The revelations from last week’s interview, which Mr. President granted Jonathan Power, the Swedish journalist and commentator, gives no sense of security to any Nigerian.
We are imperiled, so to say, and left bare at the whims and caprices of the virulent Islamic sect, Boko Haram, or BH, for short.
It is clear from the interview, published verbatim by Leadership, that we are on our own as far as the fight against the vile group is concerned. For once, the man opened up on how the government is tackling the venom of the sect.
Jonathan made it clear that dealing with BH is more difficult than fighting a civil war. “With civil war you know where the enemies are and what weapons they have. But with BH you don’t know from which direction they are coming,” he confessed.
The President’s admission of the near invincibility of the virulent sect leaves us with neither comfort nor safety but only draws us closer to the mercy of the hoodlums, who have an unquenchable thirst for human blood.
Like a monster on rampage, the BH men have been running riot killing and maiming people with no corresponding response from the law-enforcement agents.
At the last count, according to the Associated Press, no fewer than 304 innocent Nigerians have been wasted by the group, whose main grouse is that we romanced with the wrong people by allowing white men to come into the country to teach us how to do things right with a view to living decently.
They may have their credo, whether good or bad, but a responsive government, whose officials have not been limited by knowledge or exposure, would have by now developed a robust counter-terrorism strategy to smoke out the vile men from our midst.
As painful as it is to lose so many innocent souls to malevolent elements, the road to safety has not been shut, if only the government and its security managers are ready to come out of the hideout and confront the enemies within with the gusto that the matter deserves.
It makes sense to sound a note of warning that Nigeria, the most populous black nation in the world, risk falling into the trenches if it continues to treat the menace of the BH sect with kid gloves.
The stones, ropes and sticks that how adorn the premises of every security formation in Abuja all in the name of preventing BH members from striking those places, amount to adopting a puerile and ineffective approach to tackling a national malaise.
If we continue to blocks roads with those materials and cause avoidable discomfort to road users in the federal capital, it would get to a point where all the residents would be forced to relocate to the hinterlands.
It is not clear why Nigeria with all its learned men and women in the security agencies, who have been to other advanced nations of the world and seen how they handle dedicate issue of terrorism have resorted to using bare hands to handle a lethal group like BH instead of deploying the latest hi-tech security gadgets that have helped other vulnerable nations, like Afghanistan, Pakistan, Spain, Turkey and Brazil to put their enemies at bay.
If BH has refused to back down from its blood-letting tactics, Nigeria should as well adopt a ruthless and uncompromising strategy to crush the terrorists. That is what Turkey is doing to the PKK, which has been battling the Turkish regime in the last 27 years.
That is how Spain has been confronting the Euskadi Ta Askatasuna, ETA, whose rebels started fighting for its independence since 1959. The security problems posed by the numerous criminal gangs in the Brazilian Favelas, have been contained by the Buenos Aires administration through timely and accurate intelligence that have crippled the thugs and restored confidence in the poor neighbourhoods.
Nigeria cannot therefore claim to be the leading nation in Africa only in terms of the barrels of oil it pumps daily, the size of its landmass and the number of people in its domain. It is very painful that Nigeria has lost grounds in most variables that make other countries, including the smallest ones in Africa, thick.
It is one of the ironies of life here that most Nigerian citizens are hiding their faces in shame for obvious reasons: most of them cannot afford the basic needs of life and thereby struggle with rodents, scavenging for whatever has the semblance of food in the dustbins that conspicuously deface most of our so-called cities.
Now, since it is clear from the current poverty figures released by the Nigerian Bureau of Statistics, that poverty is increasing by the day despite the claim that the economy is growing, Nigerian government should not deliberately continue to allow the citizens to suffer double jeopardy-harassed by BH and buffeted by hunger and starvation. All these are forces, which most nations have since overcome and moved to the next level of national development.
It is my genuine fear that if the country continues to handle issues that have far-reaching consequences with levity, it may get to a point where all of us would begin to behave like Gideon in the Bible, who went into hiding in a winepress to avoid defeat even though God had already made him a man of great valour.
Jonathan and his security advisers need to get out of their lethargy and put in place a template that will render the country’s enemies impotent either on land, air or sea. A country as big in economic and military prowess like Nigeria cannot allow small boys to continue to harass its soul and character with ease as BH has been doing.
It must work to reclaim the nation’s lost glory and put BH or whatever insurgency that may arise in Nigeria, to shame.
The resort to sticks and stones as panacea to the nation’s security threat will not work for one clear reason- the government and its functionaries have offended God beyond redemption and He may not be willing to allow slings and stones, which David used to silence Goliath, to work for Nigeria in today’s battle with BH.
We must therefore repent from looting in the name of subsidy and other fraudulent adventures, if we want to conquer with stones and slings.
Even with the lamentation of Mr. President that is easier to deal with a civil war than BH, he may still need to take the first step by ensuring the about N1 trillion voted for security this year, is judiciously used for that purpose instead of allowing it to end up in deep pockets.
As the governor of Nasarawa State, Tanko Al-Makura, has warned, BH should not be allowed to metamorphose into something that cannot be controlled by the government.
If that happens, it is only the president and his household, who would have a safe fortress in Aso Rock while the rest of us would be left at the mercy of the killer squad.
Better still for Jonathan, he could seek the assistance of his ex-militant kinsmen to assist him in routing BH, as some of them chorused support for him when he jerked the pump price of petrol last January.
It is not clear if the fuel price increase protagonists from the president’s backyard have been given new cars that run on water or sand so that they are insulated from the current fuel scarcity in the land. We share their joy of being Mr. President’s men.
SOURCE: Leadership Newspaper, 27 February 2012. http://www.leadership.ng/nga/
No comments:
Post a Comment