Slippery Military, Spidery Terror, By Soni Ehi Asuelimen

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Is it not strange that the abduction of secondary school girls in Chibok, some years ago, is repeated so easily with the Yobe State Government and the military singing fraudulent tunes while the parents of the children and Nigerians wail in lamentation of what has become of their nation, Nigeria.

The successful abduction of dozens of girls from a government technical school in Yobe State a few days ago appears to confirm that a conspiracy of the people in government at state and federal levels, pretentious religious leaders and military command sympathizers of the doctrine and goals of the jihadist group will prolong sorrow, tears and blood for long.

Is it not strange that the abduction of secondary school girls in Chibok, some years ago, is repeated so easily with the Yobe State Government and the military singing fraudulent tunes while the parents of the children and Nigerians wail in lamentation of what has become of their nation, Nigeria.

The Yobe State Government claimed it relied on the military statement Friday, February 23, 2018 that more than 40 of the about 110 pupils were rescued only to find out that it was false. The governor had to go to the concerned parents to apologize for the claimed misinformation, within 24 hours, signaling a depressive disconnection between state bureaucracy and security architecture, bordering on fraud to deceive the people, as it was the case with Chibok, Bornu state.

Indeed, the serial hoax death of Shekau, the Boko Haram chief terrorist, proclaimed by the military since the Jonathanian era, and the current military bounty placed on Shekau wanted dead or alive, indicates unprofessional and strange military propaganda, not different from political party propaganda. This is tragic for integrity of Nigerian military with international reputation for discipline.

In retrospect, Boko Haram egg of rebellion hatched during the administration of President Olusegun Obasanjo, a Nigerian civil war veteran. That was in 2001 shortly after the return to civil rule in 1999. That was when PDP aspirants and subsequently candidates recruited mercenary thugs to harass out or totally eliminate opponents from political contestation in the North east states, in particular.

After winning governorship election, they paid the now jobless political thugs monthly N10 million, especially by Bornu state government during Obasanjo’s administration. With assault weapons used to depress or kill the opposition not withdrawn, the incubating Boko Haram hatched into protection gangs, wreaking havoc everywhere when the Bornu government that took over from Sherriff declined to pay N10 million monthly ransom to protect the state government from the embarrassment of massive terror murders.

The cowardice of the Obasanjo administration to protect the state from this terrorist blackmail by deploying the police or military, under exclusive federal control, to route the freshly hatched terrorists, is the price we pay today for the festering of terrorism, that may spread nationwide through Fulani herdsmen terror.

During the Obasanjo admin, arrested killer Boko Haram terrorists were reportedly released without judicial trial by the agents of the Directorate of Secret Services to traditional rulers and religious leaders in what they called jihad deradicalization and constructive disengagement from the terror sect. Many released terrorists were believed to have returned to their vomit. Until a few days ago, less than a dozen of suspects arrested were prosecuted and convicted, while several hundreds were freed. Is it any wonder that the terror  persists and festers?

Worse still, federal government has in the past 10 years played the ostrich, burring its head in the sand of irresponsibility, pretending deafness to loud reports of military generals sympathetic to Boko Haram jihadist goals serving as moles releasing intelligence reports of troops movements to the enemy; selling weapons to Boko Haram to finish colleagues.

Sadly, some of the weapons were donated by foreign countries from which Nigeria sought further assistance but failed to get.

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