The Beginning For posterity, it is important that we are honest in recording accounts of the day. When we are partial and political, we only do injustice to ourselves now and permanently to future generations. The history of Boko Haram is sad and painful and one we wish to soon forget, however it is important we keep accurate records to learn from it for tomorrow. Boko Haram, real name, Jama’atu Ahlis Sunna Lidda’awati wal-Jihad, “Group of the People of Sunnah for Preaching and Jihad,” was established under the Presidency of Olusegun Obasanjo who was encouraged by his NSA Spy Aliyu Gusau to look the other way as the “Nigerian Taliban” as it was then called took root. Late, no-nonsense President Musa Umaru Yar’Adua crushed that initial Boko Haram and extrajudicially killed its charismatic leader Mohammed Yusuf. Boko Haram rekindled as its beta version, or Boko Haram II under Goodluck Jonathan. Like Obasanjo, Jonathan tolerated and enabled the establishment of Boko Haram in the wilderness of the northeast. He did not care and saw it as an opportunity for political slander against his perceived enemies in the north and also as a cash cow for embezzling massive defence allocations. “Let them kill themselves,” he was reported to have once said when given breaking news of terror incidents. Obstructed By Northern Elite But Jonathan was not to blame alone. The northern elite also portrayed vested interests in the proliferation of Boko Haram. They saw it as an equivalent of the south’s MEND, believing it would operate in tandem with their interests and only attack Christians and other minorities like the Shia Muslims, which it did, at least initially, bombing Churches every Sunday.


Without clear condemnation of the group from media-popular northern leaders and the mostly Sunnite sect dominant ulama, it was extremely difficult for a weak Jonathan to wage the requisite war against the terrorists even if he so wished. Jonathan in his political desperation handed over his party to the north. It is on record that his PDP party chairman, Bamanga Tukur, a typical northern elite who President Muhammadu Buhari recently praised on his birthday, said as recorded in the Punch that, “Boko Haram is fighting for justice; Boko Haram is another name for justice.” This was a strong sentiment in the north from when Boko Haram II started in 2011 till late 2013 when Sheikh Gumi and Muslims Against Terror broke ranks and voiced loud condemnations of the group. In June of 2013, theNation bore the headline, “Buhari faults clampdown on Boko Haram members.” Quoting the article, “He (Buhari) accused the government of killing and destroying their houses while the Niger Delta militants were given special treatment by the government. Buhari who spoke on Sunday on a Liberty Radio programme, Guest of the Week monitored in Kaduna also admitted that the road to the registration of the All Progressive Congress (APC) was rough.” The weak Jonathan declared a half-baked State of emergency leaving the governors in situ. This was his undoing as Borno Governor Shettima will later violate WAEC order and keep a Chibok school open for exams which paved the way for Boko Haram to abduct over 270 girls in what will be Jonathan’s greatest international embarrassment and partly cost him the presidency. The same governor admitted to Premium Times last August that he did not even raise alarm over the kidnap of the girls under his domain to the president for a full three weeks. This paints a picture of an opposition that would not allow Jonathan to act even if he had the brains and guts to, and where possible, will mislead and misguide him. This is what Jonathan faced up until elections season when our (activists’) clamour turned the Boko Haram menace which was a non- issue for most in the north and nation at large, and only a headache for the Kanuri-majority northeast, into the central focus and perhaps the most important determinant of the elections. Jonathan’s War Against Boko Haram The United States blocked Nigeria from purchasing weapons to fight Boko Haram. One of former President Jonathan’s blunders which only he can be blamed for is not telling Nigerians of this serious hinderance in time. We do not know why the United States wanted Boko Haram to flourish and in Buhari’s words as he said on visit to the USA, “aided and abetted Boko Haram” by not allowing Nigeria acquire any weapons.

Not only did the US not sell any weapons to Jonathan, but Obama also blocked Nigeria from buying them from various countries. This while several autocratic countries with major human right violations were supplied steady ammo by the Obama admin. We recall that Hillary Clinton resisted labelling Boko Haram a terrorist organisation in spite of it being the most deadly in the world.

This is the uphill battle Goodluck Jonathan faced; waged by internal and external enemies. When Jonathan finally realised that he had set himself up and his re-election depended on defeating Boko Haram, he scrambled in a last minute “6-month war” effort to decisively crush the terrorists. Here I believe is where the controversial aspect of the history begins. I open with a challenge for anyone to give the list of towns in the northeast liberated under Buhari as against the list of towns liberated in Jonathan’s 6- month campaign. I also would like a list of the number of terrorists the Buhari government killed or captured to compare to Jonathan’s record of thousands. Equipment Goodluck Jonathan first bought the weapons Nigeria had not bought since the 80s. Neither Babangida, nor Abacha, nor Abdulsalami, nor Obasanjo, nor Yar’Adua had bought any decent weapons and war machines for Nigeria over a span of 30 odd years. Against obstruction from the US, Jonathan succeeded in bringing in some serious equipment. Nigerians all watched as powerful T72 M1s from Ukraine were driven up north. Beeagle blog, a foremost military conversation website publicised these deadly acquisitions while Nigerians did not care and focused only on politics. As history was being turned on its head, Dasuki later defended himself and attempted to correct our narrative by making public, images of the sophisticated arms the Jonathan government bought. See: Dasuki releases images of sophisticated weapons acquired under Jonathan (PHOTOS) – Daily Post, August 2015. In the six months including when Jonathan postponed the elections till March to buy an extra month and a half, Jonathan brought in these APCs, MRAPs, tanks, drones and other equipment to capacitate the Nigerian military at the war front. It must be mentioned that Boko Haram was one of the most motivated, financed and battle-hardened armies in Africa at the time. With promises of heaven, laced with hard drug that made the heaven practically visible, Boko Haram was not only battle- hardened but potentially larger than the Nigerian military. With recruitable mercenary forces across west Africa and to the Congo, the Boko Haram army stood at a high point of as many as 40,000 soldiers. Mercenaries Goodluck Jonathan hired mercenaries from South Africa to wage the bloody war, the 72 Mobile Force. These hardened mercenaries did not come to Nigeria to drink tea in Maiduguri. They knew how to operate the REVA MRAPs and other sophisticated machinery and the modified F7 supersonic jets, and that is what they came and did. Of course, I accept a lot of the blame in the narrative being as inaccurate as it is today. Instead of also acknowledging the triumphs these mercenaries were achieving in record time, we all focused on condemning Jonathan for allowing matters deteriorate to the point where he was paying foreigners as much as $350 a day to fight our war for us. Chad Troops Even if we deny what our own military did during Jonathan’s six-month war, can we deny what the “supporter of APC” Chadian army did in the northeast? I do not think the inhabitants of the northeast can ever deny and discount the many times they celebrated and gave food and water to Chadian troops as they massacred and pursued Boko Haram from town to town, liberating successive towns and villages in the northeast. There is ample local Chad TV video of these conquests. Jonathan signed an MoU with Chad’s Idriss Deby and his troops, some of the most battle hardened in Africa, came into Nigeria and competed with a revived Nigerian army liberating cities from various extents of the state. Reuters has one of the typical videos up on Youtube showing the liberation of Damask in March of 2015. It reports that 200 terrorists were killed in that battle. Vice News has “Chad’s war against Boko Haram.” AlJazeera also has its video from March 2015 in which it reports on the Chadian army liberation of many cities including Dikwa where the journalist’s chopper landed. Cities Jonathan Liberated Nigeria’s 7 Infantry Division with the assistance of South African 72 Mobile force troops retook Bama as reported in PremiumTimes on March 16th 2015. On 27th March foreign media reported Nigeria’s capture of Gwoza, Boko Haram’s urban headquarters. The Gwoza Signboard Do you remember the Gwoza signpost incident? When Nigerian troops took a picture with “Police Mobile Force Training College; Gwoza Camp” signpost and announced the recapture of Gwoza? Well, we all jumped and laughed because we saw boots of soldiers behind the poles propping the signpost up. As we amped our momentum for a victory for “Change,” we discredited the claim with a swipe of hand. We swallowed the famous Salkida’s tweeted suggestion that somehow got on LindaIkeji and hence went viral, where he said “This board could have been uprooted, thrown away by BH & soldiers picked it up where it was hurled. ‘Dubious stunt?,” and ran with it, baselessly discrediting our selfless, apolitical fighting and dying combat troops by holing up our better judgment. The truth is that on that very day from all evidence, Nigeria had actually liberated Gwoza. Jonathan did not send someone to buy a real signpost – as that obviously was – from Gwoza and hoist it at a field in Abuja. The signpost had fallen like everything else around there, and without thinking of political consequence, soldiers diligently doing their job decided to stand behind the post to hold it up for the picture. Had Jonathan won the election, he would have perhaps again slowed the war – as he did the first time he pushed Boko back into Sambisa in 2013 – and allowed Boko Haram decimate the north east, but this assumption should not make us deny what he achieved under desperation to be re-elected and give his credits to another. Myself inclusive, it will help our progress if Nigerian authors and activists are more thorough and

"Bamanga Tukur, a typical northern elite who President Muhammadu Buhari recently praised on his birthday, said as recorded in the Punch that, “Boko Haram is fighting for justice; Boko Haram is another name for justice.”"

"Jonathan’s record of thousands. Equipment Goodluck Jonathan first bought the weapons Nigeria had not bought since the 80s. Neither Babangida, nor Abacha, nor Abdulsalami, nor Obasanjo, nor Yar’Adua had bought any decent weapons and war machines for Nigeria over a span of 30 odd years."

The agents of confusion are at it again.

Hello Perry Brimah, do you know that Zombies will not sleep well tonight?


God bless GEJ.

God bless Chief James Onanefe Ibori.

God bless Nyesom Wike.

God bless the Niger Delta.

Longinus

Hello Perry Brimah,
HAVE SEVERAL SEATS!!!!!!

I rather learn German than read this epistle of lies.

BMC crew right now

Perry Brimah is suffering from too much intake of SAMBISA FOREST weed

Hmmn

dis does not make much sense.

this perry guy has some inconsistencies in his thinking n writings....

he may after all not b beta Dan oda guys...

maybe he z pained dat afta all he wrote against gej, buhari still Neva give am job or money...

Nigerians r hungry and its affecting many guys including Perry

God bless GEJ

Thank you Perry.

His Excellency, Dr. Goodluck Ebele Johnathan (GCFR) has always said that he will set the records straight at the appropriate time.

Till then, lets just sit and watch how zombies are all led to hell!

there is nothing new in this narrative.

it just states the facts that PMB's chanters refuse to acknowledge.

GEJ messed up initially but his efforts to retrace his errors was heavily barred by the antagonistic northern oligarchy.

the truth can not be hidden for ever.

God Bless GEJ!