IF there was any time the administration of President Goodluck Jonathan, needed to amass public opinion and mobilise the population behind it, I think that time has offered itself in a platter diamond via the Nigeria-South Africa arms impasse.
This will not be the first time South Africa will spat on Nigeria's pride and sensibility while aligning with the West against its major benefactor during the liberation struggles. Nigeria used all its resources to fight the big powers of the West, just to ensure that ALL nations of the Southern Africa region were decolonised - Angola, Mozambique, Namibia, Zambia, Zimbabwe, South Africa...now even Robert Mugabe, insults Nigerians.
Interestingly, one after the other, all these nations have turned their backs against Nigeria, the one nation that stood and mortgaged its economy and the future of its generations for their sake. The late General Murtala Mohammed, nationalised major multinational corporations like Coca Cola, Shell & co; to give them hope and the major beneficiary from that was Apartheid South Africa. Today's South Africa is a manifestation of the West's aligning with the Apartheid regime in investing heavily in arms production, automobiles, heavy technology (which they would not share with Black Africa), etc.
In 1976 Nigeria also boycotted the Montreal Summer Olympics and some of our finest athletes ever assembled for the global fiesta remained disappointed to this day because our fathers loved our brothers (more than themselves and their children, and their children).
Fast track 2014 arms deal
Arms trade globally has transcended economic benefits to political alignments. The history of Nigeria's colonialism and the decolonisation struggles are well documented. Nigeria's decolonisation struggle was essentially an academic exercise unlike several other nations where arms struggle was involved. But all along, it was clear what direction the colonial authorities favoured on who it would hand power. The British colonial administration at No. 10 Downing Street and Buckingham Palace had never hidden their distastes for the hawkish anti-colonial champions of the South.
They had loved the feudal North from where it first experimented the indirect rule regime to perfection. They loved the North's subservient altitude which never threatened their economy strangle hold on the colony. In contrast, they were getting all manner of knocks from Southern intellectuals like Herbert Macaulay. Southern Kings like Jaja of Opobo, Oba Ovonramwen of Benin Kingdom, Oba Kosoko of Lagos paid for daring colonial rule. They were banished for daring the imperial authorities.
With the West and Northern Nigerian elites standing against full military operation against the Boko Haram insurgents, Nigerian military authorities had to look southward for more friendly markets to buy arms.
South Africa was chosen over and above Brazil as a mark of African brotherhood. As it has been revealed from the office of the Nigeria national security adviser, the South African federal authorities were fully in the know of the arms purchase deal, but only blocked the deal to pacify Western allies and spite Nigeria.
In 2009, South Africa had also blocked some Nigerian investors from investing where it felt they would be challenging local firms. The government of late President Umar Yar'Adua, tried to make it a diplomatic issue, but the president's ill-health didn't give him the full grasp of the situation. Till this date, South Africans remain hostile to Nigerians and their investments, while they make huge profits from investments here from oil & gas, telecommunications, hotels, farms and retail sales.
President Jonathan, like late General Sani Abacha (in 1996) can exploit the current impasse to the nation's benefit and increase our share of diplomatic leverage. Gen. Abacha sacrificed the defense of that year's AFCON hosted by South Africa in defiance of Nelson Mandela's alignment with the West against his regime.
How do you know your friends? Your friends stand by you in times of trouble, not those who turn against you in crisis times and only return when all is calm. South Africa leaders and their citizens have shown over and over again that they are no friends of Nigeria. Now is time for Nigeria to go for broke and call-off this Zuma bluff!!!
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