Covid; Expressway; Banks: IDPs

By Tony Marinho

Unhappy COVID-19 anniversary with second wave brings deaths approaching 2,550,000 among 114,500,000 diagnosed cases worldwide. Nigerian cases approaching 156,000 and 1,920 deaths. Four million vaccines arriving this week.

Johnson and Johnson Covid vaccine, single dose, ordinary your fridge conditions, is 65% effective and must be considered with other western, Indian and Russian vaccines for Nigeria. Coupled with our native immunity as demonstrated by our low per population death rate, it should be enough. Nigeria: keep it simple. Manpower needs, syringes, spirit, swabs, needles, injection times and injection infections will be halved, saving 50%+ on imports, travel time and money.

Sadly, Lagos-Ibadan ‘Expressway’, only 120km, postponed to 2022?? Suffer on, Nigerians!! Who cares??

Lest we forget the youth, human, educational and security disasters that signify the names of poorly equipped decrepit, underfunded schools in which our children were kidnapped undetected in their hundreds in unseen truckloads and some tragically killed and still unreturned from Chibok, Dapchi, Mahatu, Kankara, Kakara and now 317 girls, teachers and other staff in the Government Junior Secondary School in Jangebe. Apparently, there were police protecting the school but the attack was with sophisticated firepower which required the armed forces. The escalating violence against children is a frightening indictment on terrorists. It demonstrates what our gallant police and armed forces are up against. They urgently need larger response capacity and improved intelligence to practice ‘Rapid Response’ and ‘Hot Pursuit’ strategies seen in other countries faced with similar terrorists.

The government must increase its capacity to blanket cover the areas of conflict with pincer moves which will entrap the terrorists and not allow pressured terrorists to slip away from state to state and back again hit-and-run terrorists around super camps situated like old castles of ancient times. The quick recapture of Marte Military Base from ISWAP after heavy fighting and Nigerian human lives and equipment losses is a sad but huge credit to our armed forces and we mourn our gallant troops lost bravely in battle. The ISWAP left Marte. Again no pincer move to encircle and capture and neutralise the enemy and remove them from the theatre of war. The ISWAP from Marte will just relocate to fight Nigeria another day.

Hopefully with more concentrated manpower, it will be possible to capture and neutralise them. Neutralisation of the enemy is the centrepiece of battle plans. Pushing even robbers from one state to another is no solution to crime. Entire armies have been captured by encirclement as recently as the Second World War. Do we have the military might and leadership willpower to do this in our own country? Why are we unique, treating a non-surrendering enemy with affection? Unless it is not our own country and we are now suddenly and somehow in someone else’s country???

Increasingly helpless and hopeless Nigerians hearing cows and the clicking of AK-47s and witnessing the burning of their ancestral homes and the destruction of their cyclic economic family supporting, livelihood guaranteeing crops, Nigerians driven into IDPs camps facing depressive neglect by governments apart from government and NGO food outreaches ask this question- ‘Is Nigeria truly my country anymore?’ Hopefully we will have the will and the military capacity to capture and neutralise the enemy.  A little more effort is necessary to make capture and neutralisation of the enemy the centrepiece of any war.

Did the ‘Gumi Gamble’ work or was it just a ‘Gumi Publicity Stunt’ to draw more wool over angry eyes? Was it to give us hope of ‘Peace in Our Time’ or to blind us with smoke of a peace pipe or give us yet another carrot to chew on while the country we know and love disappears under us?

Whichever, it remains questionable in design, parties involved, motivation, outcome and biased government response as compared to disastrous events in other parts of the country. In each case the aggressors and the victims are clear and separate but government refused to call out the criminals and guilty parties. Instead, it is pathetic to see government clouding the waters by demanding changes in nomenclature when the aggressor is easily identified.

Of course not all members of any ethnic group are involved or agree with any clashes or riots. That is ethnic profiling a dangerous past-time but lopsided ethnic presidential appointments unresisted by beneficiaries fuel flames. And also the irresponsible government-fuelled diversionary debate on the distinction between murderous terrorists and new-fangled equally murderous bandits is a pathetic insult. Those who murder are murderers. Law school 1-0-1!!!

Kidnappers who kill police, co-hostages or children are murderers. Using the correct definition, we must redefine thousands of armed men roaming our roads and destabilising our forests and freely shooting at soldiers and farmers. The unbridled rush to appease terrorists in any guise financially enriches the ‘terrorist enemy’ with ransom and other money payments, overt and covert, and public media recognition. The president agrees for once. Sadly such terrorist transgressions are routinely accompanied by mass abandonment of the victims of terrorists denying them adequate compensation for loss of life, limb, property and jobs forcing them to ask ‘Am I still a Nigeria and in Nigeria?’ Nigeria must step back from the brink. The war was declared on peaceful Nigerians of all ethnic groups. War knows no friends, only enemies and preventable dead friends across ethnic groups. Banks must step up for IDPs as for Covid not with hand-outs but with empowerment grants.