The enemy is watching, listening!

The Boko Haram threat has had such a deleterious effect on national cohesion that the economy and the social organization as well as the entire coordination of the nation have been seriously touched, prompting the Head of State to declare a war on the sect.

A declaration of war is no mean political decision. It is the most appropriate reaction in the face of a major threat to the nation and, therefore, needs the total adherence of the citizenry.

One would have expected the reaction of the rest of the nation to be in consonance with the image of gravity posited by the Head of State when he made the war declaration last May 17 in Paris at the end of the summit on security in Nigeria but, rather, there have been computations around the seriousness of the threat with some even questioning the existence of Boko Haram in its original configuration as a Nigerian Islamic sect went about throwing out western values by destroying the educational system as it is today.

Not even President Paul Biya’s other warning about the seriousness of the threat and his determination to fight it till the end, made at the Yaounde-Nsimalen airport shortly before he flew off to Washington on August 2, 2014 for the U S-Africa summit, has improved matters.

Important and significant sections of the national and international media and, even, part of the national political class have also been toying with the issue to the extent that it is even being suggested that the Boko Haram military incursions into Cameroonian territory are not of the making of the Nigerian Boko Haram, but the work of a Cameroon brand of the sect.

This is obviously diverting attention from the real issue and, in the process, giving the enemy some useful breathing space and a some lease of life following the number of military defeats they have suffered each time they have faced the valiant armed forces of Cameroon. The nation is lucky that this loss of focus by some citizens has not affected troop morale who report victory after victory with each passing day. This situation prompted Mr Issa Tchiroma Bakary, the Minister of Communication to summon the media last Friday to restate, in very unequivocal terms, that Boko Haram is a foreign terrorist group in Cameroon.

Read his words verbatim “Let it be crystal clear. Boko Haram is above all an external phenomenon in Cameroon. It is a foreign terrorist group, created in Nigeria and having its base in this neighbouring country, where the list of wanton atrocities is not ending. Unfortunately, the effects of this nebula began to go beyond Nigeria. And Cameroon, like other neighbours of Nigeria is incurring collateral damages.”

The heavy presence of the sect in Cameroon must therefore be understood from this perspective. It is true that the toll in both the number of deaths and destruction of homes and property has been very high while the massive displacement of people from ancestral homes and other settlements have turned large areas of the Far-North into veritable conflict arenas, leaving the impression that it is an internal conflict. In the present circumstances, whistle-blowing or pointing fingers have no place. The common enemy; the real enemy is the Boko Hara we have always known.

An enemy as smart and devilish as Boko Haram is obviously watching and listening with cynical admiration, all what the media and certain sections of the political class are doing and saying and which really have nothing to do with the required determination to close ranks and mobilize to give the sect the appropriate riposte. This so, because the enemy is still in the house and must be chased out!