Recent successes by the Nigerian Military against the raging insurgency in the North-East seem to inspire confidence that the nation can, afterall halt the loss life of innocent persons and of territory to a needlessly protracted conflict. The army has done commendable work in similar situations in West Africa in particular, and their failure at home had puzzled and baffled many.
Until the Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) weighed in with a strongly-worded letter to the President, signed by its Chairman, IGP Ibrahim Coomassie and Secretary, Col. J. P. Ubah (both of them retired), it is the conspiracy theorists who canvassed the view that the military was being denied the weapons to fight by a political authority that does not want to see an end to the war.
In this letter (Front page, New Telegraph, Saturday, September 13, 2014), the ACF lamented that in spite of the emergency rule on Borno, Yobe and Adamawa, “towns and villages are being sacked, people maimed and killed, while national territories are being seized by a group of insurgents.”
The ACF criticized the President for not being on top of the situation, said the statement, considering that “there has been no decisive action to expose, contain and resolve the
Boko Haram insurgency” adding that “the attitude of the President towards the plight of the (Chibok) missing girls is, to say the least, appalling and unpresidential.”
The group flayed the role of the government in the crisis, saying that there is a widespread feeling that the crisis is being used as a ploy to punish the North and neutralize its advantages and potential by permanently destabilizing the region.
It is perhaps for this reason that the involvement of the military in the war itself is portrayed as a favour to the North.
The President, Dr. Jonathan once reacted to criticism of the army, by the Governor of Borno State, Bukar Shettima, with a threat to withdraw the army, saying that the state government will be swept away by the insurgents the moment that was done. Careless remarks such as this make Northerners feel that they are not treated as citizens but subjects.
What then suddenly changed, that the military is now actively carrying out its moral and constitutional duty of protecting life, property and territorial integrity of Nigeria? Why now, after the five years of needlessly high human toll?
In all five years that the insurgency was given time to nurture and grow into a threat to the international system, government never got tired of expressing their commitment to protecting life, property and national territory, while using at the same time, the terror campaign for maligning the opponents of the administration.
“The Jonathan Government, a government of a minority
Ijaw; a Christian from the South is the target of the insurgency” had been a constant refrain for quite a while. So back to my question: what is it that changed that the Jonathan government is now seriously battering and bettering the insurgents?
Four case studies may offer a possible insight. One, there are election kudos to be won. As 2015 Presidential elections inch closer, Dr. Jonathan will gain a lot by rolling back the insurgency. He has a good chance of becoming a hero. To the South, he will be celebrated as the Commander-in-Chief who stemmed the South-ward march of the insurgency. In the North, he will be praised as the leader who has brought back peace and security. This is an enormous political asset going into 2015. The North, his ardent critic will no longer have any grand to oppose him.
Two, regionally, Dr. Jonathan stands to equally gain much. His regional peers who have shown such a remarkable disrespect for a Nigerian leader; the type never seen before will call into reckoning his success in crushing the insurgency that threatens not only Nigeria but the entire region and the world. They will, thereafter give him his due regards.
Thirdly, the Nigerian President will garner the respect of Europe and America. Their newspapers writing those raunchy and grimy editorials, calling Dr. Jonathan all sorts of names would have to treat him with “well-earned” respect. Four, political leaders in this country who behave rudely to one another might even suggest that this war could add to the gain of electoral war-chest.
The view I hold is that it is better late than never. Government should get every encouragement to crush the insurgency. No effort to take away any part of the Nigerian territory should be allowed to succeed. While the decisive move against the insurgency is welcome, government on another hand should also give flip to law and order as enshrined in democratic norms. In a true democracy, law uniformly applies to the rich and the poor; the political leader or the ordinary person; the educated or the uneducated.
People in power should have greater responsibility to conform to law but in Nigeria, political leaders behave very rudely and they feel they are a law unto themselves. That’s why crime is at its peak today.
A politician found to be sponsoring terrorism should, in addition to serving jail, be banned for life from entering into any kind of public life including politics. For a custodian of the law sponsoring terrorism? Those ones should be punished so severely that others don’t even dare to break the law.
All of us, and the whole world are watching the President in these very interesting times.

[su_heading size=”12″ align=”left” margin=”10″]Read More Articles From This Author: Garba Shehu

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Except God, Almighty turns His kind Eyes on Nigeria once again, very soon, sooner than expected, most Nigerians, particularly, the full-grown, well-educated, well-connected and highly-placed ones would transform into something else and behave strangely. Take for example, if a man of God would blow open lie to his flocks, not minding that fairly sane people outside the fold would analyse such lie in its proper perspective: if a man of God would be enmeshed in matrimonial brouhaha with his age-long wife, not knowing that saner part of the world is watching; if some sections of Nigeria would chose to believe only things that make sense to them, aside from the realities, then one wonders if majority of the citizens are not already reeling in lunatism and arrant madness. Or an alleged sponsor of terrorism who denied that he sponsored the group in one breathe and in another quick one, educated his audience (Nigerians) that the group has 10,000 members fighting the government! Heeey!

This is backgrounded in the saying in some African societies that a lunatic is not only he or she that goes naked, dances and throws stones in the market place, but also he or she that does and says irrational things that are abnormal.
Things have happened so fast and in great row recently that one begins to fear that the system, whatever it is, would soon burst.
Just as both Christians and some concerned Muslims were sympathizing with victims of the collapsed part of the 5-storey building of the T.B Joshua’s Synagogue Church of nations in Lagos, the General Overseer himself came up with a very strange and lunatic view of what really happened: that the building collapsed (not bombed) as a result of Boko Haram’s activity or that it was a strange moving plane that caused the building to collapse.
This was despite attempts, when it occured on Friday last week, by the church’s security personnel to cover up the incidence, as they tried to keep newsmen, including some television cameramen away from the scene.
Prophet Joshua told members of his church on Sunday that the attack was targeted at him and not at them (members of the congregation), stressing that the collapse of the building was a Boko Haram attack.
Joshua buttressed his claim by showing to his congregation on the Emmanuel TV, the chronology of events shortly before and after the accident as captured by the church’s security camera, CCTV.
“I received a phone call immediately I got here, just 10 minutes later when I was in the church, that there was a jet hovering over the mountain where I had just left. They said it was hovering at a close range. Before I knew it, I received another phone call that the same jet was now at the church hovering over the building, passing it four times at a very close range before the building collapsed.”
Joshua read to the church, a letter which he said was addressed to him by unnamed Boko Haram member, confessing how he had attempted to plant a bomb inside the church.
Joshua said his church was being attacked to scare away members.
“This environment at Ikotun Egbe, we have never witnessed an accident of a building collapse. This is a very stable terrain. I have been here for the past 30 years. I am pregnant with words, but we have left the security agencies to do their job. Let us believe and educate our people and be alive.”
He assured the congregation that God would bring the perpetrators of the attack to book, adding that the decision of the insurgents to focus on his church might be the end of the Boko Haram’s activities in the country.
“I know you will ask why the church? It is because of the spiritual blessings that God has bestowed upon us. A big head wears a large hat.
“Don’t forget about the Ebola issue too, it was God that rescued the church. Probably they would have dropped an Ebola patient inside the church, so that they would say, ‘there is an Ebola patient in the church, don’t go there.’
“They are trying to scare you from coming to church. Don’t be scared, you are not the target, I’m the target. I know my time has not yet come. I have not yet finished my job.
“I want to assure you that our God will get back at them and you will know when he gets back to them. May be this would be the end of the whole thing.”
Of course, it appeared that Joshua was not listening to himself properly at the time he was addressing the church members or members of the congregation listening to him had no choice but to believe him. But, he was completely oblivious to intelligent members of the Nigeria or even the world community who would be eager to ask such questions as : “Why didn’t he (T.B Joshua) know about the attack ahead of time in view of his claims that he has prophetic powers and capacity, to know everything that was going to happen before it happens? Why didn’t he invoke the “blood of Jesus” to protect his Church?
In deed, his failure to spiritually and prophetically ward off the “attack” as he called it, has exposed him as more or less an arrangee miracle performer. Just when it mattered most, even to himself, he failed himself.
And bamboozled his flocks, just like General Ihejirika, Ali Modu Sheriff, Chris Oyakhilome and their likes have been bamboozling most Nigerians about what they are up to, promoting the lunatism that is now dominating Nigeria.

[su_heading size=”14″] Read More Articles From This Author:  Yusuf Ozi-Usman [/su_heading]

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