Nigeria should speak out strongly against the recent transfer of French troops from Mali to Niger Republic because the move is a circumstantial threat to the security of Nigeria, former Nigerian Ambassador to China Ambassador Kabir Ahmed, Magajin Rafin Daura, said on Sunday.
The retired ambassador told 21st Century Chronicle that France supported ‘Biafra ‘ during the Nigerian Civil War of 1967-1970 and it most probably induced the Republic of Ivory Coast and the Republic of Gabon to follow suit.
There was evidence, he said, that the French Government instigated and supported the 1974 coup d’état that toppled President Hamani Diori of Niger Republic, partly because he supported the Nigerian Federal Government against Biafra. He also said the 2011 overthrow of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, and more recently instability in the Sahelian countries of Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, Nigeria, Chad and Cameroun all create suspicions that Western countries, in their competition against China, are fighting to retain their hegemonic world economic and political order.
Ambassador Ahmed, who was also a former Nigerian Ambassador to Niger Republic, described that country as part of Nigeria’s hinterland. It is “among our closest geopolitical, ethno-religious neighbours and arguably our friendliest country in the world,” he said. “We have every reason to question France’s motives.”
The ex-envoy said “France and other Western countries have had the capacities, in terms of satellite images and other sources of information regarding the insurgents, to help us end the Boko Haram and other insurgencies/insecurities, unless they are involved with other motives.”
