So I came across this video called That time the UN Just FORGOT about a whole Unit of Peacekeepers in Sierra Leone
The video itself is quite interesting and as one commenter said, like Seven Samurai and Apocalypse Now. Basically, the UN had a platoon of Nigerian soldiers who were there to protect Lungi Lol but were forgotten about completely. In fact, they were in such long limbo that many of the soldiers deserted and married and lived locally. Among the few remaining Nigerian UN soldiers was a man by the name of Oronto Obasanjo who spoke English with a perfect crisp British accent, was incredibly clean and seemed quite disciplined, and was quite committed to his duty.
Lieutenant Oronto thought that the British soldiers were sent to Lungi Lol to relieve him, but they were not, they were there to face down the RUF and West Side Boyz (tbh I am unsure whether they were involved at Lungi Lol as the video claims.) However, despite being forgotten, Lieutenant Oronto and his men team up with the British forces to take down the RUF and beat them decisively.
This is quite an amazing story and it piqued my interest for many reasons, not least because of how fascinating Oronto Obasanjo and baffled at the idea that the UN could be so incompetent to completely forget about their own men.
However, this is where things start to fall apart very fast. First of all, even without doing any research, this seems really weird. Whenever UN soldiers are killed, it is always a huge deal and often has a massive effect on the reputation of UN peacekeepers. So the idea that they could forget about their own soldiers seems absurd already.
Secondly is communication. I know that communications back then were quite poor compared to now, but 2000 was still in the age of the internet and advanced communications. I find it difficult to imagine soldiers in the 21st century being cutoff like Japanese holdout soldiers post-WWII.
But the thing that got to me the most was when I started looking for information on this. When I tried to look for Lieutenant Oronto Obasanjo, I found absolutely nothing and when I got something, it was from the video. The creator of the video posted some sources, but there was absolutely nothing about Oronto Obasanjo and the more I read on the Lungi Lol confrontation, the more this video appeared not just lazy or sensational pop history, but outright fake history.
And in addition, the video made no mention of Obasanjo after the incident, could not provide a photo of him, and there was no mention of the Nigerian UN peacekeepers after the war. I am sorry, but I find it impossible not to be incredibly difficult to contain my bullshit detectors which are going wild right now.
However, I am not an expert on African history, military history, or Sierra Leone history. I do not want to make this a debunking post, but before I pass this video off as fake history grift, I would like to ask anyone here if they could back up the legitimacy of this video.
The video states that it is based on Steve Heaney's book Operation Mayhem. I will quote the relevant parts of the book relating to "Lt. Mojo", and leave you to judge the interpretation in the video for yourself. I can not verify the veracity of statements from the book.
he'd been deployed to Lungi Lol six months earlier leading a force of sixteen fellow Nigerians. In the entrie time he and his men had been there they had reveived not one visit from their commanders in UNAMSIL or even a set of orders. They had no food rations, they hadn't been paid for months and they had very limited supplies of ammo. In short, this was a typical UNAMSIL operation - chaotic, dysfunctional and forgotten by everyone in command.
Emphasis added by me.
I couldn't see a single radio antenna, no sign of any radio, nor any solar panels with which charge one. It looked as if Mojo and his men had no way of makking comms back to UN headquarters, that's presuming the UN had such a thing. They had no way to receive orders, Intel updates, schedule resupplies or to get relieved, and no way to call up reinforcements when several thousand rebels came charging down their throats.
From the epilogue:
In due course the Nigerian peacekeepers in Sierra Leone were replaced by an Indian contingent, but the RUF were by then already a broken force.
That seems to be the extent of the source upon which the "abandoned" peacekeeper story is made. The only other source the video references in regard to the Nigerians is a student's dissertation, which then reference chains back to the following article from the Guardian:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2000/may/18/sierraleone1
This source verifies that there were Nigerian forces involved, but goes no further. The fact that Nigerian forces were involved seems to be backed up by more sources on this event, though I can not find any that discuss their abandonment.
Citation: A book titled "Operation Mayhem" that the video producer surely used as a source:
Operation Mayhem