By Yinka Fabowale
… Continues from June 26, 2019
No doubt, past governments must carry the can for breeding the current raging monster due to its failure to nip these security challenges in the bud and choosing to wallow in profligacy and corruption at the time.
However, the present government has failed to demonstrate capacity or readiness to quell the crises and threatening anarchy! By its several actions and inactions, the authorities have only fueled suspicion and charge of tacit support for and reluctance to deal with the rampaging bands of criminals and aggressors as part of a grander agenda by a power cabal to subjugate other ethnic nationalities.
Apart from taking egregious steps such as perceived lopsided appointment of security service chiefs and instituting policies perceived to fail the test of ensuring equity and fairness among the various sections of the federation and thus likely to severe the fragile bond of national unity, government has also turned deaf ear to advice on proactive and decisive civil and military measures to end the security challenge in the various theatre including in Boko Haram held territories and strongholds.
Regrettably, much of government’s reaction and body language have only exacerbated fears, and doubts in its sincerity, neutrality, or if one would be charitable, capacity to guarantee the safety of all the citizens and components of the federation against predations by criminal and terrorist gangs.
Instead, what we have had is a curious official attitude and apparent attempt to distract attention from the real issues by resorting to scapegoating, buck-passing and unscrupulous and desperate attempt to shift the narrative even in face of glaring facts.
At hand is an active Army of naïve and devious foot soldiers who eagerly push such ridiculous positions especially on social media. Some of these are innocent fans of the President who, with faith in the touted messianic profile and integrity credentials of the administration, do not question or subject to any deep or critical thinking any information they are fed, but zealously promote and defend it.
Others consist of the tribe of loud self-appointed fawning loyalists or supporters of the ruling party who for selfish pecuniary gains or lobbying for appointment have turned themselves into government’s attack dogs against perceived enemies, promoting and defending any of its controversial positions or actions no matter how unpopular or ludicrous.
This howling mob has utter disdain or mortal fear for reasoning and logic when debating you and have successfully hounded many upright commentators with honest, useful, even if critical, views off public space with their bagful of blackmail, abuses and venom.
That’s why an objective observer would disingenuously be accused of “tribal stereotyping” and rebuked against “giving ethnic colouration” to the current wave of kidnapping and robbery in the South West which, from evidence of few cracked cases and firsthand accounts by several victims, are perpetrated by some Fulani elements.
If it is generally known that crimes are committed and felons are to be found among all ethnic groups and Fulani and their fellow Nigerians of other cultural stocks have settled, intermarried and lived together in one another’s cultural enclaves all these decades without any labelling when crimes were committed in the past, is it not lazy and mischievous to choose to live in denial and seek to blackmail others to join in the dubious game; under pretence of not stoking fire of disunity?
May one say, however, that no one could be more pan- Nigerian and race- blind in his relationship with his fellowmen, as some of us who have recognised and are convinced of the fact that we all are brothers from a common spiritual origin.
So, why the desperation to drive the truth into a hole? Can it really be to avoid causing disaffection and panic among the populace as purported by security operatives, or is it rather to divert attention of the apprehensive targets from sinister and surreptitious plot towards their systematic decimation, as being alleged in certain quarters?
The existence and operation of the deadly cells, for long an open secret, was even almost denied, with skeptical remarks aimed at rubbishing the truth directed at newly reported cases. Thanks to the redeeming testimonies of VIPs including an academic and public affairs analyst, Dr. Tunde Amusat, and Ondo State Governor Rotimi Akeredolu, who narrated their experiences with the hoodlums.
Had Governor Gboyega Oyetola not approached the Chief of Army Staff for military help, perhaps, the fact that Osun State is swarming with these elements, would also still have been a matter of dispute or conjecture as merchants of mendacity would want it!
For crying out loud, what happened to honour, to respect for the sacredness of theTruth?
Of course, one cannot rule out imperatives for government to constantly scour the polity in order to combat enemies who might be plotting subversion either against it or the nation.
There could also be need to moderate incendiary rhetoric and activities of rabble-rousing or overzealous ethnic champions, who rightly or wrongly may feel obliged to defend perceived threatened primordial interests of their peoples; where the exercise of their rights oversteps the precincts of the constitutionally guaranteed freedom.
Unfortunately, our persistent failure to forge a truly united and equitable nation with common destiny caused by unhealthy competition for power and inequitable distribution of resources and other malfeasance have aggravated our fault lines and bred legions of such demagogues, such that today Nigeria is tensed and looks primed for an implosion!
That’s why despite, more than a century of amalgamation, almost 60 years of being officially a nation and fighting a 30-month fratricidal war to keep the country together, the various sections of the country are on the edge of belligerence either wanting out or warming up to confront real or rumoured threats of subjugation. The tensed situation has heightened fears of instability and the country’s likely hastened descent into anarchy.
Perhaps the widespread apprehension may be found to have no basis in the end.
However, what cannot be disputed is the fact that many Nigerians feel endangered under a worsening security siege the nature of which defies apt solution. But recriminations or seeking to sweep hard facts under the carpet instead of frontally and forthrigthly confronting them as being done now won’t help.
Although there have been peculiar local circumstances, the Nigerian situation, anyone who follows the news could tell, is an unfolding episode or spin-off of a complex theatre of armed conflicts engulfing states in the Sahel, which, pundits say, are bound to affect the West African sub-region, particularly the coastal communities. Local and international intelligence and security networks and analysts have hinted that the breakdown of law and order and consequence harsh life in the region have forced movement of people including armed fighters southwards.
Many of those who share kinship affinity with an ethnic group in the country are said to have been recruited into the Boko Haram insurgency and local crime rings to raise illegitimate money to fund the insurgency. It is believed that it is this ilk that have found their way into the country and under apparent unofficial cover are aggravating existing internal security problems including communal clashes between their kinsmen and agrarian communities. They have also been linked to politically sponsored violence and killings.
To be continued
