These, without a doubt, are strange times
for Nigeria. To say that the spate of insecurity in the country is
becoming very alarming will be an understatement. Suddenly, we are faced
with a different kind of insecurity occasioned by incessant terrorist
activities. Before now, terrorism is alien to our culture. But
occurrences in recent years have since altered the picture as the
reprehensible activities of the Boko Haram sect, which today remains one
of the nation’s foremost adversaries, have made
Nigeria a focal point
of global terrorism activities. Through a series of bloodletting
operations, unrivalled in the annals of the country, the sect has, in
the past 12 years, held the nation to ransom.
To underline its newly found status as a
global terrorist group, the sect was designated by the US Department of
State as a terrorist organisation in 2013. In the first half of 2014, it
killed more than 2,000 innocent and hapless civilians, in about 95
attacks. In the last three years, more than 3,000, people have lost
their lives as a result of Boko Haram terrorist operations. A recent
data claimed that Boko Haram attacks have left at least 12,000 people
dead and 8,000 crippled in the last three years while hundreds of
thousands have fled their homes for the fear of the insurgents.
Perhaps, the most audacious of the
dastardly acts of the group, till date, remains the abduction of over
200 secondary school girls, who were kidnapped in a most notorious
manner, from their dormitories in Government College Chibok, Borno
State. The girls, henceforth to be referred to as our girls, have since
been in the custody of the sect for well over 140 days. The act was met
with outrage and wide condemnations across the world. Indeed, some of
the leading nations of the world offered to help in rescuing our girls.
Several local and international groups have equally been clamouring for
the release of our girls. A renowned 17-year-old Pakistan child right
activist, Malala, recently visited the country on account of our girls’
plight. She reportedly had “useful” discussions with major stakeholders
including President Goodluck Jonathan. Malala’s visit eventually opened
the door for a Presidential parley between the Presidency and distraught
parents of our girls. The parley was, however, beclouded by
controversies over the sharing formula for the money purportedly
released by the Presidency for the upkeep of our girls’ parents.
Somewhere along the line, we were told by
the nation’s military high command that the location of our girls,
supposedly in a vast forest named Sambisa along the Nigerian
/Cameroonian border by Eastern Borno, had been discovered . However,
according to military authorities, they had to tread cautiously in order
not to jeopardise the safety of our girls. Good. But, while one
appreciates the efforts of all the stakeholders in the bid to free our
girls, the point, however, is that we are now becoming very
apprehensive, especially with regard to the safety of our girls. With
Ebola presently capturing the attention of the whole nation coupled with
preparations for the 2015 general elections, the fear is that, like
most unresolved murder cases in the country, the issue of our girls
might soon fizzle out of the consciousness of the nation. Consequently,
more than ever before, this is the time to keep asking questions
concerning the plight of our girls. Where are our girls? What is
happening to them? How are they being fed? With what are they being fed?
How healthy is the place where they are being kept? Are they being
sexually abused by their captors? Is it true that they have been fully
integrated into the Boko Haram family? Is it true that some of them are
now being used as suicide bombers? How can we be pretending that all is
well when we have yet to find our girls? Are we actually making efforts
to bring back our girls?
This brings us to the issue of the
Nigerian military. Truth be told, these are unusual times for our
military. Perhaps, there is no other time in the country’s history,
aside from the civil war era, when the professionalism of the Nigerian
military has been fiercely put to test than now. While one values the
sacrifices of our military men and women who put their lives at risk to
uphold the safety of other members of the society, one must, however,
stress that the Nigerian military needs to do more than it is presently
doing in order to completely flush out the men who have held our nation
hostage for too long. One is rather disturbed by several unconfirmed
reports of Nigerian soldiers absconding to neighbourng Cameroon in a bid
to escape the ferocious firing power of Boko Haram insurgents. Though
one is not really schooled in the art of military warfare, it is
becoming alarming that we couldn’t really curtail Boko Haram’s incursion
through military actions thus far. Some have suggested, though one
finds this rather incredible, that the insurgents possess more
sophisticated war arsenals than the Nigerian military. Could our
military have really sunk that low?
In his inaugural speech in May 29, 1999,
former President Olusegun Obasanjo painted a rather horrid picture of
the Nigerian Army when he said among others that “the incursion of the
military into government has been a disaster for our country and for the
military over the last thirty years. The esprit-de-corps amongst
military personnel has been destroyed; professionalism has been lost.
Youths go into the military not to pursue a noble career but with the
sole intention of taking part in coups and to be appointed as military
administrators of states and chairmen of task forces”.
Obasanjo further affirmed that “as a
retired officer, my heart bleeds to see the degradation in the
proficiency of the military. A great deal of reorientation has to be
undertaken and a re-definition of roles, retraining and re-education
will have to be done to ensure that the military submits to civil
authority and regains its pride, professionalism and traditions. We
shall restore military cooperation and exchanges with our traditional
friends. And we will help the military to help itself”.
To what extent the fortune of the
military has improved in the last fourteen years of democratic rule is
better left for scholars, researchers and other stakeholders to
determine. One thing that is, however, certain is that these are tough
times for our military. But with the help of everyone stakeholder in the
country, we shall surely overcome. We have demonstrated with our
commitment to the containment of the deadly Ebola virus that we can
fight back when we are pushed to the wall. We need to do more in our
resistance against our other adversaries. God bless Nigeria!
