- Many Nigerians have long suspected that the decade-long depraved and unconscionable activities of Boko Haram and ISWAP and their many other cousins scattered across the Sahel are not necessarily sustained by the complexity and grandiosity of their plans or the sophistication of their executions.
For weeks on end, the media has been awash with the heinous activities of terrorists in Nigeria’s beleaguered northeast state of Borno. What started as public disturbance and breach of public peace over a decade and a half ago has morphed into a full-blown terrorism and insurgency that has claimed the lives of many hapless Nigerians and threatened the territorial integrity of our nation. This bunch of brainwashed cretins became the monster they are now because we allowed it. In recent years, they’ve been severely weakened with their barbaric activities confined to a swathe of wasteland and desolate enclave. But they’ve somehow made a comeback and started wreaking havoc on Nigerians again.
Governor Zulum of Borno State has raised concern over the activities of these murderous cretins. He disclosed that they are regrouping around Lake Chad and the Mandara Hills. He noted that Marte is on the verge of collapse as 300 communities stand exposed, while more than 20,000 Nigerians are displaced. He noted that the security situation is dire and appealed to the federal government to take drastic action to avert the loss of lives and humanitarian crisis, stressing that the window for action is closing
Since Nigeria became a playfield of terrorism and insurgency nearly two decades ago, one question that many Nigerians have continued to ask is why it has been so difficult for the government to tackle and end the menace despite trillions of naira in budgetary allocation to the military and other security agencies. They’ve wondered why our security agencies, who have solved more threatening and far more complex security conundrums, can’t put an end to the devastating excesses of a clutch of slippers-wearing, AK-47-wielding and misguided lunatics masquerading as religious crusaders.
Many Nigerians have long suspected that the decade-long depraved and unconscionable activities of Boko Haram and ISWAP and their many other cousins scattered across the Sahel are not necessarily sustained by the complexity and grandiosity of their plans or the perfection and sophistication of their executions. It’s not because they are better armed or organised than the military and other security agencies who are tasked with extinguishing the fire of their abominable idea. Their senseless war on the country has been perennially waged because they have collaborators and saboteurs secreted among our armed forces and security agency and also deeply embedded among the political class, elites and traditional rulers who are sympathetic to their sick and twisted cause either for ideological reason or aided them for pecuniary gains.
This fear and suspicion have now been confirmed by Governor Zulum in the wake of the renewed insurgency in the Matte area of the state. Zulum said “We have informants and collaborators within the Nigerian Armed Forces, within the politicians, and within the communities. What we shall do is to strengthen our intelligence and to deal with them ruthlessly. Let’s remove contractocracy. In six months, we can put an end to this madness. We need not politicise insecurity.”
Zulum’s statement did not come as a surprise to many Nigerians. If anything, it’s a confirmation of what they’ve long feared. It lends credence to their theory.
Furthermore, Zulum is not the first high-profile elected government official to make this claim. At the height of the Boko Haram terrorism in 2014, ex-president Goodluck Jonathan was quoted to have said persons working for the terrorist groups or sympathetic to their cause had infiltrated his government. The juxtaposition of the Chibok girl adoption saga in 2014 and the media frenzy it sparked with how little the world cared about subsequent schoolchildren abductions leaves a grain of truth in his statement.
Our nation has continued to be at the mercy of merciless armed non-state actors because the people who are saddled with the responsibility of stopping them wanted it that way. As the former military head of state, Gen. Sani Abacha, said, “Any insurgency that lasts more than 48 hours, the government has a hand in it.”
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