“I am
going to marry out any woman who is twelve years old, and if she is younger, I
will marry her out at the age of nine. You are all in danger. I am the one who
captured all those girls and will sell all of them. Slavery is allowed in my
religion, and I shall capture people and make them slaves. We are on our way to
Abuja and we shall also visit the South. I am going to kill all the Imams and
other Islamic clerics in Nigeria because they are not Muslims since they follow
democracy and constitution. It is Allah that instructed us, until we soak the
ground of Nigeria with Christian blood,
and so-called Muslims contradicting Islam. We will kill and wonder what to do
with their smelling corpses. This is a war against Christians and democracy and
their constitution’’.
It is self-evident that Mr.
Shekau is not only a dangerous, barbaric, sadistic, delusional, homicidal,
misogynistic, paedophilic, psycopathic and sociopathic cold-blooded murderer
all rolled into one but his words adequately reflect the sheer ruthlessness,
callousness and depravity that has seized the Haramite mind.
There is no doubt in my mind that
he is possesed by the most cruel and vampiric demons and that he has a
bloodlust that is second to none. Even Al Qaeda, with all it’s wickedness, have
apparently condemned the latest atrocity committed by Boko Haram in Chibok.
Yet despite their unspeakable
depravity they appear to have a few powerful friends at home who are speaking
for them. Permit me to give just one example.
Instead of joining the rest of the civilised world and
insisting that the terrorists must be utterly crushed, a group known as the
Northern Elders have said that the Federal
Government “should pay billions as ransom to Shekau and release all
detained Boko Haram members” and that there must be ”no foreign forces in
Nigeria”. They have also demanded that “force should not be used” in securing
the freedom of the abducted girls.
These demands repugnant. It is
the same people that did not want troops to be deployed to the area in the
first place.
It is the same people that did
not want a state of emergency to be declared in the north. It is the same
people that have been urging the government to negotiate with Boko Haram for
the last three years.
It is the same people that have consistently asked that
Boko Haram should be treated with kid gloves and that they should be offered amnesty even though the
islamist group have slaughtered no less than 10,000 innocent people in the last
three years.
It is the same people that are
suggesting that Boko Haram is actually a creation of the CIA, MOSSAD and the
Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN).
It is one of these northern elders that referred to Boko
Haram as “freedom fighters” who are simply ‘’fighting for justice’’ only last
year. It is another that said that members of Boko Haram ought to be treated
”in the same way as the Niger Delta militants” and that they should be
rehabilitated, resettled and paid large sums of money only last year.
It is another that said “muslims
should only vote for those that would protect their interests’’ and that he
would see to it that ‘’sharia law is implemented and applied throughout the
whole country’’ in 2001.
It is another that said that Nigeria was created by the
British and granted independence by
them in 1960 on the clear understanding that ”a northern muslim would always
lead the country’’ in 1994. It is another that said that if the north does not
have it’s way on the voting formula at the Constitutional Conference he would
lead his people ”out of Nigeria and into the Camerouns’’ just over a month ago.
It is another that said that they would make our country ‘’ungovernable’’ if a
southerner was elected into power in 2011.
It is another that said, only a few weeks ago, that our
country ‘’would burn’’ if Jonathan or any other southerner contests for the Presidential election in 2015. It is
another that told us last year that ”poverty was the root cause of Boko Haram”
and that the south was receiving too much money whilst the north was not
receiving enough. How much more of these provocative rationalisations, threats
and rhetoric can we be expected to take?
Just three weeks after the Haramites have abducted almost
300 young school girls at Chibok,
burnt down their school and kept them as sex slaves, just a few days after they
abducted eight more at Warabe Village, Borno state, just two weeks after two
bombs went off in Nyanya, Abuja killing a total of 150 people between them and
just three days after no less than 350 innocent people were slaughtered by the
terrorists in Gamborou Ngala, a border town with the Camerouns, these northern
elders are saying that force must not be used against them. This is
unacceptable and their suggestion must be treated with the contempt that it
deserves.
I do not know what it will take
for the Nigerian people to accept the fact that Boko Haram is the greatest evil
that our country has ever had to contend with and that there can be no dialogue
with such demons. I do not know what it will take for these northern elders to
accept the fact that evil is evil, that you must never negotiate with
terrorists and that their ”gentle way” simply cannot work.
The truth is that until every
single one of the Haramites is hunted down, brought to justice and despatched
to hell there will be no peace in our country. We must also eliminate those who
secretly encourage, fund and protect them.
I have always viewed those that
have suggested that Boko Haram should be treated with kid gloves with the
utmost suspicion. It is either that we live in a civilised secular state where
the rule of law prevails, where beasts have no place and where murderous
animals are treated like the savages that they are or we shall have no country
at all.
All this talk about ”not using
force” must stop because it is nonsensical, it is counter-productive and it
presents a very real threat to our desire to continue to live as one nation.
Those that abduct, rape, kill and enslave children do not deserve to live.
Those that believe that the
Haramites are rational and that say that ”force should not be used against
them” should proceed to the Sambisi Forest and give up them their own daughters
in exchange for our missing girls. After they have done that they can be as
gentle as they like with Boko Haram.
In all this President Goodluck
Jonathan has much to learn and I would be the last person to endorse what I
consider to be his inexplicable restraint and obvious weakness in the fight
against Boko Haram. Mr. President has failed woefully to protect the lives and
property of the Nigerian people and no responsible, self-respecting and
rational human being, including those that consider themselves to be his
officials and friends, should fail to admit this or should shy away from
telling him.
We expect far better from him and
if he fails to deliver on this he would not only have betrayed his mandate,
violated his oath of office and let down the Nigerian people but he will play
right into the hands of his sworn enemies and critics. This includes the
Haramites and their secret friends and others of a more benign nature from the
other side of the world like the American Senator John Mcain, who gleefully
told the whole world just yesterday that ”no government exists in Nigeria”. It
also includes Senator Hilary Clinton, who said only two days ago, that the Federal
Government of Nigeria had ”squandered their oil wealth, allowed corruption to
fester and now they are losing control of parts of their country”.
I am touched by these admonitions
from our American friends but one wonders why it took the Obama adminstration
up until early this year to formally recognise Boko Haram as a terrorist
organisation despite repeated calls to do so earlier by many prominent
Nigerians including Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor, the President of CAN. When Senator
Clinton was Secretary of State for America the State Department simply refused
to label Boko Haram as a terrorist group even though the islamists had
butchered thousands of Nigerians by that time.
There is no doubt that the
Jonathan administration has handled this matter in a wholly unacceptable and
inadequate manner and I have said so more than any other in the last three
years but frankly the Americans, and particularly Senator Clinton, must carry
their own fair share of the blame in this matter. For President Goodluck
Jonathan, the words of my brother, Mr. Opeyemi Agbaje, are instructive. On 9th
May 2014 he wrote:
”we warned Jonathan. We called
for action against Boko Haram and we screamed until our voices went hoarse. Now
the people who advised him against taking strong action and called for
dialogue, the very people that said it was caused by poverty, the very people
that promised that traditional rulers would resolve the matter, the very people
that encouraged him to vacillate and do nothing or little, are the ones mocking
him. Well that is why leaders must exercise leadership. The buck stops at his
table. The credit or the failure goes to him. I hope he learns!”
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