“Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.” — Wendell Phillips, (1811-1884)
Last Friday and Saturday, the entire world stayed glued to their satellite stations watching the CNN. They were eager to witness the denouement to the search for the surviving on-the-run suspect of the Boston Marathon bombing in the United States of America (USA). That night, the US system showed the entire world why its remains world’s number one country.
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19, and his brother, Tamerlan, 26, from the same mother and both resident in the US, were the suspected masterminds of the dastardly act that claimed three lives, critically injuring 180 others near the finish line of that marathon race. Both of them were born in former Russian territory known as Kyrgyzstan and are of Chechen descent. In their bid to escape from justice, Tamerlan was killed in Watertown, Boston while Tsarnaev escaped on foot, albeit fleetingly. The manhunt for Tsarnaev brought out the best of America’s disdain for terrorism and her readiness to protect the sanctity of human lives and property in her territory.
The FBI and the Watertown police launched a citywide lockdown by conducting a house-by-house search for the alleged killer. The federal and the Watertown police displayed professional agility and civilised disposition in the discharge of their police duties. They were well kitted with the best of police combat costumes as they drove round Watertown in armoured patrol vehicles. This must have informed the confidence and commitment displayed by these men.
Their ceaseless security vigil since the day the bomb blast occurred became fruitful when Tsarnaev was eventually nabbed, after a brief gun duel with the police, in a tarp-covered boat he had been hiding in the backyard of a house. The Watertown police siege scenery was a reminder of what policing in Nigeria should be but which unfortunately, it is not. The kits adorned by the American police were procured with money and it is not as if this country does not have the funds to procure such. But corruption has been the greatest inhibition to our goal of attaining that security standard. The lives of those America police are insured against the hazards of their profession. Nothing of such is available for their Nigerian counterparts. Billions of naira is yearly budgeted for police equipment, welfare, training and overall national security but the money never gets down. Yet, we expect such policemen officers to be the veritable aegis for maintaining peace and security in our country.
It would not happen because it is what is sown that would be reaped. That brings us down to the handling of Boko Haram insurgents in the country. Quite unlike what we all witnessed in Boston, the handling of the insurgents by the Nigerian police, military and intelligence agencies has been laughable. The handling of this intractable problem by security agencies has made mockery of the nation’s competence in making her territory a safe haven for inhabitants. Could the problem be that of waning motivation among security operatives? Could it be one of incompetence or even misplaced priority of how to handle security, especially police affairs in this country?
For instance, the police institution that is the pride of the US has become an albatross in, especially, the northern part of the country today. Even the intervention of the military through the Joint Task Force (JTF) has exposed the military as suffering from the same official lethargy that has become the lot of the police and other security agencies in the country. At the same time the US police was commendably hunting for, before eventually apprehending Tsarnaev, the Nigerian military was struggling in a battle with the Boko Haram miscreants. At the end of that battle, not less than 185 lives were lost in the gun duel between the JTF and Boko Haram insurgents.
Most of the people killed, according to reports, were women and children. About 2000 houses and more than 50 motorcycles were burnt in the commercial town of Baga, Kukawa Local Government Area of Borno State. Baga is a fishing town on the shore of Lake Chad adjacent to the Chadian border. It is a shame that a military general commanded JTF has not succeeded in its attempts to reclaim 10 local government areas in Borno State including Marte, Magumeri, Mobbar, Gubio, Guzamala, Abadamin, Kukawa, Kaga, Nganzai and Monguno that have been taken over by Boko Haram killer members. This exercise is a complete mockery of the essence of the Nigerian military which is to quell insurrection against the state that the Boko Haram is currently championing. Yet, Mr. President could not rescue the already bad situation.
Sometime last year January, not less than 186 people were killed in coordinated attacks by Boko Haram fighters in Kano State. Tens of others were killed, even in military barracks, by the unscrupulous sect members in other northern states at different occasions without any clue being gotten by security agencies. The approach of government has always been like begging the issue without any concrete result coming out of bombings that have become routine in the country. Could this kind of things happen in the US for this long period without a solution being arrived at by the security agencies and the government, even if there is northern elite complicity as being insinuated in the current case in the country?
Whilst President Barrack Obama rose to the occasion as witnessed in the Boston’s case in the US, President Goodluck Jonathan of Nigeria turned to his cliché of calling for an investigation into the matter. As usual in the latest Borno state Boko Haram shootouts with the military, he has ordered a powerful probe, that would be a shameful end to the incident. He sits in the comfort of Aso-Rock Presidential Villa, Abuja, from where he is demanding from Brig.-General Austin Edokpaye, Commander of JTF in Borno State, a comprehensive brief of what transpired which even when given to him, he most possibly would not act on. The question is: Will Obama take the same position if the Boko Haram were to be in America? The question is no! The American government would have wiped them out of its territory. That is a sign of a country with serious leadership focus of how its affairs must be administered. President Jonathan’s arm-chair Commander-in-Chief approach to security matters especially, has become serious embarrassment to credible citizens of this country. The venomous situation, currently witnessed in most parts and the displayed inefficient official disposition, cannot continue if the Nigerian project is still of importance to those in the corridors of power.
Whether against Boko Haram insurgents, unscrupulous militants or even armed robbery/kidnappers siege, when is Nigeria going to witness the type of effectively triumphant security agencies that kept vigil for humanity in Watertown, Boston last weekend? This is a food for thought for all reasonable Nigerians within the country and in Diaspora that want the country to witness peace/stability. Eternal vigilance, as deployed by America in Boston, is truly the price of liberty – apologies to that great thinker, Wendell Phillips.
