The first Multi-National Joint Task Force Commander in the North-East, retired General Jonathan Temlong, has painted a picture of how members of the dreaded Boko Haram penetrated many communities in the North East in particular and many parts of the North in general.
General Temlomg, who spoke to an online medium, DAILY POST said that one of the major cause has to do with total absence of government in many communities.
“I operated in the North-East as the first Multi-National Joint Task Force Commander. I tell you, and have said it in many places that there is the absence of governance in most of those areas.
“If you have people with such tendencies, they will use those areas and create their fiefdoms or whatever you want to call it and raise their own armies or start imposing dues on the people.
“They start gradually until they become a monster because there is nobody to check them, and there is no credible alternative to them. Sometimes they even offer protection to the people.
“The people are under their control, and once there is no credible alternative, the people pledge their allegiance to them. If there was a credible alternative, some of them would not go into the Boko Haram thing.
“Today, the Boko Haram got the ideology that western education is haram (forbidden), because it is the product of that education. When you go and read, you don’t get work, and those who did it are the ones doing the oppression”, he further lamented.
“Go to Maiduguri and see; I mean inside Maiduguri town, you’ll see the competition of houses, yet, you have over 90% of the population living in penury. Their existence in this country is as if nobody cares about them. There is no governance at all. There is no presence of governance.
“I was in the Lake Chad, the first time they heard about vaccination was when some of my troops gave them. I had to go to UNICEF to buy vaccines. We gave over 40,000 children. That was the first time they found out about it. The local government Chairman that I mentioned it to said he never heard of that place.
“So, you see the people were just staying on their own. It was survival of the fittest. There was no presence of government. You know within the hinterlands some of the local governments have no presence of governance. We must address the deficit of good governance, and once you address it, governors must be accountable to their people.
“Those in position of authority must be accountable to their people. I tell you, you will find out a situation where the troops will tell you they rescued 1,000 people, women and children. Was there any report about their abduction?” He asked.
“You only heard they were rescued, that means there is no accountability.
“If you cannot account for the people, who are you governing? Is it the Government House or your staff?
“If today an American gets missing, the whole of the U.S. stands still, until he is rescued. If one American is taken hostage, the U.S President knows, and they’ll start planning on ways to rescue him.
“You have thousands that the government doesn’t know about, the local government Chairman doesn’t know about. They are the closest. How do you expect the President to know? They are the channels through which information gets to the President.
“Lives have no value; people justify retaliation to kill people like flies. That means there is the absence of law and order.
“If today I kill your relation, and in five years time you come to retaliate, people justify it. What’s the meaning of that? That will lead to the state of anarchy.
“Those in positions of authority must watch their utterances. They must be accountable to the people; they should know they will be accountable to God.” [myad]
