- Deconstructing America’s latest West Africa diplomatic blitz
By Emmanuel Ogebe
American UN Ambassador Linda Thomas Greenfield was amongst the international VIPs at Liberia’s Presidential inauguration on Monday. The government check for the event bounced and the president-elect swooned amidst his speech in the sweltering African heat.
On the surface it looked like an anticlimactic end to a seismic defeat of an incumbent African president in a country which boasts a Guinness world record for the worst election rigging ever.
But this was actually a great day for the formerly war-racked country – the only African one born with American DNA (thus the capital’s eponymous name “Monrovia” after US President Monroe.)
Reformist ex-Vice President Joseph Boakai successfully ousted soccer-star turned AWOL president George Weah. Uncharacteristically, Weah conceded before the votes were called allowing a peaceful transition unlike when insurgent warlords seized power by cutting up dictators on camera. Responding to his irate supporters, Weah reportedly said, he conceded the elections because he wasn’t like Trump. Ouch!
United States envoy Greenfield told President Boakai corruption ‘ “has held Liberia back with all of its wealth” and that President Boakai should hold corrupt officials accountable. She assured President Boakai that “You can depend on the United States to tell you the truth.’
Ambassador Greenfield bemoaned “democratic backsliding in Africa especially in Guinea, Burkina Faso, Niger, Mali, and Gabon and to have Liberia emerge through with a smooth transition is commendable and by this transition in Liberia, the West African nation is sending a strong message to the rest of Africa,” reports say United States Inaugural Delegation Visits President Boakai; Promises to Help Fight Corruption in Liberia
In Nigeria, Secretary Blinken was faced with quite the opposite situation – according legitimacy to election criminality. the BBC exposed a fake election collator, who announced fake presidential election results falsely granting the ruling party victory (A “Collator” in Nigeria is similar to an “Elector” in America). Yet, his administration is investigating fake electors for attempting to subvert Biden’s election.
Nigeria’s 2023 election violence was deadlier than Liberia’s and even the U.S.’ Jan 6 insurrection but they announced sanctions on unnamed Nigerian officials for “undermining democracy” then immediately announced a high level White House delegation to the inauguration of the vote-rigger (Tinubu)!
Not only did it not meet global or local standards, it palpably did not meet constitutional thresholds. Like the US constitution on which it was modeled, the Nigerian elections have mandatory thresholds similar to the popular and electoral college requirements that weren’t met and should have resulted in a runoff like Liberia’s.
Blinken skipped talk about democracy in Nigeria offering “condolences of the American people to all Nigerians who were affected by the horrific attacks over the Christmas weekend. We mourn their loss, and all killed in recent attacks, including – by the way – staff from our United States mission, locally employed staff and four police officers who were killed in Anambra last May…the United States will support Nigeria as it works to bring about a more secure, a more peaceful, and a more prosperous future for its people.”
He also shared “how our own experience in combatting terrorism around the world over more than 20 years has highlighted just how important civilian security, human rights, and accountability are to achieving genuine and enduring security,” and then finally, the real deal, “We also discussed challenges to democracy and security in West Africa. We very much appreciate Nigeria’s leadership in ECOWAS to try to move to a return to the constitutional order and democracy in Niger after it’s been disrupted. And we talked about building on the important summit that President Tinubu shared in December to try to see Niger get back on to the constitutional path.” So he did finally mention democracy but only in reference to Niger and not Nigeria’s own shambolic elections!
Why is the US legitimizing unconscionable elections that its VIP Observers including even US Africa Envoy Johnnie Carson lambasted?
And why would the US pin it’s hopes for “defending democracy” in Africa on a former Chicago drug mafia accountant and his VP – an alleged complicit former islamo-terror state governor?
In addition to his drug-money laundering case in the US 30 years ago, investigations show a pattern of continuing US money laundering via Senator Tinubu’s children with two multimillion dollar properties in New York and an $11 million property in UK more recently.
Why would Biden dance on the graves of Nigerians murdered in fraudulent elections to foist a money launderer for drug cartels that destroyed American lives as president of its top African trade partner?
Worse still, Biden’s administration plans to return tens of millions of dollars in infamous “Abacha loot” (eponymous to the Nigerian dictator Gen. Sani Abacha, who abducted, tortured, imprisoned and ultimately exiled me to America as a young lawyer 25 years ago) back to his bagman Bagudu in an odious settlement that the US Department of Justice contrived. This is despite DOJ’s public denouncement of the Abacha loot seizure as its biggest “Kleptocracy” forfeiture over a decade ago. Tinubu made Atiku Bagudu, a money laundering legend of the ‘90s, his Budget Minister. Bagudu gets a bonus check from the US and a paycheck from Tinubu in exchange for a slap in the face for America’s justice system and global anti-corruption!
So rather than sign a repatriation agreement in Abuja returning about $200 million of Nigeria’s stolen money in forfeiture in US District of DC, Blinken had pledged $45million in security aid in Ivory Coast to be shared by several West African countries – just slightly above the amount of Bagudu’s loot that is being returned to him by the Biden administration!
Why therefore did Blinken skip the epic inauguration in Liberia – essentially America’s only longstanding historical tie to Africa – to dine with the devil in Nigeria?
Well, when Liberia was embroiled in a horrific civil war that killed 250,000 people, Nigeria spent $12Billion and hundreds of military deaths in a West African military coalition to protect, by proxy, America’s lone African child. Now that America has a Niger problem, it needs Nigeria – again. And if you follow the money trail, it’s the same
West African coalition Blinken gave $45 million to in Ivory Coast!
Niger and Nigeria may well be mistaken but an informed American may recall Niger for three reasons
1. The false story about Niger uranium used to justify Iraq’s WMD invasion and expose a CIA agent in 2002.
2.The death of four US Green berets in a terror ambush in 2018
3. The Terror kidnap of American Philip Walton who was successfully rescued by Navy Seals in neighboring Nigeria on Trump’s orders in 2020.
Last year, Nigeria’s senate failed to give war authorization to newly-installed, legitimacy-bereft Nigerian ruler Bola Tinubu to invade Niger in his first defeat from a parliament he controls.
There was a coup in Niger by the army the US was training in Counter Terrorism – a very awkward situation for America’s almost 2000 troops in two bases. Niger’s coup leader’s cutting ties with Nigeria, France and USA and kicking out the French base risks a loss of the latter’s strategic military foothold in the high terror threat Sahel region.
American troops cannot help unseat the military junta to restore the president (like Russian Wagner forces could) otherwise it would spell doom to their ever being hosted by any country again. So they need another proxy fighter and Nigeria is it. Again. And who better than an illegitimate president with a checkered US past to run the errand especially as chair of the same West African subregional alliance that saved Liberia for America? And for that matter a Muslim invading a predominantly Muslim country as America’s proxy?
- Emmanuel Ogebe, Esq, is a prominent international human rights lawyer based in Washington D. C. who has played a role shaping US Congressional and foreign policy on Nigeria. Mr. Ogebe has been a guest speaker at university campuses across the US and radio and TV programs around the world, including CNN, Fox, Al Jazeera, BBC, the Geneva Summit, United Nations, World Bank, the Canadian Parliament etc. His decades of advocacy led to the US designations of Boko Haram as a foreign terrorist organization (2013), Nigeria as a Country of Particular Concern (2020) and International Criminal Court Prosecutor’s determination of crimes against humanity in Nigeria (2020) to mention a few achievements. He was consulted by Presidents Clinton (2000) and Bush’s Administrations (2003) on their visits to Nigeria. He currently serves as Special Counsel for the “Justice for Jos” Project, advocating for and assisting survivors/victims of terror. Mr Ogebe is a recipient of several awards including President Obama (2009), the Darfur Women Action Group (2016), Diaspora groups in the US as well as US States and local authorities citations and recognitions in Florida, Arkansas and New Jersey amongst others.
