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 sponsers 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 unecessary
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 believes 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
criticising 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 occassion, 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 Sambisa
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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