Nigeria Rejects United States 'Africa Command'(AFRICOM)

[XXPANTHAXX]

The United States government’s decision to establish an Africa Command
(AFRICOM) as a military mechanism for "resolving" Africa’s internal
crises in pursuit of its "war on terror" was received by most African
pundits with concern or resignation, but little surprise. Whether viewed
as a strategy for hegemony or self-defence, the establishment of such
commands worldwide is but the logical outcome of the US push for global
dominance.

There being no corner of the world where US interest or honour lies
beyond the reach of "evil-minded forces," the whole aim of the "global
war on terror" – which foresees an unlimited number of indecisive
battles - may be no more than to so menace the governments and peoples
of the world with an endless series of imaginary enemies as to compel
them to rely on US support for survival and provide façades behind which
Uncle Sam could rule the planet unchallenged.

That is standard twenty-first century imperialism whose grace notes are
"free market," "human rights," and a democracy enforced by awesome
military power.

The strategy of all imperial masters has always been to impose norms of
right and wrong, possibility or impossibility, sanity or insanity and
good or bad on their subjects, the majority of whom conform without
question on account of their herd mentality. The masters then manipulate
these norms to divide the masses into diverse factions, thus gaining the
leverage to create conflicts or restore order among the masses at will.

While parallel US efforts to destroy all established traditions in
promoting worldwide regional integration are but parts of its ploy to
create a US-dominated global economy and administration, we remain
supremely confident that the good people of the United States and its
allied countries are neither militaristic enough nor rich enough to
condone the endless bailouts, police actions and wars which their
governments’ hegemonic aspiration would entail.

What the US and its allies really care about is to establish a military
presence at the heart of every resource-rich region in order to control
the supply of hydrocarbon fuels as global capitalism becomes
increasingly overwhelmed by crises of overproduction and overcapacity.
It is logical that they should seek to strengthen their military
presence in Africa as China and India begin to cast furtive glances at
our continent’s resources.

They are easily capable of manipulating the conflicting claims by
Nigeria and Cameroon of sovereignty over the oil-rich Bakassi peninsula
to justify intervention on the side of whichever country "plays ball"
and make life unpleasant for the country that may elect to follow its
own path just as they currently subject Iran, the Hamas government of
Gaza, Cuba, Venezuela and North Korea to enormous pressures for failing
to toe the line.

A serious challenge to the US scheme could come from "Islamic
fundamentalism," which could exploit the pervasive hostility to US
foreign policy and Israel’s continuing humiliation of the Palestinians
to undermine US interests in the Persian Gulf region and elsewhere.
Barring the emergence of a genuinely powerful Islamic state in the
region however that challenge lacks a geopolitical core and can
therefore be restricted to expressing itself through diffuse violence,
albeit on a global scale that could even conduce to increasing US’
hegemonic influence.

What are the prospects for Africa? Much depends on the African leaders’
ability to distinguish the real from the spurious, change their vision
from "can’t do" to "can do," from miniscule to limitless horizons, and
above all to question every received wisdom as they rid their minds of
the fears that blind them to the immense demographic and material
potentials of the globally dispersed communities of Africans.

Accordingly we welcome the recent decision of our Council of States to
reject AFRICOM as a neo-colonial imposition and work instead towards the
establishment of an African Standby Force to address whatever crises may
arise in African countries.


Bakassi: I didn’t act alone– Obasanjo

Written by Abdul-Rahman Abubakar
Thursday, 29 November 2007

Former President Chief Olusegun Obasanjo yesterday denied that he took
unilateral action last year in the decision to hand over the Bakassi
Peninsula to Cameroon, allegedly in respect of the verdict given by the
International Court of Justice (ICJ).

Obasanjo was reacting to a recent decision of the Senate to cancel the
peninsula’s transfer, saying he did not seek for ratification as
provided for by the 1999 Constitution.

A statement signed by the Media Assistant to the former President, Mr.
Adeoba Ojekunle said: "The last Senate and the House of Representatives
under the leaderships of Senator Ken Nnamani and Hon. Aminu Bello Masari
were duly served the Green Tree Agreement between Nigeria and Cameroon
on the ceding of Bakassi Territory for ratification by the National
Assembly."

But speaking to Daily Trust on telephone yesterday, former Senate
President Nnamani said if the Senate failed to ratify the agreement at
that time, "It means we did not deem it appropriate."

He said, "I cannot say if we received such letter or not, but that can
be checked at the office of the Clerk to the National Assembly. If we
received it and did not treat it, that was because we didn’t deem it
appropriate. We were not rubber stamps."

Asked if he advised the former president on the matter, Nnamani said: "I
was not in his legal adviser."

Obasanjo’s statement claimed to have sought for ratification from the
National Assembly, "contrary to the widely held view that the last
Assembly was kept in the dark concerning the agreement."

The former president, who attached to his statement a copy of the letter
dated June 13, 2006 and addressed to Senate resident Ken Nnamani, did
not however include any proof of Senate ratification for ceding of
Bakassi Peninsula.

Obasanjo however said the letter was received on June 15, 2007 and duly
acknowledged by the two chambers.

Former Senate President Nnamani however advised his colleagues to
approach the Bakassi issue with caution saying, "I don’t want anything
that will heat the polity and disrupt the stability we are enjoying now.
The matter is a judgement of the ICJ. We should tread with caution."

The Senate recently nullified the ceding of Bakassi Peninsula and other
parts of Nigeria’s territory to the Republic of Cameroon by former
President, Obasanjo in respect to the ICJ ruling.

Consequently, it requested President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua "to forthwith
stop any further transfer of any part of this country unless the
agreement is ratified by the National Assembly."

The motion, which was moved by Senator Bassey Ewa Henshaw (Cross River
South), was sponsored by twenty one other senators, including eleven
ranking senators who were in the Senate during the reign of Obasanjo.

The lawmakers condem-ned the action of the former ruler saying,
"Notwith-standing the widespread national disaffection and concerns
expressed over the ICJ verdict, and despite his own earlier promise not
to cede the territory to Cameroon, the former President, Chief Olusegun
Obasanjo was reported to have signed an agreement at the Green Tree, New
York on June 12, 2006 in which he agreed to surrender the peninsula to
Cameroon."

Deputy Senate Leader Victor Ndoma-Egba (SAN) insisted that in enforcing
the ICJ ruling on Bakassi, the National Assembly ought to have been
involved.

"Bakassi is mentioned in the first schedule of the Constitution of
Nigeria and for us, full implementation of the ICJ judgment cannot be
considered until during the constitution amendment," Ndoma-Egba added.

Another senior senator, Deputy Minority Leader Senator Olorunimbe
Mamora, queried Obasanjo for not involving the parliament in the
implementation of the ICJ ruling on Bakassi. He said, "Everything that
was done was supposed to have involved the parliament because that is
what divides democracy from autocracy. If you leave out the parliament,
what you have is autocracy. Just like the Europeans shared out Africa as
an international cake, Bakassi was shared out as a national cake."

Mamora described as unfortunate the action of former President Obasanjo
in signing the agreement to cede part of Nigeria on June 12, 2006, "a
day that is celebrated as a day for consolidation of democracy by many
Nigerians."