BOKO HARAM: UNCENSORED BUT DEBATABLE.

Unarguably, if a child is not offered education or willingly refused to embrace education, while the society and the leaders allows him to enjoy his freedom of choice, then the society bears the brunt when the anger in that child builds up to become a terror in his adulthood.

I have decided to share a discussion that eschewed between myself and a colleague who spent his childhood and his teenage years in one of the troubled North Eastern States in Nigeria, the lengthy discussion will be compressed in order to contain his uncensored experiences and my debatable perspectives on the aged terrorism that has consumed nearly a million life, displaced over 3million people, destroyed thousands of homes, gradually spreading across her territorial borders, and has cost the people more than the eyes can meet.

My friend was born in the early 80’s and was privileged to get enrolled into one of the reputable private elementary schools in Kano State, his childhood experiences in the hands of uneducated children of his age group, each time the school bus come to pick him in the morning and drop him after school hours was fun to him as at that time because he was left with a switching position of who is superior between him and those angered children, but his reminisce now throws a jab at his happy hours, believing that it all started when they were children but ignorant of the fact that children grow up with childhood ideologies and tends to pose threats to the society when they become adults.

He shared his experiences of how those uneducated children stands beside the road, chanting “YOU THAT ATTEND WESTERN SCHOOLS HAVE AN INCOMPLETE EDUCATION” in their local dialect, while himself and his peers in the school bus replies with a counter response of “WE THAT ATTEND WESTERN EDUCATION TENDS TO LIVE A BETTER LIVE THAN YOU GUYS, YOUR COMPLETE EDUCATION SHOULD REFLECT IN THE QUALITY OF YOUR LIFE”, at times this counter response hits those kids below their belts, which most often triggers the monster in them, that they take to hitting the school bus at the sides or at the back. This action was seen as a mere display of anger and was not envisaged to metamorphose into a terror gang.

His experience was synchronised with other colleagues of mine, who were born in the early 80’s and had their elementary education in the North Eastern States, as they also share their childhood experiences. So this leaves me with a submission that today’s terror is indeed a build up of neglected childhood anger, they were all happy and pushing leverages of how bright their future is compared to the future of those uneducated angered kids in our society.

Today, i am convinced that the present day terrorism in Nigeria that has outbursted into a regional terror did metamorphosed from the sets of uneducated and misguided children of mostly the late 70’s and the early 80’s; those sets of children were living with the believe that Education without reciting the holy Quran and observing their Solats is nothing but an incomplete education while they who attend schools where readings from the Holy Quran and observing Solats is core, have a complete education compare to their peers. IT SHOULD INTEREST YOU THAT THOSE SETS OF KIDS ACROSS THE NORTHERN REGION, GREW UP TO BECOME UNITS OF ANGERED KIDS, LATER BECAME SMALL TERROR GROUPS; I have it on a fact that, Boko Haram started as an ideology that was synonymous to the Oodua Peoples Congress (OPC) in the South West, Bakassi Boys in the Eastern Nigeria and the Arewa Group of the Northern Nigeria, but with strives to discourage western education which later metamorphosed into a terror group, as a result of the interference from self served politicians who engaged them with funds and cash in order to fulfil their political aspirations.

Engaging groups with funds in order to mobilise their people towards achieving our political ambitions has become the order of the day, but it becomes ridiculous when politicians engage groups of angered youths with funds and arms in order to attack their contenders and help them attain elective offices, as those groups gets jobless after the elections while the arms remain in their custody; this groups are most often abandoned when the politicians who engaged them secure elective offices because of the change in the aura around the politician.

It is no fallacy that, the former executive governor of Borno State Alimodu Sheriff triggered the Borno State wing of the groups of angered uneducated youths in the North East, by empowering them with adequate funds and arms, when he was seeking to be elected as the executive governor of the State; those groups he engaged did their best to heat up the homes of his opponents and eventually he was declared the winner of the election. As political power will always have it way, the former governor of Borno State gave them a deaf ear and refused to continue funding the terror group, which made the group to devise other means of generating funds to meet their over blotted standard of living. This resulted to kidnapping, robbery, amongst others before they were later superimposed into an existing larger terror group which later metamorphosed into the present day Boko Haram terrorist group. Nonetheless, he is still believed to have a link with the metamorphosed terror group.

Conclusively, the Boko Haram terrorist group have eventually become a regional threat as against it claimed objectives as revealed by faceless members of the group, with the rising level of abductions, incessant bomb blasts and seizing of territories, and a declaration of their intention to build a caliphate; regardless of how we found ourselves in this horrible situation, the government must restore the confidence in the people in order to get their supports towards combating the ongoing terrorism in the country.

Kazeem Sulaiman
sulaimanadeshina@yahoo.com
@KazeemDiary

Nice write-up LHML Steam, have heard similar stories from people i know that reside or schooled in the North... I pray our government tackle this menace and go back to the grassroot to eradicate any form of extrimism already induced into the young minds of the children/youths...