“Fire on the mountain!” This may look like a familiar lyric from a popular song. It is not. But if the drama that is currently unfolding in the northeast of Nigeria is anything to go by, then, it is crystal clear that, indeed, there is fire on the mountain. In the last few weeks, the Boko Haram terrorists have intensified their attacks and open confrontation with Nigeria’s security forces. They have been moving from their base in Sambisa fortress to some parts of Borno and Adamawa States, seizing towns and villages along their route. At the last count, the terrorists have taken over at least nine out of the 27 Local Government Areas in Borno, representing one-third of the entire state. Recently, they proclaimed the town of Gwoza, a “caliphate under Islamic law.” Michika, Uba and some parts of Adamawa, have also tasted Boko Haram’s bitter pill.
Following the terrorists’ recent incursion into Bama town, about 72 kilometers from Maiduguri, the Borno State capital, fears were heightened that the next port of call may be Maiduguri itself. Speaking in Abuja last Thursday, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, United States Assistant Secretary for African Affairs, said the frequency and scope of terror attacks had grown more acute, adding that this had constituted a serious threat to the overall security of Nigeria. According to her, “Boko Haram has shown that it can operate not only in the North-East, but in Kano, Abuja and elsewhere. We are very troubled by… the prospects for an attack on and in Maiduguri, which would impose a tremendous toll on the civilian population. This is a sober reality check for all of us”.
It is, indeed, time to engage in a sober reality check. This is because at no time since the end of the country’s civil war in 1970, has the territorial integrity of this country been so threatened than what is currently playing out today. In spite of all the havocs the terrorists have wreaked on innocent people all over the place, they had the audacity to distribute leaflets in Maiduguri, the state capital, warning the residents of an impending attack. For one, the major weapon of terrorists is fear. Those leaflets must have been circulated to create fear in the minds of the people. If that is the aim, the terrorists may have largely succeeded in view of the mass exodus of residents in Maiduguri.
For whatever it takes, the military and the Federal Government should do everything possible to safeguard Maiduguri. The city is too populated to allow these vagabonds to truncate its tranquility. It is exigent that the temerity of the rampaging terrorists should be halted without further prevarication. By now, it must be clear to our policy makers that we have an emergency at hand. There is no doubt that the army is short of manpower, having been overstretched because of its involvements in internal security duties in the country. Be that as it may, we may not have any other option than to resort to what happened during the civil war by recruiting those who are ready to do the job. Care must; however, be taken not to recruit Boko Haram agents or sympathetisers.
In that case, rather than the usual one year training, the new recruits can be trained for two weeks and deployed in large numbers to crush the terrorists. The thing is to get the whole place flooded with troops. If the enemy out-flanks you, pull back, regroup and re-think your strategy. It is good that the terrorists have now come out of Sambissa Forest due to the rains and the subsequent marshy terrain. The security forces should launch a massive and sustained attack on them in the towns and villages they now occupy as well as lead an assault on Sambissa itself. The terrorists must have left some line guards behind to take care of the place for them. All the security forces need do is to muster enough manpower and fire power to do this. Obviously, the terrorists cannot cope if many fronts are opened.
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‘Perhaps, we would be better off with leaders who do not have good strategies and know they do not, than with leaders who get stuck to bad strategies’
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The terrorists are known to move swiftly just like the ISIS is doing presently in Iraq and Syria. The so-called Islamists, though calling themselves different names, share a common doctrine of destruction. They seek to impose their will through propaganda, forced conversion, kidnapping, beheading, slaughtering, forced marriage, rape and other unspeakable horrors. Obviously, Boko Haram exists for the same genocidal mission as ISIS. It has its own contribution to this hateful movement. The plan by Al-Queda to acquire territories after territories until it enthrones its own Islamic doctrines was hatched many years back with defined roadmap and timelines. This was expected to have been crystalised in 2013. And Nigeria falls within the countries whose territories it wanted (and still wants) to acquire for this indoctrination. What this means is that Nigeria is fighting a formidable enemy.
The truth is that 16 months after a state of emergency was declared in the northeast states of Adamawa, Borno and Yobe, it appears that the country has not got an effective strategy to deal with Boko Haram and its avowed commitment to wage war against the country and its people. Much like the man who has a hammer and, therefore, assumes that every problem is a nail, our policy makers have tried these past 16 months, to define the Boko Haram problem as something that they are comfortable to deal with. Now, it is apparent that they are failing or they have failed, and woefully too. Not with the terrorists who seem to be riding roughshod over everybody and traversing state borders, thereby killing and maiming several innocent citizens as well as displacing people and destroying hundreds of schools in a wave of terror aimed at establishing a utopian Islamic state in Nigeria.
Recently, the international community was jolted with the abduction of more than 250 schoolgirls from Chibok community in Borno State. In the wake of the uproar, some foreign countries sent specialists with medical, intelligence, counterterrorism and communications skills to advise Nigerian officials. In addition, manned and unmanned surveillance aircraft have been flying over the heavily forested northeastern region of the country where intelligence officials believe the girls are held. Some 80 armed American troops have also been sent to Chad, one of Nigeria’s next door neighbours, where predator surveillance drones are being operated from a large air base near N’Djamena, the Chadian capital. All these seem to have yielded nothing as the Chibok girls are still marooned in the woods.
Viewed from the prism of the seeming bureaucratic lethargy with which the ongoing war against terrorism is being prosecuted, it is as if Nigerian leaders are bidding their time and waiting for a miracle from nowhere to happen and put an end to this ugly episode. It is rather senseless to expect outsiders to come to our rescue every time there is a problem. Every nation is and should be responsible for its own citizens’ safety except that, on this score, Nigeria’s record is abysmal. Corruption has become a hydra-headed monster that has eaten deep into the fabric of the nation. The nation’s considerable oil wealth has been cornered by a few smart alecs. The result is that the citizens have not been provided with adequate security, water, health, reliable power supply, good and motorable roads, as well as, quality education.
Now, the army, the last bastion of hope, is starved of essential resources and completely demoralised. This, in itself, is a bigger threat to stability. Yet, a military response is not a viable option to end the growing disenchantment in the country. It is, therefore, expedient on our grandstanding political leaders to urgently tackle the root causes of disaffection in the country by reducing corruption, and providing jobs and other lifelines to the growing army of hungry and angry Nigerians. As a people, we need a new, honest conversation on how we are going to defeat the multifarious forces of evil that have held the country by its jugular. Perhaps, we would be better off with leaders who do not have good strategies and know they do not, than with leaders who get stuck to bad strategies.
