IF you ask me, all the points Chief Olusegun
Obasanjo raised on the Boko Haram insurgency, as
published in the Vanguard newspaper of Thursday
November 27, were all valid. But the paradox is; he
spent a good eight years in the saddle of the Nigerian
government, why did he fail to put any of these
measures he highlighted into place? After all, the
seeds for Boko Haram were sown during his regime,
with many state governors illegally foistering the
sharia laws on hapless citizens.
The fact is, in saner climes, people that have
mismanaged opportunities are allowed to melt into
oblivion but not in Nigeria where things run in
circles. As long as we keep running in circles, going
back to our own vomits and playing politics with the
nation’s jugular, we shall remain the same.
What ever theory on crime or deviancy that is
propounded in the present Boko Haram situation, the
bottom line is; it got to this level because our
politicians allowed it to fester for their personal and
selfish interests. That Obasanjo’s address was
nothing short of self denial of his contribution to the
over all rot we presently face as a nation. Nigerians
are so forgetful. I wish we can play back the years
1999-2007.
The Boko Haram insurgents are human beings like
you and me. They have been blown out of proportion
because of the consequences of omission and
commission on the part of those directing the affairs
of the affected states and the nation.
I have written before on this column that; there is no
way we can win the battle against the insurgents
without the conscious and deliberate efforts of the
indigenes of the north eastern states to defend their
land. The land is their history, it is their ancestry,
heritage, culture and to a great essence, their being.
Without your heritage, you are a ‘born throway’ –
apology to Uncle Sam- and no sane man sits down
and watch his land and that, his forefathers have
laboured for, to go in ruins. Better die fighting than
live a life of cowardice. Forget about the Federal
government and the politics of the politicians, if the
people of the North east decide today that Boko
Haram activities must stop in their land, it will stop.
Watching Wolf Blitzer programme on CNN of 13th
November evening, this fact was reinforced in my
mind. Wolf interviewed a retired US army general,
Dan Bolger, who played active roles in the Iraq war
that toppled Saddam Hussein. He just released a
book on the American mission in Iraq and
Afghanistan which he titled “Why We Lost The War”,
the summary of his book centred around counter
insurgency and he submits that counter insurgency
must come from the people. The Americans
succeeded in occupying Iraq and Afghanistan but
they could not finish the business, they won the
battle but could not win the war, they could not win
the war because they did not successfully carry the
indigenes along.
He submits that: ‘the Iraqis’ had to get the job done’.
It is the Iraqis’ that understands the terrain, the
language, the people and also the insurgents.
Today’s wars have changing patterns and modes as
compared to those of the 20th century, brute force
and ammunitions alone do not make it happen. The
greatest asset is making the people, I mean, the
victims to agree that you are fighting for their cause.
It is even worse when religion is brought into it.
What I am proposing here is not theory, it is real and
working. In the mirror online of 14th November,
2014, was a caption “Army/Vigilante flush out Boko
Haram from Mubi”. In the Vanguard newspaper of
Wednesday 19th November, 2014, the feature article
under the caption ” Recapture of Mubi, Chibok…”
read thus: “… A recent collaboration between the
military and the local vigilante groups seems to be
the magic wand needed to flush out the insurgents. It
worked in Mubi and Chibok, hence the clamour for
this mode of operation in the war against terrorism
in the country.”
In fact, the introduction to the article states thus:
“They realise that they had become endangered
species in their own fatherland and if nothing was
done urgently to flush out the insurgents, their huge
investments would be destroyed, political ambitions
thwarted and their relevance called to question. That
was the quagmire some concerned elite and
business tycoons from Boko Haram ravaged and
other parts…..found themselves in”. It went further; ”
it was against this backdrop that these prominent
indigenes mobilised the local war lords who are not
sympathetic to the cause Boko Haram is fighting, to
take up arms and defend their homeland from being
over run by the overzealous insurgents”.
That was how Mubi and Chibok got rescued from the
hands of the Boko Haram insurgents. It is clear that
our army cannot win the war without the support of
the indigenes, such synergy must be encouraged for
the remaining part of the war against the insurgents.
The army cannot fight without information and it is
the people who are born and bred in that terrain are
in the position to offer accurate or factual data about
the situation on ground.
According to Gen. Dan Bolger, it takes a long term
effort to build an army. He says: “building a military
takes decades” and you have to train the locals to
withstand those insurgents. To train a sergeant for
example will take nothing less than ten years. Also, to
him, it takes more than equipments to win the
insurgency battle; leadership and mindsets are other
vital factors.
What is going on for the insurgents is their mindset,
they are not good or well trained soldiers, they have
only been indoctrinated with very extreme religious
ideologies, of hate and negative jihads, we must find
a way to neutralise this.
Also, the sponsors of the insurgents must be traced,
identified and brought to book. Our politicians must
back off and stop commenting on Boko Haram
activities when they do not have the solutions to
solving it, or, if they have, let them pass it on to the
military authorities under confidential cover.
The boko harams are not invincible, they are humans
like me and you.
Mr. Sunny Ikhioya, a commentator on national
issues, wrote from Lagos.
www.vanguardngr.com/2014/12/boko-haram-obj-breaking-myth/

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I may lose my job if I read all this finish.
pls do dat magic called summary

Am I geting paid?