NOW it is official: The war of terror on Nigeria, sadly, is far from
its end. The violence that has practically sliced off Nigeria’s
northeast, rapidly coursing through the nation’s north central with
Benue, Plateau and Nasarawa states now under siege, arrived the nation’s
capital, on a return leg, with devastating effect two days ago.
Official figure of the dead is 72 and 164 injured. But naturally,
eyewitness account is more gory with the figures double the official
ones.With the killing of hundreds of Nigerians and maiming of several other hundreds in the suicide bombing of Nyanya Motor Park in the Abuja Federal Capital Territory, whatever faith was left that there is any safe place anywhere in the country was shattered. The vulnerability of the entire country to this orgy of bloodletting was exposed and all pretences to normalcy, even at the seat of government, were thus removed. This must stop and the government of Nigeria should adequately discharge its responsibility for the safety of Nigerians everywhere forthwith. The consoling words to victims and their families are welcome but Nigerians want an end to the carnage.
For years now, the nation has fought insurgency in the northeast and other parts of the country including the capital, Abuja. Whatever success so far recorded in that war appears debatable with the magnitude of the occasional successes of the terrorists. Among many other attacks on the seat of the Federal Government, about 30 people were killed and over a hundred injured when the insurgents struck the United Nations office in Abuja in August 2011. The Nigeria Police headquarters was no sanctuary as the terrorists targeted it in June of 2011, leaving scores dead and injured. Before then, a military barrack was picked and the bombers killed about 30 people.
Late last year, the Boko Haram insurgents inflicted searing damage on the soul of Nigeria when they invaded the premises of the College of Agriculture in Gujba, Yobe State, murdered about 90 students by slitting their throats while they slept, wounded many, abducted some others and set the school on fire. Only yesterday, reports had it that more than 100 girls were abducted from the Government Secondary School in Chibok, Borno State.
Before then, schools in the state had been shut down for months due to the threat of insurgents following the killing of 42 students in another school in July. Only two months ago, the government boasted that it had recorded appreciable success in the fight against terrorism as its forces had chased the insurgents far out to the borders in northeastern Nigeria.
Before Monday’s bombing in the Federal Capital Territory put a lie to that claim, several incidents involving massive loss of lives had etched big question marks.
Yobe, Borno and Adamawa remain under emergency rule. Benue State Governor Gabriel Suswam and Nasarawa’s Al-Makura have repeatedly lamented the siege under which their states exist with what started as clashes between Fulani herdsmen and native farmers now looking like another insurgency in that region.
Daily, hundreds of lives are lost to attackers with sophisticated weapons and property in unquantifiable sums are destroyed.
While it may sound like a stretch, the claim that the civil war Nigeria fought against herself over a period of three years did not consume as much blood of the innocent as this insurgency has consumed is now ringing true.
As Nigeria bleeds all over, a more heart-rending phenomenon is the politicisation of the insurgency, leading to a senseless blame game by politicians, a vanity industry of condolence statements and mindless photo-ops as well as a befuddled sense of what needs to be done. The result is that not only is solution still elusive, the ruling elite seems conscienceless enough to be exploiting the crisis, in symbols and in substance.
The Nigerian government, in spite of its protestations to the contrary, has certainly not earned praises in its approach to tackling the terror menace. And all talk of the buck stopping at President Goodluck Jonathan’s desk is true. He was, after all, hired as president to protect Nigeria and Nigerians against all enemies, foreign and domestic. That citizens, north, south, east and west, now live in fear is a testimonial that he cannot be proud of.
This is also the best time for the president to review his style. Following an earlier terror threat in the capital city, the government is on record to have practically imprisoned President Goodluck Jonathan in the Aso Rock Villa as most ceremonies that ought to be held in the Eagle Square or any other open space were observed inside the villa. While the president is entitled to maximum security in whatever form, that action, for whatever reason, smacked of a certain retreat and ceding of territory to the enemy, if not outright cowardice. On another level, the question may even be asked: When the leader retreats into a safe haven, into which territory do the rest of Nigerians retreat?
Once again, the sophisticated methods of the bombers and insurgents, the audacity of their open attacks and the devastating stealth with which they operate when that is required call to question the strategy of the Nigerian security forces and the commitment to the fight. Is there an insufficiency in the tools for the fight or are there people profiting from its open-endedness? If there have been successes, such have been cancelled out by the plundering of Nigerian lives, lives of security personnel and innocent civilians.
But blaming Jonathan, his government and all the other governments is the easiest thing to do. Of course, the government can and should do more. Intelligence gathering must improve and the agencies must be more pro-active. All the material as well as non-material needs of the security must not only be provided, such must be made to reach the men on the frontline either in the cities or in the suburbs.
As the Nigerian life gets cheaper by the day and death stalks every nook and cranny of the country in the colour of Boko Haram insurgents or suicide bombers, every Nigerian must pause, reflect on the death of the innocents, on the possibility that any Nigerian could be next and determine to be each other’s keeper.
Vigilance, eternal vigilance on the part of all is what is most needed now. That is the first step towards cooperating with the security agencies and overcoming terror in Nigeria.