As Nigerians living outside our shores, every piece of good news is lapped on and shared with gusto. The past two decades have made shareable good news a scarce item on international news headlines. Last Thursday could have made the difference. Baba Gana Zulum, the affable governor of the beleaguered North East Borno State was on the wires; quoted as ordering the dismantling of all internally displaced camps in Borno and prohibiting all local and international distribution of relief packages within the state. His deadline was immediate.
If there was an early Christmas gift, that report could have been one. Zulum’s tough love was meant to return his people to the nearly forgotten path of quotidian existence. A ban on freebies would ginger them to start the process of rebuilding and living normal lives again. It was a story we’ve all been waiting for. It ‘s been nearly two decades since the Boko Haram insurgency closed the gates on normalcy for most residents of North East Nigeria. We are not a nation that counts the things that count, so we will never know how many lives were lost by the insurgency.
The thought that Borno people could regain their villages and towns and start rebuilding their lives is cheering news. Zulum has worked extra hard for this victory very often putting his own life at risk. If this reward becomes the norm, it would be a testament to the tenacity of purposeful leadership and the resilience of his people. Of course, it would have come at a huge price – the blood of our gallant soldiers, many of who died needlessly due to the avarice of some of their commanders.
Unfortunately, before you could say ‘let’s go Zulum’, the story had changed, thankfully not for Borno but for other parts of besieged northern Nigeria. In Sokoto, a band of brigands ambushed unwary travellers, shot to immobilise their vehicle, before setting the vehicle and the occupants on fire. In an area where kidnapping for ransom has become the dread, this was novel. Whatever their reason, these bloodhounds ensured that no one survived.
Just as we were trying to process that, early morning worshippers were ambushed at a mosque in Niger State in which scores were killed and many more wounded. The news outlets that made headlines of Zulum’s ultimatum latched on to the other two. The so-called insurgency is not over.
The senseless killings in Kaduna, Zamfara and Plateau and the entire so-called Middle-Belt axis no longer made global headlines due to frequency. Apparently that is a welcome development for a government that is eager to present a failed state as an investment haven and a potential tourist destination. No coverage of bad news is good news to its victims.
We all know that government’s survival credo is to ignore tragedy in the hope that tragedy would go away! President Buhari has learnt from his predecessor, Goodluck Jonathan, who at the peak of bombings adjured Nigerians to embrace terrorism as a global phenomenon. For Buhari, if you ignore it, it would disappear.
The level of depravity being unleashed by armed groups on hapless citizens is a new low in our failed state. Those who rule us have hijacked what is left of the security apparatchik for their own personal safety. They sleep in peace, travel at will and return to applause. The poor that the bandits prey on have no such luxury.
Just as one pondered these developments, a very bothersome video emerged on social media of a hijab-wearing woman decrying the level of depravity of these bandits. Her personal testimony transitioned from wailing into confession. She testified to being abducted and serially raped by her captors. She broke down at the thought that her ordeal is now the lots of young northern girls.
It is a sad turn of events in which the chickens of sadness have come home to roost in northern Nigeria. Our region has over the years been laid back in joining ‘wailing wailers’ decrying the insouciance of this regime to tackle insurgency. Our quest to capture power at the centre, our capacity to dominate others in taking the most powerful positions have turned round to hurt us. Where quality is sacrificed for political expediency, the people suffer.
Under the watch of northerners as security heads, northern women and girls, the very pride of the region, are being openly assaulted! Dainty and properly clad women have been the showpieces of northern pride for ages; today they are being violated for the world to see and the government we elected is powerless to put a stop to it!
As the world pondered at what has become of Nigeria, government’s public relations hirelings were preoccupied with maintaining the status quo. They bickered over the casualty figure of the Sokoto tragedy and not the loss of life. They worked to ensure that the president’s itinerary for the week is not blighted by the nascent sad news. As long as casualties are not the offspring of our rulers, they die in anonymity in a land where autopsies are regarded as unnecessary and inquests are rare.
For our president, the launching of a book by Chief Bisi Akande, former acting chairman of the ruling party, is more important. Akande is not one of the recycled demons you would wish the earth should swallow. He is a conscientious leader whose probity and uprightness have blocked his march to greater political heights.
The South West is not devoid of its own tragedies. Days before the book launch, a truck lost control and swerved into a school, killing scores and maiming several others. Whenever it suits it, the presidency whips up a disaster press release template that barely substitutes the venue of tragedy.
For the president, a house of joy is worth visiting more than a house of mourning. He would not say a word to comfort Lagosians and of course preferred the backslapping of party faithful in Lagos to a visit to Sokoto or Minna. Our president would be seen paying homage at a World War II monument in Germany without a word about how Africans were drafted to die unremembered in a European civil war.
In the US State of Kentucky where tornadoes touched down leading to the death of many and the obliteration of entire towns, President Joe Biden was up rallying his countrymen and women. Buhari left disaster in his home base to go for a book launch just to level up with Obasanjo, his predecessor and critic.
Globally, leadership dynamism has moved from issuing press releases to taking concrete action – Nigerian life is worth nothing at home. Little wonder it is worth even less outside Nigeria. The president must break from his devil-may-care attitude to the huge insecurity challenge in our nation. He must move from issuing dull statements of disappointment to those he appointed to ensure our safety to sacking them when they fail. Their incompetence is a national tragedy that blights his presidency.
Nigerians must rally to collectively decry insecurity instead of sectionalising it. A tragedy anywhere affects security everywhere. Whether we remain one or splintered into pseudo-nations, the insecurity we fail to collectively action today would eat us up. We need a new template to tackle national insecurity and a new presidential attitude towards our collective tragedies.
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