By Femi Fani-Kayode

What an eventful and exciting week. Last week, US President Barack Obama came to Africa, the Bolivian President was ‘kidnapped’ and the most damaging revelations about the American state spying on some of her own most trusted allies was brought to the public realm. I will touch on all three of these events in this contribution.

In a futile attempt to apprehend the 30-year-old American whistleblower, Mr. Edward Snowden, a plane that was carrying the President of Bolivia, Evo Morales, was diverted to Austria on its way back to Bolivia from Russia. France and Portugal, based on intelligence reports from the Americans, closed their airspace to the plane because they believed that Snowden was on it and that he was being secretly smuggled to Bolivia.

This was a plane that was part of the Bolivian state’s presidential fleet and that was carrying the President of that country. Bolivia is a sovereign state which is not at war with anyone. This act was not only grossly disrespectful to  Bolivian  but it also violated international law and all the norms and rules of international diplomacy and decency.

It was a clear breach of the Vienna Convention on international flights which says that the aircraft of the leader of any sovereign state has immunity and cannot be treated in such a manner. To make matters worse, the presidential plane was searched and President Morales, by his own words, was treated as if he were nothing more than a ‘’common criminal’’. I would have to agree with the Bolivian Vice President that, in actual fact, Morales was actually ‘’kidnapped by America, her European allies and the forces of imperialism’’.

He was eventually released and allowed to fly home but up until then President Morales was holed up at the airport in Vienna for no less than nine hours even though it immediately became clear to all that Snowden was not on his plane.

This was a truly shameful episode. When the Americans and their allies treat leaders from the smaller and weaker nations of the world in such a way simply because those nations and those leaders have stood up for truth and justice and have resisted their ignoble quest to persecute the innocent and conquer the world, it diminishes us all.

From this incident alone, it ought to be clear to every right-thinking and discerning person that America, under  Obama, is a nation that has literally been driven mad by its own paranoia and obsessions and that is completely drunk on power. Their ultimate objective is to control the entire world and to impose their will on each and every one of us.

*Obama

I commend the courage of those truly progressive nations and leaders that have condemned the Americans and their allies on this issue, that have defied American imperialism and that have stood up for Snowden for exposing the illegal and immoral acts of the Obama administration.

These nations include Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, Cuba and a number of other Carribean and Latin American countries. I also commend Julian Assange’s Wikileaks organistation for standing by him as well and I commend Russia and China for refusing to hand him over to America.

It is the courage of those world leaders that are strong enough and that have cultivated the fortitude, the resolve, the decency and the humanity to rise up to the occasion, to stand up for the weak and to look the American bully in the eye and say ‘’thus far and no further’’ that keeps the rest of us going.

Nigerian, German, French outrage

Yet the revelations of the excesses of the American state did not stop there. During the course of the week, they were also caught spying on some of their own European allies and friends. The fact that the American National Security Agency (aka ‘’No Such Agency”) have bugged the telephones and internet activities of government officials, government buildings and foreign embassies of their closest allies in the world was brought to the attention of the world.

The Europeans, quite rightly, have not taken the matter lightly. The reaction of the French President, Francois Hollande, the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, and the President of the European Commission, Jose Manuel Barroso, has been one of absolute outrage and they have all wholeheartedly condemned the behaviour of the Americans in very harsh terms.

They even went as far as to suggest that this matter could affect the massive deal on trade regulations that the two economic powerhouses were about to begin negotiations on. All these illegal acts and dark
secrets by the American state were exposed by Snowden’s concerning the new PRISM system that the Obama administration is now using to spy on every individual and every government in the world.

The implications of this are frightful and obvious to even the dullest amongst us and frankly speaking it is disgraceful. Now I ask- where are the defenders of America now and where are the Obama-lovers? Will they seek to defend this illegal, despicable and treacherous act of the Americans (who are prepared to go as low as to spy on even their own allies) as well?

I say shame on them, shame on America and kudos to Snowden. He has exposed the illegal and indefensible acts of the American state and he has proved to the world that they seek to secretly watch, monitor and record the activities of every single non-American on the planet.

It is left to the rest of us to either resign our fate to God and accept it sheepishly or to resist it as best as we can with our loud protests until we get our privacy and our security back. I am encouraged by the fact that even our very own President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration were also taken aback by this spying scandal and that they actually cultivated the courage to ‘’warn the Americans’’ about their spying ways. On this issue I commend our President and our government.

Obama and Africa

This brings me to the issue of Obama’s visit to Africa. There can be little doubt that when President George W. Bush was in power he did a lot for Africa with his PEPFAR initiative which saved the lives of millions of Africans and protected them from AIDS.

Yet did not stop there. He also gave more financial aid to African countries than any American President that ever came before him, he supported Nigeria’s bid for debt relief and and debt cancellation and, with his full implementation of President Bill Clinton’s AGOA initiative, he helped African businesses to grow by opening up the American market to their consumer and agricultural products. These are just some of the things that George W. Bush did for Africa. By way of contrast, Obama has done next to nothing for us and has in fact dramatically reduced American aid, trade and support for our continent.

Snubbing Nigeria twice

It is ironic that Bush, who has no links with Africa and who is a conservative Republican, did so much for us whilst Obama, who is of African descent and who is a liberal Democrat, has done very little. Other than the paltry pledge of 7 billion USD for the generation of electricity and power for a continent which is home to over 500 million people and the location of 53 independent countries, the only things that Obama appears to want to export to Africa are “homosexual rights”, “same sex marriage”, “same sex parenting”, drone bases and drone attacks and the PRISM spying system.

His utter disdain and contempt for Nigeria in particular, though cleverly veiled, is interesting and significant. Despite our size, our standing and our relative strength on the African continent, he has snubbed us twice on his two visits to Africa by not coming here.

Worse still, he has simply refused to designate Boko Haram as a terrorist organisation even though they have butchered no less than 5,000 Nigerians in the last two years and even though he has put a bounty on the heads of no less than three of it’s leaders. Why the contradiction?

If the leaders of Boko Haram are terrorists, then surely the whole organisation is a terrorist one as well. Had Boko Haram been responsible for the deaths of even one American anywhere in the world, I have little doubt that the following day they would have been officially designated terrorists by the American government.

Yet that courtesy has not been extended to us even though thousands of our people have been slaughtered by that same organisation. The question is, why the double standards? Is our blood not red too? Are our lives not as important as that of others?

If Al Shabab in East Africa, FIS in Algeria, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Al Qaeda in the north African Sahel and the Middle East, Hamas in Gaza and the Taliban in Pakistan and Afghanistan are labeled as terrorist organisations by the Americans, then why is Boko Haram exempt from that same label?

These are just some of the contradictions of Barack Obama when it comes to his policies in and attitude to Nigeria. Significantly, between 2005 and 2006, he was one of the few American senators who openly opposed the campaign for debt relief for our country. Thank goodness that despite that opposition we still got some debt relief without his support and by 2007 we paid off all our foreign debts.

Yet despite his indifference and his lukewarm attitude towards us, the African people generally, and the Nigerian people particularly, continue to idolise Obama and slobber all over him as if he were the Messiah Himself, citing the fact that he is a black man, that he has a beautiful Pepsodent smile, that he is ‘’drop-dead gorgeous’’, that he has a beautiful family and that he is a great orator that delivers brilliant and inspirational speeches as some of their reasons for doing so.

Goodness me. What a country and what a people we are! Those that are moved by Obama’s Adonis-like looks and engaging oratory forget that Adolf Hitler delivered beautiful, inspiring and powerful speeches as well and that he was idolised in a similar fashion by the German people until he showed them his true colours.

Of course by that time, it was too late and 50 million people, including six million Jews and 20 million Russians, were killed as a consequence of Nazi aggression and World War 11. So much for powerful oratory and beautiful speeches.

‘Saviour of the world’

When it comes to fawning over Obama the questions for the Nigerian people are as follows. Do we have to bring sentiment into everything? When will we be governed by our heads and not by our hearts and our emotions? When will we appreciate the fact that a man ought to be judged by what he does and not by the colour of his skin or by what he says? They say that actions speak louder than words.

Is that ancient truism totally lost on us? Some say Obama is the ‘’saviour of the world’’ and the greatest thing since sliced bread, yet the same Obama has killed over 4,000 innocent women, children and civilians in secret drone attacks in Afghanistan and Pakistan in the last four years. This represents 200 per cent increase in the number of civilians that George W. Bush killed with similar drone attacks in the same area in the period of eight years.

Obama friends in Syria

The same ‘’saviour’’ Obama is supporting and seeks to furher arm the most ruthless brand of Wahabbi and al Qaeda-inspired, Islamist, salifist and jihadist forces in Syria who call themselves ‘’Syrian rebels’’ but who are in actual fact nothing more than a bunch of heartless and cannibalistic beasts that slaughter women, children, moderate Sunni Muslims, Shia Muslims, Christians, secularists, priests, nuns, ethnic minorities and anyone else that does not share their barborous world view. They do not just kill their victims but they go a step further by cutting out and eating their hearts, organs and private parts after they have done so in the full glare of television cameras. These ‘’people’’ are Obama’s friends.

As a final pointer, Obama the saviour has just appointed Ambassador Susan Rice as his very own National Security Advisor. She is the pretty lady that flew to Nigeria and allegedly served our very own president-elect MKO Abiola a strange cup of tea at a secret meeting on July 15 1998 after which he coughed violently and dropped dead before her very eyes and at her very feet. Perhaps we should all take a moment to ponder on the implications of that. Obama must really love us very much. With friends like him who needs enemies?