It fascinates me when Nigerians ascribe Western interactions with the country as some great conspiracy. There is very little strategic brain power dedicated to Nigeria in western capitals. Nor have western powers had any grand strategy for Africa beyond CT, migration, China. Policy is depends roughly on 2 types of people; international relations grads on a 2/3 year posting or jaded diplomats, the former trying not to rock the boat so they can get moved onto something better/ more prestigious, the latter networking to retire to lucrative consultancies

1) On #Niger: life comes at you fast, a story in 3 parts
a)There's a fascinating coordination amongst the Northern Nigerian political & religious elite to stymie @officialABAT efforts in Niger, something which to me is almost as interesting as the Nigerien coup itself. 2) Across Nigerian media there's level of joined up, coherent messaging, barely seen in Nigerian politics, focused on preventing military action, lifting sanctions & leaving the junta to arrange a transition. With the coup framed in the context of nefarious foreign interference.

1) The fight for Nigeria’s top office has taken an interesting turn. The inclusion of @officialABAT drug charges in @PeterObi election petition is as much high level trolling as it is a legitimate prayer. 2) It is highly unlikely a foreign conviction from the early 90s will exclude someone from contesting but as part of the petition it will have to be litigated & the tribunal & most likely Supreme Court will have to litigate on whether someone with a drug case can be President.

Written before Achebe died. Seems apt now
THERE WAS A COUNTRY- A REVIEW
The first thing I will say is that this is not Achebe’s best book, be it fiction or non fiction. Nor will I say it is his most relevant; as Things Fall Apart still wins that accolade just for being what it is It is however one of the most relevant books about Nigeria by a Nigerian. Not just for what it says but for what it causes to be said.
Once it was published the usual suspects inevitably emerged from the wood work.

1) Nigeria 2023: to coup or not to coup? Almost every conversation about the upcoming elections involve the question ‘Will there be a coup?’
Lets examine this.
Will there be a coup in Nigeria in or around the Presidential election?
Yes and No 2)NO:
Operational:
(a)Manpower: a coup requires troops, with weapons & ammo. The ability to mobilise troops of sufficient quantity to capture & defend Aso Rock, much less defend Abuja from counter attack is challenging.

1] The Siege of #Abuja has begun, we can draw interesting parallels with the 1969 siege of Owerri by Biafran forces in that you have a nominally weaker force, gradually encircling a much more powerful and well equipped one in order to destroy it but I would rather not. 2]Lets address the nature of this fight, I believe the enemy (or enemies) have broken the campaign down into several phases (1) Preparation of the Battlespace (2) Shaping the Battlespace (3) Isolating the Battlespace (4) The Attack (5) Exploitation.

The only western power to have won a near peer conflict in the past 40 years is the UK. Defeating Argentina at range on land, in the air, on, under & over the sea, despite being out numbered in all those areas. This was not due to superior tech or equipment. Argentina had modern ships, submarines, aircraft carriers, fast jet, ground attack aircraft, armour, artillery. & much more of them than the UK did, either on the island or a short hop away on the mainland.

There appears to be a certain amount of denial & coping regards Ukraine’s current reverses on one hand & gloating on the other.
This is the problem when war is treated as just another form of family entertainment, with people waiting for plot twists or the hero to save the day War consists of campaigns, operations, battles & skirmishes. One side can win every battle and lose the war (US: Vietnam), one side can consistently take horrific casualties & still prevail (Soviets: WW2). It is broadly immaterial unless viewed as a whole.

Putin’s popularity amongst Africans & support for the invasion of Ukraine seems to follow fairly predictable patterns (1)The reflexive ‘anti west’ attitude of many Africans has made this a fairly simplistic case of my ‘enemies enemy’ without any interrogation of the deeper issues (2) The Russian narrative & propaganda supports the pre disposed biases of some Africans (NATO wants to invade Russia by setting up bases = the west wants to destabilise Africa by setting up bases) (3) The Soviet history of supporting liberation wars against imperial powers

The threat in @MBuhari's tweet is even more tone deaf than expected but unfortunately should be taken seriously. Despite, decades of failure, the political & military leadership of Nigeria is convinced that force is the only response to any problem. Having failed to defeat Boko Haram, stop ethnic violence, herdsmen/ farmer violence, address crime and insecurity or Niger Delta militancy, with an overstretched, understrength military, the Government has fascinatingly decided to voluntarily open another front.

On the apparent @NigAirForce NAF475 Alphajet loss: 1) There is no evidence the aircraft was actually shot down
2) The editing with the photoshopped explosions leads one to assume that even if #BokoHaram managed to score a hit on the plane, it did not explode in the air because 3) The wreckage appears concentrated in one spot, making an mid air explosion unlikely as that would have dispersed wreckage over quite distant
4)The video shows a burning aircraft descending at speed almost vertically towards the ground

1)This depressing statement says everything about the dearth of strategic thinking in Nigeria. When Nigeria hired PMCs in 2015 they came with well trained, well led, well equipped soldiers, air support & a logistics chain. This is what led to their successes.

https://twitter.com/thecableng/status/1333827536573390850

2) So the question is why has Nigeria failed to develop a well trained, well equipped, supplied and led Army after 10 years of counter insurgency? South Africa’s Parabats were formed after SADF personnel attended a single course in the UK in 1961.

Whilst it is understandable that people wish to replace the Nigerian military service chiefs, it is akin to treating a headache when you have malaria. The issues are much wider than the individuals in post at the moment. In fact a personality based system is part of the problem Complete security sector reform is needed. All of Nigeria's problems are internal, thus within the purview of the @NigeriaPolice, the deployment of the military is indicative of its failure. The Army is not fit for this purpose & is incapable of reforming to respond to reality