Nigeria as pawn in China-US rivalry

The CCTV News is China’s answer to America’s CNN. Trust the former therefore to look for ways to cast China in a better light than the United States. When Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari visited America’s President Barack Obama the other time, CCTV News searched hard for a sensational angle to report. So, during its 6:15pm newscast on July 23, 2015, the news channel gleefully announced as a headline that Buhari indicted the US over its role in the Boko Haram insurgency in Nigeria. Right from that moment, I had wondered if this was possible considering how well the visit had gone up to that point. The news anchor presented other news items, then she got back to the story on Buhari. The four sentences in the footage that CCTV News chose to show out of all that the Nigerian leader said on the issue were enough for me to reach some conclusions. One, I thought the CCTV news producers and editors weren’t versed enough in English Language (Chinese possibly being their mother tongue) to read the President correctly. Two, I thought the news channel chose to be mischievous in order to cast the visit in a way that showed China as the better friend to Nigeria compared to the US. I didn’t change my mind after I read the full text of the President’s speech. Moreover, on July 29 and in spite of denials by Nigeria of this reading of the visit, the presenter of “The Heat”, a CCTV News interview programme, referred to “Nigeria’s indictment of the US” over the Boko Haram insurgency. But what did the Nigerian leader actually say on that occasion? “In our efforts at combating the activities of Boko Haram, the new government has sought and obtained the support of not only our neighbours but other international friends and partners,” Buhari had said in his speech at the US Institute for Peace. “Regrettably,” he continued, “the blanket application of the Leahy Law by the United States on the grounds of unproved allegations of human rights violations levelled against our forces has denied us access to appropriate strategic weapons to prosecute the war against the insurgents. In the face of the abduction of innocent schoolgirls from their hostels, indiscriminate bombings of civilians in markets and places of worship, our forces have remained largely impotent because they do not possess the appropriate weapons and technology which they could have had, had the so-called human rights violations not been an obstacle. “Unwittingly, and I dare say, unintentionally, the application of the Leahy Law amendment by the US Government has aided and abetted the Boko Haram terrorist group in the prosecution of its extremist ideology and hate, the indiscriminate killings and maiming of civilians, in raping of women and girls, and in their other heinous crimes. I believe this is not the spirit of the Leahy Law. I know the American people cannot support any group engaged in these crimes. I therefore strongly appeal to both the Executive Arm and the US Congress to examine how the US Government can provide us with far more substantial counter- terrorism assistance with minimal strings. The longer we delay, the deadlier the Boko Haram gets. At all events, we have re-written the rules of engagement protecting the rights of combatants and in particular safeguarding civilians in theatres of conflict.” My reading of this address was that, yes, the US made allegations of human rights abuses, Buhari didn’t see the allegations made as enough reason to deny Nigeria needed arms because of the exigencies, and in any case the US had been known not to be so strict with some undemocratic regimes. Taken against the background of the many words of thanks Buhari had uttered when he arrived the US, it was obvious that an indictment of the US Government would have been out of sync. In fact, a close examination of some of the comments he made extempore at the Institute for Peace would show he placed the blame for not accessing US military assistance more on the past administration in Nigeria. While he acknowledged that the US Government wouldn’t support actions that ran counter to the US laws, he however enjoined it to ensure that its policies didn’t in any way encourage Boko Haram in Nigeria. No doubt, any media platform would search for eye-grabbing headlines for its reports; but when the story itself contains nothing that supports such sensationalism, it becomes a burden. This puts off the more objective mind, casting the journalists involved in unnecessary negative light. I was surprised the CCTV News interpreted Buhari’s address the way it did. Then, I thought maybe I shouldn’t have been surprised. It’s because China is ever in a struggle with the US on the global stage, and the CCTV News is its global TV platform for this purpose. From democracy to trade, and test of military prowess to human rights, China and the US are at war. There’s nothing extraordinary in this; contest for superiority is the flavour in international relations. To paint Nigeria as an enemy of the US in this contest as the CCTV News did that time was another matter however. Was China uncomfortable that Nigeria under its new administration sought to recover the ground it once lost with the US? Or was the angle to the visit which the CCTV News chose to report a means of showing China as the more reliable partner? This is more so considering that Nigeria had actually turned its back on the West and went for China under a past military administration. This notwithstanding, the fact remains that Nigeria has never left the West for China, and it never will. Like every other developing nation, Nigeria will want to enjoy the best of the two worlds, the best of two opportunities that the West and the East provide. There will be bumps in Nigeria’s relations with the West from time to time. Even when relations with the West seem to be smooth, Nigeria remains a nation that no western nation fully knows where to grab, whether by the wrist or by the elbow; but that doesn’t translate into an advantage for China. I got a glimpse of this at a time I had a chat with a senior official in the European Union Delegation to Nigeria and ECOWAS. He admitted that of all the countries the EU deals with, Nigeria was one that they were never sure of who to rely on in order to exert effective pressure and have their way on issues that were of interest to them. He had mentioned a couple of individuals and agencies, but concluded with the observation that getting a particular entity to use in influencing Nigeria’s position on a matter had always proved difficult. With that picture, even the US can’t go to bed, sure that it has Nigeria wrapped up with regard to any matter. No country can pocket a nation of over 170 million people with its vibrant multi-layered forces; not the West, not China. For the internal dynamics here aren’t so straightforward to either grasp or manipulate with any level of assurance. So, if the CCTV News had carried that piece of news from that unfavourable angle with the intention of showing off that China had better and trusted relations with Nigeria than the US, it missed a point. Anyway, in what real terms has China assisted Nigeria in the fight against Boko Haram? It’s worth noting that in the same newscast where the CCTV News broadcast its negative take on Buhari’s address, its Nigerian correspondent, Deji Badmus (formerly of the Channels TV) was interviewed by the CCTV News anchor. Asked to comment on Buhari’s visit to the US, Badmus found a way to chip in his disapproval of how the television station had reported the President’s comment on the US and Boko Haram. “We shouldn’t take President Buhari’s comment out of context”, Badmus had said among other things. Another CCTV News correspondent (an American) who was, side by side with Badmus, asked to comment on the visit said, “I’m going to start off from Deji’s (Badmus) excellent analysis.” Obviously, he too didn’t agree with the CCTV News’ unfounded sensational take. That was one huge moment in which I concluded that Nigeria or Africa would always need to have a voice to speak up for it, otherwise foreigners would make pawn of it as it suits their designs.