Now that the operational leadership and
visible face of Boko Haram, in the person of the filth called Mr. Abubakar
Shekau (aka Darul Tawheed), has finally admitted that they were responsible for
the abduction of hundreds of our school girls and that they intend to “sell
them in the market like slaves”, it is pertinent and necessary for us to
consider some of the emerging, though uncomfortable, facts.
This will enable
us to understand the nature of who and what we are dealing with and allow us to
consider what the appropriate response ought to be if we really want to solve the problem. Permit me to share the
following.
The Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) has told us that
90 per cent of the girls that were abducted from their school at Chibok were Christians.
The President himself alluded to this yesterday during his
media chat when he said that ‘’the majority’’ of girls that were abducted were Christians.
The following have also been brought to my attention:
1. That the majority of the girls that either ‘’escaped’’ or
were released by their abductors were Muslims.
2. That the Governor of Borno state refused to accept the
counsel and abide by the directives of WAEC that the exams should not take
place in Chibok due to the precarious security situation and instead he
insisted that the exams should take place there and that he would guarantee the
security of the children.
3. That the girls that have been kidnapped are being raped up
to 15 times a day by their captors and that those amongst them that have
refused to convert to Islam are having their throats cut (read the testimony of
one of the girls that ‘’escaped’’ on page 8 of the Vanguard Newspaper, 5th
April, 2014).
4. That there was not a single adult in the school grounds
watching over the 278 girls that entire night apart from one security man and
that there was no electricity, no generator, no principal, no matron, no house
master and no house mistress in the grounds with them.
5. That the children were all alone in their dormitories that
night in the blistering heat and deepest darkness before the Haramites arrived
to carry them away into captivity.
6. That two of the ladies that met with the First Lady on 4th
April and that held themselves out as representatives of the families of the
abducted children did not in fact have any link with the children or their
families at all and hence they were arrested for impersonation.
7. That the soldiers that were guarding the school in Chibok
were redeployed a few hours before Boko Haram launched their attack and
abducted the children.
8. That this was
a predominantly Christian school and
that Chibok is predominantly a Christian town and community.
In my view these
facts are relevant and instructive. When one considers them, the picture of what really happened at Chibok on that
tragic night, what the real intentions of the abductors and their secret sponsors
were and what is really going on now is getting clearer by the day.
Ordinarily whether the children are Christians, Muslims,
pagans or atheists really should not matter because, regardless of their faith,
we want them all back and we must fight for them all to be returned to their
homes and loved ones.
However the fact that 90 per cent of them are Christian adds
a sinister and frightening dimension to the whole horrific episode and it is
glaring evidence of the fact that Christian girls are now being targeted by the
Islamists and that those girls are being ‘’sold in the market’’, being forced
to convert to Islam and being turned into sex slaves.
Let me put it on record that I am of the view that it was a monumental
error for the police to arrest the two ladies that were part of the delegation
that went to see the First Lady on April 4th despite the reasons adduced for
doing so. That single action was an unnecessary distraction and an abuse of
power. Worst still it left the Federal Government and the Presidency itself
open to a lot of criticism and accusations of insensitivity and
high-handedness.
This is especially so given the fact the fact that the two
ladies, from what I have been told, are both very prominent members of one or
two of the groups that have been agitating for the release of the girls. Those
that ordered their arrest are making things far worse for the Government and it
is increasingly clear to me that as a consequence of this single action they
are fast losing the little goodwill that they may have left with the Nigerian
people. If the war is to be won such errors must be avoided and the government
must work hard to win back the confidence of our people.
I am one of those that believe that the Federal Government
has failed woefully in their primary duty to protect the Nigerian people and I
have enunciated that position more than anyone else in this nation in numerous
essays and contributions over the last three years. However I honestly believe
that today the problem has become so serious and pronounced and that the
conflict has reached such a critical stage that criticizing and lambasting the
government alone will not help. The truth is that such an approach has
certainly has not achieved much in the last three years because nothing has
changed.
I believe that it
is time for us to change tactics in order to achieve better results even though
we must not relent in demanding that our President and his security and intelligence agencies do their job properly
and provide the necessary security for our people. We also need to understand
and appreciate the fact that this matter goes way beyond politics. It goes way
beyond whether you are for or against Jonathan.
It goes way beyond whether you are in the APC, PDP, APGA,
Labour or UPN. It goes way beyond whether you are a progressive or a
conservative. It goes way beyond whether you are a Christian or a Muslim or
whether you are from the north or the south.
The bitter truth is that regardless of wherever you come
from, whatever your faith is and whichever side of the political divide you
stand, we all have a duty to get to the bottom of this matter, join forces,
close ranks, find out what is really going on and bring this nightmare to an
end. We must join hands with all men and women of goodwill and, together, we
must fight this insidious evil that seeks to envelop our land and overwhelm our
people.
To be sure there is only one thing worse than failing to
protect your people and that is when you organise and mobilise some misguided
and mentally unstable miscreants to use religion as a political tool and get
them to blow up, kill, abduct, rape and maim innocent men, women and children
in an attempt to destabilise the country, spark off a religious war, change the
status qou, pull down the government, induce a military coup, dismember our
country and cow the Nigerian people into submission.
That is what
those that are the secret supporters
and sponsors of Boko Haram are doing and attempting to achieve. They are also
interested in furthering the sinister and barbaric agenda of the Taliban, the
Al Nosra Front, Al Shabab, Islamic Jihad, Hamas and Al Qaeda whose wish is to
destroy the secular state and to establish an Islamic fundamentalist state.
They wish to establish a radical new caliphate in the west African sub-region
where Christianity and moderate Islam is banned, where women are treated like
sub-human beings and chattel and which is governed by the strictest form of Islamic
sharia law.
To this end it is interesting to note that the evil is
spreading. A glaring testimony to that sad fact is the fact that an Army
barracks was attacked by Boko Haram in the Camerouns on 5th April and after
killing two army officers they freed all their fellow terrorists and Islamists
that had been detained there.
What is going on is dangerous, bloody, vicious, heartless,
brutal, deep, dark and sinister and it is a conspiracy of monumental
proportions. It is a conspiracy which we have all fallen victim to. It is a
conspiracy that is fuelled by secrecy and strengthened by the reluctance of
those that know better and that know the truth to speak out and expose it.
It is a conspiracy that also receives massive funding and
covert support from various governments and Royal families in the Middle East
whose support for the salfists is well known and whose wahabbi doctrines and
philosophy is exceptionally dangerous. These are the type of people that we are
dealing with and these are the times that we are living in.
It is left for the President and his team to rise up to the occasion,
tell the Nigerian people the bitter truth about all that is going on behind the
scenes, remove the kid gloves, get real and fight the Haramists and their
sponsors with all that he has got.
If he refuses to do it or if he is cowered into not doing so
by the moderate and dovish voices that appear to be around him, he can be rest
assured that sooner than later this country will break up and he will go down
in history as the last President of a united Nigeria. Worse still if he is not
careful there may well be a military coup which will not be welcome by any
right-thinking person and which everyone dreads. We must assist him as best as
we can to ensure that this does not happen.
I have little doubt that the President knows who those that
are behind Boko Haram are: it is now time for him to exercise his full powers,
expose them and deal with them in a brutal and savage manner.
It is time for him to show strength and to lead us into this
war against terror boldly. It is time for him to be a Commander-in Chief that
we can all be proud of. It is time for him to use his full power and to detain
and interrogate all those that he suspects may be linked to the terrorists.
It is time for him to rise up to the occasion and to crush
the evil and the forces of darkness that have challenged our way of life,
everything that is dear to us and indeed our very existence.
It is time for him to use every method known to man to
vigorously fight the insurgency, including better intelligence gathering and
the usage of ‘’black ops’’, ‘’wet boys’’, covert operations and maximum
co-operation with various foreign and international intelligence and security
agencies.
It is time for him to ruthlessly bomb the notorious and Boko
Haram-infested Sambisi forest with nepam and burn it, together with everything
and everyone that is in it, to the ground. It is time for him to exercise the
right of ‘’hot pursuit’’ and to pursue the Haramites into the Camerouns, Chad,
the Niger Republic or anywhere else if and when it is necessary for him to ever
do so.
It is time for him to prove to the world that the Nigerian
people are not insensitive cowards and that we know how to fight and to protect
our own. It is time for him to rise up and to exercise the full powers and
authority of the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. It is time for
him to do whatever it takes to bring our girls back home and to let us hold our
heads up high once again.
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