No Amnesty for Boko Haram

Mahfuz Mundadu

It has been about a week since media worldwide started making reports to the effect that a group which now came to be known as Boko Haram has been having some armed conflict with the law enforcement agents. There were reported cases of loss of life and destruction of properties worth millions of naira. Needless to say that a good percentage of those killed might have been victims of stray bullets and innocent bystanders.

The government response was swift and decisive. In fact Umaru Musa “YarAdua was reported to have ordered the law enforcement agents to deal ruthlessly with the members of this group. So far we have been hearing the story from the government side only. The few individuals that were shown on TV screens and Newspaper covers were said to be the arrested members of the “Boko Haram” group.

In the recent past there were media reports with respect to unprovoked attack by the Nigerian police of this group while on a funeral procession to bury one of their own. The report suggested that police arrested some of the members riding on motor bike without the crash helmet. Apparently that led to a heated debate in the cause of which a policeman was reported to have pulled a trigger on some of the members which resulted in additional death and injury sustained from gun shot.

The Nigerian police was never reported to have sincerely made any effort to nail the nip in the bud, at lease by tendering an unreserved apology to the group and instituting an inquiry in to the matter. Government both at State and federal level did nothing to effectively curtail the impending retaliatory attempt that was eminent right from the on set. If the government at federal level could be excused for being too busy and too eager to pacify the Niger-Delta criminals, we do not really know what equally important engagement could have diverted the attention of the state government from handling such a sensitive issue with all the seriousness it deserved.

And as the saying goes he who does not plan to succeed (by averting a crisis) is actually planning to fail ( by what we are now witnessing in most of the states consequent upon the aftermath of accidental “discharge saga.”) Now that it has been proven beyond any reasonable doubt that playing ostrich is never a solution to any problem, what is even more disgusting is the way and manner the government at both states and federal level on one hand and the Nigerian police on the other hand were handling these issues.

It does not take P. hD in Criminology for one to know that what happened in Maiduguri would most likely spread to the neighboring state considering the level of frustration and army of jobless youth that adore the nook and cranny of our urban and rural community. Out of the interest groups that reacted to this unfortunate incidence none really hammered on the remote and immediate cause of the unrest. If you hold hammer in your hand every problem is likely to look like a nail. If you have army of jobless youth and collection of semi and stark adult illiterates scattered all over, due to government’s inability to provide functional education to the citizens, it does not take much effort to disrupt the uneasy calm we erroneously called peace in the society.

What happened in Maiduguri and other neighboring state is not really the problem. It is the tip of the iceberg of social insecurity that characterizes this geographical contraption called Nigeria. And the leaders that are notorious for mismanaging the human and material resources this country is abundantly endowed with are the remote and immediate causes of this upheaval. And so long as the citizens would continue to tolerate this gobbledygook from the leaders so long as this problems would continue to be a recurring decimal in our daily life.

Look around and ask yourself if you can sincerely point to any functional institution that signifies presence of good governance in this country. Ours is a fail state. Whatever one needs, one must provide for it. Education for the leaders of tomorrow, health care, water, light, security… the list is endless. Nigerians do not need any commission of inquiry to know what triggered this unfortunate incidence. If we are looking for the culprits we need not go far. Look at the inept and corrupt politicians parading themselves as leaders and your search is over.

We may not really know what happened beyond the media hype, but whoever was behind these senseless killings of both the security personals on one hand and the civilians on the other hand, is a heartless vampire. The kleptomaniacs called the leaders have been provided with yet another opportunity to steal more from the treasury in the name of security vote, provision of more equipment for the police force ( remember the 419 called Police Equipment Fund led by Kenny Martins of inglorious memory) and emergency relief to the victims of their inaction. Allah ya isa.