It has since been recognized that the driving force for terrorists in their selection of targets is the desire to achieve maximum impact and instill fear in the society. The objective is to swell public anger and disenchantment with the government for its inability to live up to its primary function of securing lives and property.
That accounted for the selective suicide bomb attacks on churches and other places of worship during the early days of the Boko Haram insurgency. The attack on the United Nations building in Abuja had similar motivation.
The objective then was to precipitate a state of panic among Christians and the international community by instilling fear on them. And with their weird avowal to install an Islamic state in the north, the simmering fear was further reinforced.
The thirst of the media for the absurd also came handy in guaranteeing such events easy and generous mention. With such generous mention in both local and foreign media, their sponsors coast home happily that they are achieving their objective. That has been the pattern.
But with the stringent security measures mounted by churches and other vulnerable institutions, it became difficult for these agents of shock and awe to continue with their dastardly acts in places of worship.
They now came up with a change in tactics with schools as targets. That was how the secondary school in Buni Ladi was razed down burning to death and massacring about 60 innocent school children. As if that was not enough to ruffle public sensibilities and precipitate public anger against the government of the day, they now hatched out the very devious and confounding plan of abducting over 200 secondary school girls in Chibok, Borno state.
The circumstances of that abduction, the heat and wide attention it generated and its unresolved nature still remain a sore point in the fight against terrorism. Apparently unhappy that the wide attention generated by the Chibok girls’ abduction was dying down, the terrorists were at it again last week. This time around, they wired a young suicide bomber disguised in school uniform with lethal explosives and directed him to mingle with school children during early morning assembly for the bombs to detonate. And it came to pass sending over 50 school children to their early graves and scores of others seriously wounded. As should be expected, the latest attack has attracted ire against the federal government. Coming a day before the advertised programme of President Jonathan to make a public declaration of his intention to run for a second term, the opposition has sought to castigate him for going ahead with the declaration even with the killings of the previous day. They see the declaration as callous and insensitive. Some other groups have equally picked holes with the declaration in the face of the devastations wrought by the suicide bomb attack.
The feelings of those who pick holes with the president’s declaration given events of the previous day can be understood especially given the intractable nature of the Boko Haram insurgency. But that is where there is no partisanship in such views or rather where they are not propelled by the desire to score political points.
The impression that comes from all these criticisms is that once such killings (which at any rate have become very common) take place, the president must put off any scheduled programme. We saw such views when Jonathan went to Kano state during the sensitization rallies of the Peoples Democratic Party PDP. He was heavily lampooned for daring visit that state when scores of innocent people were killed by suicide bombers at Nyanya near Abuja. He was also heavily berated for not visiting Chibok and the parents of the abducted girls.
He is our president and must take responsibility for the inability of the government to protect lives and property of the ordinary citizens. That is embodied in the nature of the social contract he has with the people. Again, he has come under heavy fire for going ahead to declare his intention to run for another term when school children were moved down in their prime the previous day. All the sentiments on the deaths can be understood.
But the coincidence of these killings with key scheduled events involving the president cannot continue to pass unnoticed. It is becoming a pattern for these suicide attacks to occur each time Jonathan has a key political engagement. And when this happens, what you get is the trading of blames on Jonathan for going ahead with the scheduled event.
It may well be a coincidence. But their recurring frequency is now suggestive that there is more to them than ordinarily meets the eyes. Matters are not remedied by the frequency of criticisms that follow such events. Ironically, as these criticisms are freely traded, the impression they conjure is that the attacks were planned to prevent those events from going on.
Not unexpectedly, such coincidences have tended to reinforce the notion that the current spate of insurgency in the country is politically deterministic. Not long ago, leaders from the north under the aegis of Northern Elders Forum (NEF) went bizarre when they demanded that Jonathan should not present himself for another term until he has resolved the insurgency in the country and freed the abducted Chibok school girls.
When this kind of posturing is weighed against the recurring bomb attacks each time the president is about to undertake a major political activity and the avalanche of criticisms that follow, the value of such criticisms cannot but be heavily diminished.
The inevitable impression one gets each time these bomb attacks occur before Jonathan’s scheduled engagement is that they are primed to discredit him. It also conveys the feeling that some people are afraid of Jonathan running the election and are prepared to throw up all manner of subterfuge to stop him. That is my reading of the demand by northern elders that he should forget his 2015 ambition if he fails to stop Boko Haram and free the Chibok girls at the end of last month.
October has come and gone. Boko Haram is still with us and nothing positive has been heard of the abducted girls. But Jonathan has gone ahead to make good his intention to run for that office. So of what value is such ultimatum and criticisms that are solely directed at stopping him from going on with his ambition? That is the issue here.
Instead of dissipating valuable energy trying to stop Jonathan, those opposed to him should direct their attention on how to win him at the polls. Bad as the security situation in the north-east is, it has not stopped politicians of different political parties from positioning for advantage to win the coming elections.
The uncanny irony thrown up by this was brought to the fore last week when Christian leaders in Adamawa state issued a communiqué urging all political parties to suspend all political activities until the heightened insecurity in the state has been brought down. The message of the clerics is clear. Its import is also not in doubt. If insecurity should debar anyone from running for the coming elections, then the entire process can as well wait. But there is no cogent reason for that now.
