Buhari’s One Year: Let’s Ponder Only On Boko Haram, Yusuf Ozi-Usman
There is this saying that one may not know the importance of what he has until he loses it. Medical officers would say also that one does not value health until sickness comes.
There are a lot of important facts which the critics of President Muhammadu Buhari have been missing or are trying to down play as they pursue the mundane. They take so many things for granted or divert attention from one big issue, against the backdrop of the security and even the obvious threat to the sovereignty of this country.
Recall that the deadly Boko Haram insurgents were fast advancing in their territorial acquisition in the North East, so much that no one, not even the government then had any solution to stop them.
They were so daring that even the Nigeria soldiers, with archaic and weak weapons they were given to fight, were reportedly on the run most of the times they encountered the insurgents.
The confidence with which the Boko Haram fighters were taking over and occupying towns and villages, it is not impossible that by now, they would have over-run Maiduguri, the capital of Borno state: Yola, the capital of Adamawa state; Damaturu, the capital of Yobe state and possibly other state capitals.
As a matter of fact, the Boko Haram members, who had made forays into the nation’s Federal Capital, Abuja, on more than three occasions: the Police Headquarters, the United Nations building, a sprawling plaza, were actually becoming big threats to the security of the city. Indeed, people in Abuja, Suleija in Niger state, Nyanya in Nasarawa state, Okene in Kogi state and other neighbouring states were virtually under threat. Not to be forgotten too were places like Kano, Bauchi, Zaria and Kaduna as well as many other places.
There were genuine fears, and it was becoming clearer every day that the insurgents just needed some few months before they would invade the seat of power, the Aso Presidential Villa, probably to overthrow the government. It is only those who did not know the sorry state under which the nation’s soldiers were fighting the Boko Haram and the confidence with which the insurgents were pushing the soldiers into a near-surrender that did not nurse such frightening fear.
A year after Buhari took over the rein of power, people in all these dangerous states, including the FCT, have been able to sleep with their two eyes close, thanks to the redirection of the way things were being done. A year after, there has been a role-reversal in which the soldiers were fighting the Boko Haram with confidence, as the insurgents began to lose out fast. A year after, the remnant of the terrorists have been confined to Sambisa Forest while many of them are surrendering.
The respect which international community has been according Nigeria, no doubt, emanates from the honest and commitment with which the Buhari government has been executing the war.
The achievement of Buhari’s government only on this serious and frightening security threat appears to have been under-emphasized by many commentators. The absence of Boko Haram knocking on our doors gives us the confidence to plan for some other worldly things that would better our lives, individually and collectively.
It is generally believed that security comes first in all human endeavours: that without security and in war, no one can, or has the mind to talk about economy, about food, about exchange rate, about fuel price increase, about rising prices of goods and services and many other things.
Just imagine where Nigeria would have been now, as a country, if Buhari had not become President in 2015: if Goodluck Jonathan had won the election and continues as President, under that defeatist and corrupt-ridden posture.
Just let’s ponder over all that for a change! [myad]
