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Boko Haram; the Triumphant Victory of the Nigerian Military and Police.

July 31, 2009

“They have been returning steady stream of fire.” With those words, Colonel Ben Ahanotu summed up the operation that took him and his men five long excruciating days to crush the ragtag army of Islamic militants called Boko Haram who almost grounded Northern Nigeria to a standstill. Well we cannot call Boko Haram a ragtag army of Islamic militia actually since they were able to hold their own militarily against the Nigerian Military returning steady stream of fire actively for five days. That a couple of Islamic sects in Nigeria are notoriously militaristic is no more news. What is news is that they are accidents, ready to explode with a big bang like it is just being witnessed this moment.


Well we congratulate the military for bringing respite for now, one's heart bleeds however that surely this is not the end of this crisis if Nigerian history is well documented. In my article ‘Nigeria is a dysfunctional and a failed’ which was copiously published in many Nigerian media since early June and as late as Thursday 30th July 2009 in the Daily Independent, I did mention that Islamic fundamentalist hold sway in the North and hold people to ransom. As is always the case I received knocks and a few praises. Fortunately for Nigerians, we have one government official who has said the truth as it is this time. Mr Afakiriya Gadzama the Director General of the SSS was quoted as saying that they have supplied enough security report to the appropriate authorities on Boko Haram for a long time. Though not much is known about the short and lately brutish and eventful life of Muhammad Yusuf the leader of the Boko Haram sect, it is manifestly clear that he had  super rich and obviously powerful sponsor(s) from within and outside Nigeria. If the latest version of his history in the press is anything to go by, then Muhammad Yusuf is just about 38 years barely educated from a poor background in Jakusko in Yobe state  came onto the scene in 1995 and that  is it.

Sometimes it is painful wasting one’s time analyzing Nigerian problems because of the simple reason that it is a waste of time and hardly will the suggestions and solutions proffered see the light of day. Going back to Boko Haram leader, he became visible in 1995 barely at the age of 24 years since then we may assume he has never looked back until he met his waterloo on Thursday 30th July 2009 presumably as martyr with his 72 virgins now cuddling him in paradise and telling him welcome and well done but you shouldn’t have come so soon there is more job to be done in Nigeria.

Just like all previous sectarian crises in Nigeria this boko haram experience will fizzle out just like others before it. But until the various governments and their security agencies release all the various judicial of inquiry reports and name all the financiers and sponsors of all the belligerent groups and associations, Nigeria is still sitting an active keg of gun powder ready to explode. Take the case of Plateau state for example, their governor Jonah Jang has promised to release the reports of all the previous crises on the Plateau, that was January and now is August yet not one report has been released.

Despite the fact that Umaru Yar’ adua was insensitive enough to fly to Brazil when Nigeria was burning, the National Assembly is now set to go on 8-weeks holidays. While I honestly don’t know what is more of national importance than the present boko haram crises. At the last count virtually all the states in the North have been affected and probably about 1000 people killed officially. In America, one citizen is unjustly killed and the president comes back from his annual leave. In Nigeria one thousand Nigerians are killed and the ‘president’ is off to Brazil on a frolic of his own with Turai beside him beaming with smiles and waving to the crowds as if those women and children displaced and their fathers and husbands killed in Maiduguri, Bauchi, Kano, Yobe and even Katsina are unlucky Nigerians.

Boko haram’s base is almost half of Maiduguri town, he acquired sophisticated and automatic weapons which he used to return steady stream of fire to the fire power of the Nigerian Army. These weapons are never manufactured in Nigeria. Of course he had military fatigue uniforms and bomb making devices all imported and shipped or flown into Nigeria from abroad. These are questions that beg and beg for answers. There must be sponsors and financiers of religious extremists’ organizations in Nigeria and from abroad. Mr Gadzama has spill the beans by saying they have done their jobs by supplying the necessary security reports as should be, who then refused to do his or her own job?  Until the sponsors and financiers of groups like boko haram and other notorious  Islamic fundamentalists and in fact all other such organizations, are unearthed, named, shamed and prosecuted, the victory of the Nigerian Military in Maiduguri and elsewhere is only temporary and probably a forced break. Because with his poor background, Mohammed Yusuf must have gotten stupendously wealthy sponsor(s) to have acquired such arsenal with which they resisted the Nigerian Army with their Armored cars for five days returning fire for fire.  Just like Yar’adua cowed in and was prevented from naming the sponsors of ‘MEND’ and even the bribe takers in the Halliburton scandal, boko haram case might follow similar pattern.

I will continue to say that for now Nigeria is a dysfunctional and a failed state which is getting closer and closer to Somalia with each passing day. But we have a better chance of recovery than Somalia if our leaders can muster the courage to confront the sponsors and financiers of the boko harams of this world and if they are not part of it already anyway.

 


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