Penultimate Tuesday, the Nigerian and global communities were jolted by the news of the bombing of a camp housing the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in Rann, the headquarters of Kala-Balge Local Government Area of Borno state. The bombing was not carried out by the ubiquitous suicide bombers being unleashed on soft targets such as the IDP camps by the fleeing Boko Haram fighters. The bombs were rained down from the fighter jets of the nation’s Air Force manned by personnel who suffered optical illusion momentarily. Such attacks from those who are supposed to protect you are referred to as “friendly fire” in military parlance.
On the fateful Tuesday in Rann, the Air Force jets scrambled into the sky based on the report that a group of marauding insurgents was sighted in the area.
The bombers picked a target which they mistook as quartering the enemies and down came a hail of bombs, sending the hapless occupiers running in all directions in panic. By the time the smoke vanished, no fewer than 100 people, mostly women and children, laid lifeless and scores fatally injured or maimed. Among those killed and wounded were local and international aid workers. The death toll has been on the rise.
The Rann tragedy has added a new dimension to the fight against the insurgents that has been running for the past six or so years. It is a worrisome dimension coming at a time we all believed and still believe the insurgents had been completely degraded and their Sambisa Forest fortress overrun. So sad!
The irony of the bombing is that it occurred in Rann. If the military or “Operation Lafiya Dole” in particular had remembered the impregnability of Rann, they would not have raised their eyebrow let alone dispatch a fighter jet to that location based on the intelligence report about the insurgents’ presence in that axis. Rann stood out as one of the no-go areas for the insurgents at the time that the terror war was at an apogee. While the terrorists made several attempts to overrun Maiduguri, the heartbeat of Borno state, they left the Rannians alone after an attempt on their territory about three or so years ago that ended in disaster.
For the benefit of those of you who might not have read my account of the exploits of the Rann Army at that time, I crave your permission to take you down the memory lane:
Rann is a border town with Cameroon, flung some 160 kilometres away from Maiduguri, the Borno state capital.
In February, 2014, the inhabitants of the town came under the siege of the rampaging Boko Haram terrorists. But the folks of Rann did not do the expected… run. Rather than turn tails in fright, they confronted the heavily armed marauders and defended their fatherland with an incredible audacity. The Rann army made up of Civilian JTF or homegrown vigilantes was not armed with sophisticated weapons. No fighter jets, no drones and no tanks. All they had were dane guns (suitable only for bush meat hunting), poisoned arrows, spears, machetes and all manner of charms. They did not hide inside bulletproof vests. But they immersed themselves in charms that could render bullets impenetrable to their bodies. Above all, they asked God for victory over the evil men.
On that day of reckoning, the terrorists stormed the location which had been cordoned off and fortified with charms that afflicted them with blindness. They fell into the numerous booby traps set for them and could not fire a single shot. Consequently, the Rann warriors overran the invaders, slaughtering over 200. They seized their weapons which included an Armoured Personnel Carrier (APC) as well as motorcycles and Hilux vehicles. God answered their supplication!
The Rann debacle was corroborated by a military source in Maiduguri. It took an unconventional approach to fight the desert guerillas. That is what our Rann brothers (and sisters?) demonstrated for the whole world, including the super powers, to see. Those who found the Rann self-help story hard to swallow were persuaded to take a trip to the area and see things for themselves. Yes, those locals defended their territories; they did not rely on the ill-equipped Nigerian soldiers of 2014 who were notorious for fleeing the war front in the face of the superior fire power of the insurgents. The poor funding of the war was responsible for the fall of about 20 local government headquarters to Boko Haram and the flight to Maiduguri of many Council bosses and traditional rulers from their domains, until the arrival of Buhari and Buratai.
The Rann army has taught the insurgents a terrible lesson they would not forget in a hurry. Those Rann warriors were courageous and capable of securing the IDPs camped in their territory.
The catastrophe that was visited on the IDPs in Rann is very unfortunate. Although I am no great shakes as a fighter pilot, I have not stopped wondering why the bombers could not assess their target well before raining down the bombs. Are the jets not fitted with modern equipment to zoom the targets for assessment before buttons are pressed? The IDP camps and the activities therein cannot be similar to those in the insurgents’ encampments.
This Rann debacle must be thoroughly investigated. Though the bombing is seen as an honest error peculiar to the theatres of war, the IDPs, having been secured from the terrorists, should be spared the angst of friendly fire from the very military they look up to for protection until they are able to return to the comfort of their ancestral homes. Already, the Borno state Government has put its nose to the grindstone to ensure the dispersal of the IDPs through the massive ongoing reconstruction exercise across the state. The least the military can do to complement the efforts of the Kashim Shettima administration is to keep them safe to enable them relish the new life being prepared for them.
