If the past administration took the Boko Haram for granted, making the disaster a justification for thefts and even refusing to correct perception of the group in some hollow conspiracy theories promoted by gullible and polarised citizens, the Muhammadu Buhari-led administration, despite its controversial handling of the economy, takes their predecessors as bad models in conflict management.
A prominent politician once told me that the war on terror failed under former President Goodluck Jonathan because, aside from our popular ridiculing of the man as uncharismatic and clueless, he was “afraid of his service chiefs.”
Of course it’s because of their unholy partnership, the involvement of heads of our security institutions in one of the biggest heists in the history of Nigeria, diverting funds voted for counterterrorism to their private causes and personal accounts.
And it was a wild party for those partisans who had no sympathy for the millions displaced by their greed in the northeast Nigeria. The region was allowed to be destroyed by the Boko Haram because the evil benefits these morally irresponsible politicians who, from a few profiles of them by Sambo Dasuki, ought to be answering for war crimes.
Perhaps the most unfortunate experience was the politicisation of counterterrorism, with the President even seeking to make it a Muslim agenda against his Presidency, him being a church-loving Christian, while the conspiracy theorists in the north, indoctrinated by former Governor Murtala Nyako and even Nasir El-Rufai, portrayed the spate of killings as a covert operation of some Christian organisations or personalities eager to decimate the dominating north and its politically overpowered Muslims.
I have always seen the Boko Haram as a real conflict that emerged from our cultural flaws and thrived on our institutional lapses. It’s not a conspiracy, it’s a reality to which many of us are firsthand witnesses.
I campaigned against Jonathan possessed by this rage over his deliberate refusal to serve as a unifying figure at that critical point of our polarisation and distrust, and even making policy statements as he jumped from one pulpit to another, home and Israel.
Today, under Buhari, the conflict is being dealt with as real onslaughts on humanity led by actors who are not as elusive as perceived by the past administration that even let a Boko Haram kingpin “sneak out” of its jail.
I don’t think the past administration sponsored the Boko Haram, they just let it happen because of the billions allocated to our security agencies by the tricked and paranoid dispensation.
The past few days, with the liberations of many towns previously sacked or occupied by the insurgents as announced by the Nigerian troops, internally displaced persons were reunited with the only place they call homes, given another chance to breathe freedom again, and hopefully forever.
The images of happy “returnees” posing for selfies with their liberators, the soldiers, were the most beautiful symbols out of Nigeria since 2009, the year the terrorist cult became an uncomfortable menace from a carelessly managed face-off with the security operations in Maiduguri.
The liberators are the same soldiers we once derided for their “tactical manoeuvres”. What has changed? Leadership. Responsible and effective leadership, and not one that diverted the resources meant for the welfare of these rank-and-file soldiers to causes other than counterterrorism. May God save us from us!
