Great comments on the piece where I postulated on Trump’s call with Putin, and the implications for Ukraine. As I extracted from the novel, Uwadiegwu, having a war with your neighbour to please a foreigner is an own-goal and a poison pill, because in ancestral Africa, they say that friends come and go, but brethren are eternal.
In other words, using another ancestral wisdom, blood is thicker than water! You do not choose your brethren, but you have control over who becomes your friends, and those could be re-adjusted over time.
That takes me to a commendable moment for Nigeria’s Tinubu: he resisted the urge to fight for “democracy” when Niger, Burkina Faso and Mali went with militocracy! I mean they could have provided him with weapons, and convinced him to open a war front to make democracy happen. But he and ECOWAS demonstrated an uncommon wisdom, and we thank them for not getting brothers to fight to appease a foreigner.
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So, as you analyse what that Trump’s call means for Ukraine, think how we avoided becoming a Ukraine in West Africa. Nigerians united and told the leadership: whether Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger want to practice whatever they want, no military force is needed to force them to change their minds, and it is unnecessary to follow the instructions of France and the Western Europe to engage brethren at war.
Sure, we are lucky, and that is the difference between the 1980s and 2020s because had this happened in 1982, there would have been a war in West Africa. We appreciate the value of the internet which provides a platform for ordinary citizens to make themselves heard loud and clear. Did you notice that the Nigerian Customs has reversed itself on the new import taxes after we all condemned it?
For Ukraine, the “friend” America is partly leaving while the neighbour Russia remains eternal. Ukraine can choose its friends and its friends can choose it, but it has limited influence on who becomes its neighbours! This is not to praise Russia or whatever, this is to explain how West Africa got into decades of wars funded by foreigners. We hope NEVER again.
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Tinubu stopped potential war with Niger? No, Tinubu was stopped from embarking on a destructive war with Niger. We cannot rewrite events as they played out. A 34 year old by name David probably played an outsized role in stopping the madness, everything subsequently was face-saving. Even on this platform, we know the opposing and supporting camps. Nobody needs to get it twisted.
The thing about Ukraine war is that it ended up proving nothing, instead it made things worse. But of course it’s not really about Russia and Ukraine, instead Ukraine was used to shake Russia up, and on that count, the war pretty much achieved its objective. Once you bring emotions into these things, you start losing.
When you cannot take a war to your supposed enemy, there’s no point fighting, because any war fought on your land is your loss. Head over heart.
The war in Ukraine did not prove anything; on the contrary, it exacerbated the situation. Naturally, however, the conflict is not really about Russia and Ukraine; rather, Ukraine was exploited to make Russia uncomfortable, and in that regard, the war essentially succeeded in its goal. When you start to get emotional about these things, you lose.