Like the overfed patriarch in a provincial French village—who mistakes the circumference of his dinner for the circumference of his destiny—the Nigerian military once crossed the border into Benin, propelled not by necessity but by appetite. The movement was explained in courses: half in the name of democracy, half in the name of unfinished obligations to European patrons whose hands no longer appear in the photograph but who continue to arrange the seating.
At the time, I argued—plainly and repeatedly—that Nigeria ought to be condemned. Not because indignation is useful as a fashion, but because history, when left to itself, rarely learns. It responds instead to what is formally recorded and institutionally acknowledged. Precedent and impunity are not distant relations; they are married, in idolatrous ways and they are industrious with their children.
My critics arrived with the assurance of men reciting something they have heard often enough to confuse repetition with law: Benin invited Nigeria. As though international order were a dinner table, and armed forces could be summoned like cutlery. No, I replied—then, as now—this is not how international affairs function, at least not if words are to retain any stable meaning. A president does not simply wake, stretch, and invite a foreign army to cross borders and deploy explosives upon his own population. That principle is not an ethical ornament; it is the minimal structural distinction between sovereignty and theater.
What happens when the foreign government drops bombs and kills the president and still manages to insist that it was invited? I asked then, and I ask again: do you see where this slippery road leads? We are no longer speculating about its destination. We are sliding into it.
Enter now the United States, carrying its familiar luggage: half in the name of a former glory it no longer possesses, half in the name of a universal human morality it administers with notable selectivity—absent, for example, when Palestinians are buried beneath rubble in Gaza—and half, if arithmetic may be forgiven its trespasses, in the quiet work of recolonizing West Africa.
The same West Africa that once supplied the United States with enslaved bodies, and continues to supply it with raw materials, inexpensive labor, and governments prepared to borrow from the World Banks with the enthusiasm of men mistaking debt for ice water. Yes, the fractions exceed their sum. But that, too, is accurate accounting—the sort practiced wherever postcolonial disorder and modern coercion share a ledger.
Now consider the riddle, offered not as metaphor but as bookkeeping. Nigeria, now styled the Great Giant of the Delta, is apparently capable of flying over another sovereign state to reinstall a deposed president in Benin, deploying bombs it has not paid for that it neither designed nor manufactured, and could not manufacture under any circumstances short of fantasy.
Yet this same Nigeria now requires the United States to fly into Nigeria itself and drop bombs there—this time in the name of a domestic matter. All this comes days after Nigeria acquired, like buying ice water off the dusty streets of Lagos, some 24 M-346FA military fighter jets from Italy. Jets, it cannot apparently use inside Nigeria?
Nigeria again, like the Magical Negro, can solve all his master’s problems except his own. A sovereign nation subcontracting the enforcement of its internal order to a foreign power, no less than the United States, while maintaining—with untroubled expression—that its sovereignty and independence from Anglo-Saxon authority remain untouched. What happens when the foreign government drops bombs and kills the president and still manages to insist that it was invited by the dead man?
If this American bombing of Nigeria appears unusual, it is because it is. If it appears dangerous, it is because it has already been rehearsed. Once the notion is accepted that an invitation can retroactively legitimize invasion; once bombs recover their innocence when labeled democratic or peaceful; once sovereignty is treated as something that may be temporarily leased for reasons of convenience—the issue has not been resolved. It has been regularized.
And standardized problems, as history repeatedly shows, tend to reproduce themselves with admirable efficiency.
The hard, harsh and bitter reality of life is that the powerful will always dominate the powerless.
Until, the powerless becomes powerful.
Ngene Chibueze John It is true. Naturally, I don’t like being powerless and I want West Africans to detest being powerless. It may be called self-interest or self-preservation. Yes, because I have realized I cannot be powerful by myself.
Narmer Amenuti how do you promote your self-interest or enforce self-preservation as a weak entity or as powerless creature 🤔 😳 😜
Narmer Amenuti and what has made us feeble, granted that we are powerless
Henry Adjei Boadi If you grant that we are powerless, why then worry about the grant? Is it because you would like to avoid becoming powerless again when you become powerful? 😀
The agenda is clear: We Were Invited is a means to do whatever we want.
This is a dangerous precedent. Now that we believe West Africa is taking steps to deal with its internal affairs, Nigeria, which touts its greatness in the subregion has opened itself to be used by foreign governments to crawl back and nibble at our achievements. In other words, if Nigeria can allow herself to be used to intervene in Benin or allowed US to intervene at will in its internal matters, which country will show courage for the region?
Disappointing.
Senyo Yayra Dzasa Well said. This is disheartening, and we know it has nothing to do with protecting Christians.
Narmer Amenuti Absolutely nothing.
History will always repeat itself.
Very well articulated. And I agree! 👍
This two-faced approach is hypocritical to the sub-region and its fight for peace and integrity. Any one who thinks this invasion is different from what Trump has done is a dunderhead.
Europe is losing friends in West Africa. So Europe frantically dials every West African number it can find until Nigeria picks up the phone to help the damsel in distress. Nigeria and thus Nigerians are straight up simps for Europeans.