Opinion
Lessons from an Israeli book: Why the world disrespects the Nigerian passport
Reading this book on Mossad and its fascinating James Bond-level missions—basically assassinations of terrorists/enemies of Israel—two issues evoked an acute awareness of my pathetic condition as a Nigerian living in Nigeria. For starters, Mossad: The Greatest Missions of the Israeli Secret Service was written by Michael Bar-Zohar and Nissim Mishal.
It started with how the Israelis refused to hit a major terrorist in their crosshairs because, according to the Ramsad (Head of Mossad), “The man carries an American passport.” This might mean nothing to the casual observer but familiarity with Israel’s unforgiving tit-for-tat policy against people who terrorize its people reveals the power of a passport even for a foreign terrorist—an Arab Palestinian whose colleagues were already eliminated by the Mossad to the last man.
What privileges are possible for carrying the Nigerian passport?
How did a country work itself to the point that another country looks at its passport and for that alone grants a terrorist immunity from a well-deserved assassination?
Two things are sure here.
A country where citizens die daily in hundreds without anyone held accountable cannot evoke that sort of respect for its passport.
America didn’t build that awe for its passport by the number of condolence visits the American VP pays to the homes of Americans slain for no reason within America. That respect is only possible because America ensures the certainty of punishment for violators of American lives anywhere, no matter how long it takes to bring justice to such violators.
One day, Obama was briefed that American Intelligence had found Osama bin Laden somewhere in Abbottabad, Pakistan.
How did you know it’s Osama? We used satellite, the sun and the length of his shadow to measure and confirm his height. How did you know he’s not someone else? This compound is isolated. Its gates only open occasionally to rare visitors driving jeeps. They don’t bring out their domestic waste for collection like every other compound in the neighborhood. They burn everything they make. When kids play cricket or football around the compound and have their balls fall into the compound, such balls are never returned but burnt. The kids get paid for that. There’s someone there who thinks he’s being watched. The image fits Osama. Also, only three families stay inside. A man, his wives and family and two brothers and their families. No internet. No telephone. No connections to the outside world except for the occasional visits by these vehicles and the going in and out by either of those brothers on errands. They are messengers for the old man. The old man is Osama. We occasionally see him via overhead satellite videos pacing the compound, hands locked behind him. That’s the only form of exercise he gets. It’s him.
Obama then turned to his people. Hilary Clinton, everyone was there. What do we do? Take the risk of taking him out? Contacting the Pakistanis is out of the question. He will be informed, and he will run. Breaching Pakistani sovereignty by going in on a covert mission and taking him out? That’s an act of war.
Silence. The only thing anyone in that room that day could say something about was not telling the Pakistanis. Nobody wants to suggest anything else. No one wants to take the blame in the event that the mission happens, and it turns out it wasn’t Osama. The backlash could cost Obama the presidency and even result in a war. Nobody wants to be fingered as the cause of that. Not even Hillary. Obama called off the meeting and went to bed.
Dawn, he woke up and gave the order. It was a go. And that was how Geronimo
was hit in commando style and made to pay for the sins Obama swore to make him pay for, no matter how long it took. It was a high-risk decision. Abbottabad is Pakistan’s most sophisticated military city, so going through that airspace and pulling that mission right adjacent to Pakistan’s military base was something beyond risky, but America could let Osama go. There’s no status of limitation on this issue of taking American lives anywhere. So, before the Pakistanis knew what was up that night, the Americans had taken out all the men in the compound, loaded Osama’s corpse in a bag, blown up their crashed apache within the compound, and gone off to their Afghan base, every document or item needed in their hands.
That is how to run a country and not just restore the confidence of your people and build a passport that even the unforgiving, sophisticated Mossad will look at and say, “We can’t hit Abu Masud al-Malkboof because the man carries an American passport.”
Someone might think they didn’t because America is a strong ally of Israel, no. Not when you read the book and understand the MO and precedence of the Mossad.
Now compare all that to how Nigerians are murdered daily in hundreds with not a single show of retributive justice on the part of government against the murderers. In Abuja, a woman was beheaded and all we heard was that the VP sent his wife to greet her surviving husband and six children. Entire villages are wiped out and all we hear is, “They refused to give their lands to herdsmen.”
Nasir El-Rufai and Bello Masari even paid killers to “stop the killings.” Nigerians in hundreds perish daily and the debate is how the murderers can be granted amnesty—because militants from the Niger Delta got one. The only commands the president of Nigeria is capable of is how to send soldiers to wipe out entire villages to the applause of idiots who say, “People must be taught lessons about killing soldiers. Even in America you can’t kill a policeman and get away easily.” The morons want their passport respected not because their country respects the lives of Nigerians, but because a Nigerian is appointed to the WTO.
It’s not by shooting protesting civilians or granting amnesty to local terrorists that countries build strong passports. How much is a Nigerian life worth even within Nigeria?
When Israel’s deal with Ethiopia’s Mengitsu fell through over some error at the Knesset after only a few evacuations in exchange for arms, the Mossad set up an entire fake tourist community in the Sudan as cover to evacuate Ethiopian Jews. Israel opened an entire operation within the Mossad just to secretly bring to Israel young female Jews living in Syria. The excuse was that they couldn’t find Jewish husbands there and would want to immigrate to Israel, a journey the Syrian government prohibited.
Israeli stateswoman Golda Meier swore to annihilate every member of the Palestinian terror group Black September
implicated in the murder of Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics in 1972, and not a single official was left alive. From the 70s up until the late 90s, from Tripoli to Damascus, Paris to Rome, Norway to Morocco, Mossad agents roamed and killed them all in James Bond-esque fashions.
In fact, when the world woke up to the tragedy of the Mossad killing a Moroccan-Norwegian it mistook for Ali Hassan Salame, known popularly as The Red Prince—the most wanted member of Black September—people thought the Secret Service would stop its killings. But no. Instead, head of the hit squad, Mike Harrari only went underground for a few months until orders came from Jerusalem to resume the hunt. The Red Prince, then second only in the PLO to the revered Yasser Arafat and married to Georgina, the former Miss Syria, Miss Universe and “the Most Beautiful Girl in the World,” would be killed in a grand fashion on the streets of Damascus. Israel hunted Adolf Eichmann until they found him in Argentina, kidnapped and sent him to justice in Jerusalem. They hunted the Butcher of Austria until they found him in Argentina, tricked him to Uruguay and beat him to death in a safe house there.
But here in Nigeria, after Boko Haram pulled Dapchi, a certain Aisha Wakali, self-named Mama Boko Haram was everywhere telling us how “al-Barnawi is my son,” and how she will convince him “to return the children,” as if kidnapping 300 kids is something as mundane as stealing bags of crayfish. We would later hear that £3million exchanged hands and Boko Haram split and either version became strong enough to run franchises that today are sometimes called bandits. If today Abubakar Shekau “repents,” the government will ask citizens to roll out the drums because “one of our misguided brothers has chosen the path of peace and it’s a good thing.” Meanwhile, Aisha Wakill is still doing her Mama Boko Haram job.
Nobody respects a passport carried by citizens whose country behaves like Nigeria, a country where citizens are murdered like chickens by anyone who so desires while the government seeks conciliatory ways on how to appease the murderers.
There was a shooting of unarmed protesters at Lekki Toll Gate, but what burned in the hearts of many Nigerians wasn’t if lives were lost, but “how many people died that you people are calling it a massacre? It is not a massacre. Maybe just two or three people died.” A country whose citizens quantify death so as to measure how to apportion empathy can’t evoke useful respect for its passport.
When you are reading a book and you see how countries, even with the little they have, go all out to teach lessons to those who violate the lives of their citizens, you wonder if Nigeria wasn’t the hell religious books preach about.
By Adamu Muhd Usman.
“If you can think of it, you can plan it; if you can plan it, you can dream it; if you can dream it, you can achieve it.”
—Unknown author
Farming and livestock are Jigawa’s main occupations. The Jigawa people and its government are always interested in farming. So talking about farming, farmers, commodities and livestock prices are interesting issues for Jigawa people.
The prices of cash crops, grains, etc., are recording a steady drop in Jigawa State occasioned by the yearning and interest of the people of the state and also some state government commitment for both farming of animals and farm produce.
A check and investigations by yours sincerely showed and proved that the prices of many things had dropped by 20-30 per cent in the last four weeks and thereabouts in Jigawa state.
A 10 kg local rice farm (produced) in Jigawa State was sold at ₦9,000 as against the previous price of almost ₦12,000. Millet, sorghum, beans, wheat, Benny seeds, etc., indicated a similar price decrease.
People are of the opinion that the situation of a high supply of the produce from farms in Jigawa State has committed itself to producing a large quantity of farm produce and livestock to meet the demand in the region or the country at large. Surely, the increase in the supply of the produce from the farms or farmers had forced prices down in the recent past.
Others still attributed this price drop to the fear of Allah instilled in the hearts of hoarders because the clerics kept preaching against hoarding, which is seriously frown upon by God Almighty.
While some political critics viewed it as the bad economic policies of the President Tinubu administration, in which Allah used it to bring relief to the common man.
Quite obviously, Jigawa is amongst the three states in the federation that produce and supply the nation and some neighbouring counties with grains, livestock, fish and frogs. Jigawa state is also first in Hibiscus, sesame, gum Arabic, datefarm and also Jigawa is not left behind in the farming of cotton and Siemens. —-Jigawa is blessed.
But at the overround investigations, findings and outcomes, it was largely concluded that all these results and achievements were attributed to the people’s interest and passion for farming, but it is mostly because of the government’s commitments to assist, promote and enhance agricultural production in the state to make it a priority in Jigawa as a means of livelihood, occupation and income for the Jigawa populace and to be a source of internally generated revenue (IGR) for the state and also make the state feed the nation formula. Thank God, the airport (cargo) built by the former governor, Dr Sule Lamido, will now be very functional and useful.
The big question now is, can the state government sustain its support for the agricultural sector and continue to pay more attention and also sustain the package and gesture?
We hope that farmers in the state will continue to enjoy maximum support in crop production, including the use of mechanised farming. This will encourage livestock farming, which will go a long way to reduce or stop farmers’/herders’ clashes.
Also, the issue of soil erosion should be given due attention, and more roads should be constructed across the state in order to facilitate bringing out farm produce from villages and rural areas to urban areas.
As the saying goes, Success is getting what you want, and happiness is wanting what you get.
Adamu writes from Kafin-Hausa, Jigawa State.
By Abiodun KOMOLAFE
The concepts of power, privilege and governance are complex and multifaceted. Power refers to the ability to influence others, while privilege denotes unearned advantages.
Governance encompasses institutions, structures and processes that regulate these dynamics. Together, these concepts raise fundamental questions about justice, equality and resource distribution.
It emphasizes the importance of considering marginalized groups’ experiences and perspectives. The main problem in Nigeria today is its political economy, which is rooted in rent-seeking and fosters a mindset that prioritizes patronage over production.
The country’s politics are characterized by a patron-client relationship, where everything revolves around government handouts rather than effective governance. This has led to a situation where “politics” in Nigeria is essentially a scramble for resources in a country with severely limited opportunities for self-improvement.
When French agronomist René Dumont wrote ‘False Starts in Africa’ in 1962, he inadvertently described Nigeria’s current state in 2025. Nigeria’s missteps have magnified themselves in the theatre of the absurd, such as the construction of a new vice presidential residence and Governor Chukwuemeka Soludo’s boasts about the lavish official residence for the governor of Anambra State, currently under construction.
It is to be noted in contradistinction that the newly sworn-in Prime Minister of Canada, Mark Carney, is looking for somewhere to live. The official residence of the prime minister, 24 Sussex Drive, the Canadian equivalent of 10 Downing Street, is in disrepair and uninhabitable. No Canadian government can dare ask the parliament to appropriate the $40m needed to refurbish the residence.
Canada’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) exceeds $2 trillion, while Nigeria’s GDP is less than $400 billion. Still, Nigeria claims to be a giant! With an electricity generation capacity of less than 6,000 megawatts, Nigeria’s proclamation seems absurd, especially when compared to cities like Johannesburg, Singapore, Hong Kong and Mumbai. Even Lagos State alone should be generating, transmitting and distributing at least 15,000 megawatts, which would be a basic expectation rather than an achievement.
Nigeria today needs a comprehensive overhaul of its governance crisis to build a new political economy and social services that are fit for purpose. Although the government is on the right path in some ways, a root-and-branch transformation is still necessary.
A notable breakthrough is the decision to recapitalize development finance institutions, such as the Bank of Industry and, crucially, the Bank of Agriculture. This move is significant in a rent-seeking state, as it addresses the need for long-term capital – a prerequisite for achieving meaningful progress.
The development finance institutions require annual recapitalization of at least N500 billion, ideally N1 trillion. Achieving this necessitates a thorough cost evaluation of the government’s machinery, starting with the full implementation of the Oronsaye Committee’s recommendations.
The resulting cost savings can then be redirected to development finance institutions and essential social services like primary healthcare. Furthermore, the government should be bolder, if it can afford to be so, especially since there’s no discernible opposition on offer At the moment, the Nigerian political establishment across the board appears to be enamored by the position put forward by the leader of the Russian revolution, Vladimir Lenin, after the failed putsch. Lenin wrote the classic, ‘What is to be done?’
His observation is that revolutions do not take place at times of grinding poverty. They do so during periods of relatively rising prosperity. Significant sections of the Nigerian establishment believe that relatively rising prosperity could trigger off social discontent.
In their own interest, they had better be right. The caveat is that Lenin wrote ‘What’s to be Done’ in 1905. The world has moved on and changed since the conditions that led to the failure of the attempted takeover of government in Russia in 1905. Therefore, the Nigerian political establishment, for reasons of self-preservation, had better put on its thinking cap. Addressing power and privilege in governance requires collective action, institutional reforms and a commitment to promoting social justice. Nigeria currently lacks a leadership recruitment process, which can only be established if political parties are willing to develop a cadre. Unfortunately, the country is dealing with Special Purpose Vehicles (SPVs) instead. It’s rare to find leadership in Nigeria operating political boot camps to recruit and groom youths for future leadership roles.
This might be why many young people have a misguided understanding of politics, viewing it as merely a means of sharing the nation’s commonwealth. Mhairi Black was elected to the British House of Commons at 20 years old.
However, the key point is that Black had started becoming involved in politics at a young age. By the time she was elected, she had already gained significant experience, effectively becoming a veteran in the field. In Nigeria, politics is often seen as one of the few avenues for self-fulfillment. However, the economy is stagnant, with few jobs created in the public sector and limited investment opportunities.
This is a far cry from the 1950s and 1960s, when political parties were more substantial. Today, it’s worth asking how many Nigerian political parties have functional Research Departments. Besides, what socialization into any philosophy or ideology do our politicians have? Similarly to former Governor Rotimi Amaechi, many of those who currently hold power are motivated to stay in politics due to concerns about economic stability.
Of course, that’s why the Lagos State House of Assembly has had to revert itself. It is the same challenge that has reduced the traditional institution to victims of Nigeria’s ever-changing political temperature. It is the reason an Ogbomoso indigene is not interested in what happened between Obafemi Awolowo and Ladoke Akintola.
It is also the reason an Ijebuman sees an Ogbomoso man as his enemy without bothering to dig up the bitter politics that ultimately succeeded in putting the two families on the path of permanent acrimony. Of course, that’s why we have crises all over the place! May the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world, grant us peace in Nigeria!
KOMOLAFE wrote from Ijebu-Jesa, Osun State, Nigeria (ijebujesa@yahoo.co.uk; 08033614419)
Byabiodun KOMOLAFE
Rivers State is now under emergency rule, and it’s likely to remain so for the next six months, unless a drastic change occurs.
If not managed carefully, this could mark the beginning of a prolonged crisis.
In situations like this, opinions tend to be divergent. For instance, some people hold the notion that the security situation and the need to protect the law and public order justified President Bola Tinubu’s proclamation of a state of emergency in, and the appointment of a sole administrator for Rivers State.
However, others view this act as ‘unconstitutional’, ‘reckless’, ‘an affront on democracy’, and ‘a political tool to intimidate the opposition’. When we criticize governments for unmet expectations, we often rely on our own perspectives and biases.
Our individual identities and prejudices shape our criticism. However, it’s essential to recognize that not all criticism is equal. Protesting within the law is fundamentally different from protests that descend into illegality. Once illegality creeps in, the legitimacy of the protest is lost.
As John Donne wrote in ‘Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions’, “Never send to know for whom the bell tolls.” A protest is legitimate when it aligns with societal norms, values and laws. But when protests are marred by violence or sabotage, they lose credibility. Without credibility, protests become ineffective.
Regarding the validity or otherwise of the emergency rule in Rivers State, it is imperative that the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) governors approach the Supreme Court immediately. They should seek a definitive clarification on whether the proclamation is ultra vires or constitutional.
For whatever it’s worth, they owe Nigerians that responsibility!May the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world, grant us peace in Nigeria!
Abiodun KOMOLAFE,ijebujesa@yahoo.co.uk; 08033614419 – SMS only.
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