No one who has any iota of humanity in him will see the spate of killings, especially the recent one in Zabarmari, Jere local government area, just 20 kilometers from Maiduguri, the Borno state capital, where over 43 people were slaughtered for no reason, and won’t shed tears.
Nigeria is seriously in a state of confusion and disarray that we now compare the relative failures of our governments as a yardstick to determine who had fared better in piloting the affairs of our country.
We have reached a state in this country where the comparison is, who had more people killed under his watch, Buhari or Jonathan? The most annoying and terrifying of all is that the North has been the experimental ground for such insanity.
The situation will never cease to amaze any well meaning, patriotic, and concerned Nigerian as to how the lives of its citizens, most especially the northerners, are not protected.
It’s no longer scary news, that in your neighbourhood you could wake up to the news of either kidnappers had taken somebody, or bandits have maimed innocent Nigerians or you hear that the dreaded Boko Haram is on rampage.
How did we get to this sordid state? The essence of governance anywhere is the protection of lives and property, any government at any level who fails to live up to this responsibility has lost the essence of governance.
I can’t imagine how we got to this, it really baffles me. But most annoying and embarrassing is the hypocrisy of the North. Its elders, scholars, political, religious and traditional leaders have kept mute, as if nothing is happening, just because of the notion that it is our own at the helm of affairs.
Between 2010 and 2015 when GEJ was the president, it’s like they wanted to bring down the walls of the country, trying to show how he has failed, but what happened to their voices now?
No wonder Sun Tzu in his famous novel Art of War as translated by Thomas Cleary said, “When you do battle, even if you are winning, if you continue for a long time it will dull your forces and blunt your forces and blunt your edge; if you besiege a citadel, your strength will be exhausted.
If you keep your armies out in the field for a long time, your supply will be insufficient”. This is the case of our service chiefs; they have overstayed their welcome in office and there’s need for new faces, new strategies and new energy in the insecurity problem bedeviling the nation.
But what do I know? We are a nation that laughs and smiles at our collective misfortune, but we are Nigerians and we have no any other county than Nigeria.
The commander in chief of the Armed forces is a northerner, chief of army staff, chief of air staff, director DSS,IGP of police, NSA and major office holders of our security apparatus, are all northerners, but there has never been a time that the northerners are in search of peace and security of lives and property like now.
We are all Nigerians and we have a responsibility of our undiluted loyalty to the country, not to an individual. The collapse of Nigeria’s sovereignty is a bad omen for all of us.
We should all rise to the occasion and realise that security is everybody’s business, by working hard and reporting any suspicious movement in our surroundings.
God bless Nigeria!
Dauda Haruna Tula
Twitter hdauda90
Gmail [email protected]
