Jonathan is clueless and wicked

Jonathan is clueless and wicked. How can he watch fellow Nigerians being massacred everyday by Boko Haram and do nothing? He and the PDP are sponsoring this Boko Haram so as to have access to security funds that they can embezzle. He could not even bring back our Chibok girls all these months. What a weak leader!

We need a strong leader who will lead the war against Boko Haram from the front. I can’t wait for GMB to take over and crush this Boko Haram. The People’s General will crush them in a month the same way he dealt with Maitatsine. Boko Haram will feel his power and bow. Sai Baba!”

Do these lines sound familiar? Sure, they do. Until May 29, anybody who said that terrorism – especially the religious type that involves suicide bombing – is hard to defeat was called names: “A PDP apologist, a shameless commentator who has mortgaged his soul and conscience to the PDP’s bribes; a heartless person who hates Nigeria; a tribalist; a disappointment,” etc.

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It happened to me many times but the peak was a week to the presidential election in March. I was invited by Jimi Disu to discuss the election on The Discourse on Classic FM, Lagos. When it got to security/Boko Haram, I said what I had observed over the years and had also had some security experts, including retired soldiers, say: That our military is great in face-to-face combat but has still not found a solution to guerrilla warfare. I pointed out that as President Olusegun Obasanjo, a retired war general, could not defeat the Niger Delta militants who did not engage in suicide bombing. President Umaru Yar’Adua also fought them for two years and saw that it was futile. In 2009, he offered them amnesty on the condition that they laid down their arms and renounced violence. It looked as if it would not work. Eventually, it worked. Peace and calm returned to the Niger Delta and Nigeria. Gradually, Nigeria’s almost crippled crude oil exploration came back to full stream.

I had barely completed my first sentence when the missiles came flying at me. It came first from the studio from my fellow analysts. When the phone lines were opened, the missiles came in torrents: “Who invited that man to the studio? That man does not deserve to be there. How could some people think like this? How could he give such lame excuses for inefficiency and incompetence? What is wrong with some people in this nation? We have a clueless leader that does not understand leadership, and yet some people are looking for excuses for him. Buhari will crush this Boko Haram the way he crushed Maitatsine once elected.”

Even though I knew that I was right based on precedence, I prayed that I would be proved wrong for the sake of peace in Nigeria. I was willing to commend any leader who would eradicate Boko Haram, just as I would commend any leader who would give us nonstop electricity irrespective of what I think of the leader.

Fortunately, Muhammadu Buhari was declared the winner of the March 28 presidential election. There was nothing more to say. As my people say, when a woman marries two different men, she decides by herself which is better. Nobody will need to tell her stories about the two men. Right from the inauguration of Buhari on May 29, there was a spike in Boko Haram’s attacks. Some towns and villages that were reclaimed between February and March were lost again to the insurgents. The number of deaths continued to rise.

The announcement by Buhari that the military command would be relocated to Maiduguri, the centre of the Boko Haram war, was greeted with optimism and praise. It was seen as Buhari’s masterstroke that would drive the final nail into Boko Haram’s coffin. But the Boko Haram’s bombs kept on exploding and causing deaths and panic. Curiously, government keeps silent on many occasions after Boko Haram’s attacks. And whenever it responds, its message is almost a photocopy of Jonathan’s: “We will destroy Boko Haram; their days are numbered.”

While the Independence Day celebrations were on in Abuja, Boko Haram attacked Adamawa, killing about 20. Some days earlier, the headquarters of the Department of State Services in Kogi State came under attack by Boko Haram men who reportedly freed some prisoners. There was silence from most quarters on these incidents. Those who used to derive joy from sharing Boko Haram’s videos, pictures and stories of mayhem until May 29 suddenly lost interest in sharing such. There was a conspiracy of silence all over. The Chibok girls that we all lamented about and prayed for their return at home and in our places of worship were hardly ever mentioned. Those who used #BringBackOurGirls as their Twitter profile name and hashtag on Facebook quietly changed all that.

Then, the attacks on Kuje and Nyanya on October 2 could not go unnoticed like other attacks because both towns are located close to the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja. Surprisingly, there were comments from some wind-chasers pointing out that the attacks came shortly after Mrs Diezani Alison-Madueke was arrested in London. Others tried to make some ethnic groups scapegoats because one suspected Sadiq Hono created a Twitter account with Chima Okoro and reportedly predicted the Abuja attacks.

On September 30, Amnesty International was reported to have said that 1,600 people had been killed between June and September Boko Haram. This is despite the genuine sacrifices of the military. It has become clear that Boko Haram is not Maitatsine, neither is it a group that listens to reason, pleas or threats. It does not even listen to talks of amnesty. Even though most of those who rained abuses on others some months ago have not found the humility to admit that they were wrong and apologise for their wrong judgment, it is clear that the war against Boko Haram is an unusual kind of war that nobody – no matter how adept in military know-how – can say with certainty that he can win within any specific time. It is not about President Obasanjo or President Jonathan or President Buhari.