United States Spies are Here Again

RingTrue with Yemi Adebowale; yemi.adebowale@thisdaylive.com; 07013940521 (text only)

I was worried and depressed with the fanfare with which President Muhammadu Buhari recently received a 42-member team from the United States, purportedly in our country to support three priority areas – security, economy and governance – of the Buhari administration.

The Barack Obama delegation was led by Ms Samantha Power, the current U.S. Permanent Representative to the UN. I hope we have not forgotten how the US used its former ambassador to Nigeria, Ms Robin Renee Sanders to spy on this country during the days of Yar’dua’s illness. As revealed by Wikileaks, Sanders was invited to help by those around late Yar’Adua but she took advantage of the opportunity to spy and was sending back vital information to her country. Have we forgotten this experience so soon? Suddenly, the Americans are again offering to help us with security, governance and economy. Haba! The Americans have never genuinely helped any country with security or any of these two other areas.

They have never and will never help any country to attain development. When you open up to them as Buhari is trying to do, they will only use the opportunity to spy on us and take away anything of interest to them. It seems Buhari and his men have forgotten about America’s hypocrisy. The fact that theDeputy Commander of the U.S. African Command (AFRICOM), Vice Admiral Michael T. Franken was on the team should send a clear message to us about their intentions. I sincerely hope smart and genuine patriots around our president will move swiftly to stop him from further exposing Nigeria to the Americans. We have to abort this American spy mission.