Insecurity: time to heed Zulum’s warning

Sir: At a programme in honour of the reconstituted North-East Development Commission (NEDC) recently, Borno State Governor, Babagana Umara Zulum, warned that Nigeria risked being wiped off the map in the near future if no proactive steps were taken to stop young people and children from being recruited by Boko Haram and ISWAP terrorists.

Zulum’s warning came at a time no fewer than 13 farmers were beheaded on their farmlands in the state by Boko Haram terrorists, with some unspecified number of farmers also kidnapped. This is also amidst reports of harvest tax by farmers to terrorists.

Well, Governor Zulum was only being patriotic to have warned Nigeria of an imminent disaster, and for Nigeria to wake up and do something so that Nigerians would not be living in outright fear. Before the governor’s damning warning, it’s a known fact that any security challenges might have caught the people napping.

The truth of the case is that Nigeria is not prepared at all for any security emergencies. That Nigeria doesn’t have the orientation even as security apparatuses are neither sensitized nor equipped is no longer news. So, to debate whether we should heed the governor’s warning is a sign of spinelessness and planlessness on the part of the country. It needs no debate but a total absorption of the plan and retrigger for the people to begin to think.

Back in those days, the Yorubas would always say: ‘A kii gbe inu ile gba ofa lai re ogun’. Translated literally, it means: ‘One cannot be in the house and receive an arrow’s attack without going to the warfront.’ Current events in the land seem to have paled the adage into insignificance. Before our very eyes, the house is no longer safe and the farm is a no-go area. Police and Army Barracks have become a basket case of ‘if gold could rust…’ Some crimes are even annoying! Only last week, a neighbour gave a distress call, asking yours sincerely to assist with a specific amount of money so that he could use it to appease some hoodlums who were “threatening to kill” him if he’d not “find something for” them. The neighbour in question had no choice! When asked later why he didn’t seek assistance from the security agencies, he simply retorted: ‘you think say gofment go fit help?

For Nigeria to get out of the woods, those in Tinubu’s government who see governance as business as usual must become very serious; otherwise, the president owes Nigerians a duty to show them the way out. And let not the politicians treat this with levity because you must have a society before you can play your politics. If the society is fractured, politics becomes non-existent. Or where do we play politics if society is in trouble, under terror attack? You must have a society before thinking of a political system or contemplating the economy.

Nobody is saying that the government is not doing anything, but the truth is that its efforts, currently, are not enough. Or how on earth could some bastards hold a whole town to ransom for close to three hours in broad daylight, and still escape with their loot? Could that happen in South Africa, or Egypt? Can Boko Haram or ISWAP thrive in a country like Israel?

For God’s sake, if we have to seek external help, the time is now! Nigeria is bleeding!