nothing short of irrationality at best and mediaeval at worst. Nevertheless those who pitch their tents in the face of severe geopolitical machinations though they later lost were prescient.  It is not lost on anyone that late Libyan president, Col Muammar Ghaddafi, raised the flag of illegal surveillance and gradual emergence of surveillance geopolitics but was dismissed.  On a number of occasions be it state visits or visit to United Nations in US, this leader preferred pitching his tent in an open space or rather created Libya in a temporary abrogation of imposed metageographical construction. Diplomats and Heads of State stay in posh hotels and special houses in the hosting countries.

With the emergence of Wikileaks and Mr Edward Snowden, it is clear that Col Ghaddafi was not only ahead of the times but his allergy confirmed the massive surveillance machine then dismissed as irrationality. It is now common knowledge that US regime’s surveillance apparatus has no regard for diplomatic norms and international conduction as United Nations diplomats and visiting Heads of States are fair game. Overt and covert operations are deployed to capture voice record, passwords and DNA of the gullible lot. So much for staying in real houses and hobnobbing with ‘friends and allies’! Only time will reveal how much intel have been creamed off Nigerian diplomats abroad and in the External Affairs Ministry Abuja by US surveillance machine!

Upheavals in the North

A few years ago rent-a-crowd of a different kinds started mutating in various North African countries.  Talk of democracy increased as economies of United States and European Union started heaving like emphysema patients. With populations in various shapes of political maturity drifting in and out awareness coma, they were bombarded with strong advertisement of ‘liberty and freedom’ and ‘revolution’. With unprecedented firepower where applicable colonial war for scarce resources were unleashed with genocidal aplomb in a ‘Yes, we can’ charisma from the ‘rear’; communities became entombed.

Rewind to the present Libya which is no longer a state, Egypt is haemorrhaging, Tunisia barely sleep-walking and ‘revolutions’ were affirmed without change of power from the ruling class to the ruled. Apparently the status quo barely changed for the better. This is classic geopolitical 419 101! Whoever sold the construct that massive crowds without coherent, independent and articulate political roadmap could grab power without force or violence from an entrenched group is the ultimate salesperson. Nice one! The Egyptian reversal waited and reached its natural conclusion. Now my dear North African ‘revolutionaries’, please go home and find something to eat and later seat down to plan for grabbing power by any means.

Snowden and Nigeria

Snowden is resting in Russia but his fart is smelling big time in various capitals. What is it for Nigeria? While spying Nigeria Embassies is a forgone conclusion, what of interference into domestic affairs? Are local telecommunication carriers and internet service providers compromised? Are submarine cables transmitting data to Nigeria compromised? What does the high service-charging MTN, Globacom, Etisalat and the lot incredibly do to their vast customers? At least Wikileaks established the pattern of intrusions and subversion of internal affairs/national interest by state and non-state actors. The establishment of US Drone Base in Niamey, Niger, is nothing reassuring to Abuja rather is a threat to Nigeria’s strategic interest in the West Africa.

Conclusion

In the single race of the single military superpower toward a surveillance state, nation states have become perfect tools for compromise and destruction in the insatiable hunger for information. Nigeria no doubt is too weak an entity and too confused a viable state to raise talk less of highlighting the issues of alleged illegal surveillance. Rather   Nigeria and many other states will be collaterally damaged in the US quest for total domination in military and cyber spheres. There is a consolation anyway, which is the fact that in this race for unchallenged domination lie seeds of self-degradation, overreach and apparent self-diminution which may restrict Washington DC to her front yard in time. In the meantime her erstwhile backyard is gradually reverting to its rightful owners.