Less than two weeks after the self-orchestrated coup that led to the ouster of then incumbent president of Guinea Bissau, Umaro Embalo, another coup was staged in Benin Republic of President Patrice Talon. It would have been the latest successful coup in the West African sub-region since Mali opened the door that is fast leading African countries, particularly the former French-speaking colonies, down the abandoned route that leads to the khaki-wearing usurpers that postured as the peoples’ saviour. That attempt was foiled by the Nigerian military that responded to the invitation, through a note verbal of the Beninoir regime. Until the Nigerian military joined the fray, the coup that was followed with announcements of land border, sea and air space closure, was as good as successful.
Unlike the one in Guinea Bissau that was announced to the world by the ousted president, announcement of the Beninoir version came through the head of the rebel junta, Pascal Tigri, one of 13 men that were rounded up in the wake of the abortive attempt at seizing power. No sooner had news of the coup reached the world than the usual amplifiers of negative reports about Nigeria taken to the airwaves with wild suggestions and innuendoes about a similar thing happening in Nigeria. Things were politically hazy and nobody knew what was happening in Cotonou beyond the footage of the coup leaders explaining the reason behind their violent seizure of power. By late afternoon on Sunday, the tide had turned with the supporters of the president, not quite the right example of a democratic leader, announcing that the coup had been foiled by loyal soldiers.
The announcers spoke as triumphant warriors who had succeeded in sending the rebel officers out of town. That was the picture of the state of affairs in that small country that functioned more like a younger brother of Nigeria due to the close relationship between the two countries. The relationship between Benin and Nigeria is beyond geographic consanguinity. A large section of the Beninoir population constitutes a part of the Yoruba diaspora. The Yoruba people of that country trace their origin, directly and indirectly, to Ile-Ife, the reputed cradle of the Yoruba. In a sense, Benin is to Southern Nigeria, specifically, the Yoruba west, what Niger is to the Hausa and Fulani people of Northern Nigeria. Their separation across colonial borders is part of the mistake of Berlin. But unlike the north where that close relationship worked against any Nigerian or Nigeria-led attempt to restore democratic governance in the country after President Mohamed Bazoum was deposed in 2023, perhaps it was that factor that counted in favour of an intervention in Benin.
More importantly, the Benin coup was in more sense than one a sinister reminder that Nigeria’s security was being imperiled, almost encircled as the country was, not only by military regimes but regimes that were by that very fact hostile to Nigeria’s interests. If there was any doubt about that after these countries pulled out of the Nigeria-led regional body, ECOWAS, in the wake of the coup in Niger, the grounding of a Nigerian military aircraft by the Burkinabe regime two days ago should have dispelled that. These countries, the so-called Alliance of Sahel States, are spoiling for battle and they are not making any attempt to hide it. The earlier President Bola Tinubu realised this and stopped the unprofitable brotherliness that has over these many years seen different countries scorn our generosity and taken us for granted the better.
Yet, the coup-mongers and their leaders among us, they are invariably the same crowd of wounded losers, sore from the electoral loss of 2023- they would rather have President Tinubu sit on his palms, literally doing nothing, or stay silent out of respect for some abstract concept of non-interference in the internal affairs of sister African nations led by dictators, usurpers buoyed on the populist adulations of either uneducated or at best miseducated populations- peoples whose leaders are not hiding their contempt for Nigeria, a country that is by far their superior by most metrics, no matter what the contrarians claim.
Their desire is to see Nigeria trade civil for military rule and ultimately brought to the sorry pass in which they have found themselves after many months and now years of praise-singing leaders that have done no more than grandstanding and posturing as the Moses that would lead the way to their promised land. These are the upstart countries that some Nigerians want us to emulate in their headlong charge into an undesirable past. So, they demand as they have been doing in the last two and a half years of the Tinubu administration, that the military take an unwarranted incursion into power. They appear to have exhausted all the shots in their armoury of insults and bigoted commentaries and are finally settling in to the idea that their best option is regime change. They are giving up on the ballot, politically homeless as many of them are.
It was in that grumpy mood that the Labour Party’s Vice-Presidential candidate, Yusuf Datti Baba-Ahmed, spoke rather boastfully in a recent interview with Arise News’ Charles Aniagolu. Baba-Ahmed claimed that he almost stopped the swearing in of President Tinubu and went on, ominously, to blame both the military and the judiciary, holding them responsible for the supposed mess that the present administration has made of governance. That was the second time that Baba-Ahmed would be making such directly inciting and inflammatory clarion call to the military among other state institutions on national television. He was more or less asking them to intervene directly in governance and I believe he knows the implication of his utterances.
Lest he imagines anybody is fooled, he is not one of the anonymous online warriors that hide behind their keyboards to spew nonsense. Nigerians understood his call to the military shortly before the inauguration of the present administration for what it was as they do the latest one. There may yet be a time of reckoning and it may come sooner than anticipated. It was no surprise, however, that the night following this ignoble interview, the television station in question came up with a disclaimer, dissociating itself from the interviewee and there are indications it may have pulled down the interview from its online archive.
What Baba-Ahmed and others like him in the political class have been doing amounts to an abuse of platform. They may be biting off more than they can chew and might just find themselves in very uncomfortable places soon. In the meantime, Abuja should brace up for the challenges ahead and teach some of our aggressive neighbours a lesson or two in how not to treat a friendly big brother.
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