June Deadline: Knocks, Anger As Jonathan Fails To Cage Boko Haram

On March 28, 2012 in faraway Seoul, the South Korean capital, President Goodluck Jonathan boasted to the international community that his administration would end the menace being posed to the nation by the vicious Boko Haram sect by June this year. The sect was incensed. It quickly replied Jonathan in an angry tone, threatening to devour him and his administration before the deadline. June is about to end and the menace of the sect is almost getting out of control. SONI DANIEL takes a look at the seeming invincibility of the virulent sect and government’s inability to checkmate its nefarious activities.

At last, June is coming to an end. When President Goodluck Jonathan declared three months ago that he would stem the tide of Boko Haram by the end of June, hopes were high that something was being done by the Federal Government to ensure the safety of the endangered citizens, who have been terrorized and traumatized beyond measure by incessant bombings.

It was an assurance that Nigerians had been waiting for. That perhaps, aptly explained why many Nigerians heaved a sigh of relief as soon as the President made the promise. They could at least sleep with their eyes closed.

But three months after the presidential assurance, the spate of bombings appears to have been intensified and the number of deaths arising from the blasts quadrupled, rendering Mr. President’s promised a mere rhetoric.

Many Nigerians have been shocked by the level of brutality and the voracious scale with which the destructive elements have gone in trying to prove the government wrong.

In the main, they have made it clear to the world that the Nigerian government has no idea of what to do to curtail their excesses or that even if the government knows what to do in a bid to stop them from further damage to the nation’s psyche, it does not have the political will to move against them for reasons yet to be made public.

Jonathan had in the interview with South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency, said, “We have the belief that in the middle of this year; in terms of security of individuals, we will have full control. The danger is limited to some parts of the country. It does not extend to other parts of country.”

But Jonathan did not even return home when the militants fired back at him and his administration, threatening to consume them before the expiration of the deadline.

“You, Jonathan, cannot stop us; instead we will devour you in the three months like you are boasting,” Shekau, the Boko Haram leader, reportedly warned in a video entitled “Message to Goodluck Jonathan”, posted on Youtube. He was flanked by four masked men holding rifles as he spoke.

“We are proud soldiers of Allah; we will never give up as we fight the infidels. We will emerge as winners … we will finish you and end your government,” Shekau said in Arabic and the Hausa languages.

Shekau vowed that it must destroy Christians and Christianity in Nigeria particularly those killing Muslims in Nigeria just as it said it will also kill all Muslims aiding the arrest and harassment of its members.

“If death is your worldly gain, for us, it is eternal victory to die working for Allah. Our joy is to die in Jihad for Allah against infidels like you…

“We are also aware of some Muslims using our name to make money, we will say nothing but let them continue, and they will meet Allah in the last day,” Shekau added.

And to make real its threat, the sect has systematically coordinated and executed many deadly bombings since March that have disfigured several states in the north and claimed many innocent lives, mostly Christians in the north.

Shortly after its leader vowed to down devour the government, their fighters descended angrily on the Bayero University Kano, while the worshippers were assembled for their service and killed no fewer than 20 persons, among them two professors.

While the relatives were still mourning their loved ones, the sect went to the ECWA in Kaduna and detonated its lethal weapon, brutally terminating the lives of 38 persons in the process. As if to prove a point that its men had taken over the nooks and crannies of the north, the Boko Haram hatchet men trailed the Taraba police commissioner’s convoy and opened fire on him. While the police boss escaped unhurt, 11 others were killed and no fewer than 20 injured.

They were not yet done with their suicides missions. On April 26, 2012 took their fight to the doorsteps of the media, by attacking the Abuja office of ThisDay Newspaper, killing six persons by the time they left the premises.

On the same day, supporters of the sect threw bombs into a building in Kaduna housing three media establishment. Their explanation days after the attacks, was that they were sending a warning to the affected media houses to desist from working against them. The sect contended that the offending media houses had been reporting its events out of context and giving the world a wrong impression of what they were out to do.

A few days after they attacked the media houses, they sent their fighters to Bauchi, where they almost leveled the EYN Church and killed 15 worshippers before retreating.

The evil men moved from there and plied their weapons on the Church of God in Nigeria, COCIN in Jos, killing three persons while some of them were at Biu in Borno State, killing and maiming other worshippers, as if a religious war had been declared in the northern part of Nigeria against Christians.

While the nation thought they had seen the worst, loyalists of the sect, took their assault to Kaduna on Sunday, June 17, 2012 destroying three churches and killing scores of people with several bomb blasts that shook the city and its environs to its foundation. The bombings together with the reprisals that followed, left no fewer than 80 persons dead and hundreds wounded.

The sect might have taken its luck to the extreme when it assumed that it would kill, destroy and get away with it in Kaduna, as it has been doing in other places. But its calculations misfired and almost consumed the fighters.

Just as the dust in Kaduna was about to settle, the unrepentant militants, swooped on Damaturu, the Yobe State capital and left behind a tale of woes, tears and blood. They relatives of the victims of the blasts are yet to recover from the devastation. They may never recover from the sorrow that has enveloped them.

They had expected the government to protect them in line with the provisions of the Constitution, which makes the protection of lives and property, the cardinal duty of any government. That has amply been provided for by the Nigerian constitution but the leaders hardly give a serious consideration to that sacred responsibility.

As Jonathan personally confessed while in Seoul, the government appears to have been overwhelmed by the level of violence that has gripped the nation, having not prepared for it. As it stands, many believe that the militant sect has somewhat succeeded in making the north almost ungovernable through unrestrained bombings without appropriate response from the law enforcement agents.

The President had admitted recently, “But regrettably, we did not know that terrorism was coming. Now we are faced with the reality.”

“Our security architecture never expected suicide bombings and therefore was not prepared for it,” Jonathan confessed, saying however that something was being done to confront the malevolent elements. But whatever is being done, has not translated to any sense of security and safety for the ordinary Nigerian and there is no hope that the situation will soon change for the better.

A forlorn hope now pervades the nation as far as the security of lives and property is concerned.

A top military source, confirmed to one of our correspondents that the military establishment is as ruffled by the Boko Haram sect as the citizens of Nigeria, since they were taken unawares by the violent sect.

The source said that it was impossible for the military to prevent bombings in all parts of the north.

“The Nigerian Army is as confused as all other Nigerians on how to handle the terrorists who appear set to provoke ethnic and religious war in Nigeria,” the source said but assured like Jonathan, that the military would contain the rising insecurity in the land.

Apparently angered by the seeming inability of the Nigerian government to checkmate the pervasive crisis that has the potential to consume the whole nation, two former governors of Kaduna State, Col. Hameed Ali and Alh. Balarabe Musa, have flayed President Jonathan’s poor handling of the festering security situation in the country.

Their grouse stems from the fact that the government appears to have been overwhelmed by the magnitude of the attacks unleashed on the north by Boko Haram and therefore unable to proffer any solution.

Apart from the angst over the governments failure to curtail the rampaging Boko Haram sect, the Nigerians are also miffed that Jonathan jetted out of town to attend the Earth Summit in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil when Kaduna and Yobe States have virtually been overrun by the sect. Many Nigerians are upset that the President has opted to treat an inflamable matter that affects lives and property with terity.

“The President is fooling Nigerians; he says one thing and does another and he is not matching his words with actions. The government of President Jonathan is careless about the happenings in the country; it is not concerned about the bombings and killings of innocent lives. They are not taking steps to curtail what is happening,” Ali said.


Aligning with the former governors, Shehu Sani, who is the President of the Civil Right Congress of Nigeria, said that the unfolding security challenges in the country called for dialogue and not tall promises.

“The security agencies deceived the President that they were going to end the Boko Haram activities in three months, but as it is now, innocent people are being killed by both the Boko Haram and the security agencies.

“The President is insensitive to the suffering of the people; as there is no comprehensive plan that will end the bombings in the country. The President does not have the will to fight insecurity,” Sani said.

But Dangiwa Umar, another former governor of the state, defended the President’s handling of the security situation in the wake of the Boko Haram onslaught.

Umar said, “It is clear that the activities of the Boko Haram are beginning to give way. We have recorded 80 percent of success in the fight against the insecurity. The security situation is improving.

“Nigerians need to join hands with the government to ensure adequate security in the country because the issue of security cannot be left to the government alone.

“The security situation will improve very soon. I will appeal to all Nigerians to join hands with the federal government to fight the insecurity. The federal government has done a lot to curtail the activities of the Boko Haram,” he said.

Whether Nigerians will be patient and patriotic enough to heed the advice of the former governor, is left to be seen. But the government itself may also need to take at least a modicum of measures to protect the endangered citizens, particularly in the north, to give them the hope and courage to begin to support its actions against the enemies of the people.

That may be the best starting point of restoring hope in a nation that has been enmeshed in a war that has neither a clear direction nor an altruistic shape mission. Whatever the sect does is sure to spell doom for the rest of the nation.

Source: http://leadership.ng/nga/articles/28038/2012/06/23/june_deadline_knocks_anger_jonathan_fails_cage_boko_haram.html