Sunday,
January 3, 2016
Interview
Mr. President, as one of your most loyal and faithful subjects who has nothing but the utmost respect for your person and your office, I am constrained to write you this open letter. This is because there are issues I believe are important for you to clarify and to come clean on. I say this because some of your assertions of late are at best contradictory.
Whichever
side of the political divide we are on, I believe we can all agree on one
thing: The prosecution of the war against terror is not something that any of
us should play politics with. This is especially so given the fact that human
lives are at stake and the very existence of our nation is under threat. Like
much of the rest of the world, our country is going through hell at the hands
of jihadists and Islamist terrorists.
 There
is no gainsaying that we must all come to terms with the fact that the
Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), Al Qaeda, the Taliban, Al Shabab
and Boko Haram are nothing but bloodthirsty murderers. They are indeed the
scum of the earth, the troublers of humanity and the vermin of hell. It is
with this in mind that I urge you to take the war against terror far more
seriously than you are doing and plead with you to stop passing the buck.
Your
penchant for blaming your failings in this regard on the previous
administration is simply nauseating and it does not serve you well. You
continuously contradict yourself when it comes to this matter. We your
subjects look up to you for consistency, strength, unequivocal commitment, a
firm resolve and the ''leadership from the front'' that you promised during
your presidential campaign in this war. We do not want and neither do we need
doublespeak, lame excuses and buck-passing.
Permit
me to point out a few examples of your contradictory assertions and your
buck- passing in this short intervention. Initially, you claimed that your
predecessor in office, President Goodluck Jonathan, never bought any arms and
that, instead, he squandered and stole all the money that was appropriated
for the procurement of arms.
Yet,
when the British Minister of Defense visited you in the Presidential Villa
the other day, the story changed. You did a u-turn and gleefully told him and
the wider world that Jonathan bought arms with raw cash.
One
wonders which story you shall come up with next and which one you will
conjure up in the future. Kindly tell us what the position is: Is it that Jonathan
did not buy arms at all and stole all the money or is it that he used cash to
buy arms? You cannot have it both ways. It is either one or the other.
Glaring doublespeak
Quite
apart from your glaring doublespeak on this matter, there was another issue
which you ought to have raised with your highly esteemed and respected
British guest. You failed to tell him that his was one of the countries that
not only refused to sell weapons to us during the course of this bitter
conflict but that also helped to impose and enforce the international arms
embargo on our country even though we are at war.
This
resulted in the unnecessary death of thousands of our people because we found
it difficult to procure the weapons to protect them. Your guest's country
insisted on toeing the American line and doing this to us, even though we
were fighting a war against a relentless, well-motivated, well-funded and
well-armed fighting force that Global Terror Index has described as the
''deadliest terrorist organization in the world''. One is forced to ask: With
friends like this, who needs enemies?
Given
the fact that the embargo was in place, one wonders how we were supposed to
procure arms unless we did so with raw cash in the black market. The
alternative was to buy none at all, to do nothing and to allow Boko Haram to
take Abuja, Port Harcourt, Enugu and Lagos. Perhaps that is precisely what
your Western friends and allies wanted but, thankfully, it never came to
pass.
Despite
the challenges and constraints Jonathan faced, instead of losing any more
ground, he rose to the occasion and retook no less than 22 local government
areas and virtually pushed Boko Haram out of Nigeria. The only place that
they occupied by the time the election took place was Sambisa forest.
The
former President achieved this with those arms that he bought with raw cash.
This is apparently what you are now complaining about. Permit me to remind
you that it is those same arms that Jonathan bought with raw cash that your
army is still using till today. Yet, sadly, since you were sworn- in as
President, seven months ago, you have lost some of those same local
government areas that were earlier recovered and they are now back in the
hands of terrorists.
'Technical' victory
Despite
this, you keep telling the international community and the Nigerian people
that we are ''making progress'' in the war against terror. As a matter of
fact, you went as far as to say that we had ''won the war'' against Boko Haram
and your Minister of Information, Mr. Lai Mohammed, echoed that grotesque
mendacity and reiterated that sentiment by adding the words ''technically
won'' (whatever that may mean) to the equation.
Sadly,
two days later, on Christmas day, in what can only be described as an
eloquent response from the terrorists, scores of innocent civilians were
killed by Boko Haram in Borno State and a whole community was burnt to the
ground. Again, on Sunday, December 27, Maiduguri, the capital of Borno State,
came under heavy attack from the terrorists. Yet again, on Monday, December
28, in Adamawa State, Boko Haram launched a series of suicide bomb attacks in
which at least 50 civilians were killed. So much for having ''won the war
against Boko Haram'', whether ''technically'' or otherwise.
Curiously,
the next thing that you did was to tell Nigerians that you would ''persuade
Boko Haram to drop their arms''. One is compelled to ask: Why would you have
to persuade them to drop their arms if you had already defeated them and won
the war against them?
Persuasion as a weapon
In
any case, this would be the first time in the history of modern warfare that
a sitting President has sought to destroy and defeat a vicious and relentless
terrorist organization and win the war against terror simply with the awesome
and devastating weapon of persuasion. Perhaps you should recommend that same
tactic to the Americans and the rest of the international community as an
effective and credible weapon to adopt in their war against ISIL, Al Qaeda,
Al Shabab and all the other jihadist groups that plague the world.
Whilst
you are at it, perhaps you could also persuade Boko Haram to free the Chibok
girls. It is disturbing to note that despite all your campaign promises and
assurances that once you are elected President the girls would be rescued or
returned, nothing has been done or heard about any of them ever since you
were sworn- in. Worste still, the Bring Back Our Girls group, which was
essentially an appendage of your election organization, together with its
distinguished leaders and conveners, appear to have gone very quiet. I guess
they are busy trying to persuade Boko Haram to drop their arms too.
Sadly,
you appear to be detached from reality. Instead of fighting the war against
terror, you are making it worse with the killing of Shia Muslims in Zaria on
December 12, locking up their leader Sheik Ibrahim El Zakzaky and opening yet
another war front in our country. The last thing that we need is for
Hezbollah or the Iranian Republican Guard to rise to the occasion, take up
the challenge, jump into the fray and decide to protect and avenge their Shia
Muslim brothers and sisters in northern Nigeria.
Yet,
despite the reprehensible and indefensible actions of your military
commanders in Zaria, you have refused to show any remorse for what was
undoubtedly a war crime against fellow Nigerians and you have not prosecuted
the officers and military personnel that were involved in the butchery.
Instead the homes of the victims and those that share their Shia faith have
been burnt to the ground in Zaria and their graves and burial sites have been
dug up and desecrated.
Cameroonian attack
Worse
still, you have refused to defend our country. I say this because a few days
ago the Cameroonian military invaded our country, violated our territorial
integrity and savagely murdered over 70 Nigerians in their village before
burning it down.
Your
government refused to acknowledge that this event even took place, despite
media reports. You did not console or express condolences to the families of
the victims or retaliate against the Cameroonians.
You
did not even warn them or demand an apology or reparations from them. It
could not have happened under Jonathan, Obasanjo, Babangida, Shagari, Abacha,
Abubakar, Shonekan, Mohammed, Balewa or indeed any other former Nigerian
President or Head of State. If any of them had been in power and the
Cameroonians cultivated the effrontery to do such a thing, there would have
been consequences.
Yet,
you did nothing to avenge this affront or to defend our honor. What happened
to the gallant and brave General Buhari that courageously led our troops into
victory in Chad in the early 1980s? What happened to the man that we all
admired and looked up to because of his military exploits in Chad? What
happened to the war hero that gave the Chadians a ''bloody nose'' for daring
to attack a Nigerian village and that almost took Ndjamena, the Chadian
capital? What happened to the man who proved to the Libyans and their Chadian
proxies that Nigerians knew how to fight? It appears that you have changed
and that you are no longer the man that you used to be.
State - sponsored tyranny
You
refuse to tell the world that our military is terribly demoralized, our
soldiers are suffering heavy casualties and are not being paid their salaries
regularly and, worst of all, you have failed to procure a single bullet or
weapon for them to use in the last seven months since you came to power.
Instead
of deploying all the power of the state against Boko Haram, you have spent
all your energy and resources trying to teach the former National Security
Advisor, Colonel Sambo Dasuki, and all your other perceived enemies the
lesson of their lives by misrepresenting them before the world, subjecting
them to state-sponsored tyranny and the most insidious form of persecution,
violating their human rights and telling the world that they stole and shared
money that was meant for the purchase of arms.
You
have also misinformed the Nigerian people about the rules and conventions
that are applied when it comes to the administration of security funds and
about the fact that it is the National Assembly alone that has the right to
probe the use of such funds as part of their oversight functions. To cap it
all, you have claimed you did not receive any benefit from the NSA 's office
whilst Jonathan was in power. This is an assertion which we all know is, at
best, questionable.
You
must understand that any leader or government that is motivated by
bitterness, fear, hate, vengeance and malice will eventually hit the rocks
and crash like a pack of cards. You must appreciate the fact that God is
watching and that He sees and knows all.
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