By Simon Abah
Sir: Everything that has a beginning has an end is a popular apothegm. The reverse appears to be the case in Nigeria. The worsening case of poverty goes on unabated, and so is the fight against insurgency; insurgents come with a maddening rage against the state again and again, sacking villages, military installations and one wonders why. States elsewhere are powerful but why is the Nigerian state weak?
The fight against insurgency has gone on for a decade and it may never end. Imagine – that you are a north-easterner with no job pre-Boko Haram, without a bank account because you do not have a nickel.
And– suddenly an international Non-Governmental Body looking for people with knowledge of the terrain of the northeast offered you a desk job, coordinating activities of relief workers in the field, a job that pays you a monthly salary of N250, 000.
You could afford to relocate from your village to living in the Government Reserved Area. Become a Nigerian big-man, carrying women and, carousing. A once broke fellow now has a source of livelihood with dependent relative.
Would you pray for the war against insurgency to end?
Imagine that you are a non-national living in a very remote area in your country, out-of-the-way, milk men cannot supply you with milk unless you travel to grocery stores kilometers away to buy cartons of milk and cannot afford to live in the capital city in your country – but suddenly you were recruited by an international non-governmental body promoting peace efforts in Boko Haram ravaged Nigeria.
You can now afford to buy houses in the capital of your home country and live in comfortable circumstances in Nigeria. People make way for you in queues in Nigeria and women worship you in public places.
The police debase the establishment by sending officers to serve as your servants carrying out domestic chores.
A luxury that even Bill Gates can never enjoy in his country, policemen doing his house chores, escorting wife to the market, carrying groceries and guarding him when he chooses to bend his elbow in a drinking carousal in watering holes.
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Would you pray for the war against insurgency to end in Nigeria so that you can go back to your home country and not be relevant?
Imagine – that you lack vision and started Boko Haram at a time when it was only a rag-tag group to deal with your political enemies.
Wouldn’t you pray for the war to continue because at peace time, you may be prosecuted for being the major benefactor of the group? The war against insurgency may be to your advantage because it detracts government from prosecuting you and from spirited fingers-pointing from the communities of people whose major worry is how to survive the insurgency. Would you pray for the war against insurgency to end, especially since you may still have an adjoined ideology with the insurgents?
Imagine – that you have never fought a war, you are as lucky as some officers in Nigeria – who were commissioned as officers of the armed forces having graduated from the Defence Academy immediately after the civil war, without firing a bullet – some rose to become generals, and you are now past the rank where you command battles in the war front and you are in charge of the procurement of military arsenals.
From zero you suddenly become a millionaire and then billionaire. Would you truly care about the lives of soldiers in the war front or about making commission on sales?
Would you pray for the war against insurgency to end? Would you not pray for the war to continue and hope to be in charge of procurement of military arsenals for a much longer period?
If you dislike the current president, would you want the war on insurgency to end so that he can take the credit for ending it and not the former president that you love so much?
You see why the fight against insurgency may never end. Insurgents are inspired by the successes they have recorded against the intelligence community.
The police that should be in charge of intelligence gathering have been debased to guarding personal houses of politicians, many of which are empty houses; some have become caddies of politicians away from their constitutional duty.
Some of the people mentioned above are undercutting the efforts of well-meaning soldiers that have chosen to put their lives on the line for our safety. These people are Quislings and are no good to the polity. These conspirators are responsible for the leakages of military strategy against the insurgents for their own selfish reasons.
How can insurgency ever end – when Nigerians benefit from the adversity of a suffering majority? How can insurgency ever end – when politicians do not know the meaning of national emergency?
- Simon Abah, Abuja.
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