US Security Alerts vs The Parable of the Cunning Tortoise

US Security Alerts vs The Parable of the Cunning Tortoise

By Dahiru Lawal

When on Sunday 23rd October 2022, the United States of America issued a “security alert” over what it described as the “risk of terror attacks in Nigeria, especially in the Federal Capital Territory,” one thing was clearly obvious, it was a flagrant disregard for diplomatic etiquette.

Certainly, there are basic guidelines, fundamental norms, practices of protocol and administrative requirements for issuing such intel on a sovereign space – if at all – in such a way that will facilitate robust diplomatic ties between mutually connected and friendly nations without deliberately undermining a government and its people, but America’s overzealous attempt at perpetrating its messianic image through media agenda setting, laced with the kind of scaremongering and information warfare, that wires a population to think and act only within the contextual framework of what it’s message portends – crises and mayhem – was surely not within any tolerable diplomatic line of action for any nation to condone no matter its size.

Nothwtsanding its initial whistling, when about two days after, the US issued another “updated” alert on account of “heightened risk of terrorist attacks in Abuja,” and even said it was evacuating its citizens, with similar warnings to Americans in Equatorial Guinea, Chad and South Africa, almost at about the same time, causing Britain, Germany, Australia and Canada to follow its lead, America’s motif for doing so became suspicious.

This is especially so because in the wake off that update followed a fake news which was immediately debunked by PRNigeria’s fact check that American soldiers arrested a terrorist in an Abuja estate.

As a budding communicator, through a content analysis of the substance of both alerts, i could deduce a lack of actionable intelligence, vague predictions and watery confidence. I mean, if such intel actually exists, since it is using media channels of its host country whose audience are at least 90% consumers of the information, it is only fair that the message names the group planning the attack, the mode of the attack and even a timeframe. But when the basic who, why, when, what, where and how remains unanswered substantially, all a discerning minds could only see is a script at play which serves as a means to an end, but to what end?

Seeing through this require a deeper analytic sense, one that demands seeing past the infallible posturing of an acclaimed world power to the plainness of the message which is lacking in substance or evidence – typical of cheats and tricks in folkloric tales.

This only reminds me of some of the main elements and themes found in African folktales about the cunning tortoise – a slow, crafty and wise creature that uses his wisdom to outsmart others.

One of such tales which was created and recreated over years from generation to generation told the story once upon a time when tortoise went to the market place. There he saw the wares on display. He had no money on him to buy his needs. He thought up a plan of taking away, the wares without paying a dime. His plan was to dig a tunnel from his house to the market place so that he would threaten the market when it is in full session.

He employed Rabbit to dig the tunnel. One day he went to the market place through the tunnel as he played a drum and threatened to kill whoever waited to meet him. The threat sent fear through the spines of all the animals at the market place. They all ran away leaving their wares. Tortoise went out of the tunnel and carted all the wares to his house through the tunnel. He went home and ate as much as he wanted while other animals lamented of their losses. Eventually, the cunny tortoise was caught red-handed when his victims also devised a trick in ambushing him.

As citizens of a great African nation, just like the animals in this folktale, if we continue to remain susceptible to all the drumbeat we hear, the measurabilty of our vulnerability to captivity will remain eternal.

Like the tortoise, America is the most realist nation on earth, it approaches the reality of international politics from an egoistic nature and disregard for central authority in pursuit of its foreign policy goals but its greatest undoing remains its inability to observe the tip of the axe while chipping the wood.

For instance, at about the same period it was issuing alerts on African soils, the husband of its House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was attacked and severely beaten with a hammer by an assailant who broke into the couple’s San Francisco home.

In May 2022 mass shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas and another one in Laguna Woods, California targeting congregants of a church that serves the Taiwanese community were all horrible attacks that could have been averted through intel security alerts and “citizen evacuation.” All these carries chilling echoes of the January 6th 2021 US Capitol insurrection and other violent attacks that happens daily in the United States.

It then beggars belief how convinient it is for a country with a fixture of firearms death in its daily life aggregating to nearly 1.5 million being killed between 1968 and 2017 – higher than the number of soldiers killed in every US conflict since the American War for Independence in 1775 – to promote themselves as custodians of actionable intelligence on African soils, far away from home where the security incidents is ongoing with nearly 53 people killed each day by a firearm.

But then, such use of information warfare for foreign influence operations only feed fat on our gullibility as a people which in turn not only scares away potental investors but threaten even local endeavors for economic prosperity, with schools closing down and flights changing destination routes from Abuja – very apt and timely for the nairas continous fall against the greenback in the parallel market one might think.

Yet, just about two weeks after following the US lead, the UK government on Monday updated its travel advisory on Nigeria that it “no longer advises against all but essential travel to the Federal Capital Territory, including the city of Abuja.”

This is simply a case of repeat broadcast – the use of media channels for influence operations towards foreign policy goal through a preceedence. In the past, there had been similar reports orchestrated by some interests which nevertheless featured prominently on front pages of National Dailies. One such was the front pages of the Vanguard and other newspapers in May 2014 which claimed that the “US Marines Located Abducted Chibok Girls and arrested Boko Haram Commanders,” with pictures that later turned out to be false. Even in this episode, media narratives had begun to carry screaming headlines on national dallies that reads, ““Terror Threat: American Soldiers Raid Abuja Estate” but was immediately updated after fact-checks by PRNigeria proved otherwise.

While the onus of demanding for peace, security of lives and properties from the Nigerian government lies on its citizens, the US should learn to honor diplomatic guidelines, fundamental norms, practices of protocol and administrative requirements on the occasion of such eventualities.

The US should also understand that causing public panic in such situations without a motif is more counter productive than sharing intelligence with its host and the Nigerian intelligence and security circle must rise up to security incidence in order not to allow for a vacuum that creates an echo chamber for such disinformation to thrive.

Finally, Nigerians must understand that like the cunning tortoise, most nation that seeks to pursue an agenda does so with a touch of Niccolo Machiavelli’s political treatise, the Prince where he propounded the idea that when an interest is at stake, there should be no consideration for justice nor injustice, religion or culture, neither ethics nor morality as one must strike like a lion and a wolf.

Therefore, Nigerians and Africa by extension must take leadership of their own country which is not defined by theories, stories, and perceptions of foreign influence. We must believe in our own country and protect it. This reminds me of a salient dialigoue from the recently released 2022 hit movie “The Woman King” where King Ghezo after ending the reign of the Oyo empire which thrived with slavely supported by white folks, bravely proclaims thus; “the Europeans and the Americans have seen that if you want to hold a people in chains, one must first convince them that they are meant to be bound. We joined them in becoming our own oppressor.”

In regurgitating King Ghezo’s message along the same lines, we should understand that we are a people bound by our own shared value and there is power in our mind, our unity, in our culture, if we understand that power, we will be limitless. We must use this to unshackle and end the reign of the African nay Nigerian story through the eyes of western foreign influence.

Dahiru writes from Abuja via [email protected]