Between TY Danjuma and the creek rats

Danjuma’s Civil War exploits, along with those of numerous other known and unknown soldiers that fought on the federal side, inevitably resulted in the liberation of most of the Niger-Delta – or what we commonly referred to as the South-South region of Nigeria today – from the savagery and tyranny of their mostly Igbo neighbours from the South-East – never mind that greed and uncommon providence has made both such strange bed fellows under the current dispensation.
Indeed, as the former governor of the old North-Western state between 1967 and 1975 the retired Commissioner of Police Usman Faruk pointed not too long ago, vast swathes of the South-South region are the final resting places for many brave and gallant officers and soldiers from the rest of Nigeria. It is also generally acknowledged that more than seventy percent of those brave officers and men who fought in the Civil War are from the northern parts of the country and mostly from the North-Central part of the country where T.Y. Danjuma actually hails from.
That undeniable fact must have certainly played on Danjuma’s mind when he responded to the war threats from some unrepentant Niger Delta-borne terrorists last week.
Those graphic images from our horrific Civil War, fought when the likes of idiots like Tompolo, Bayloff and Asari Dokubo were barely out of their diapers,  must certainly have been on the mind of the General last week. And they are certain to remain etched on his mind for as long as he lives.
Those facts alone, much more than his previous occupation as the Chief of Army staff and Minister of Defence as recently as 2007, entitled Danjuma to a fair comment whenever the issue involves threats to the corporate existence of this country.
Sadly, one of the biggest tragedies of the Jonathan presidency which history is sure to record in abundance is not even his serial desecration of the vital institution of the presidency through his comic actions and inactions. They concern his often ignoble and sadistic tendency to subject respected individuals and institutions of state to open ridicule by foul-mouthed individuals like Femi Fani-Kayode and the likes of Asari Dokubo.
If it were not so, both Dokubo and Tompolo would not have responded to T. Y. Danjuma’s comments calling for their arrest on account of the irresponsible comments credited to them in the manner they did.
And let us also remember that the militants made those comments in the presence of the Bayelsa state governor and the President’s Special Adviser on Niger Delta Affairs. The meeting itself held in the Bayelsa State Government House. And Bayelsa, the last time I checked, is the home state of President Goodluck Jonathan.
It took the President’s party the PDP nearly two weeks to react to the inflammatory comments. The party muted comments to the effect that Jonathan is not the president of the Ijaw nation alone. Both the noisy Department of State Security, otherwise referred to as the SSS, and the Nigeria Police Force pretended they did not exist. And when the administration’s response eventually came, it arrived courtesy of the discredited Minister of the Interior, Abba Moro – a lackey of Senate President David Mark.
Moro, it would be recalled, was the same man who directly superintended over the tragic recruitment scandal in the Department of Immigration in which scores of Nigerian youth lost their lives in stampedes at screening points across the country due to his crass incompetence. Moro has blood flowing freely from his hands.
In more responsible democracies, Moro would not only have been summarily relieved of his duties but also swiftly prosecuted. The fact that he has been permitted to remain at his post not only spoke volumes about the quality of Jonathan’s presidency, it also indicates why the presidential elections in two weeks time will be All Progressives Congress (APC’s) to lose, assuming of course, that the elections will be free and fair.
Quite inevitably, the deafening silence of the President Jonathan in the face of all the controversy generated by the action of the unrepentant terrorists is now cause for serious concern for patriotic Nigerians at home and abroad. And that is because while his response to the threats from the militants did not surprise many, the President’s silence has raised serious questions about his patriotic zeal.
His seeming impotence in the face of the threats their comments and actions pose to the generality of Nigerians may also lead many to believe that they, and not president Jonathan, is actually in charge of the government.
In their previous comments the militants especially Asari Dokubo, have left no one in doubt that they have already stockpiled weapons and are just waiting for the appropriate time to unleash warfare on hapless Nigerians. We also know that they have their own ‘navy’ courtesy of Tompolo’s convenient contract with NIMASSA – which is also headed by a kinsman he nominated for job. Between the militants and the Nigerian Navy, or whatever remains of it, it will be a case of whoever strikes first if push comes to shove.
In the past, the first impulse of responsible Nigerians would have been to dismiss their threat outright. But with presidential elections approaching and an obviously compliant president, their threat takes a different dimension even if in they lose in the long run. Their capacity to cause short term grief to Nigerians is one we cannot afford to take lightly.
The militants like the subsidy thieves and scores of a tiny clique of Nigerians who have a lot to fear from a Nigerian presidency without Jonathan and his fedora hat, February 2015 remains a month to dread. They can hardly contemplate life without their principal benefactor and protector. They are the creek rats who have fed fat on their crude methods of exploitation and intimidation.
On the surface the likes of Dokubo will tell you they are fighting for the long suffering people of the Niger Delta. But in reality we know that they are only fighting to enrich their pockets and to sustain the jet-life they have become accustomed to under President Jonathan.
That explains why I was miffed at the statement credited to the Secretary-general of the Ohanaeze-Ndigbo, Joe Nworgwu, in his reaction to General Danjuma’s call for their arrest. Mr Nworgwu suggested that rather than call for the arrest of the militants for their comments, Danjuma should first prevail on Boko Haram to halt their insurgency in the North East.
Needless to add that Nworgwu’s irresponsible comments was a rehash of the primitive thinking in the presidency until the Boko Haram insurgency grew out of control.
Somehow, there are still people out there who believe the Boko Haram sect is still the military wing of the Northern ‘ruling’ establishment which can be prevailed upon to do the bidding of politicians the way Asari Dokubo were summoned to the Bayelsa state government house penultimate week for a meeting. Neither the persistent attacks by the sect on prominent Emirs and politicians from the north including General Buhari who have openly spoken out against Boko Haram is ever likely to dispel that view point.