NIGER: ECOWAS will cause more deaths, trouble with war — Diete-Spiff, ex-MILAD warns.

NIGER: ECOWAS will cause more deaths, trouble with war — Diete-Spiff, ex-MILAD warns. 

His Royal Majesty, King Alfred Diete-Spiff was the first military administrator of the oil Rivers state at 25 and now the Amanyanabo of Twon-Brass in Bayelsa State.

In this interview with DANIEL ABIA, he called on the Economic Community of West African States, ECOWAS, to tread cautiously over the political logjam in Niger Republic.

He strongly believes that diplomacy can resolve the crisis in that country rather than staging a full-blown war.

The Niger Republic coup is causing negative waves of concern to the entire world, particularly Africa. What do you make of the incessant coups in the Sub-Saharan Africa in recent times?

The coup in Niger came as a surprise and it has brought some jitters to the ECOWAS. ECOWAS is mobilizing to reinstall the erstwhile President of Niger (Mohammed Bazoum). My advice will be that they hurry slowly. As they say, when you wahala people, it will force even the dungs to talk. The Nigeriens have been going through what they, themselves, feel most and we should have some sympathy.

Going to war will not solve the problem. Definitely not. Russia with all its might could not crush Ukraine. If we go on such a venture, we will only cause more loss of lives and hardship for all concerned.

This is another area where they have to show a bit of magnanimity in governance. What is best for the people is what should be done. They should ignore the option of war. Diplomacy has been defined as a nice way of telling a man to go to hell, but the right thing must be done. Let us use all our diplomatic skills now.

President Bola Tinubu appears to be under intense pressure from the Western World to invade Niger and restore democratic normalcy, do you think Nigeria has the wherewithal to send troops to Niger Republic in view of our present economic reality?

They should hurry slowly. The Western world knows better that to precipitate a war after Covid-19, after the flooding and impending flooding, is not the best. Am sure that a diplomatic solution will be the final choice of ECOWAS.

They have to avoid any military confrontation at this point because it will only aggravate the problem. Why has the coup in Niger Republic attracted so much interest among the world powers such as the United States, United Kingdom, France and Russia? What exactly is their interest in that part of Africa? I think coup is an ill wind that blows nobody any good. You have the Burkina Faso coup yesterday, Mali the next day, and now Niger. Where next! Everybody is jittery about what is happening in Africa today. They say, if the snake has bitten you once, when you see a worm, you will be scared. But we don’t have to be afraid. What happens in the goat’s house cannot happen in the sheep’s house. Let us face the fact. The thing has happened.

If the western powers and everybody else do not react to it, it might snowball. They say when something happens; it is happenstance. When the second one happens, it is a coincidence and when the third one happens it is the enemy’s action. The first two that took place were happenstance and coincidence.

But this third is enemies’ action. This thing is getting too close to comfort and the western power is also saying that it is hard time we also intervened to show that we are ready to join up with the ECOWAS to prevent any further occurrence.

They have come up rightly to say no, this thing must stop. If ECOWAS had reacted earlier, there wouldn’t have been the second one. This reaction now would be a deterrent to others. But we should tamper justice with mercy.

Don’t throw the baby with the bath water. But we can also decree an end to it. The world has come out to say coup is old fashion and must not be allowed to go through like a wildfire.

We all know what happened during the Arab Spring. The world has been through all these things and it does not make progress to anybody. But if everybody goes to sleep and just condone it, then this thing will go on. If the ECOWAS did not react as they have reacted by stamping their feet, the likelihood is that the thing may spill over to them. By that I mean to other parts of the continent.

The western power has seen it clearly that these people have bitten more than they could chew. The western powers know deep down in their hearts that they don’t want a war when diplomacy could do the job. The western powers don’t want war.

Why haven’t they fought their own war?….laughter. Nobody who have seen war will want war. Look at the story of The Dirty Dozen during the Second World War when convicted prisoners were trained and sent into the war. Virtually, they all died. Even war prosecuted by convicted criminals, is still hard to bear.

Some observers believe that Niger Republic has sparked up speculations for the second round of partition of Africa by the superpowers, do you agree with this allegation?

No, no, no. Not really. Since the Treaty of Versailles, the end of the First World War, the partition of Africa and the governance of the francophone countries differ from the governance of the Anglophone countries. Frankly, it is a matter of good governance. We cannot talk about that now. Everybody has their style and ways of doing things. The Nigeriens and all the Francophone countries have their style which is not akin to us. You can imagine the people there living a French culture.

They wake up in the morning and have a French breakfast. You go to work by 12 O’clock; the bells ring that everybody should have lunch and siesta. Can we afford that in this part of Africa? From that 12 O’clock till 2pm, is lunch break. At the peak of the day, you now afford to have a proper meal for the day and have a siesta for one hour before you come back to work. That is what they have made a black Africa into, the French culture.

An average Nigerian cannot work that way. To me, I think the people are fed up with that culture and I sympathize with them to that extent. They have decided to now to put their culture back in place. That is far-fetched. I cannot see them overnight going back to our own British culture.

#Aina Stephen