THE efforts of prominent Nigerian internationalists and diplomatic corps to ensure that Nigeria is not characterized as a terrorist country has suffered a total failure, following the weekend’s distasteful display of seven expatriates’ bodies which a splinter murderous Islamic cult, Ansarra, said were executed in order to forestall a rescue by British intelligence operatives.
The blood-cuddling murder of the seven construction workers, labeled in the widely-condemned video posted by the jihadists has also, according to facts reaching sharpedgenews.com, precipitated an unraveling of Goodluck Jonathan administration’s policy of investment diplomacy.
Top echelon of Nigerian diplomats in Washington D.C., the country’s most visible and indisputably the most active hotbed of strategies to the world, are clearly disturbed with the seeming appearance of Boko Haram succeeding in reinforcing the perception that President Jonathan has no workable formula for defeating militarily charged elements.
No official of the embassy in Washington has accepted to go on record concerning the pervasive frustrations among the workers in the last 48 hours. The officials at Nigeria’s permanent mission at the United Nations are jittery as well.
But a visibly disturbed diplomat in Abuja volunteered an opinion without accepting to go on record on Monday, saying that Jonathan is behaving like a “tactless commander-in-chief who opens too many battlefronts at the same time by engaging in senseless political squabbles and then still thinking that those he has rubbished would offer support in order to successfully secure military victories against subversive agitators.”
The listing of Nigeria as a terrorist country by France is said to have also sent shivers down the spine of key functionaries of the government, who now fear that the United States, Canada and European countries may follow suit in lockstep.
The lack of cohesion in offering an explanation for the cold murder of the hostages continued till late Monday night as the country’s interior minister was expressing optimism that the hostages may still be alive. Information minister Labaran Maku had no word on the issue either.