On the day when Nigeria’s President Bola Tinubu asked Parliament for authority to invade his northern neighbor Niger—having ordered Nigerian electricity exports to Niger shut off—an article appeared in Newsweek Aug. 3, headlined “The Countdown to the Next Great War Has Begun in Africa.”
Many voices in Nigeria are urging Tinubu not to do this. If Nigeria gets embroiled in a kind of Vietnam War there, it could create openings at home, in Nigeria, for the three or four secessionist forces to destroy the country. That’s just one of the evils foreseen by Nigeria commentators. Already in the past few days, two labor confederations have gone on strike against the Tinubu government’s elimination of essential fuel subsidies—which was Tinubu’s first act as President.