ITis indeed pertinent to ask if President Goodluck
Jonathan, the armed forces over which he presides
as Commander-in-Chief,
and other security
agencies, will go after the terrorists that
abducted more than 200 teenage girls into their
hideout in Sambisa Forest, in Borno State.
That question can be posed in another way: Can
President Goodluck Jonathan go into Sambisa
Forest? The point is that the question of
willingness is closely allied to that of capability.
But before one goes on to look at the issue of
capability, it is important first to settle that of
willingness because that is at the very heart of
President Jonathan’s administration’s strategy
towards prosecuting our own battle against
terror.
From the very beginning when the terror
insurgents resurfaced during his administration,
President Jonathan had showed himself incapable
of rising to the challenge. He lacked the will to
take on the terrorists and failed to exercise the
power invested in him as president to bring the
terrorists to their knee. He was all too tentative,
in turns weak and vacillating on what to do.
Even though what he needed to do was clear –
crush the rising revolt with one firm and
determined blow and thereafter take the
initiative from the terrorists- he was clearly
unprepared for it. More so, as the Northern
oligarchy that lost the election that brought him
into office were yet breathing fire and speaking
from both sides of the mouth about the dangers
posed by the terrorists. It’s no wonder today that
he is effusive in his gratitude and showering of
praise on Mohammadu Buhari for his belated
condemnation of the terrorists.
But lacking both the decision and the decisiveness
to act, the President went about making virtue of
his weakness by saying he wanted to respect the
law and avoid the mistakes of Odi and Zaki Biam.
But the criminalities that prompted the military
outrage of Odi or Zaki Biam were not the
handiwork of terrorists. Yet, Jonathan blossomed
in weakness and continues today to luxuriate
under the delusion of respecting the rights of
beasts who are neither human nor respectful of
the minimum standards of human relations. He
dithered way too long in the pit latrine that flies
now swarm around him.
He allowed the sore of intermittent outbursts of
hoodlums to fester into the cancer of routine
terrorism with international dimensions. Now
Nigerians wonder how things got to this point
where terror has taken over our land, where
school children are shot on their way to sit public
examinations and hundreds of teenage school
girls are rounded up in their hostels and herded
into forests within national territorial spaces
known to the ruling authorities. The impunity of
terror is spreading fast as was reported in parts
of Mushin in Lagos where rival criminal gangs
terrorised, robbed and raped residents for many
hours without a whimper from the police.
Which brings me back to my earlier question- Will
Jonathan go into Sambisa Forest, will he, can he
effectively deploy the apparatus of state power to
take on the terrorists? For his initial lack of
initiative, he now has a tough row to hoe. His job
has been compounded and he cannot and must not
expect any relief any time soon- not when his
thoughts are wholly directed at retaining his
tenancy at Aso Villa.
His strategy against terror, if he has any, has
become too routine to be effective just as the
battle his poorly motivated, battle-weary military
pretended to be waging against the terrorists has
been too much prolonged. You don’t have to be
Hannibal, heard of Napoleon, read Sun Tzu or
fought alongside Shaka to know nothing good can
come out of it. It is a non-starter of a battle. We
need not confer the grandeur of war on these
boys scout-like skirmishes yet. So let nobody call
this a war on terror.
The postponed meeting between the President and
the state governors last week confirmed the
routing bog into which the response to the reign
of terror has fallen into. The much anticipated
meeting was an anti-climax as all that came out of
it was the same call on the military and the
security agencies to work to rescue the abducted
school girls. Wonder what comfort this would be to
their traumatised families.
This confirms my suspicion that the military,
personified by Goodluck Jonathan, is not ready for
Sambisa. Or they wouldn’t make false military
claim on the rescue of the school children or, in
fact, got the actual figures of the abducted
wrong while going on with their jaded promises of
ensuring the end of terror.
Although by their initial silence on, justification
of and covert accommodation of the activities of
the terrorists, the Northern oligarchy stands
complicit in nurturing them, not minding the
blame-trading, unreflective letter of Murtala
Nyako who appeared to have been sleeping while
terrorists prowled his territory. But by playing
footsie with them when he ought to have sent hot
lead into their midst and scattered them into the
winds, Jonathan can neither escape blame nor
responsibility for the terrorists gaining ground.
So entrenched are they now that their enclave in
the forest of Sambisa is a no-go area for even the
military. The President until recently kept far
from the terror zones in Borno, Yobe and
Adamawa and even travellers in far-flung places
like Lagos and Ibadan are now held by the terror
of insurgent attacks as was the case a few days
ago. This is pure madness, where people can no
longer see order or feel the protection of state
power.
The terrorists have been lionised beyond measure,
their capacity given mythical proportions.
Sambisa is now the metaphor of the forbidden, of
the criminalities of the Nigerian society writ
large. Nigeria does have a huge fight ahead of it.
Large sections of our society are being
brutalized. The enslavement -and I use that word
deliberately- of over 200 teenage girls in the 21st
century in their fatherland by criminals whose
hideout is well-known routs whatever anyone can
imagine. We now have 234 more potential
terrorists on our hand and for no fault of theirs!
The trauma of such enslavement may never be
healed. The exploitation that must go with this
enslavement is painful to imagine. That the
parents of these hapless youths are alive to
witness this and powerless to act is beyond words.
The shame is not theirs but of a people that would
allow it. We are all held in Sambisa until the
terrorists are destroyed. As a metaphor of our
failures and challenges many are the Sambisa and
Soka forests in which Nigerians are bound. There
is the Sambisa of corruption, the Soka of
misappropriation, of dereliction of duty and,
above all, inept leadership.
Jonathan, the armed forces over which he presides
as Commander-in-Chief,
and other security
agencies, will go after the terrorists that
abducted more than 200 teenage girls into their
hideout in Sambisa Forest, in Borno State.
That question can be posed in another way: Can
President Goodluck Jonathan go into Sambisa
Forest? The point is that the question of
willingness is closely allied to that of capability.
But before one goes on to look at the issue of
capability, it is important first to settle that of
willingness because that is at the very heart of
President Jonathan’s administration’s strategy
towards prosecuting our own battle against
terror.
From the very beginning when the terror
insurgents resurfaced during his administration,
President Jonathan had showed himself incapable
of rising to the challenge. He lacked the will to
take on the terrorists and failed to exercise the
power invested in him as president to bring the
terrorists to their knee. He was all too tentative,
in turns weak and vacillating on what to do.
Even though what he needed to do was clear –
crush the rising revolt with one firm and
determined blow and thereafter take the
initiative from the terrorists- he was clearly
unprepared for it. More so, as the Northern
oligarchy that lost the election that brought him
into office were yet breathing fire and speaking
from both sides of the mouth about the dangers
posed by the terrorists. It’s no wonder today that
he is effusive in his gratitude and showering of
praise on Mohammadu Buhari for his belated
condemnation of the terrorists.
But lacking both the decision and the decisiveness
to act, the President went about making virtue of
his weakness by saying he wanted to respect the
law and avoid the mistakes of Odi and Zaki Biam.
But the criminalities that prompted the military
outrage of Odi or Zaki Biam were not the
handiwork of terrorists. Yet, Jonathan blossomed
in weakness and continues today to luxuriate
under the delusion of respecting the rights of
beasts who are neither human nor respectful of
the minimum standards of human relations. He
dithered way too long in the pit latrine that flies
now swarm around him.
He allowed the sore of intermittent outbursts of
hoodlums to fester into the cancer of routine
terrorism with international dimensions. Now
Nigerians wonder how things got to this point
where terror has taken over our land, where
school children are shot on their way to sit public
examinations and hundreds of teenage school
girls are rounded up in their hostels and herded
into forests within national territorial spaces
known to the ruling authorities. The impunity of
terror is spreading fast as was reported in parts
of Mushin in Lagos where rival criminal gangs
terrorised, robbed and raped residents for many
hours without a whimper from the police.
Which brings me back to my earlier question- Will
Jonathan go into Sambisa Forest, will he, can he
effectively deploy the apparatus of state power to
take on the terrorists? For his initial lack of
initiative, he now has a tough row to hoe. His job
has been compounded and he cannot and must not
expect any relief any time soon- not when his
thoughts are wholly directed at retaining his
tenancy at Aso Villa.
His strategy against terror, if he has any, has
become too routine to be effective just as the
battle his poorly motivated, battle-weary military
pretended to be waging against the terrorists has
been too much prolonged. You don’t have to be
Hannibal, heard of Napoleon, read Sun Tzu or
fought alongside Shaka to know nothing good can
come out of it. It is a non-starter of a battle. We
need not confer the grandeur of war on these
boys scout-like skirmishes yet. So let nobody call
this a war on terror.
The postponed meeting between the President and
the state governors last week confirmed the
routing bog into which the response to the reign
of terror has fallen into. The much anticipated
meeting was an anti-climax as all that came out of
it was the same call on the military and the
security agencies to work to rescue the abducted
school girls. Wonder what comfort this would be to
their traumatised families.
This confirms my suspicion that the military,
personified by Goodluck Jonathan, is not ready for
Sambisa. Or they wouldn’t make false military
claim on the rescue of the school children or, in
fact, got the actual figures of the abducted
wrong while going on with their jaded promises of
ensuring the end of terror.
Although by their initial silence on, justification
of and covert accommodation of the activities of
the terrorists, the Northern oligarchy stands
complicit in nurturing them, not minding the
blame-trading, unreflective letter of Murtala
Nyako who appeared to have been sleeping while
terrorists prowled his territory. But by playing
footsie with them when he ought to have sent hot
lead into their midst and scattered them into the
winds, Jonathan can neither escape blame nor
responsibility for the terrorists gaining ground.
So entrenched are they now that their enclave in
the forest of Sambisa is a no-go area for even the
military. The President until recently kept far
from the terror zones in Borno, Yobe and
Adamawa and even travellers in far-flung places
like Lagos and Ibadan are now held by the terror
of insurgent attacks as was the case a few days
ago. This is pure madness, where people can no
longer see order or feel the protection of state
power.
The terrorists have been lionised beyond measure,
their capacity given mythical proportions.
Sambisa is now the metaphor of the forbidden, of
the criminalities of the Nigerian society writ
large. Nigeria does have a huge fight ahead of it.
Large sections of our society are being
brutalized. The enslavement -and I use that word
deliberately- of over 200 teenage girls in the 21st
century in their fatherland by criminals whose
hideout is well-known routs whatever anyone can
imagine. We now have 234 more potential
terrorists on our hand and for no fault of theirs!
The trauma of such enslavement may never be
healed. The exploitation that must go with this
enslavement is painful to imagine. That the
parents of these hapless youths are alive to
witness this and powerless to act is beyond words.
The shame is not theirs but of a people that would
allow it. We are all held in Sambisa until the
terrorists are destroyed. As a metaphor of our
failures and challenges many are the Sambisa and
Soka forests in which Nigerians are bound. There
is the Sambisa of corruption, the Soka of
misappropriation, of dereliction of duty and,
above all, inept leadership.
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