I write once again with heavy heart and great concerns for the defenseless and unarmed people who have been continuously and needlessly murdered by the boko haram killer squad.
Numerous individuals have written about this but it appears more can’t be too much as nothing seem to be improving for the better despite the outcry. A lot of ‘what ifs’ have been raised but sadly we still have to confront what is; and what is, is that innocent people who are committed to going about their respective lives peacefully have been killed over and over again with almost no response from the government except for the ranting of the House of Reps.
Do I expect the people in government to take up arms and relocate to the north? No, I don’t but I expect them to not only be remorseful but also be proactive in finding lasting solutions to the dragging challenges of insecurity. What is special about clocking a 100 if your people do not have quality education, if your people can not access quality health care services; so what exactly calls for celebration? In my opinion nothing. Much as we do not want boko haram to feel we are been boxed into our shelves, we also cannot afford to be seen clinging champagne glasses when the whole essence of what is called a country is being severely depleted.
It appears the conclusion that terrorism is a global phenomenon is a general norm for President Goodluck Jonathan and other members of his cabinet as Anyim Pious Anyim, the Secretary to the Federal Government also contended that the killings in the north especially of defenseless school children wasn’t enough to call off the centenary celebrations as Nigeria is still doing well in containing terrorists compared to other countries. Unfortunately, he didn’t mention one country.
These are the leaders we expect to arrests this ugly development? Oh definitely, this killing is far from its end!
I once said that one of the greatest impetus to commit more crime is to know that the government is not interested in arresting you for the ones you have committed. It also must begin to make sense to you when virtually all criminals arrested in Nigeria cry; they never believe they would be caught! The attitude of the government and how she celebrates her insignificant victories tells why boko haram is becoming confident by the day.
I have my thoughts and I hope to share them with you.
Why has boko haram been so selective in their attacks? They successfully attack places with no form of security, I can make a wild guess.
They know where the forces are not at any given time; they have a very intelligent information gathering and management system. They seem to be serious in their approach and executions. What we need therefore is a serious government that is willing and ready to match and possibly out-think boko haram at all levels. Anything short of this, the killing would go on.
Why do we have so much money ‘missing’, a thinly populated police force and an annoying number of unemployed youths? It is because government isn’t serious about allocation and management of resources. There are currently 371, 800 sworn members of the police force (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nigeria_Police_Force) expected to serve 168.8 million (as of 2012) Nigerians.
How many of these men are busy carrying bags and serving as orderlies? How many of them are attached to ‘priced’ expatriates? How many of them are available to face the heat of the northern killer machines? How many of them would have to go to the Niger Delta? How many are left to deal with day to day protection of normal Nigerians? The same questions applies to the Nigerian Army. And we all think this killing would stop?
Despite the attacks unleashed on Nigerians by boko haram, men of the Nigerian police are either busy collecting bribes or killing innocent Nigerians thereby endearing them to boko haram. What boko haram offers besides killing and kidnapping of people is also an avenue to revenge the wrongs of the police and people are taking it. For every successful jail break, boko haram gets new willing recruits, why? Because some are criminals and some just feel they don’t have a life anymore; the meaningful part of their lives have been spent in illegal detention. That is why we are where we are. The Nigerian Police recruits for Boko haram by implication; now you see why this killing isn’t about to stop.
Of all the arrests made so far or better still that we have read about and heard Mr. President brag about, how many of such has led to the development of a serious road map to tackling this problem? It clearly shows that these arrests are either over-hyped or don’t really exist! If they do, it means we are such a wasteful system as far as information management is concerned. The way names are mystified, one would have expected that the arrest of such individual would bring down the sect but alas; it doesn’t. Abu Qaqa was so celebrated that we had thought is arrest would mark the beginning of the end of boko haram but here we are today; nothing is happening. Boko haram floats a dummy identity, out of the lack of strategy of our security outfit, these names are celebrated and then any face is attached to it to give some petty arrests a national ovation; what do we get afterwards? Multiple attacks!
Do not see me as a pessimist nor should you think I am happy about this; you can’t even think that except you are from MARS! What is obtainable shows we have a government whose priority is way different from the current challenges rocking us as a people.
My mind is with those who have been brutally murdered in cold blood while we are also not assured of the next day as we don’t know where the next bomb would sound nor do we have an idea of where the next invasion is.
As long as this is the character of our leaders; as long as they are ready to entertain other irresponsible world leaders at a time when innocent Nigerians are being killed, this killing won’t stop.
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