The continuous captivity of about 200 Chibok school girlscaptured from their hostel since February 15, 2014 by a group of fanatical anarchists called Boko Haram terrorists has become a festering sore and a moral burden on the Nigerian state as hope wanes on the ability of the government to rescue them alive and intact. The narrative has remained the same since the dithering former President Jonathan’s reaction of mum and denial and the jelly-footed, lethargic response of the security forces and the intelligence community. But for the steadfast and constant reminder of the Bring Back our Girls (BBOG) campaign group that took the campaign to the global stage, the nation would have gone to sleep as usual and forgotten about them. No state in history has ever failed her people like the fate of these innocent Nigerians; whatever we do today, it is too little too late. Our government has continued to vigorously pursue their release onlyat seminars, symposia and pages of newspapers by trading blames and speculating.
Nobody appears to still have any clue of their condition and whereabouts; not even the ubiquitous intelligence community that could sniff out fresh wads of dough in the boots of cars during elections. It is a shame that we are still living in delusion that foreign intelligence and American commandos as our development partners would come and rescue the girls for us. The sad thing is that it only dawned on us in the face of the insurgency in the North-east that our security forces have become partisan and fractious, lacking the appetite to fight and fulfil their traditional roles. They have become bogged down and distracted by undue political meddlesomeness. This is the reason why with all our God-given resources as a nation, we are still not able to build capacity and equip our security forces and the intelligence community to help us fight insecurity, which insurgency is just an aspect. Rather than invest in equipment, the politicians and some of the commanders at the Military High Command looted money meant to buy equipment to prosecute the war leaving the military humiliated and the nation embarrassed.
There have been hostage situations in other countries in the world and at every such occasion those states have always risen to the occasion and conducted immediate rescue operation through their security forces. In April 2004, the Russian Federation was jolted by the siege on the Beslan School in the Chechnya region where over 800 people, most of them children, were taken hostage by terrorists. The drama and agony lasted for only 72 hours and the nation had its peace while 31 of the 32 hostage takers were killed and one arrested. There were collateral damages and the parents and nation were not kept in suspense and the message was sent to the spine of all who may have such sinister motive that the country was equal to the task.
Rather than take the bull by the horn, the capturing of the Chibok girls and insurgency have thrown up all manners of experts debating on terrorism, parroting theories that have taken us nowhere. Terrorism or insurgency is an unorthodox warfare that our security forces very well know. The whole world is watching with disbelieve as we debate and sing discordant tunes on the where about of the girls; whether they are still safe and alive or whether they are intact or married off or as the video showed by the insurgents recently, whether they have been killed by air strike by the Nigerian Air Force.
We are told the girls are still in the Sambisa forest. All the excuses and foot-dragging are signatures of failure and unacceptable. Sambisa forest is not an evil forest populated with gnomes and characters from Soyinka’s, “A Forest of a Thousand Demons”. If the insurgents could establish their stronghold in the place, there is no earthly reason why our security forces after two years have not been able to smoke them out whether they are living in bunkers or holes.
It is astonishing that our leaders are still prevaricating instead of summoning the political will to deal decisively with the terrorists once and for all, while we allow any collateral damage to heal with time rather than to continue to be the laughing stock of the world as a big for nothing country.
Nigeria had faced similar crises of insecurity in the past and the armed forces had acquitted themselves creditably well. They successfully prosecuted the Nigerian Civil War whose scale cannot be compared with the Boko Haram insurgents. In 1980, the Nigerian Armed Forces helped to put down a fanatical religious insurgent movement, “Maitatsine” in Kano led by a Cameroonian called Muhammadu Marwa. In 2004, a self-styled Taliban staged attacks against police personnel and installations in North-east and attempted to establish stronghold in the Mandara Mountains between Nigeria and Cameroon. The military came in and flushed out the bandits with little or no casualty recorded on its side. In the sub-region, the Nigerian armed forces have been hailed to high heavens in their exemplary feat in combat. Indeed, the Nigerian military had always projected itself in positive light and beyond any appearance of political partisanship but not any longer as it now engaged in political tuff against itself; helping or providing protection and cover for one political party or the other, thereby losing its credibility and respect.
A good military should be apolitical but patriotic. It is training, equipment and the ability to drive the equipment when it matters that makes a soldier; it is not the uniform as the hood does not make the monk.
We have gone beyond what the last government did or failed to do as this has been settled by the Nigerian people in the last election; this government should be focused on concrete deliverables rather than dwelling and blaming past regimes. The government should not see the BBOG group as irritants because they are acting as the conscience of the nation. If we are beginning to see them as becoming political arising from recent demand for the President to resign, the ruling APC has been the greatest beneficiaries of their politics and campaign. We should remember that if we do not like the way we look in the mirror, breaking the mirror does not change anything, we have to change ourselves. The blame-game has become too monotonous; the President should give a matching order to the security forces of which he is the Commander-in-Chief to put an end to the Chibok girls nightmare one way or the other.
- KebonkwuEsq, writes from Abuja.
