Tunde Fagbenle
| credits: File copy
| credits: File copy
There
are no words to describe or denounce sufficiently the gravity of the
latest run of Boko Haram madness on the land. The country woke up on
April 15 to numbing media reports of the calamity of the day before
(Monday, 14th): bomb explosions at the busy Nyanya motor park in the
Federal Capital Territory, resulting in one of the largest casualties in
the history of Boko Haram reign of terror, with figures of the dead –
ranging from 80 to 100 and the injured in several hundreds.
Nyanya, to be sure, is an Abuja suburb in
the neck of woods of Aso Rock where the President lives. Weeks earlier,
if we may recall, the dreaded terrorist sect boldly attacked the
citadel of state security (SSS) within the vicinity of the Villa in an
attempt to free some of their members held in detention. I hope the
import is clear: Mr. President, “knock, knock…”
Barely 24 hours earlier (Sunday, 13th) to the Nyanya blast I was in Abuja. It could have been me; it could have been anyone.
The very next day (Tuesday 15th) Boko
Haram went ahead to abduct about 100 schoolgirls of the Girls Secondary
School, Chibok, in Borno State. The girls were preparing for their
Senior Secondary School Certificate Examination. The fate of the girls,
as of the time of writing this, is unknown.
Boko Haram is certainly on the loose,
killing, maiming, looting, burning, virtually at will and
indiscriminately. On the very day of the Nyanya mayhem, VANGUARD
newspaper had just headlined its front page, unbeknownst to it what the
day had in stock: “Bloody Weekend In Borno – 60 killed in fresh Boko
Haram attacks.” And the story: “Barely 48 hours after suspected Boko
Haram terrorists massacred more than 200 persons including students who
were taking their Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME), the
insurgents, yesterday (Sunday, 13th) continued their killing spree as
they killed no fewer than 60 persons in Ngoshe and Kaigamari villages of
Borno close to the border with Cameroon.”
There certainly has been a concentration
of attacks on schools and colleges by the terrorists since their
resurgence in the last three or four years, but intensified of late, as
if to buttress their ab initio denunciation of “Western education”,
that, as the Boko Haram name proclaims, it is “sin”!
Let’s face it, if their indiscriminate
and wanton destruction of lives and property in the North-East, and here
and there in the north, is anything to go by, everything in the eye of
the Boko Haram is sin: churches and mosques, innocent children and
women, places of work, everything. Indeed, Nigeria’s continued existence
is sin!
There is nothing I want to write about
these mindless criminals called Boko Haram that I have not written in
the last several years. And I quote some:
In the column of 01/01/12 following the
contemptible “Xmas gift” of December 2011 whereby churches near Abuja
and elsewhere in the North were bombed, I wrote:
“We will live with this for a while, a
long while, one incomprehensible group replacing another, one
incomprehensible demand after another.
“President Jonathan is in a fix. He may
change his security guys all he wants…he may bring in the army and level
all of two or more towns in Obasanjo’s Odi fashion, he will not be able
to stop these mindless bombings – how do you stop faceless suicide
bombers? … Are we then on the “road to Kigali”? Is sectarian strife the
new order? …Are we at the onset of the disintegration of Nigeria or will
the centre hold?”
And in the column of 11/11/12, I wrote:
“It is muddling and disheartening to find intellectuals and the elite in
the North appear to make excuses for the coming of the Boko Haram in
our body polity; some even virtually helping to ‘shape’ the incoherent,
senseless and shifting Boko Haram demands.
“…It is time for the real leaders in Boko
Haram’s North to speak with one voice, without equivocation, to condemn
the terrorists and give them no hiding place or “hiding rationale”
before they put an end to Nigeria – unless, of course, that’s the whole
idea!”
And after another motor park was bombed
in Sabongari, Kano in March 2013, I wrote in the column of 24/03/13:
“The latest Sabongari, Kano bus station bombing, with the rumoured or
threatened reprisals by folk in the East whose people are the main
casualties, has forced upon the Sultan of Sokoto, His Eminence Saad
Abubakar III, one of the strong pro-amnesty proponents, a new
appreciation of the danger the country faces.
“He is quoted to have said: ‘This new
trend of bombing at a motor park, and the killings that ensued, on
innocent people that gathered to travel to various destinations at New
Road, Sabon-Gari, Kano, is disturbing and alarming… It seems there is a
design to set the entire North on crises and by extension, the whole
country, starting with Kano…’
“For Nigeria, tomorrow is hard to foretell”
And then, in the column of 14/07/13,
after the murdering of 29 schoolchildren and a teacher of the Government
Secondary School, Mamudo, Yobe State, I wrote:
“One thing is clear; they (Boko Haram)
cannot exist in a vacuum or obscurity such that no one would know who
they are, where they sleep, etc. It has been said, and I agree, that
terrorists succeed only to the degree of the persuasion, indulgence, or
collaboration of the bulk of their people. If the people do not want
them, then they have no hiding place. And if they are invaders from
foreign land, shame on the country if we cannot defend our territory
against these evil marauders.”
Granted, the advent of Boko Haram
predates Jonathan’s presidency, but let it be said and known that if
there is any inkling of anti-Jonathan political agenda behind all these
nihilistic turns, then there can be nothing more self-defeating. It will
be serving Jonathan’s yet-undeclared second term interest in great
measure, for the mere thought of any group (interest) being behind these
dastardly acts is sufficient to unite the rest of the country solidly
in confrontation.
In this regard also, all the talk of All
Progressives Congress or whatever suggesting that they have the magic
wand for pocketing Boko Haram when, and if, APC gets into power is not
only mischievous but insanely so, unless, indeed, remote puppeteers of
the terrorists reside within the party.
2015 is far too long to allow Boko Haram
continued free reign during which another several thousands of us may be
sacrificed on the altar of politicking. The life of every Nigerian must
count. Unfortunately for the APC, it is catch 22: Boko Haram assault
ends, with or without help from opposition party, and Jonathan takes
credit; it does not end and the unsupportive opposition take the flak.
Bottom line, the way I see it, it would
not matter anymore whether President Jonathan is competent or not,
whether he is clueless or not, he gets my vote and I wager my last kobo,
he gets the vote of every other anti-Boko Haram Nigerian unless
everyone, regardless of party, ethnic or religious affiliation sees the
scourge as against us all and join hands to find the solution to
permanently exterminate Boko Haram from our land – NOW!
And that’s saying it the way it is!
Source: Punch
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