THOSE who are always spoiling for war in Nigeria should take a look at what is happening in Sudan. A disagreement between the President and Head of the Sudanese military forces, General Abdel Fattah al Burhan, and the leader of the Rapid Support Forces, RSF, General Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, has brought humanitarian crisis to the country.

The duo had allied to oust former longstanding dictator, President Omar Al Bashir, capitalising on the protracted protests by pro-democratic forces demanding a return to elective rule. A transitional diarchy of military and civilian representatives was set up to work out the terms of a new democratic order, but Burhan and Dagalo overthrew the arrangement and Burhan assumed the presidency while Dagalo became his deputy.

Both generals disagreed on the direction the move to civilian rule should take, but analysts say the main casus belli has to do with the selfish economic interests of the “messiahs” who in truth are mere buccaneers.

It is of interest, especially to us in Nigeria, that the RSF were the Sudanese Janjaweed or Arab nomadic herdsmen militias armed and supported by the Al Bashir government to carry out ethnic cleansing in the Darfur and other mainly Negroid farming communities to grab their lands and settle permanently. 

When the Darfur war and humanitarian crisis ended, Al Bashir brought Dagalo and his 100,000-strong forces closer to his government, with the ultimate intention of integrating them into the regular Sudanese Army.

Pretending to be on the side of the people, Dagalo joined Burhan to dethrone Al Bashir when the pro-democracy protesters proved difficult to mollify.

The lesson for us is that, historically, many bad things that happen in Sudan eventually also happen in Nigeria. The only thing that helps Nigeria is that unlike in Sudan where prolonged dictatorships have been the order, every attempt to entrench dictatorship in Nigeria has failed so far.

But we should be reminded that we have our own homegrown Nigerian Janjaweed, the nomadic herdsmen militias and other irredentist groups, who, just like the Sudan Janjaweed, have been attacking and ethnic-cleansing farming communities all over Nigeria, especially Southern Kaduna, Plateau, Taraba, Benue, Enugu, Ebonyi, Delta, Rivers, Edo and most states in the South-West.

Just as Al Bashir had armed, funded and given government cover to the Sudan Janjaweed, the Nigerian Janjaweed have been condoned and never considered a terrorist threat by the Buhari government despite emerging as one of the most murderous terrorist groups in the world.

If we do not take the right measures, we may be faced with a situation where powerful criminal warlords could rival or even overpower the Nigerian Armed Forces and scuttle Nigeria as we know it. 

All it takes is for the Federal Government to continue cuddling ethnic terrorist militias rather than dealing with them decisively.