The headlines are predictable. British special forces, in a joint operation with Nigerian troops, have freed hundreds of captives from a Boko Haram stronghold. Cue the triumphalist rhetoric about humanitarian intervention and the defeat of evil.
But let us pause, for a moment, to consider the unspoken subtext. This is not the first time British boots have trodden Nigerian soil. The difference, of course, is that today’s soldiers claim to be liberators, not colonisers.
Yet the historical irony is thick enough to be cut with a machete. The British Empire once carved up Africa for its own grubby ends, and now it returns to clean up the mess left by the postcolonial chaos it helped create. The captives are free, and that is undeniably good.
But the deeper question taunts us like a ghost at the feast: Are we witnessing the rebirth of imperial responsibility, or just another chapter in the long, sordid history of Western interventionism? The Nigerian government, crippled by corruption and incompetence, has failed to contain Boko Haram for a decade. Now Britain steps in, and suddenly the problem is solved.
This is not a criticism of the soldiers, who are brave and professional. It is a critique of the geopolitical theatre that pretends this is a one-off, rather than a symptom of a global order where the weak are perpetually at the mercy of the strong. The Victorians would have called this ‘the white man’s burden’.
We call it ‘international cooperation’. But the result is the same: a cycle of dependency and resentment. The freed captives will return to villages that are still under threat.
The British troops will leave. And we will be told a story of heroism, while the systemic rot continues unabated. That is the real tragedy, not just of this operation, but of the entire architecture of liberal interventionism.
The ghosts of empire do not rest. They wear combat fatigues now, but they are still there, marching in the shadows.
