Resurgence of insurgency

The present intensification of attacks on innocent Nigerians by reprobates, otherwise known as terrorists, was indeed a disrespectful and irrelevant treatment of a cross-section of Nigerians, especially those considered worthy of reverence during this holy month of Ramadan when they are engaged in Islamic fast. During the last few days scores of people, both Muslims and Christians, were mercilessly wiped out either in their prayer places or when performing a civic responsibility. The most annoying aspect about these nasty events, which demonstrate the worst aspects of human nature, was that the identities of the perpetrators could not be readily established, and were therefore hardly arrested.

One striking facet of the dastardly attacks was the involvement of womenfolk in suicidal strikes and most of then were girls in their early teens. In Jos, the Plateau State capital two suicide bombers hit a jam-packed restaurant in the centre of the city and almost simultaneously, another attacker who was right at the centre of the mosque exploded another bomb, killing himself and those very close to him, but the Imam of the mosque; Sheikh Sani Yahaya Jingir was unhurt. That was a daring act of irreverence to the worshippers who were preparing to break the day’s fasting, killing forty-eight people.

Similarly, two churches, very close to the ‘Yan-taya mosque, where another bomb exploded on Sunday night, were torched by violent and riotous youths.
The spate of violence also spread like bush fire during harmattan to other northern states within the past few days. Suicide bombers blasted five worshippers to death inside Yobe church on Sunday while thirty more people have been killed by unknown gunmen in Zamfara State and another three were brutally exterminated in Kogi State.

However, the most shameful and reprehensible of the lethal attacks was the one carried out by a female suicide bomber at the Secretariat of Sabongari Local Government Council at Dogarawa, Zaria in which more than thirty lives perished. The secretariat building was serving as a venue for state-wide, on-going workers’ verification exercise aimed at fishing out ghost workers when a strange bomber, a woman with a two-year-old baby strapped on her back, eased herself into the dense crowd of workers and detonated an Improvised Explosive Device, IED killing twenty-five people instantly and wounding thirty-two others.  Most of the suicide bombings in the North were executed by teenage girls and middle-aged woman, but the woman that pulled off the Zaria sneaky offensive was said to be a heartless and merciless nursing mother who had callously sniffed life out of her innocent child.

Now, the pertinent question on everyone’s lips about the escalating wave of attack, after experiencing a lull in a couple of weeks, was why it had heightened at a time when the ruling All Progressive Congress was having a confused and agitated moment at the  National Assembly which was threatening to weigh it down? The answer may not be far-fetched. Three points relating to the campaign promises of President Muhammadu Buhari have been unsettling the opposition PDP and its bigwigs are doing everything possible to frustrate his determination to fulfill them.

The leadership dispute in the National Assembly was not unconnected with a grand design to set up a structure therein that would thwart the passage of all presidential bills aimed at establishing an effective framework for dealing with corruption and its perpetrators. Already the stalwarts within the PDP were disconcerted about the commencement of anti-corruption drive which involves systematic probes into areas and institutions where unlawful acts and gross misconduct have been carried out. The mortal fear of the consequences for their illegal actions forced them into making cunning and devious plans in the National Assembly to guarantee protection from eventual prosecution.

That  is why they are now becoming restive and confrontational, trying all possible means of discrediting and belittling him at home and before the international community as weak, ineffective and indecisive leader who cannot cope with the high demands of his office. Their aim is to reduce him to the status of the former president who was prostrate and hopeless, unable to tackle the challenges of unrest occasioned by terrorism.

Nigerians and the international community have absolute confidence in the limitless ability and the boundless capacity of President Buhari to deliver dividends of democracy to his compatriots, but his detractors and adversaries would not wish him to succeed, always devising means of pulling him down. They are now intent on causing religious disharmony by instigating attacks on prayer houses so as to ignite a sectarian conflict that will consume Buhari’s government or hold his probes on check.

It may, however, be too late for the opponents of Buhari to make any headway in their abhorrent plots to derail his government or prevent it from pursuing policies that will free the people from the difficulties they have been subjected to by the previous administration. The masses that mandated Buhari to undertake numerous reforms that will force a break with the past and usher in a refreshing change will always continue to rally round him, giving him solid and unalloyed support to succeed.