A lot of Bama youths embraced the Islamic sects Boko Haram long before now. They were non-violent but nurse the ambition of fighting the government as far back as 2006. That was and has always been the cardinal principle on which Boko Haram was founded, the Islamic revolution.

I can understand why a lot young people are attracted to such sect. The utter neglect by the State and the Federal Government. Government in Borno State has always been about sharing money by few in government. When I was growing up in Borno State in the late 80s and early 90s, I could clearly see unemployment was very high. There wasn't much to do but smuggling fuel out of the country and other goods and smuggling stuffs in from the neighbouring countries. For Custom officials it was to collect bribes and get as rich as you can as quick as possible. The police institution has always been an example of total institutional failure as far as Nigeria is concern and it reminds us of the Nigerian State. The same thing was going on for every other institution, even the military, in Borno State. There was simply no job to do.

One could see that armed robbery was very high in Borno with foreigners involved and many times they raided villages subsequently that these villages cease to exist as the villagers all pack out. Maiduguri was safe but the villages were like the Wild, Wild, West, even before Boko Haram. My father was a policeman, so I know quite a lot what was going on. In my father's days police were not paid salary for three months, then they pay for a month and off again for two to three months. So how do government expect them to feed their families? If not for my mom who was a strong business woman taking care of most things, I still wonder how we would have survived. My pops has always been this straight forward kind of fellow who doesn't take bribe, part of his military training before he joined the police. Even his colleagues see him as different as they nicknamed him 'Old Soldier' for his non tolerance of bribe and injustice that was and is still the culture of the police.

I understand why Boko Haram thrives among Borno youths. They never liked Western education which was free of charge in the late 80s. Living in Bama I can tell you they were less than 50 Bama students in Government Science Secondary School where I attended my secondary school. Almost 80 to 90 percent of Kanuris, Gamargu and Shuwa drop from Bama local goverment drop out of school or never go beyond Primary School. Young people seek solace in sitting under the nim tree, discussing religion and doing drugs. Diazepam and Tramal were the recreational drugs, cough syrups, pimolin tablet, and even alcohol were in high consumption. Alcohol mostly secretly as it is haram.

I left Bama in 1994 for Kano but I still here from people there. Somehow I kept contact with my friends, mostly Maiduguri boys who went to school in Bama. As Boko Haram hit Borno, I re-connected with friends here and there and they have been a great source of information.

Without job and education, with the hopelessness and fear that has become Nigeria and the wantom spending and ostentatious lifestyle of politicians, people close to politicians, their wives and children, indoctrinating people against the government would be as simple as ABC. It was the government that committed suicide against itself. The agitation for an Islamic State by Northern Nigerian governments in 1999 and the introduction of Sharia in 2000 in some state, kicked off Boko Haram.

When that Sharia of deceit failed, Boko Haram decided to give the people Sharia. They used that avenue to incite, inflame and to influence. Army of jobless youths in their thousands became members. Jobless, hopeless and uneducated, Muhammad Yusuf found the Vacuum to fill. Western education doesn't do any good but destroys. Only people with white colar jobs were seen to be enjoying the country and the shameless corruption was glaring that nobody hides anything. There was lawlessness. Boko Haram gave the army of jobless Nigerians a sense of importance and belonging to something big and important, something divine, the work of Allah, Jihad, wagging war against the enemy and the enemy is government.

Bama youths flooded into Boko Haram. Some of them killed their best friends who were involved in unIslamic activities after warning them to stop. Drug dealers, junkies and thoae who mistakenly talked against Boko Haram were assasinated. Where was government all these while? People in government were busy living the Nigerian dream which is looting.

As Boko Haram took over Bama today, majority of the fanatics fighting the Jihad to establish the Islamic Caliphate are from Bama. They know the terrain more that the Nigerian army and they can easily melt into the crowd of civilian.

unemployment is never an excuse to support a military and a terrorist organization. .. let me remeber you that Nigeria is a poor country with alot of poor community and people from rivers to bayelsa, edo, ondo, etc. poverty is never an excuse to kill people for no reason