The candid comments of President Buhari on his predecessor’s patriotic magnanimity by conceding election victory to preserve the nation’s stability is indeed commendable. In another payback packaged this time by Nemesis, the blame game that regularly hung former president Goodluck Jonathan on the altar of Boko Haram recently climaxed astonishingly with the Nigerian Army having to bring to national attention the hitherto clandestine contributions to the people of North East!
In this season of second thoughts on the “sins” of the former president, it is sweet breeze to know that it is not just a matter of poorly-equipped or cowardly soldiers deployed deviously by a genocidal president that was responsible for the ceaseless conquests of the insurgents. The Nigerian State was indeed also contending with the proverbial enemies within. According to the Acting Director, Army Public Relations, Colonel Sani Usman: “The Nigerian Army wishes to inform the public and send a very strong and serious final warning to some prominent individuals and political groups who hail from Borno State in particular and North-East generally,” to undermine and scuttle the fight against terrorism and insurgency in this country and “are determined to reverse the gains made and scuttle our efforts of achieving the presidential directive to defeat Boko Haram terrorists within 3 months.”
Shockingly, the statement revealed: “They are enlisting the services of some Non-Governmental Organizations in this grand design” and “employing all means to see that our operation does not succeed in order for them to continue to enjoy certain benefits”.
It continued: “It has been revealed that they are employing the services of marabouts and other unethical means in order to frustrate our efforts and the operations in addition to campaigns of calumny,” the military spokesman added before concluding with the advisory that “People should place the interest of the nation above any personal gain or ambition.”
These revelations could not have come at a better time than under the Buhari Presidency considering the political capital it forged from the Boko Haram insurgency during the Jonathan presidency as one of the main thrusts of its now downgraded “tsunami” campaign for presidential power. One can only imagine how the same people now being publicly fingered as backers and sponsors of the calamitous crusaders would have scoffed and guffawed with scorn and ridicule had the Nigerian Army issued such a statement under the Jonathan era!
But today there is no Ijaw president to hang the blame on the altar of ethnic cleansing so those concerned could only “challenge” the military to name names and arrest culprits which is a far cry from their reaction to the departing words of the former Defence Chief Alex Badeh who was merely pointing out the deleterious impact of decades of administrative and professional neglect suffered by the Nigerian Army as a result of the pathetic political misadventures and piracy for the perks of power that instead occupied the hearts and minds of the generals of yesterday. Apparently eager to find further grounds to deflect their culpability for atrocities against their own people, the North-East political leaders went to town literally asking for the head of Goodluck Jonathan and his retired military chiefs.
Hear them as they called for an inquiry: “ A National Judicial Commission of Enquiry under an incorruptible judge from preferably the Southern Nigeria be set up to ask the immediate past President questions on why his administration refused to provide the military with the required functional and superior equipment whereas our sons and daughters were exposed to mass murder, severe injuries and grave destruction of our communities. If the former government is found wanting it should be charged for genocide against the people of Borno State or at least criminal negligence at the International Criminal Court of Justice.”
Then, to rub it in even deeper into the national psyche, the group also demand that “a list of citizens of Borno State killed from the time the issue of military capacity became a question is compiled and relations of those killed are fully compensated for the death of their loved ones as a result of criminal negligence”. Of course, they know pretty well why there was no need for an inquiry or trials at the ICJ this time when the Nigerian Army exposed the colluding underbelly of the north-east leaders. What is important for Nigerians to now realize is that in certain quarters the territorial integrity and peaceful coexistence of our people irrespective of political and ethnic identities is not too much to auction for the attainment of political power.
Political power that is flaunted as an opportunity to empower the “marginalized” and replace the “oppressors” whereas in reality “the more things change the more they remain the same” for the poor masses of northern Nigeria. So once again, former president Jonathan is being vindicated by history. In the fullness of time, many a former president will continue to camouflage inglorious legacies with bogus posturing as messiahs even as the mesmerized masses wallow in delusion of salvation.
Oreh writes from Benin, Edo State.
