WARNING: This is Version 1 of my old archive, so Photos will NOT work and many links will NOT work. But you can find articles by searching on the Titles. There is a lot of information in this archive. Use the SEARCH BAR at the top right. Prior to December 2012; I was a pro-Christian type of Conservative. I was unaware of the mass of Jewish lies in history, especially the lies regarding WW2 and Hitler. So in here you will find pro-Jewish and pro-Israel material. I was definitely WRONG about the Boeremag and Janusz Walus. They were for real.
Original Post Date: 2010-08-02 Time: 16:00:02 Posted By: News Poster
Lagos – Quite expectedly, last week’s news report about Nigerian soldiers having allegedly fathered over 250,000 (yes, two hundred and fifty thousand) children while serving in the ECOMOG peace operations in Liberia did give many Nigerians a nasty jolt.
According to the Director-General of the Directorate of Technical Cooperation in Africa, Dr. Sule Yakubu-Bassi, the soldiers abandoned the children in Liberia when they returned to Nigeria. “Their mothers,” the DG told the House of Representatives Committee on the Diaspora, “are trying to make sure they are properly documented. These are our people; they are still young and they need to go to school. They will also need to be nurtured just like every other Nigerian.”
Certainly, the figure of over 250,000, which has come from the Directorate of Technical Cooperation in Africa, would appear incredible. If it is actually true, however, the logical question to ask is: What did the Nigerian troops actually go to Liberia to do? We recall that the Nigerian contingent to the ECOWAS Monitoring Group (ECOMOG), an initiative of the member nations of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), was deployed to Liberia at a time when the tiny West African country was torn apart by a horrendous civil strife. Therefore, what rules of engagement, which governed the operations of the Nigerian intervention force in Liberia, could have allowed such a scale of procreation by fighting troops, resulting in the addition of a quarter million children to the local population? Was the contingent on a mission of lechery or professional soldiering?
Indeed, we recall also that the entire operations of Nigerian troops in ECOMOG were shrouded in secrecy, against the standard practice in the civilised world. The Nigerian authorities at the time maintained official silence on the operations, forcing the public to rely on costly investigative reporting by journalists, occasional scoops and news items from foreign media in order to get scraps information on the activities of the country’s troops in Liberia. Casualty figures were a guarded secret. Also, contrary to the practice in other responsible climes, bodies of dead soldiers were brought back to the country under the cover of darkness and sometimes reportedly buried in mass graves without honours.
With the latest revelations on Nigeria’s 250,000 abandoned children in that land, this newspaper calls for a full inquiry into the entire operations of the Nigerian military in ECOMOG. For a start, how many soldiers were mobilized to Liberia? How many of them died in action? What is the number of those declared officially missing? What is the figure of the wounded? What was the total financial cost of the operations? Were proper accounts and records kept by the authorities concerned? The Defence Headquarters should certainly be able to provide answers to these questions.
While the actual figure of children allegedly fathered by Nigerian personnel in the ECOMOG operation should be properly authenticated, it is also important to know the circumstances that led to those births. Were marriages legally consummated in Liberia between Nigerian soldiers and Liberian women? Were the children products of mutual consent, abuse or rape? Were the women involved minors, at the time, or adults? Will they, after over ten years since the troops departed, be able to identify the Nigerian fathers of their children? The proposed inquiry should help to unearth these facts.
We are relieved, meanwhile, by the report that “the Nigerian embassy is doing something” about the distressing condition of the abandoned children. These young Nigerians (of double citizenship), in spite of the circumstances of their birth, need to be brought up properly and integrated into the society. There is need for the governments of Nigeria and Liberia to collaborate to ensure that these children are united with their fathers.
Finally, the lessons of the Liberian civil war should not be lost on the two governments, and indeed the entire continent. The devastating consequences of war can be prevented by good leadership, respect for the sanctity of life, entrenchment of the rule of law and due process, and adherence to constitutional principles.
Original date published: 29 July 2010
Source: http://allafrica.com/stories/201008020260.html?viewall=1