The proposed military invasion of the Niger Republic to restore Mohamed Bazoum to power was rejected by Femi Fani-Kayode, a former minister of aviation.
According to Anaedoonline, the former minister had stated that a lethal response would be necessary if Niger, Burkina Faso, or Mali were to attack Nigeria.
The All Progressives Congress (APC) chief asserted that Nigeria’s military is prepared and able to protect the nation if conflict breaks out in the future.
Fani-Kayode continued to comment on the situation via a Twitter post on Monday, saying it would be foolish for Nigeria to try to fix the problems caused by France in the Niger Republic.
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According to the former minister, sending the troops into battle and letting Nigerian blood be shed simply so France could keep subjecting Nigeriens to servitude would be unfair, wicked, and counterproductive.
He wrote: “I am on record as saying that if Niger, Burkina Faso, Mali or ANY OTHER country attacks Nigeria, violates our territorial integrity or attempts to take one inch of our nation we must & will fight them to the last man.
“I have also said that Nigeria’s defence budget is FAR higher than all the other 14 countries in West Africa PUT TOGETHER & that there is no nation in our sub-region that can defeat us in a military conflict despite our many challenges. I stand by these words.
“I am, however, constrained to add the following as a word of caution to those who seek to “cry havoc & unleash the dogs of war” & as a piece of unsolicited advice to the advocates of military invasion. It would be imprudent & unwise for Nigeria to attempt to clean up France’s mess in Niger Republic.
“The French are the most rapacious, greedy, vicious, pervasive, destructive & unrelenting neo-colonial foreign power on the African continent. They have done nothing for Africa other than pillage, rape, undermine, plunder & take advantage of her.
“To deploy our military, go to war & allow Nigerian blood to be spilled just to help her to continue to gang rape the Nigeriens & subject them to slavery would be unjust, wicked, short-sighted, stupid & counter-productive.
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“Worse still, it would have implications for the stability of our nation, our entire sub-region & our increasingly fruitful relationship with President Putin & the Russian Federation, who are slowly emerging as Africa’s best friend &, together with the Chinese, appear to be the only foreign power that truly seeks to assist & support the growth & development of African countries.
“To those who believe that Nigeria ought to continue to be the poodle, local enforcer & hatchet man of the French, the Europeans, the British & the Americans in our sub-region, I ask the following: who do they think is behind Boko Haram & ISWAP and why did these so-called Western allies refuse to sell us arms to fight those two terrorist organisations until Trump came along? And of course, since Trump left we have been given nothing.
“Not one of them truly cares for Nigeria in the way the Chinese or Russians do & to them, we are nothing but a source of mineral resources and a local sheriff.
“They want us to go & fight a war against our African brothers just to further and protect their own economic & regional interests and they want us to throw the West African sub-region into a theatre for a horrific, brutal & never-ending proxy war between them & Russia which would result in turning the whole of the West & North African sub-region into a cauldron of fire.
“Worst still, they want Northern Nigeria particularly & the entire African Sahel region & all the countries in it to be burnt to ashes & go the way of Ukraine, Iraq, Syria, Libya & Afghanistan whilst they sell their arms, test their weapons, pillage our resources, turn our people into homeless destitute & penniless refugees, destroy our collective future & serve our flesh & blood, on a dark satanic alter to the sinister forces & the blood-lusting vultures & demons that they work for & serve.”
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Fani-Kayode also slammed ECOWAS for threatening Niger with military action f the military junta refused to step down and restore President Bazoum to power.
He added: “We must never allow this to happen & if the truth be told, the biggest mistake that ECOWAS made in the first place was to threaten Niger with military action if the coupists refused to step down & restore President Bazoum to power.
“I say this because once a threat is issued & it is not followed up with action, you look weak, ineffectual & pathetic. That is the quandary we are now in & the wisest thing to do at this point is to step back from the brink and rhetoric of war and engage in diplomacy.
“Deploying our troops into our neighbours country in an attempt to effect regime change on behalf of a bunch of butt-f*cking, cunt-struck, power-obsessed feral psychopaths like the French whose primary dream and fantasy has always been the dismemberment, destabilisation and destruction of Nigeria is asinine and unacceptable.
“To do the dirty work for a nation that stood on the wrong side during our civil war and that almost pushed us into a war with the Cameroons over the Bakassi Peninsular is deeply insulting to our sensibilities.
“I do not support military Governments, and I cannot abide or stomach the way in which Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso have threatened, insulted and made a mockery of our nation and people over the last few days, but one thing is clear: the military regimes in all of those three countries are wildly popular, and the hatred for France in each of them is palpable and irreversible.
“Why should we get involved in all this? This is not our fight, and if we choose to stand on the side of the French imperialists, neo-colonialists and oppressors against the will of the people of these three sovereign nations it may well result in chaos, mutiny, rebellion and a revolution in our own country. This must be avoided at all costs.
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“It is time to get sense and sheath our swords. This whole thing is obviously a western conspiracy and trap, and we must ensure that our newly-elected President does not fall into it. This is the time for restraint and wise counsel to prevail. This is the time for us to put our national interest before that of any other.
“This is the time for us to indulge in some sober reflection and reject any gung-ho and bellicose action that would ultimately result in a reversal of the great strides that we have made as a nation over the last 24 years and the destruction of our great country.”
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