Terrorists do not usually work alone. They have collaborators or force people to cooperate in their murderous activities.
There has been a doctor arrested and others indicted for colluding with terrorists. There are many more participants but some will be unwilling collaborators, acting under threats. Terrorists often ‘know where you and your relations live’. Terrorists need support systems for fuel, food, transport, financial, medical and even education support to the terrorists.
To the secret service investigation in those areas, the identification of a doctor and a petrol station involved are important and the security agencies are to be encouraged to spread their net wider as the revelations are just the tip of the iceberg of complicity in exposing the vast network which supports the works of terrorism. For example, it has been repeatedly reported that helicopters have been seen and heard supporting terrorist activities in the ‘bush’. Have we investigated enough to prove the efficacy of helicopter incidents or know the origin and destination of such helicopter incidents and the identity of the funders, the operators and personnel involved?
Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan, recently unsuspended, after serving a six-month suspension from the senate has made huge waves positive with her Amazonian achievements with her available funds from good use of the Salary and Perks of office of a serving Senator of Nigeria. It is not yet confirmed if the funds used included the much-abused constituency project funds which most Nigerians want abolished due to poor transparency and apparent misuse as they do not have a stellar track record of usefully using such huge funds for their constituents. Instead, there is a reported poor impact with little good for the citizenry under almost all the members of the National Assembly, (NASS).
Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan really stands out as someone who demonstrates political concern of the economic progress of her constituents. This cannot be said of most NASS members as they would be hard-pressed to demonstrate any marked value added to the community in proportion to the funds made available to them. Such politicians would rather plaster their outsized mugshot photographs on bags of food consumables for distribution to the needy.
Where is the dignity in cunningly first taking the citizens’ money from them through ‘legally but morally illegal’ i.e. legally-illegal means and misappropriation gimmickry as budgetary hyper-allocations and then the politicians ‘returning’ a tiny part of that money with items plastered with the so-called donor’s mugshots and lots of press?
For years we have been insulted and abused by the misused statement that the president/governor/ LGA chairman ‘donated this or that’ when in fact it is our money they are using and so they cannot donate it back to us. ‘Our mumu don do’ as Charlie Boy/Man/Baba would say! Over many years, the media usually celebrates and perpetuates this misconception, cementing it both in the political lexicon and in the psyche of the citizenry who now have been misled and schooled by the media to ‘appreciate and eulogise and even deify’ the misnamed ‘donor’ and the donation. Seriously the media must take responsibility for not sufficiently protecting the impressionable public by interrogating the origin of such funds and widely publishing the same.
There are only two types of funds that politicians can use and it is not nuclear physics for journalists creating a news item to quickly research and conclude on the nature or type of funds being made available for the correct reporting of each such event.
For maximum fiscal accountability, funds are either ‘Public or Personal’ so instead of blanket ‘donated funds’, the media must begin to distinguish between the two and speak out in their headlines. ‘On behalf of the people, the president/ governor/LGA chairman released the sum of ABC millions. Ask if money is merely an ‘allocation’ from public funds ‘on behalf of the citizens’ or ‘a personal donation’. The source of all funds tricking down to the citizenry is important and the media should demand that such origins should be made clear in all circumstances or reports will be withheld so as not to give undue glory to someone who was acting as a ‘public fund conduit for good’ and not as a donor of personal funds.
The media needs to also know and point out that politicians seem to have lost a sense of perception, purpose, position and even currency value along with their moral compass and a singularly high degree of excessive self-worth in security and financial terms.
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For example, a head of government is reportedly suing an international media outlet for $1b. Even though he is a multibillionaire, the amount appears preposterous. In contrast, and to put it in economic context, imagine a Nigerian politician who proudly approved a mere N70,000 as minimum wage [but many millions for fellow politicians monthly] reportedly suing a colleague, for N200billion i.e. N200,000,000,000. Think please. N200b is a month’s salary for 2,857,143 citizens or a N70,000 monthly salary for 238,095 years. Is this degree of self-importance a red flag requiring personality disorder analysis? Remember that it was the politicians charging N100m for the party presidential nomination form that triggered kidnappers immediately demanding N100m/ person for ransom. What will this N200billlion translate into in the terrorist world?
Regarding the media, we used to report herder-farmer clash placing the initiator as the herder. Gradually it is now farmer-herder clash reversing the blame. We should revert to the herder-farmer clash nomenclature.
