Femi Orebe
FIRST and foremost, I wish to apologise for an error in last week’s article. Somehow, I still don’t know how, this opening sentence to the article was inexplicably cropped out: “Today, I yield the column to Babaijo Olusegun O. O. Ogunkua, in a seminal take on the Amotekun phenomenon. His piece is slightly edited for space”.
What that did, was cast me as the writer of the beautiful piece, which from the above, you now know, was not true.
Lasisi Olagunju recently wrote as follows in: Ghosts of America, Adamawa and Kaduna – “The innocent among these young men who are escaping the death of their northern homes are very unwanted everywhere else. So, where will they go? Something is coming very soon; what it is, I don’t know. But we cannot have the huge dispersal of the youths as we have in the North and expect to sleep with two eyes closed. No. We all know that there is a war going on everywhere in Nigeria. And this is not just the never-ending war between good and evil. There is the other war between the night of hopelessness and Nigeria’s forest of the heartless”.
That was in connection with the Okada boys who returned from Lagos State to Adamawa and immediately became disoriented, even though back home, as Adamawa had since outlawed okada as a commercial enterprise.
Much earlier on 29 December, 2019 the following were the honest words of Mohammed Bello Mustapha, in a Paper he presented on the state of street children and its general implications on the future of the society, at Garba Gadi Foundation lecture: “Time is running out for us to find a solution to the ravaging menace of the conditions that are leading many of our youth to turn to drug abuse in search for a meaning to their lives. Time is running out for us to tame the spate of insurgency and banditry that is moving like the harmattan wind and sweeping over our land. Time is running out for us to come out of the cubicle of being the poverty capital of the world, and embrace the shining light of bountiful prosperity that our God given potentials entail. Time is running out for our people in the north to occupy a respective position as citizens of this country with something meaningful to contribute than just being the factories of insecurity and poverty. The despicable situation of seeing millions of street children in the north signifies a gathering critical mass of impending explosion that will give birth to unmanageable poverty and unending insecurity in our society. We are surrounded by an ocean of unquantifiable potentiality of destruction which if the waters are not channelled to useful purpose, they will one day explode with destructive consequences”.
That I must add, was before the ‘virility’ speech on the floor of the House of Representatives and we can take the words of the inimitable Professor Olatunji Dare that Majority Leader, Alhassan Doguwa, may just not be the most prodigious father in that respected chamber as the gospel truth.
For far too long, successive state governors in the north have indulged in ferrying, Southwards, thousands of young, uneducated and unemployable youths, complete with the same number of okadas in what they amused themselves in describing as dividends of democracy.
Now the birds have come back home to roost and what problems they thought they had exported elsewhere are back, metastasised. Or haven’t they seen something of civilisation in Lagos with their tastes already impacted beyond fura de nunu?
Now add to that the sprawling insecurity in every part of the country and you need no telling that Nigeria is close to the abyss.
The decade-old Boko Haram war has, while we all looked, believing that its degradation some four years ago was permanent, grown exponentially with ISWA, restrategised and returned better armed and almost as destructive, of humanity and property, as it ever was. Only this past week it incinerated more than 20 persons at Auno, a sleepy community near Maiduguri, once again igniting the war of words between the state governor, Babagana Zulum and the military.
As Bello Mustapha, the “Katagum Boy” aptly captured it, the North, as “factories of insecurity and poverty”, has since birthed another ferocious army of bandits which, from its home base of Zamfara and Katsina, is now so seriously engaged in the Gurmana and adjoining communities in the Shiroro local government area of a once relatively peaceful Niger state, that the president has had to approve aerial bombardment of their area of operation by the air force.
By May, 2015 when President Muhammadu Buhari took over the reins of government, large swathes of territory in the northeastern corner of the country were under the Boko Haram ‘caliphate”, collecting taxes and effectively administering those areas.
But Nigerians were not unduly worried. After all, the new helmsman, an army general who had seen action, has taken time off his busy campaign and told, not just Nigerians but the world at large, in a February, 2015 speech at Chattam House, London that : ”I as a retired General and a former head of state have always known about our soldiers. They are capable and they are well trained, patriotic, brave and always ready to do their duty. If am elected president, the world will have no reason to worry about Nigeria. Nigeria will return to its stabilising role in West Africa. We will pay sufficient attention to the welfare of our soldiers in and out of service. We will develop adequate and modern arms and ammunition. We will improve intelligence gathering and border patrols to choke Boko Haram’s financial and equipment channels. We will be tough on terrorism and tough on its root causes by initiating a comprehensive economic development and promoting infrastructural development…we will always act on time and not allow problems to irresponsibly fester. And I, Muhammadu Buhari, will always lead from the front.”
True to his words, he soon ordered the military high command to the theatre of war and before you know it, what had long been considered impossible was accomplished: Boko Haram was run out of town and journalists were even taken on a conducted tour of Sambisa forest, its hitherto impregnable fortress.
So we ask: what has happened that today Boko Haram can strike anywhere it wants?
Agreed, Boko Haram is no longer the ferocious onslaught it was, but how come it is beheading and burning humans as catches its whim and caprice? Ghosa-Damaturu, a young man said on Channels television this past week, is a no go area; Chibok inhabitants are still being seized in droves, but worst, he said, is that it is not true that Boko Haram no longer controls territory in Nigeria today. Otherwise, where are their captured victims being kept? Told of President Buhari’s promises in Ethiopia to have all captives freed, he merely asked how many times the President has made such promises to no avail?
Our military have, no doubt, put in a yeoman’s effort with both the army and the air force severally engaged in what has been a terrible assymetrical war. Many have, indeed, paid the supreme price. We pray they rest in peace.
But must the president be all wise in handling this duel unto death? For the entire life of the politics- driven 8th Assembly, not much did we hear of that body getting into security matters probably because it was least concerned with cooperation with the executive branch.
But the friendly 9th Assembly has since weighed in with its own advice as you could not be doing the same thing, over and over, I and expect to have a different result.
But what has been the president’s reaction besides his usual taciturnity?
After all, this is a life and death matter as everywhere you go in this country, today, maximum insecurity stares you in the face – the reason even the North has had to establish an Operation Shege – Ka- Fasa, even if a dubious enterprise.
After all, this is no restructuring and it is inconceivable that the 9th Assembly would ever think of misleading the government of President Buhari.
The president should not in any way prove Bishop Matthew Kukah right that: ”to hold a key and strategic position in Nigeria today, it is more important to be a northern Muslim than a Nigerian”.
The service chiefs who have given their very best to the nation, but whose best efforts are now proving seemingly ineffective, should be allowed to gloriously exit, still shining like a thousand roses. To do otherwise is for the president to be the only wise man in his own eyes. Our security apparatti can make do with fresh hands that will recognise the Nigerian diversity. He must act now for the sake of Nigeria.
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