You know what they have in common, they were killed and years after their death, their killers have remained at large. These were highly placed Nigerians; Ige was the Attorney-General of the Federation when he was killed. His death generated a lot of buzzwords from the authorities, claims and counter-claims were made but almost a decade after, no one has been found to be responsible. You see why Baga happened? The Nigerian life has no value to the Nigerian government! You would think there was a policy of cleansing, something to do with controlling the population through massacres like that of Baga. The obscure community in Borno State caught our attention because Associated Press caught the story; what about the many killings we are not even privy to? This is the tragedy of Nigeria. As usual, the President has made promises, pledged to rebuild the town and bring justice to those found guilty. Extra-judicial killings are a norm in Nigeria and it would help to see justice get done with respect to Baga. Apart from the dead, many are already displaced because the Joint Task Force and Boko Haram chose to make their town a battleground. Some have said the residents deserve what happened to them because they were harbouring terrorists. Anyone who has an idea of the situation would not even think of an accusation like that let alone say it. Boko Haram has infiltrated all the forces and government agencies, at least the President said so himself. Making a report about Boko Haram essentially puts you in danger because chances are that you are talking to an ally of the group. That the members of the sect have successfully carried out jailbreaks speaks volumes about their penetration into the nation's security system. This is not an isolated criminal group like armed robbers; this is a force that has since pervaded the whole of the North-Eastern part of Nigeria. To report them to the police for being in your town is to die! Simple!We have seen that years of using force has failed and it is obvious that the war on Boko Haram is more than just a gun battle between Nigeria's joint military forces and the insurgents. There is the other side of the battle that is even more difficult than that. There are people whose means of livelihood derive from this war. If the budget on security reduces by say half, they consider it an affront to their life. How can people who directly benefit from this war want it to stop? When we budget for guns and bullets, what do we think we are promoting? We will always have wars to fight as long as we have weapons of war. The Nigerian life will not be useful until we begin to understand that until we take a stance against injustice like extrajudicial killings, we have no chance. What is there to do about Boko Haram? There will be many options for a solution but the easiest to bring up would be that of guns and bullets. It is of course important that we take nothing off the table when it comes to a lasting solution. Take Baga for instance. The villagers are still supposedly in the bush homeless, poor and helpless. That region of Nigeria remains poor and abandoned. Unemployment remains their common reality. Any solution that does not include creating an enabling environment for the creation of jobs for the teeming youths will always fail even in the short run. If it is about guns for guns, bullets for bullets and RPGs for RPGs, the collateral damage will always not be worthy of the fight. You cannot kill a people to save them and you cannot save them if you don't listen to them. The Borno State elders have tried to offer solutions but the Nigerian government as usual thinks it knows the solution to the people's problems more than the people themselves. Our soldiers and police are dying and wasting away while our government believes that as long as it continues to pour money into the fight against the insurgents, the battle will be won. It will not be won by force, at least not force alone! A committee has been set up to deal with this. That sounds good but it is not good enough. The Federal Government again jumped the gun. You don't announce people's names in committees they had no idea about. You don't constitute a team to deal with a complex problem like Boko Haram and not have the very people who suffer directly from it contribute ideas and solutions. Let us face it, there are people who have the ears of the insurgents who are not their members. If you want a solution to this, you cannot ignore them. You cannot ignore those who have direct contact with Boko Haram. If we really care about these deaths and destruction, if we will for once hear what the elders of the affected towns and villages have to say. They spoke at a time and were ignored, things have escalated since then and we cannot afford to ignore them again. We must begin to see solutions outside the conventional ways and means. The solution to Nigeria's problems does not lie in the hands of those in government alone. We need to see things differently especially when seeing them the same way has not provided the much-needed solutions. Nigeria is not a unique country when it comes to terrorism. If we care enough, if we care about the lives of fellow Nigerians whose lives are daily endangered because of where they choose to live, we will find justice first for Baga and then look to make justice the norm. Young people wake to see politicians live in affluence and unimaginable wealth. They are then told the state does not have enough for them to have better lives, we will lose them to those who dignify their lives. While we obsess about ways to pacify those with the guns and bombs, let us not forget that if we forget those without the guns and bombs today, we will need to pacify them tomorrow because these things come to roost! Click to signup for FREE news updates, latest information and hottest gists everyday
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Well said, my friend.
ReplyDeleteWhen u r criticizing, be objective not sentimental. Wat is boko haram fighting for? To Islamatize Nigeria, right? Why did the ppl of baga hide them? Ur trap must surelly cought u up!
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