To all those who fight for peace…
Reader, I am guessing you are as miffed by this boko haram thing as I am; so is everyone else for that matter, except the principal actors – I mean the bombers, slayers, gunners and hell-raisers, as well as their sponsors. Now, you and I know that every disagreement has three sides. There is the side that proposes the argument. ‘You this woman, you have started again today. What do you mean by asking me for your Ankara money this early Monday morning when I have not even been to work?’ Then there is the opposing side that responds violently. ‘If you had given me on Sunday night, I would not have asked you on Monday morning. Now, where is my money?’
Then there is the third party. S/He is the one who is interested in the content and quality of the put-downs, repartees, knock-outs flying around from both sides. He or she goes ‘Ah, what he is really saying is that you are stupid and unintelligent’ to one side and ‘Ah, what she’s really saying is that you are wicked, stubborn and untrustworthy. Are you going to stand for that?’ to the other side. Before you know it, there is a fantastic conflagration consuming the domicile of the dundees, organized and cleverly orchestrated by the interested third party because the others are too stupid to know better.
My knowledge of third party is honestly limited to the insurance I subscribe to in the interest of peace on the road; for me, that is, not the other speed-crazed maniacs flavouring our roads now. Anyway, my Third Party insurance is nothing but a document that says ‘Police, please let me pass; I left a pot of soup on the stove at home’. I have always thought that the insurance exists because; one, the police is invariably one to block one’s road; two, I am toooooo poor to pay the full insurance sum; and three, have you seen what a full insurance sum is lately? Phew, they are enough to make you cough. Worse still, you could finish paying the full sum for the blessed car, then the full sum of the insurance, only to hear the car begin to literally cough! Oh no, swearing at it cannot help you at that point. You just slowly must find your way to the mechanic while your insurance man zooms past you in his new car bought with … you guessed it.
The existence of third parties reminds me of a quizzical line in one of Achebe’s poems in Girls at War: ‘if something stands, something else must stand by it’. If you don’t believe me, just look at our governors in Nigeria. Can you point to one of them who is able to stand without his godfather standing beside him? Many of us have asked the presidency to reveal to us the sponsors of boko haram so that some of us brave ones can march right up to them and poke our digits in their cataract-filled eyes. But Mr. President will not. I think he is more afraid of my eye-poking abilities. Seriously though, anyone can see that those boko haram boys are nothing but rudderless ships living on the fringes of society and looking for someone to direct and feed them on account of having so little state intervention in their lives. So, along comes the third party who sweetly convinces your fringe-liver that killing other people in order to qualify for food is healthy living. That is your unconscionable third party.
From what we know, it is this third party, i.e., the feeders and sponsors, who put guns, bombs, devices, cars, 4-wheel drive vehicles, SUVs, etc., into the calloused, unschooled, unsociable, hungry hands of the fringe-livers. Indeed, we hear the sponsorship is so well organized that helicopters even drop food for them in their camps in the bushes! Whether this is a fact or a rumour, we cannot say but coincidences have ways of suggesting things to one’s head. How come these people are better fed in the bushes than those of us at home? Eh? So, from initially fighting with nothing but their adamantine will power, the boko haram has now graduated to fighting with sophisticated armoury that is procured and paid for by someone so lacking in self-love and so filled with self-hate. Anyone who loves anything about himself will appreciate others a bit. So, instead of giving these poor things living on the fringes of society bread, we are allowing the third party to give them snakes to play with by concealing their identity. This is where we need to direct our search: we need to know who they are.
After getting no response from Oga-on-top, I directed my footsteps to the internet from where I got many theories. The first theory says that the boko haram is being sponsored by some ex-military leaders from the north for their own personal or religious reasons. Perhaps so, perhaps not, we cannot tell; but, you will agree there have been too many rumours regarding this fact. Once, we heard that some boko haram members had been arrested in connection with a blast but orders came from ‘above’ that they be released. I ask you, I ask you!
Here you are, filled with indignation that someone could sit down somewhere and plan the destruction of someone else, and is caught for same after a great deal of evidence and pursuit, only for ‘orders’ to null all that work. Talk of corruption indeed. Why then do we bother to even search for culprits after each episode? I guess we should just fold our arms and sigh each time a bomb goes off since somewhere along the path of investigations, someone can come and say ‘Nay, I see no fault in this man’.
I next read of another theory that gave a very long and twisted account of how a superpower is orchestrating the whole thing from outside Nigeria in order to unbalance and destabilize the country, out of jealousy. Citing the internet site that is known for revealing internet mails, the account further told of how that country had gone to great lengths to recruit, train and fund members of the boko haram to cause mayhem everywhere. It also told of how that country does not want this country to reach its super power destiny. I honestly did not know whether to laugh or cry at that story but I did one thing. I immediately went into my super-prayer mode. I spat out that any force or person or power who says Nigeria will not fulfill her destiny will be consigned to the hottest hell fire, Amen! Thank you ever so kindly for echoing that with me. Imagine the nonsense!
There is yet a third account which says that boko haram members obtain their own sponsorship by blackmailing the big guns in the north to part with their hard-stolen cash. They also get some money by raiding neighbouring villages and towns. Hmm! What are we to make of this but that the falcon can no longer hear the falconer? If the little ‘uns now command the big ‘uns, I tell you things have fallen apart indeed up there.
How the centre is still managing to hold is beyond me. A quotation that made the rounds in the eighties says, ‘if you can still manage to keep your head when all around you are losing theirs, then maybe you don’t understand the situation’. Nay, I think the presidency understands that all of this is leading to a cataclysmic chaos if peace is not pursued quickly, whatever the source of their sponsorship. I think one way out is to reveal the identity of those sponsors. Believe me, the insect eating the leaf is really on the leaf.
