The weakness of Nigeria and the government of Nigeria is now an open secret. The Nigerian soldiers may be some of the best in the world but the Nigerian military is now universally acknowledged as very ineffective. The current army chief, Gen. Minimah is a fine officer and a gentleman but he has taken over a weak army and has come at a most trying time. President Jonathan is a nice person who has been hijacked by some of the most terrible aides and officials. This is the cul de sac we are in as a nation.
These terrible officials and hangers-on have misled the president into believing that the insurgency is a politically motivated attempt by some northern elite to undermine his government so that he doesn’t see it for what it is: a criminal attack on Nigeria and Nigerians by evil-minded people camouflaging under a pseudo-religious platform. Many traditional and political leaders from the northern states have been attacked and killed; many religious leaders have been killed by the insurgents. How could they initiate what is consuming them? In any case, how could killing people and destroying communities in the north be a strategy of weakening the president?
There are fringe groups in every society who hate modern life. There have been extremist groups who have been fighting the Nigerian government for over 30 years now. Boko Haram did not start with the Jonathan administration. If, as being speculated, this group is an offshoot of the Maitatsine movement, then, it started since independence, got violent during the Shagari administration in the early 1980s, and metamorphosed into a monstrous fighting machine during the Yar’Adua regime. The very reason that it got radicalized is because of the extrajudicial killing of its leader Mohammed Yusuf and equally the reason that is fuelling it further since then.
Some government officials keep talking to international media that the insurgency is now confined to the northeast as an achievement. Is the northeast not part of Nigeria? Are the people being killed by these insurgents not citizens? What is known to all is that government and its agents have not shown enough seriousness as exemplified by the setting up of a fact-finding mission three weeks after the abduction of school girls in Chibok. No wonder US Senator John McCain said, “We shouldn’t have waited for a practically non-existing government to give us the go-ahead before mounting a humanitarian effort to rescue those girls”.
It is a wake-up call for the president to act presidential. He doesn’t need to announce but just take a surprise visit to Chibok to sympathise with the parents and the community of the abducted girls. He should visit the soldiers to boost their morale and listen to their grievances and see those wounded in action. That is how to show that the government cares. Mrs. Patience Jonathan should give relief materials to victims of the Nyanya bomb blasts and give kind words to the mothers of those daughters of ours who were abducted from school by heartless criminals. This is better than sending relief materials to Bangui in Central Africa, since charity begins at home.
The testimony of US government officials at the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on Nigeria is enough to make any patriotic Nigerian bleed. “The Nigerian military has the same challenges with corruption that every other institution in Nigeria does. Much of the funding that goes to the Nigerian military is skimmed off the top, if you will”, said Alice Friend, Pentagon principal director for african Affairs. This is a very serious indictment which is difficult to contradict.
“From our own difficult experiences in Afghanistan and Iraq we know that turning the tide of an insurgency requires more than force. The state must demonstrate to its citizens that it can protect them and offer them opportunity. When soldiers destroy towns, kill civilians and detain innocent people with impunity; mistrust takes root”, said Robert P. Jackson, principal deputy assistant secretary of state for African affairs. Even though very damning, these are very frank assessments of the Nigerian situation by the American officials. It is true we need international assistance but only in so far as it is to build the capacity and technical capability of our armed forces and not to bring foreign troops here since that will be a magnet for attracting all sorts of terrorists which will compound our problems.
The verdict both within and outside Nigeria is that government is not doing enough. It is high time this fixation with politics and politicization of critical national security issue was stopped. In any case, if government has information about any person, however big, who is supporting or fuelling this terrorism that is threatening Nigeria like no other thing, what is the government waiting for that the person is not immediately arrested and charged to court? It is not about 2015 or anybody’s ambition but how to even survive to 2015 is the issue now.
Nigeria is undergoing a very trying period. Like poverty, the terror that is confronting us is confronting us as Nigerians. Like poverty, it does not distinguish between north or south, Christian or Muslim, minority or majority. Terrorism is confronting us as human beings, as Africans and as Nigerians. We have to come together to defeat it before it consumes all of us. We have to thank the Kala-Bulge community in Borno, for showing us what we can do and what can be achieved when we are united and determined to defeat terrorism. It has no basis in our culture, repugnant to our social conscience and it is antithetical to our religious beliefs. It is bound to collapse, very soon, because Kala-Balge has shown the way. History is on the side of the oppressed.
REF http://leadership.ng/columns/371796/kala-balge-verdicts
No comments:
Post a Comment