We can make Boko Haram history

The Buhari administration has waged a more consistent and focused war against Boko Haram than its predecessor but I thought it crowed too soon. Its defeat of the murderous Islamic insurgents was less certain than it believed it was at the time. Boko Haram is still alive and well. It still kidnaps and murders and outwits our security forces. 

The insurgents attacked some Borno border villages with Cameroon only last week. They murdered scores of people and cattle. They kidnapped at least 22 women and children. No one knows for sure the fate of those women and children. But it is not difficult to guess what must have happened and is happening to them. Their fate could not be better than that of the over 200 female students abducted from their school at Chibok in the same state in 2014. Most of those girls are still technically missing in the hands of the insurgents. We know the insurgents have transformed those young and unfortunate girls from comfort women into reluctant wives. And there is no let up.

Defeating an insurgency is not quite a quick fix anywhere in the world. It is a protracted battle with sometimes a long lull often mistaken for the end. These lulls have tended to lull our own security and intelligence forces into some ill-advised complacency in the war. 

We have been at war with Boko Haram since 2009. It may end tomorrow and it may go on a little longer. The nature of insurgency makes its defeat unpredictable. For one, because they easily resort to guerrilla tactics, the insurgents convert to facelessness. They thus tend to dictate the place, the time and the nature of their attacks without being seen and being challenged at the appropriate time. 

They must constitute a special headache to the intelligence and the security forces. Indeed, under President Goodluck Jonathan, the insurgents often made our security forces look foolish, incompetent and amateurish. Sadly, as is usually the case in our country, the incompetence of the intelligence and the security forces was tethered to the millstone of corruption. When this corrosive element entered into this combustive mix and senior military officers and commanders fell for the lure of lucre, subordinated their greed to their conscience and their oath of office and took the morsels from the mouths of their foot soldiers, the insurgents had a field day and operated with impunity.

With new men now in the saddle, much of that has changed. But we still do not have the upper hand in the war. Boko Haram remains as a big a challenge as it was under Jonathan. To defeat it is the task the governments at federal and state levels must not shy away from.

The Buhari administration inherited this very critical national security challenge. It must not let another inherit it from it. Eight years is long enough and time enough for the state to rescue itself and the people from Boko Haram and put an end to its murdering, stealing and kidnapping spree. We must find the will.

 Insurgents have been defeated elsewhere before. The records of other countries in this regard should encourage the government, the intelligence and the security forces to work harder and dictate the pace and the nature of this battle and defeat Boko Haram. Our country and its people have been held hostage by these murderous criminals for too long. The thought that the people living in the border villages in Borno and Adamawa states live in constant fear of attacks is truly and unarguably horrendous. Our security and intelligences need more than good luck in their onerous task. They need our total and full support. Let us not withhold these from them.

My man, Dino Melaye

I truly confess that I do not believe Senator Dino Melaye has turned himself into a comedian in the hallowed chambers of the upper legislature, the senate of the Federal Republic. An entertainer, even in the legislature, is not necessarily a comedian. He is only a laughter merchant. We need such men in these parlous times. If laughter is the best medicine, then men like Melaye save us visits to the unhealthy environment of traditional healers. And that is a good thing, a very good thing.

I believe the good thing is that the distinguished senator takes himself seriously. I also think he takes his business of making laws for the good governance of our country seriously. You would recall that he once suffered the indignity of having his clothes torn to shreds in a scuffle in the House of Representatives. He was, I believe, trying his best then and now to serve the interests of the people who elected him and the country that gave him the privilege of being a lawmaker.

Why would anyone question the academic qualifications of a man like Melaye? I think they wanted to rubbish his name and his qualifications. A man who has degrees from eight universities is not, by whatever measure you might wish him ill, someone to be trifled with. I was truly pleased to see him don one of his academic gowns to attend a senate sitting. He proved his point and shamed his traducers. You cannot argue this: academic gowns are the privileged robes of those who have done better than seen the four walls of a university. No, you cannot find academic gowns at Jankara market in Lagos.

Senator Dino Melaye is my man.