Solving The Boko Haram Menace: The Bitter Truth And The Many Problems

  Long before now and ever since the nefarious and venomous enterprise of the dreaded Islamic sect reached its present acme, the crème de la crème of different organizations like the media, non- governmental organizations, private individuals, etc have in one way or the other offered solutions on steps to be taken to nip this wickedness and degradation of our socio-political eco-system in the bud as a result of the activities of the sect. Even the clergy aren’t an exception to this cause. Different panels have been constituted both at the state and federal level but at the end of the day, have amounted to little or almost nothing being achieved. The best way to have classified these efforts is like pouring water on rocky hills and expecting it to be permeable in betrayal of science and nature. All these efforts have defied all odds most possibly because we do not want to rise up to the challenge of telling ourselves the bitter truth by calling a spade a spade. We have chosen to call a spade a rake instead and the effects are way too voluminous today that one cannot in a hurry arrive at a compendium of them.

May I save us these festivals of grammars and proceed to the tentacles that form the nub of this piece. Our refusal to haven hit the nail on the head but rather beating about the bush in expunging these elements of doom in our realm have succeeded in lending them a mysterious Nomen Clature which we all know they aren’t but have become as a result of our ignorance. Without mincing words, one need not be told, at least not again at this stage, that the reason why the Boko-Haram sect have refused to go the way of dialogue and subsequent embrace of peace is the persona and ethno-religious status of Mr. president- Good luck Ebele Jonathan and not just the government of the Peoples’ Democratic Party as has been paraded in the news both local and international alike. It’s no doubt a very harsh and controversial revelation I know, but let me die before you dig my grave.

History shall bear me witness that ever since the uprising of 2009 in Maiduguri, North Eastern Nigeria when the Yar’ adua led administration declared a public war against the sect when they became un-restive and as a result killing a good number of them and even their leader in a controversial circumstance, the sect were to a great extent devoured and forced to lay down their arms against their immediate will which was the way all such groups have been tamed all over the world with the maitaseni incidence been a practical example in our own dispensation. Despite the international community, labeling the modus-operandi of the government back then as one of murder and public massacre of its citizens, it was all that was needed to quell the imbroglio back then and the ends justifying the means because it returned the instability that became the order of the day to a normal and habitable atmosphere. People moved about their activities freely and prosecution of victims started. The A.S.U.U strike that became a blessing during this period was soon called off and I returned back to school in one piece as well as other students to resume academic activities after the four months of paralysis in the education sector.

All the rejuvenated problems we face today in the name of terrorism got a new birth immediately after the then president Alhaji Musa Yar’Adua took ill and was flown far away Arabia for treatment. Back home, instead of wishing the sick gentle man a quick recovery when his condition became epileptic, the big shots in government got themselves enmeshed in a cold war as to whether to invoke the provisions of section 144 of the constitution in determination of whether Mr. president is incapacitated or not or whether he has transmitted a written statement to the National Assembly to that effect. After much heated controversy, the then vice-president, was made the acting president after the doctrine of necessity was invoked and subsequently made the substantive president when the gentleman of goodwill bided goodbye to the fleshy part of the world. May JANNAH continue to be his abode (Ameen Summa Ameen).

Our woes were compounded, when the new president haven kissed the wine of power, resolved to contest for the 2011 presidential elections in betrayal of the zoning formula already established in the party. As a result of the power of incumbency and probably untainted character, judging from his records in those days when he held sway at Bayelsa as the state governor, he was voted into power in a landslide victory including the north that were to produce the next president had the zoning formula not been crucified and trampled upon. For the many that couldn’t swallow the bitter pill of the president’s act, they went back and after having series of meetings vowed to make the election a failure immediately after he made his intention known. This was the point, the book haramites became the tool to send this message across. The group who before this time, had laid down their arms while counting their losses after the uprising, rushed for the gauntlet thrown at them and saw it as an opportunity to rent their spleen in vengeance for their deceased leader, his father in-law and so many others who got ‘martyred’ in that altercation.

As such, they launched their first attack during the 50^th anniversary of Nigeria’s independence and subsequently marred the president’s campaign train by violence in many states leaving innocent citizens dead with many others injured during such attacks that became the second birth of Boko Haram backed by cabals in the same government, military and other paramilitaries synchronizing together to form a synergy that has made them a formidable force while leaving indelible scars on the face of the Goodluck Jonathan administration in fulfillment of their promises to make his government ungovernable. A fight that they have won so far to say but the least as a result of their guerilla tactics and faceless identity even though the government claims to know them while we count our loses at the birth of every new day. Bomb blasts have rocked almost the entire northern states with the seat of the caliphate being the newly deflowered leaving thousands maimed with a majority of the pack coming from the armed forces who are most vulnerable to their attacks. More so just like every other of such groups, they have taken the war to the streets leading a vendetta against private citizens who have entered their bad books as a result of ethno-religious affinity, as evidenced in their war against Christians and other non-Christians who forestall their goals either directly or indirectly.

What picture, like Picasso have I been painting here it is very pertinent to ask at this juncture? The holy bitter truth has forever been coyed away from in solving and tackling the boko haram insurgency. This is a group who gets financial support in order to fast track their activities from influential individuals of which some have been indicted and many others fugitives from justice. Top governmental officials who doesn’t want Goodluck being in power are the many reasons we are torn apart like cats living among dogs. It is an unrivalled fact that the leaders of this sect are in government as the president and other analysts have pointed out but the only thing extant is to what aim?  This is the part of the puzzle that has not been solved. As many as have shyed away from it, I don’t want to join the train either. Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, being the president in betrayal of the so-called principle of zoning has been and would continue to be the reasons the fundamentalists would not lay down their arms at least not any time soon since the political interest of the cabals who foot their bills have not been appeased to any extent. The only person that has come close to this naked truth was the former national security adviser, general owoye Azazi when he said that the P.D.P is the problem of BOKO HARAM. He came close to this truth in the sense that instead of particularizing he went the way of generalizing perhaps for reasons not to be separated from trying to secure his job and possible rousing up a national tumult but no sooner had he made this statement, than the security of his job suffered a quake and in no time he was shown the exit door. The cabals at work indeed and that is how things work in this country. And i ask: can Mr. President be the sacrificial lamb for our salvation? Can he be the carrier of our sins like EMAN did in wole Soyinka’s strong breed? And even if he does, will it alleviate all of our future problems politically?

Nigeria is a state founded on the principle of unity and strength, peace and progress, therefore any competent citizen can arise from any of its wide spread wings under a political party and vie for an elective post in a general election. The issue of not subscribing to the tenets and conducts of a particular political party shouldn’t been a fertile ground of sowing seeds of discord that germinates into violence. So the argument of not playing in line with zoning should be a party problem and not a national one and therefore cannot hold water in any court of law in Nigeria but the cabals who rule from the outside would not subscribe to this not while they can still breathe. What then should be the solution it is rife to ask?

should Goodluck EBELE Jonathan, resign from his seat as the president of this  comatose behamose of a nation in order to gratify the wicked demands of his political enemies and save us the ceremony of bloodshed that has subsumed us and would continue to? Or better still, should he refrain from running in the 2015 presidential election that analysts have seen as Nigeria’s last chance if the presidency doesn’t emerge from the North? Has our soft spot for amnesia made us forget the “biri jinni kare jinni” fable of a phrase where dogs and baboons would be let loose in an arena of battle if the P.D.P rigs the election? Am sure not many of us would have.

On the other side of the coin, won’t the suggesting of a northerner to be the next president be an aberration of the principle of franchise and what would be the other regions reaction to it? What about the IGBO’S and the middle belt who haven’t tasted the seat of power in decades but have continued to be consoled and pacified with the spirit of federalism? Shall the totality of Nigerians become slaves to a particular region that has ruled this country more from the military days to the present day just because it is quicker to take to arms? Should the patience of the other regions be taken for cowardice? Too many questions with answers obviously in the negative which brings us to the forever postponed atmosphere to settle these whole differences- summoning a sovereign national conference where we shall discuss how far we have come and how further we can go or bringing to termination this forced marriage of regions.

If a particular region cannot give its support to another just because it houses the presidency, then we should stop feigning this unity in diversity because it is not working. For this same unity in diversity has caused many wounds than it has healed. Lord lugard’s selfish/economic reasons for joining this matrimony of regions decades ago was never for our common good as a people as far as I know but rather for economic reasons.

The boko haram insurgency, least I forget, is chiefly a political battle clothed with the fiber of religion to draw loyalists to it because religion has always been and will always be opium of the oppressed and can easily buy the heart of even the strongest in spirit. It is instigated by political blackmailers who are bent to reduce this government to debris to achieve inordinate demands……No  religion preaches violence and the Islam that I know doesn’t either. God bless Nigeria.

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