THe ROLE OF UNITED STATES IN AFRICA: HUMAN RIGHTS IN AFRICA AND THE U.S. POLICIES

Diverse opinions have been expressed about the United States’ failure to make the prevention and punishment of genocide in Rwanda a priority during the period in question. Many schools of thought have indicated that the action reflected the low level of American interest in Africa. Some people have indicated that the long time it took to tackle the problem of Apartheid in South Africa is another indicative of the low interest of the United States and other countries of the western world in African crisis. Nevertheless, those who want to exonerate the West still affirm that non can better fight the fire in your house than you.

 However, some pertinent questions have arisen concerning the nonchalant behaviors of African Countries concerning problems in the continent. Firstly, all the time the above problems were happening or even before they escalated, where was the Organization of African Unity, now the African Union? Where were The African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR), African Court on Human Peoples’ Rights (AfCHPR), and African Committee of Experts on the Rights and Welfare of the Child (ACERWC)? Even up till this moment nothing is still obviously felt about the existent of the above African organizations or entities during dire times of Human Rights violations in Africa. It is unusual that since the New leadership in Nigeria assumed office in 2015, the escalation of terrorist activities and human rights violations in Africa have been unprecedented. Many have attributed it to the activities of Islamic Jihadists, notably those associated with the late Othman Dan Fodio who have been assumed to his descendants including the present leader of Nigeria, who hails from the same village as his descendants. These descendants have been identified as the Fulani. In speculation, the huge resources of Nigeria is being assessed uninterruptedly to fund the terrorism activities in Africa that have enveloped countries like Nigeria, Madagascar, Sudan, Senegal, Niger Republic, etc. In these places, the main culprits are the Fulani, who have not hidden their identities in any form as they burn and sack villages, farmlands, that belong to others, specifically the indigenous people of the countries in which they are operating. They are taking over other people’s land, forests, farmland claiming that they should be the rightful owners of those areas.

With the enablement of the some leaders, they have practically taking over the defence mechanism of the country - the army, the Airforce, the Navy, the police, the anti-corruption entities to the Fulani who are using these military departments and their tools to suppresses vocal citizens, foster their terrorist and jihadist activities instead of fighting Boko Haram, the Islamic State in West Africa and the Fulani Herdsmen, (same Fulani) who have refused to manage their cattle in ranches. They rather prefer to march them with impunity all over West Africa, armed with AK 47 assault rifles, with their cattle destroying farmlands and daring the unarmed and helpless local and indigenous people to react. Internally Displaced People’s Camps IDPs are expanding daily, hundreds of students and law-abiding citizens are kidnapped, tortured, killed and ransomed for millions of currencies. Body parts are being harvested with impunity. They also threaten good leaders who dare to complain or set up tools to deter their activities. Certain groups have also pointed fingers at some Middle-Eastern countries as enjoying what the chaos in Africa because it expands their Islamic Agenda. Based on the above scenarios and given the fact that the cry of the vulnerable and suppressed is snuffled under the weight of terrorism and constant harassment, it has become pertinent and emergent that the International community, particularly, the United States, European Union and other western entities. Some international organizations like the “Human Rights Watch,” “Amnesty International,” The Red Cross, which was sent packing by the current Nigerian leadership because they were noting some of the atrocities being committed. Individuals, groups and organizations on social media networks have relentlessly continued to highlight the problems indicated above.

 Based on the purview above, the United States and other Western allies should take concerted and immediate steps to intervene in the prevailing circumstances. The Islamic state and quasi organizations, enabled by collaborating African leadership are rooting deep attrocities into Africa and causing mayhem, kidnapping, killing and sacking territories. These actions are against international law in all its ramifications and should be summarily stopped the way they were stopped in Hitlers Germany. Africans are also human persons that should not be ignored perpetually. Peace keeping forces should be deployed with immediacy in Nigeria, Madagascar and other threatened areas with immediacy, The United Nations should step up with its peace-keeping engines, The NATO and the European Union should join the United States to bring this re-occurring expansionist, genocidal, and terrorist activities by the Fulani, Boko Haram, ISWAP, etc., to a stop before their activities engulf the whole Africa. The absence of the African peacekeeping forces that was hitherto spearheaded by Nigeria, whose leadership is seemingly complicit in the prevailing circumstances has not helped matters. It has also caused the U.S. to foot-drag and not proffer serious objections to the problems thereby causing critical delays in the deployment of newly-formed African peacekeeping forces which might help to save tens of thousands of Madagascans, Nigerian and other threatened people’s lives. The New Biden-Harris administration should send investigative / senior administration teams to visit these troubled areas especially the ever increasing Refugee / IDP Camps and other threatened areas to determine the extent of this crisis that has lasted for years, destabilizing economic activities. The US needs to take immediate action to sanction, isolate and rump the complicit leadership, make serious effort to provide American military technology / intelligence to jam the efforts of ISWAP, Boko Haram, the Jihadist Fulani and others that have promoted ethnic slaughter, human rights abuses in Africa do not become priorities, that is fast amounting to genocide and ethic incapacitation. The US has to step up in order to avoid in Africa to stymie the growing take-over of African countries by the Fulani Jihadists and their cohorts. This is because if the problems that now threaten Mali. Burkina Faso, Chad, Niger, Nigeria, and other Sub-Saharan scrubland increasingly racked by bombings, massacres, attacks on hotels occupied by Westerners, Ethiopia, Madagascar, etc., are left unchecked, others will join in the growing list of fertile grounds for the Fulani jihadists and others that might have such ambitions. Additionally, the human rights’ issues, which had threatened Africa in the past have continued to resurface due to lack of decisive actions by the African Union, other regional African human rights’ organs and the international community. It is time for the international community, the United Nations, the US and others to team with the African Union to discover a forceful machinery, using Nigeria and Madagascar as joint-prototype to solve the incessant abuse of power by African leaders, impeditive corruption, injustices, and other major vices that continuously plague the African continent. Tools should be set in motion to curb and check the excesses of despotic, tyrannical and corrupt leaders of African countries and the threats that are continuously gaining grounds. Efforts should be made to resuscitate the ECOMOG and other military functionalities that help the continent to keep its leaders in focus. Withdrawing troops from Africa like Former President trump did should not be an option.