Some new worries about the war against Boko Haram

At a point, some of us who thought either rightly or wrongly, that Boko Haram was a face-less enemy are now beginning to believe that the group has a face.

That the group is powerful and that Nigeria, its country of origin is increasingly displaying either her inability to contain it, or just the lack of the will-power to face it with zeal and patriotism.

The story that the Cameroon army succeeded in killing twenty seven of the insurgents while four hundred and eighty Nigerian soldiers found their way into Cameroonian territory, brings in new worries about the true situation on the battle fronts.

Borno State seems to be the bastion of Boko Haram where the real impact of the menace of the extremists group manifests itself. It is in a village in Borno State that nearly two hundred school girls were abducted and still being held up to this moment.

Since this unfortunate incident, the population in sympathy with the parents of these abducted school girls, has demonstrated their grief beyond their powers and the government keeps absorbing the blame for its insensibility to the cries of the parents.

With the latest incident in which four hundred and eighty Nigerian soldiers crossed the borders into Cameroon only to be rescued from the Boko Haram attackers with the sole reason advanced being that it was a tactical maneuver on the part of the Nigeria military. This sounds little intriguing.

I would like to take what the Chairman of the Nigeria Senate committee on defense, Senator George Thompson Sekibo strongly believes is the true picture of the situation in Nigeria as far as the war against Boko Haram is concerned.

First, Senator Sekibo says Nigeria is on the verge of disintegration adding that the country requires drastic action to preserve its unity. In his view, Nigeria military is overstretched in dealing with insurgence. That it is also grossly underfunded. Such comments display a posture of self-defeatism, meaning that Nigeria military cannot face the might of the insurgents.

In other statements, Senator Sekibo holds that in the face of the present insurgence, if the perception of the people becomes stronger than what is happening, then destruction is imminent. And so for that not to happen, Senator Sekibo suggests that the ball is in the hands of the armed forces, and that they have to fight their best.

Senator Sekibo seems to be pushing the burden on the same Armed forces he has said is overstretched and grossly underfunded.

Then when he goes further to state that the military is a government military and not the people’s military, he certainly seems to be drawing a line of distinction between the government and the people, especially when he says he happens to represent the people.

Nigerian politicians, like most politicians all over the world tend to rely much on rhetorics that most of the times stray away from the reality of the situation.

During the reign of General Yakubu Gowon, such polemics provoked the military to oust Gowon on grounds that he had become too weak to check the excesses of his governors.

Now to put a dividing line between the government, the people and the military, is to introduce a sense of helplessness for a nation and a necessity for the military to discover itself in an uncomfortable situation. We can predict the outcome. And in the middle of a successful democratic experiment, I am sure Nigeria or even the rest of Africa no longer needs these military interventions.

This said, all I hope is that the Nigeria military tactical maneuver bringing them into Cameroon while fleeing from insurgents, is not a ploy to fully drag Cameroon to the fore-front of the battle against Nigerian insurgents.