Nigerian Covert Operations Gone Wrong in South Africa:The Iranian Connection

According to the U.S. Department of Defense Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms, a covert operation (also as CoveOps or covert ops) is "an operation that is so planned and executed as to conceal the identity of or permit plausible denial by the sponsor." It is intended to create a political effect which can have implications in the military, intelligence or law enforcement arenas. Covert operations aim to fulfill their mission objectives without any parties knowing who sponsored or carried out the operation.

When in 2011 Nigeria seized a weapons shipment from Iran that appears to violate a UN arms embargo, the then Nigerian Foreign Minister Henry Odein Ajumogobia told reporters in New York Nov. 16. that the shipment contained artillery rockets and small arms and ammunition. The French-based company CMA CGM, which transported the containers, said in an Oct. 30 statement that the shipping containers were labeled as “packages of glass wool and pallets of stone” and were picked up in the Iranian portof Bandar Abbas and unloaded in the Nigerian port of Lagos in July, where they were transferred to a customs depot. Two sets of shipping documents obtained by the Nigerian authorities were found to have been associated with the 13-container shipment. An initial set consigned the containers to a Nigerian, while a second set said that the shipment was bound for Gambia.

Mottaki, however, told reporters in Afghanistan Nov. 15 that the matter was a “misunderstanding” that had been “cleared up” with Nigeria. “A private company which had sold conventional and defensive weapons to a West African country had transferred the shipment through Nigeria,” he said.

some of the weapons seized by Nigeria on display

Fast forward to today and karma seem to have played a fast one on the Nigeria Government. Caught up in the mess of managing the dynamics of a a covert operation gone wrong in South Africa. When the news broke, the web  mostly in Nigeria went into a frenzy. The tide of political brigandage created in a country in the throws of brutal terrorist challenge seemed to have been tipped over the hill. Some conspiracy theorists laid it on the table of corruption and potential money laundering while others pointed fingers at Iran accusing her of using its might to repay Nigeria for its role in ensuring a sanction is meted on them from the United Nations over its role in the deal. Nigeria’s referral of the matter to the Security Council follows on the heels of a meeting between its then Minister for Foreign Affairs Ajumogobia and Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki on the arms shipment. All pleas allegedly fell on deaf ears as President Goodluck Jonathan refused to interfer in the matter. The same is what can be said about Jacob Zuma's refusal to listen to Jonathan when the latter put a call through to douse the situation.