The recent tinkering of the leadership
personnel of the Defence establishment by President Jonathan even it be
cosmetic, appear to wake up some people from a self-imposed slumber. For whatever it is worth, the visits by the
new National Security Adviser (NSA) Col. Sambo Dasuki (rtd) to the theatres of
war have shown those bearing the brunt of the terrorists that some people still
care about their plight. The president
failed to visit both Borno and Yobe states, the centres of the Boko Haram
carnage giving as an excuse the lack of functionality of the Maiduguri Airport
(the shame of it) for his non visit but his erstwhile NSA, Owoye Azazi couldn’t
even glorify the people by giving an excuse, no matter how laughable. The people are really appreciative of the
NSA’s visit to empathise with them on the siege they have been under in the
past two years.
But the visit alone cannot solve the
people’s problems and they are waiting for the NSA to start acting. Thankfully Col. Dasuki informed Nigerians
that he has obtained the phone numbers of those to be contacted for dialogue on
how to bring an end to the state of insecurity facing the country, particularly
the north. Col. Sambo has clearly shown
his intentions of dealing with the macabre dance of those attempting to bring
the north in particularly to its knees, by hitting the ground running. But as far as I can see there are those who
want to ensure that he failed woefully in his attempt. The renewed and sustained attacks on northern
cities is indicative of the desire of the merchants of death to make a
statement – of particular interest is the attacks on Police formations in
Sokoto state, the home state of the NSA.
Islam clearly prohibits fighting (war)
during certain months, the Ramadan inclusive, so it is clear to all discerning
and objective minds that those carrying out these attacks are either not
Muslims or do not understand their religion very well. My gut feeling tells me they are fifth
columnists with the intention of giving Islam a bad name and in the process
achieve two things – both very dangerous to the corporate existence of the
country. One, to create a religious
divide between Christians and Muslims particularly in the north; and two, two
cripple economic activities in the region.
They appear to be succeeding on both fronts. Before the madness in Sokoto, there was the
massacre in Plateau state, which ultimately led to the death of a Senator and a
member of the state legislature. This
came almost immediately after the visit of the new NSA to the state. All these things appear funny to me and
doesn’t have any linkage to religion nor could be simplistically explained as a
reaction by northerners who are bitter for losing power to the south. Truth be told, if the government and its functionaries
are ready to get to the bottom of the madness, all they have to do is fall back
on what one of its own began and was truncated midway.
When Major General Mungonu, erstwhile Chief
of Defence Intelligence (CDI), beamed his searchlight on “Boko Haram” he came
close to discovering those behind the killers and before you say ‘Goodluck’ he
was removed from office. But before he
was removed, he made startling progress that points to certain politicians from
his home state as being the men behind the masks. Of particular interest was the immediate past
governor, Ali Modu Sherriff. Mungono was
threatened to discontinue his line of investigation or be removed, or worse
still, lose his Commission. All these
were made public in the run-up to his removal.
Sponsored media articles against him appeared with regularity in
newspapers and the threat finally came to pass.
Mungonu’s investigation pointed directly to the former governor but in a
bizarre move that can only happen in Nigeria, Mungonu was removed as CDI and
Sherriff was appointed Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the All Nigeria
Peoples Party (ANPP). While the General
was sent to the cooler, Sherriff is on the way to rehabilitating his battered
image.
After Mungonu’s ouster, the spate of attacks
heightened with the attendant loss of lives and property because the tell-tale
clues he was pursuing were deliberately allowed to fizzle out by redirecting
the energies of the intelligence agencies to phantom suspects who couldn’t be
allowed to see the four walls of a court room.
To compound the deliberate bungling, we have the State Security Service
(SSS) and the Police working at cross-purpose on the same case. The two agencies always parade different
suspects on a particular case, or one service contradicting the other as in the
case of the Radio House bomber.
Nigerians came to be cynical about the sincerity of the security and
intelligence services and had the distinct impression that somebody, somewhere
is lying to protect some people.
A lot of arrests have been made with each
suspect branded as the ‘mastermind’, yet non of theses ‘masterminds’ was taken
to the courts for prosecution much less conviction. Are Nigerians then to believe that the
government is not interested in getting to the bottom of this “boko haram”
issue? What happens to people like Ali
Tishaku, a SSS operative embedded in to the boko haram hierarchy that was to be
denied by his employers after ‘coming in from the cold’ with a report that was
not in conformity with the current thinking in the SSS? He had to go to the court to get his freedom
from an employer he served diligently.
Where is he and what happened to his report?
With Col. Sambo as the NSA, we believe he
will first of all bring to an end this inter-agency rivalry and pursue the real
culprits and bring them to court for all Nigerians to see. The likes of Munguno and Tishaku may be of
immense help to the NSA’s cause of bringing to an end the mayhem and
destructions in the country given their past participation in curbing the
madness. After all, Lamorde was once
kicked out of the EFCC, but recognising his knowledge of the Commission, he was
brought back to head the place.
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