Not since the dark years of the civil war have Nigerians sunk to the lowest level of despair and despondency as they have now. The reason is the increasing invincibility and self confidence of the Boko Haram sect in the fifth year of its violent campaign against the Nigerian state and people. The sect’s upbeat mood is sharply contrasted by the government’s lack of will and the unpreparedness of our security forces to end the campaign of violence and destruction.Almost every northern city or town harbours men, women and children who have fled their homes in the three North-eastern states gripped by the insurgency.
First, this season of discontent was expressed in whispers, but today the voices are louder and they belong to both ordinary citizens and the very influential in the society. A fortnight ago, the well respected Emir of Kano, Alhaji Muhammadu Sanusi II, without saying the government has failed Nigerians, urged people affected by the Boko Haram insurgency to take up arms to defend themselves. “These people, when they attack towns, they kill boys and enslave girls… People must stand resolute… People must not assume that the crisis will not reach their area,” the Emir noted. “If it comes, we are asking God to give us fortitude, but if He wishes to take martyrs from amongst us, we should be ready to give our lives.” Few days after he spoke those words at a Quranic recitation contest, gunmen, suspected to be Boko Haram militants, attacked Kano’s central mosque on a Friday, killing some 200 worshippers.
If the emir diplomatically avoided saying the government has failed to defend Nigerians, former President Olusegun Obasanjo was as blunt as always. Last week, he said President Jonathan’s understanding of the Boko Haram phenomenon was flawed. According to him, that understanding suffers from “wrong reading and wrong imputation”. “It took the President more than three years to appreciate and understand that it is a terrible mix of poor education or lack of education, misinterpretation of what Islam and the Quran teach and stand for, poverty, unemployment, injustice, drug, gun trafficking, human trafficking, fallout from Libya, revenge, frustration, struggle against inequality, imitation of international terrorism leading to training and part absorption by international terrorist group or groups and general poor governance including corruption.”
An example of the President’s misconstruction of Boko Haram that stood out as a sore thumb was his initial denial in April, this year that 200 plus girls had been abducted by Boko Haram from their school in Chibok, Borno State that month. He had to set up a special team to verify the abductions. They were confirmed, to the President’s eternal shame. The kidnapping happened on April 14, the same day that a bomb went off during early morning rush hour at a bus station in an Abuja suburb, killing over 100 people. Immediately following the Obasanjo lambast, came Prof. Wole Soyinka. Nigeria’s only Nobel laureate and himself also a constant pain in the Jonathan administration’s neck. He said in his latest public statement, “King Nebuchadnezzar – The reign of impunity,” that the President was using government agencies like the Department of State Security (DSS) and the police to terrorize political rivals while shielding known sponsors of Boko Haram, with an eye on re-election in 2015.
The frustrations of most Nigerians, particularly those bearing the brunt of the insurgency, are understandable. Not only is the Jonathan administration not demonstrating the political will to end it, every measure it has taken so far has been halfhearted and ineffectual. The President’s total commitment to his re-election bid is unmatched by that to ending the insurgency. His half-hearted actions have led to a series of blunders. Recently, he obtained parliamentary approval to borrow $1 billion to buy arms for the ill-equipped military. However, instead of going about it the legal way, his government chose to do it clandestinely. The government loaded raw cash worth $15 million in a chartered plane, heading for South Africa. Of course, the aircraft and its cargo were seized by the South African government. This was last September.
Another slip up was the bungled trial of one of the suspects in the April 14 Nyanya bus station bombing, a former Nigerian soldier, Aminu Oguche, who was repatriated from Sudan where he had fled to stand trial. Last week, an Abuja court dismissed the case of the prosecution as too weak. The only good thing is the judge did not order the suspect released. This is not the only case. Hundreds of other Boko Haram suspects are languishing in police and army detention cells. So far, only two or three convictions have been secured.
As it is, the state of emergency declared in Adamawa, Borno and Yobe states – the epicenter of the insurgency – has expired. The President late last month applied to the National Assembly to approve a fourth extension but the politics of 2015 has prevented the lawmakers from giving that approval. Unfortunately, the impasse is being exploited by Boko Haram to kill and take more territory. The last one week saw some of its deadliest attacks yet. That same period it made an audacious attempt to take the government house in Damaturu, the capital of Yobe State. The attack was, however, repulsed by government troops who, this time luckily, did not abandon their duty posts.
Rather than admit its failure to rein in Boko Haram, the government is blaming America for not giving it the heavy arms that will deliver the fatal blow on the sect. If America will not sell – it has the right of first refusal – , why not turn to a willing seller? It is not the first time America would refuse to sell arms to us; it happened during our civil war. Gen. Yakubu Gowon, the Head of State that prosecuted the war successfully, turned to the Soviet Union then. The American excuse only exposes the government’s failure to de the needful. It’s regrettable.
