Finally, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has done what his predecessor refused to do for eight years while he was in office. The late Muhammadu Buhari and his government spent eight years explaining away what was clearly a monumental failure in addressing the existential threat to our nationhood.
For eight horrendous years, Nigerians were living on the edge, not knowing what would be their fate when they went to bed at night, or on the road while travelling, or while in their farms or places of worship.
They blamed victims while their aggressors and the culprits were exonerated. They accused a helpless and defenceless population of ethnic profiling. They accused victims of attacks of being bad hosts. They blamed the inhabitants and hosts for not fleeing at the first sound of gunshots, because in their warped logic, it’s better to lose your ancestral land and stay alive than to die. But what they did not tell us is if after fleeing, these criminals trace them again to their new abode what they should do.
Recalling the Buhari’s years is expedient because for us to win this war against terror we must confront headlong all those issues Buhari simply shied away from. We must answer all those salient questions that were left unanswered. We must be prepared to take this fight to these bandits and their sponsors or risk being dismissed as a nation with unserious people.
The highest point of Buhari’s government hypocrisy was that he prioritised chasing small fries and minnows while turning the blind eyes to those who held the nation by the jugular. They were ever prepared to send tanks to quell peaceful protests but will be sending emissaries with loads of cash to pacify bandits, insurgents and killer-herders.
They organised spurious deradicalisation, rehabilitation and reintegration exercises that were only designed for terrorists and Fulani killer-herders but never applicable to IPOB members and other agitators across the country.
The resultant effect being that, since their pretentious attempts at fighting insecurity were not dispassionate and holistic, they failed woefully and we are still suffering the effect of this crass incompetence and failure.
Last Wednesday’s declaration of a state of emergency on insecurity should have come earlier than now, however, President Tinubu should be commended for taking the bull by its horns.
The president had also ordered the police and the military to recruit more men. He also spoke tough when he warned that his exercise of restraint should not be mistaken for weakness.
The Senate similarly queried the circumstances that led to the withdrawal of security men detailed to guard the Government Girls Comprehensive Secondary School in Kebbi State’s Maga town barely 30 minutes before the gunmen struck and abducted the schoolgirls.
The question now on everyone’s lips is who ordered the withdrawal of the security men? If our previous experiences are anything to go by, that question would remain answered for eternity.
It’s this lack of willpower to prosecute or follow otherwise simple and glaring leads to unresolved mysteries in our life as a nation that has brought us to this sorry pass. It’s this seeming lack of determination to get full closure on all criminal or murder cases that makes us the laughing stock of the rest of the world, including smaller nations who should be looking up to us to show leadership.
So, beyond the niceties and good optics from the presidency and the legislature, what next? How far are we ready to go to the bottom of the matter? Will the president muster enough courage to follow this through? Will President Tinubu be prepared to match words with action, no matter whose ox is gored?
Again, as we have mentioned earlier, it is the failure to prosecute issues to their logical conclusions that has brought us to this state of total breakdown of law and order. A situation where there will be prior intelligence reports and yet the criminals will still strike and disappear without trace.
We are in a state in this nation now where an army general can just be taken out by terrorists and killed like a chicken and there will not be proper investigations conducted to unravel the circumstances surrounding the death. How can we dispel the rumoured conspiracy of complicity by his colleagues and establish any fowl play or otherwise? How true was it that Brigadier General Samaila Uba was betrayed by his constituents? What really transpired? If we cannot determine this and punishment is applied, how can we forestall future recurrence?
For too long we have become a nation of anything goes. This must stop if we are to be taken seriously.
Again, beyond the niceties of last week, how far can we go to unmask the kingpins and sponsors of terrorism? Are we ready to move past formalities or superficial conversations and tackle the substantive issues or real concerns of insecurity? Failure to do this will only amount to scratching the surface. Who are these men and women? Arresting only their foot soldiers and lackeys is tantamount to chasing shadows.
The president also warned that open grazing would have to stop for a more modern system of ranching which even guarantees greater yields and rewards for herders, if indeed they are genuine herdsmen. He also advised the armed herdsmen to surrender their arms and key into the ranching scheme which was the major reason for establishing the Ministry of Livestock in the first place.
This is one aspect of Buhari’s pathetic and abysmal failure. Buhari spent eight years constantly seeking the comfort of cattle at the expense of human lives. He tried all the tricks in his bag, but for the vigilance of an enraged nation he would have succeeded to take us back to the medieval times just to guarantee the comfort of cattle and his Fulani kiths and kin.
Leaving all these matters unresolved serves as incentives for the perpetrators of these crimes. How President Tinubu will win this war against terrorism is left to be seen because he seems to have around him too many people whose intentions and sincerity raises serious doubt.
Or how can one explain the reported statement of the Minister of Defence, Mohammed Badaru Abubakar, saying some of these terrorists are located in forests that bombs cannot penetrate.
Badaru, who spoke in an interview with the BBC Hausa Service, stated that the Armed Forces are close to ending banditry in the country despite the recent wave of school abductions.
“This is how guerrilla warfare works. There will be periods of calm, and then they launch an attack that shakes the nation.
“Yes, we know their locations, but some of these areas are places where direct strikes could endanger civilians, or forests where our bombs cannot penetrate.”
Mr. Minister, who ordered the withdrawal of security men in the Maga case, or is that also another guerrilla warfare tactic?
I have never heard anything more pathetic and disappointing than this. How have they been reaching them with their spurious deradicalisation exercise? How have the likes of Sheik Ahmad Abubakar Gumi accessed these so-called forests? How have the bandits been getting their supplies of food, gas, fuel, ammunition and funding? How have they been reintegrating them into the armed forces? In this age and time of drone use and precision strikes, that statement by the Minister of Defence is too pedantic and simply points to the hopelessness of our situation.
