The Afghans have a history of seeing off an invading superpower. In the 1980s, the Soviet Union occupied Afghanistan, but the Afghans forced them out in 1989. Similarly, in 2001, the United States and its allies invaded the country and overthrew the Taliban government, but twenty years later, on August 15, 2021, the Taliban returned to power. Yet, while the Afghans have the resilience to resist and defeat powerful foreign forces, they lack the will to build their own country. Herein lies the lesson for Nigeria!
The story of what some now describe as “American humiliation” is indeed remarkable. In the 1980s, the United States armed the Mujahideen against the Soviets. The Taliban then fought alongside the Mujahideen. But after defeating the Soviets, they both split and became bitter rivals, and turned on each other. The Taliban seized power and formed a government in 1996 but allowed Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda terrorist group to take refuge in the country. It was from Afghanistan that Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda plotted and executed the terrorist attacks on the US on September 11, 2001, later known as 9/11.
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The 9/11 attacks took America and its allies to Afghanistan in 2001.
They overthrew the Taliban government for harbouring and refusing to hand over Osama bin Laden, who was later killed by American forces, under President Barack Obama’s government, on May 2, 2011. But after overthrowing the Taliban regime, the US and its allies stay on in Afghanistan with the aim of reconstructing the country and turning it into a westernised democracy. They propped up the Afghan government and trained the Afghan army. It was the heavy presence of Western troops on the ground, with heavy air support, that kept Afghanistan together and repelled the Taliban. But the Taliban turned into guerrilla fighters and waited for when the US and its allies would be forced by circumstances to leave Afghanistan.
Of course, America could not stay in Afghanistan forever. The financial cost –over $1trillion – and the human cost –about 2,452 American soldiers killed – were too much for them to absorb. President Donald Trump made it his government’s policy to withdraw American troops from Afghanistan. In fact, envisaging that the Taliban might return to power after US and allied forces had left Afghanistan, President Trump signed a peace deal with the Taliban in Doha, Qatar, on February 29, 2020!
When President Joe Biden came into Office in January this year, he too vowed to end the “forever war”, and, in fact, set a deadline of August 31 for withdrawing all US troops from Afghanistan. That deadline was to make sure the US left Afghanistan before the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.
Well, as the American troops withdrew, the Taliban advanced, taking one city after another. On August 15, seeing the danger ahead, the Afghan president, Ashraf Ghani, fled the country with his family and close aides. On the same day, the Taliban seized Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan. The rest, as they say, is history. After twenty years, the Taliban are back!
Interestingly, just a day after the collapse of the Afghanistan government, President Muhammadu Buhari wrote an article in the Financial Times pleading with the West to help fight militancy in Africa. In the article, titled “Africa needs more than US military aid to defeat terror” (Financial Times, August 16, 2021), President Buhari accused the West of neglecting Africa, saying: “Despite rising attacks across Africa, international assistance has not followed in step”. He added: “As Africans, we face our day of reckoning just as some sense the West is losing its will for the fight”. In his view, “Africa’s fight against terror is the world’s fight”.
But really? The article struck me for its incongruence with reality and the prevailing mood in the West. The United States had just signalled to the world that it cares deeply about the financial and human costs of its foreign interventions and, as such, had ended its twenty-year military presence in Afghanistan. Yet, President Buhari was asking Americans to turn their attention to Africa, which he described as “the new frontier of global militancy”.
To be sure, everyone seems to agree that Africa is, or could be, the epicentre of terror. In his column in the London Times last week, William Hague, a former British foreign secretary, wrote that “Africa will make Afghan crisis seem a sideshow”, and the newspaper carried a story titled: “Taliban victory inspires jihadist attacks in Africa”. So, President Buhari is right: Africa is the new frontier of global terror. But he’s wrong in saying that Africa’s fight against terror is the West’s fight. Truth is, that’s not how America sees it. The US believes that, like Afghanistan, Africa, nay Nigeria, lacks the will to do the needful to secure its future!
President Buhari is right: Africa is the new frontier of global terror. But he’s wrong in saying that Africa’s fight against terror is the West’s fight. Truth is, that’s not how America sees it
For instance, President Buhari wanted the world to believe that the West’s military support and investment in infrastructure would make Africa secure and stable. But that formula did not work in Afghanistan. As President Biden puts it: “We spent over a trillion dollars. We trained and equipped an Afghan military force of some 300,000 strong – as well equipped as any army in the world. We gave them every chance to determine their own future, what we could not provide was the will to fight for that future”. Of course, nation-building can’t be done by outsiders; it must, ultimately, be done by the people of each country.
That is what Afghanistan lacks: home-grown nation-building. The Economist magazine described Afghanistan as “a highly centralised state, whose constitution echoed the monarchy of the 1960s”. As a result, there were tensions between the centre and the ethnic-based regions, which the Taliban exploited by securing the loyalty of local people. Then, the political and military elites were utterly corrupt, which also alienated them from the people. With that detachment from the people, the Afghan army and government were living on borrowed time. Thus, once the US withdrew its troops and air power, the 352,000-strong Afghan army simply melted like a vapour as the Taliban advanced.
Now, Nigeria’s situation is not exactly the same as Afghanistan’s, but there are parallels. Like Afghanistan, Nigeria is a highly-centralised state, with a Constitution that gives the Federal Government too much power and that allows the president to behave, as President Buhari does, like an absolute monarchy. And, of course, the political and military elites are utterly corrupt. Like in Afghanistan, the government’s detachment from the people, its failure to tackle poverty and give hope to ordinary Nigerians, as well as widespread corruption by the political elites are the main causes of separatist tendencies and militancy in Nigeria.
In his Financial Times article, President Buhari said military means alone cannot defeat militancy. Yet, military force is his reflex response to separatist agitations in Nigeria. He rejects dialogue as a tool of nation-building. He makes absolutely no effort to engage in any communicative action aimed at forging a national consensus on the way forward for Nigeria.
Yet, apart from the separatist agitators, who are soft targets, the Buhari government has failed to tackle the bandits and insurgents. Truth is, the staying power of Boko Haram, despite being declared “technically defeated” several times, and the spread and daringness of bandits, who recently attacked the Nigerian Defence Academy and kidnapped soldiers, expose Nigeria’s fragility and proneness to insurgency.
But, as Afghanistan has shown, there is, ultimately, no military solution, external or domestic, to building a nation. The answer lies in forging internal unity and cohesion, building a functioning state and economy and running a good government that meets the needs of the people. Sadly, Nigeria lacks the will to create such a future. Well, it must learn from Afghanistan’s failure!
