The Boko Haram insurgents, though in disarray, always have a way of taking their pound of flesh. In May 2013 or thereabouts, the regime of Dr. Goodluck Ebele Jonathan dragged the three beleaguered states of Borno, Yobe and Adamawa under a state of emergency (SOE). Everyone thought that the declaration would scare the terrorists.
It did not. Why should they be scared? Nobody fights a war using his mouth as gun and words as bullets. That was exactly what Jonathan did and the renegades knew it.
There is a place for war of mouth. Such a place is not the North-east axis. While the Boko Haram criminals were armed to the hilt with sophisticated armaments, the federal forces under Jonathan were ill-equipped, poorly motivated and underfed.
In the early days of the SOE, all that our troops could boast of were AK 47 rifles, looking inferior to the ruthless enemies they were sent to confront. They were a sorry sight compared to the federal troops that fought the Nigerian Civil War.
The battle-hardened troops that fought that war were intimidating to behold, seeing them heavily equipped with sophisticated armaments of the time and belts of bullets wrapped around their bodies.They were as good as the arms they bore.
The first stanza of the SOE lasted for six months.
The insurgents rose to the challenge and outgunned the federal might. An extension was sought; it was granted. Mango-eating federal troops and the people of the region they were sent to protect found themselves at the mercy of the terrorists. The terrorists even took the war beyond the embattled axis. They made incursions into different parts of the northern states, killing and maiming innocent citizens. Military and police formations came under their radar. Mosques and churches were targeted.
Motor parks and markets were not spared. So also were schools and relaxation spots. They executed their dastardly acts without any let or hindrance.
Bereft of fresh tactics, Jonathan again sought another extension. He got it. By the end of the second stanza, the insurgents had grown in confidence. They upped their hostilities and began to seize territories. At every point, our troops turned tails, retreating to neighbouring countries like Cameroon in what the military high command described as tactical manoeuvres.
By the end of the third stanza, aggregating to 18 months, the federal troops laid prostrate. It was so obvious that the Jonathan regime had failed woefully. The insurgency that festered mainly in Borno state spread to the neighbouring states of Yobe and Adamawa. Territories were seized, a caliphate was declared and the icing on the cake, so to speak, was the abduction of the over 200 students of the Government Girls’ Secondary School, Chibok.
It is 450 days today that the hapless damsels were taken into captivity with their whereabouts still unknown despite the “fall” of Sambisa Forest where many strongly believed they were kept in harem.
Having seized about 75 per cent of Borno state and some key communities in Adamawa coupled with their successful inroads into Yobe, the terrorists dreamt of overrunning the entire North.
The apprehension was palpable. The government of Jonathan looked helpless. And despair put the federal troops on the back foot. Some refused orders to fight, equating it to going on a suicide mission. Reason? With their antiquated arms, they stood no chance against the terrorists. But some others believed that their analogue guns were good enough to silence their “Oga pata pata”, the General Officer Commanding the 7th Division of the Nigerian Army, who they opened fire on in an apparent mutiny in Maiduguri over the death of their colleagues who were gruesomely killed because of what they regarded as his miscalculation.
The GOC escaped death by the skin of his teeth and had to be removed. Recall that it was under the watch of the Division that the insurgents recorded the 75 per cent take-over.
When the Governor of Borno state, Alhaji Kashim Shettima, spoke truth to power by raising an alarm about how ill-equipped and poorly motivated our troops were as compared to the high morale of the terrorists and the state-of-the-art weapons at their disposal, he was unfairly vilified by Jonathan and his aides.
And that was long before the insurgents began to seize territory upon territory. By his action and inaction, it was as if the former president had sworn to an oath to annihilate the helpless inhabitants of the axis through the instrumentality of the rebels.
One recurring scenario has been that the insurgents get very angry and challenged whenever the government get more serious with them. In his inaugural address on May 29, this year, President Muhammadu Buhari, told the whole world that the Command Centre of the Military would be established in Maiduguri, the epicentre of the war.
Although the insurgents have almost lost all the territories in the build-up to the 2015 general elections, thanks to the support from the Multi-National Joint Task Force and the South African soldiers of fortune hired by the Jonathan regime, the presence of the Centre does not seem to scare them one bit just as the SOE meant nothing to them.
In the past one month, the renegades have dared the Buhari administration. They have lost their Sambisa Forest quite alright. And they have been on the retreat but they have refused to surrender. They have resorted to marauding, looting food for survival and murdering innocent people in mosques even during the holy month of Ramadan. These are extremely stubborn and ungodly people, indeed. The Buhari regime witnessed the heaviest casualties of Boko Haram madness a couple of days ago with the massacre of over 140 people between Monguno and Kukawa in Borno state.
A suicide bomber also visited a parish of the Redeemed Christian Church of God in Potiskum, Yobe state, and blew himself up in the auditorium, killing four congregants and their pastor. What is more, female suicide bombings have become more rampant lately.
Has the Boko Haram menace completely spiraled out of control? When will this madness end? This is one serious challenge theBuhari regime must face squarely, beginning with the total overhauling of the top hierarchy of the military. The present leaderships he inherited are hugging uncertainty and they cannot give their best anymore. An acting service chief, in the present circumstance, is more dependable and would perform better than a substantive head waiting to be axed.
