* Insists terror alert not meant to embarrass Nigeria
Alex Enumah in Abuja
A Washington-based United States of America and Nigeria Law Group has called on President Muhammadu Buhari to cut short his trip to the United Kingdom, and tackle the ravaging insecurity facing the country, insisting that the terror alert was not meant to embarrass Nigeria.
In the alternative, the group urged Buhari to properly hand over the instrumentality of power to Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, to act as President pending his return to the country.
President Buhari is currently on a short vacation in the UK to attend to his health.
The group predicated its call on the recent terror alert by the US and other Western countries in Nigeria and the subsequent evacuation of some foreign nationals from Nigeria’s capital city, Abuja, recently.
The group, which noted that its recent mission to Nigeria was prematurely truncated following the elevated terror alert, warned that the Nigerian government and Nigerians, in general, should not take the alert with levity but should begin to do something about their safety and security.
In a publication on its Facebook page on Thursday, the US Nigeria Law Group described the “mass evacuation of US Diplomats and family members by all available commercial flights and chartered flights” as “precipitous and unprecedented in Nigeria’s history”, adding that the US did not even make the such magnitude of evacuation during the Biafra civil war in the 1960s.
The publication titled: ‘Fact-finding Report On US Terror Threat and Mass Evacuation from Abuja – The Afghanistization of Nigeria,” which was signed by the US-Nigeria Law Group Coordinator, Mr. Emmanuel Ogebe, noted that the two occasions that the US came close to evacuation both involved Buhari, hence the need for him to be decisive in the handling of the current insecurity situation facing the country.
“In 2015, American diplomats were on standby for evacuation over concerns of a repeat of the 2011 Post-Election Violence orchestrated by Buhari’s supporters if he lost the election. The concession by President Jonathan defused the tension.
“This time, rather than remain in the country to give a vote of confidence in his security apparatchik, Buhari absconded from Nigeria ostensibly to attend a vaccine conference in Korea, returned and then promptly departed on a two-week holiday to England”.
While calling on President Buhari to return home and cancel all further overseas trips to frontally face the insecurity at home, the group described as “unconscionable” the fact that he departed without empowering Vice President Osinbajo as acting president.
“We urge the US government to take seriously our repeated concerns about religious extremism and persecution in Nigeria that has metastasized to the point that American diplomats have now become Internationally Displaced Persons and to reinstate Nigeria’s CPC status.
“This evacuation is the unfortunate destination point of years of deceptive policy positioning. It is not too late to reverse the course. We commend humanitarians such as the ransomed American missionary who declined our offer of evacuation to the US due to her lifelong commitment to Nigeria.
“We urge the Nigerian public to be vigilant and defend themselves as those for peace significantly outnumber those for terror,” the group said.
The group also stated that contrary to claims in some quarters, the recent evacuation of some US diplomats and their families from Abuja was not meant to embarrass Nigeria.
The group claimed that the move was aimed at avoiding the loss of lives of Americans who unfortunately have been victims of various terror groups such as Boko Haram, ISWAP and ISIS within Nigeria and the West Africa region.
According to Ogebe, “the US gave Nigeria adequate notice to remedy the situation before embarking on the costly option of extracting American personnel and families out of Abuja. He said that, “to underscore how serious, the situation was, even pets of American personnel were evacuated. These included dogs and cats”.
Ogebe, who stated that the purpose of the group’s report on the evacuation which affected them also was to provide sufficiently informing to enable the general public to take appropriate care, disclosed that intelligence reports made available to them revealed that but for share luck some Americans residing in Abuja would have lost their lives in a failed bomb attack.
“There were at least two immediate incidents that triggered the post-haste departure of Americans from the largest US embassy in Africa”, he said, “the first incident was the detection of an IED (Incendiary Explosive Device) which had been successfully deployed at a US diplomatic compound. Fortunately for the occupants, the bomb failed to detonate and so there was no casualty”.
Ogebe also disclosed that in another instance sufficient alarm raised was that terrorists were able to actually identify an unmarked US diplomatic compound and tactically deliver a bomb thereto, adding that the US alerted the Nigerian government “to take serious action”, while forensic evaluation was in progress.
“Subsequently Nigerian authorities busted a terror cell proximate to yet another larger US diplomatic compound in Abuja. That terror cell had reportedly stockpiled bombs in readiness for the destruction of four churches also within its radius. By this time, the forensic experts had concluded that the first IED recovered was lethal and that only poor construction had kept it from exploding.
“Given this finding, the US authorities determined they could not rely on luck next time and having urged Nigeria to take stronger action as they did not want to pull out of the country, and not seeing a robust crackdown, ordered a mass evacuation,” the lawyer stated.
While arguing that the US does not undertake such a massive logistical operation to embarrass a nation, he said the action by the US Embassy only demonstrated the high value and priority the US places on the lives of its citizens anywhere in the world.
“It is to be emphasized that even in the US right now, the government has issued an elevated security threat around next week’s midterm elections. Responsible nations prioritize the security of their citizens and pets over propaganda.
“The Afghanistan-style evacuation is to be taken seriously as an indicator that rather than secure the nation, the Buhari administration has brought Nigeria to the verge of Talibanisation,” the group said.
