The government has no will power to confront these destroyers because each and everyone in position today has a lot to hide and it has become a dangerous game.
I do not watch Jonathan media chat because I want to be spared the agony of seeing him say nothing meaningful. I usually read the transcripts and I have never been disappointed at my decision that nothing good can come out of this Presidency. Mr. Jonathan has no reassuring presence, in his own words; “He does not give a damn!” We all can “go and die!”
Under his watch, the country grew confused, we are left to wallow in confusion creating more frustration, more tedium, more fear and more despair. Terrorism escalated during his presidency. In place of concrete action we have disparate information, deliberate manipulation and official distortion of facts which makes every effort to combat Boko Haram and its shoots practically impossible. Nigeria has become a country of anything goes; Boko Haram foot soldiers and their Nigerian sponsors are hiding in plain sight. They are left to roam free because of their position and status in the society. The government has no will power to confront these destroyers because each and everyone in position today has a lot to hide and it has become a dangerous game. The monster they bred as a tool for political intimidation has mutated into something they cannot recognize nor control.
Who would have thought this fate awaits Nigeria? When Jean-Bédel Bokassa was making mincemeat of Central African Republic, we thought it couldn’t happen in Nigeria. Years later, we got Abacha on a platter of ethnic mistrust and greed. When the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and later the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) launched modern day terrorism, we wondered in bewilderment how a people can be willing to blow themselves up just like that! Now we have our own suicide bombers! How did we get here? We got here because of official corruption and total indifference to the needs of the masses by the Nigerian state. We got here because of economic deprivation, despondency, marginalization, frustration, and desperation that faces majority of Nigerians. We got here because religious leaders act in consonant to befuddle the battered psyche of the Nigerian using the religious instrument.
In his latest media chat, Mr. Jonathan was quoted as saying “stealing is not corruption.” This statement is not only incredible coming from the President of over 170million people, it also means this President is unteachable! He learns nothing and forgets everything ever so conveniently. With him, we have “entered one chance”. Hopefully, there will be something to salvage from Nigeria by 2015. Whether our elites agree or not, this fetid sore of our lives in the name of terror is the latent function of the protracted failure of the Nigerian State to deliver good governance. When all the tiers of government steal the money allocated for hospitals, roads, schools, infrastructure and when its youths are denied good and qualitative education, employment and its elders die for lack of healthcare, welfare and looted pensions; terrorism is what you get. Terrorism is what you get when a country is held sedate by religious merchants, when the youths are battered socially, psychologically and economically. Terrorism is the price we are paying for producing a colony of frustrated, depraved, dejected, deprived and hopeless youths as a consequence of official stealing, graft and general dysfunction.
Boko Haram is difficult to contain because they want to wish it away. It is difficult to fight terror because corruption has eaten deep into the nations security apparatus. Because of corruption, we have a rag tag army who wield inferior weapons compared to the adversaries they are expected to confront. Defense budgets for two decades have gone into private pockets leaving morale at the lowest ever! Soldiers on assignment are not paid their allowances while in the trenches to fight. Nothing is sacred anymore in the country. We seem unaware that corruption as perpetuated by public servants and political office holders creates unemployment, undermines democracy, the rule of law, good governance and security; it also destroys the capacity of institutions to perform well. We are witnessing the early onset of a failed state as the result of the complete metamorphosis of corruption. The country’s elite may not want to draw this parallel so they are not fingered as enablers of terrorism but the variables for the corruption object exists and cannot be erased. Unfortunately the actors do not believe we will all go down with the ship one way or another. The ingredients are complete in the triad of corruption, state neglect and terrorism. No country can have all these three ingredients without brewing massive bloodshed. I cringe at the though of it, but it is true.
For those of us who thinks terrorism is a northern problem I urge a rethink. This is because terror spreads and the fear knows no boundaries. To people of Northern origin; why did Boko Haram emerge from the poorest parts of Northern Nigeria? Why is Boko Haram finding recruitment easier among the lumpen plebeians and in such places where people have not had the opportunity to go to school and have decent source of livelihood? While the influence of religion cannot be downplayed, these colonies of destitutes became major recruiting reservoirs of foot soldiers for Boko Haram due to hopelessness. Otherwise, why is it that the largest chunk of recruits are young adults drawn from the pool of the poor underclass, idle youths with no skills and limited survival options?
Not knowing where your best meal might come from is a pain and poverty dulls the senses. In generational poverty, life is a series of struggles often marked by anger, despondency, resentment, and despair. Terrorists can easily recruit young people who wants to escape their circumstances, manipulate them to bear arms by promising them a sense of community, acceptance, brotherhood, and commitment to a cause higher than self. The picture of a typical Boko Haram recruit is that of a poor, illiterate and unemployed young man. He wears a profile that lends him to a kind of brainwash that is religious and cultural. He generally lacks the intellectual ability to question established views and beliefs. How do you think the very poor perceive the conspicuous consumption as exhibited by the expensive cars, large and expensive buildings; lavish celebrations of the rich? The youths who lives in generational poverty experience tremendous pressure seeing these everyday.
Let’s not fool ourselves, we must begin to organize more and agonize less. Otherwise, sex perverts will continue to sneak in at odd times to rape our mothers and abduct our girls. Our leaders are busy buying private jets that will help them and their families escape when things get really bad. Those of us who have no private jets and nowhere to run must begin to plan how to defeat terror. The present crop of leaders Nigeria has the tragic misfortune of being blessed with will rather live out their miserable lives in exile in Trinidad and Tobago than build Nigeria.
Do something on your own to safeguard yourself and start asking questions and hold them to account. The dimensions of our home-grown terror is based on class and gender. Don’t be fooled! The abduction of the Chibok girls confirms the intent to subdue the northern female from getting educated. The patriarchal culture of subduing the female kind in the north must stop. A country that keeps its women subjugated cannot thrive. Osama Bin Laden died surrounded by his choice collection of the best pornographic movies ever made. The bombings are no longer enough, the girl child must be abducted and married off forcefully for N2,000! Islamist terrorists are plain hopeless sex perverts selling hokum to those deluded enough to buy their version of jihadi nonsense and their obsession with female genitalia thinly veiled as safeguarding female purity.
Is anyone still in doubt over the failure of Mr. Jonathan’s state of emergency? Is anyone still in doubt that this President is a failure? The failure of leadership is glaring here. What use is federal might to this President? Dia ris God ooooo!!!
Twitter: @olufunmilayo
