CORRUPTION AND TERRORISM

A Nigerian proverb says insofar as the last louse has not been killed in the hair, the fingers cannot be rid of bloodstains. I say this to underscore how we must keep talking and acting on our security challenges until we find a common solution to them. We cannot trade blame and behave in a bipolar fashion and yet expect success. Society is only successful because we agree to cooperate with one another. What happens when this cooperation is lost; when this social contract is breached? When it breaks down, people take the law into their own hands. That is when we get anarchy; that is when we get terrorism or whatever we may wish to call it.

BOKO HARAM is the monster that has been created by the inequity of our society. We need to address this situation now or they will win, because the continuing inequity feeds them. It seems to me that they are the winners here. What they seek is attention and that is what they are getting. From the president of the United States wife, his wife, Michel Obama, to the British Prime Minister David Cameron, everyone is holding up posters saying #BringBackOurGirls. Not that this is bad; after all it has drawn the world to our government’s inability to deliver on its first constitutional responsibility – protecting us.  Boko Haram revels in the spotlight, they bask in the euphoria of the global platform we’ve accorded them free of charge.     

It is one thing for global figures and celebrities to post Twitter and Facebook pictures using Nigeria’s most viral hash tag, but what do they achieve by this?  Their intervention should include putting the Nigerian government under constant, consistent and continuous pressure to spend those security votes they have been amassing for themselves wisely by protecting the nation that they have sworn to protect. I know that if this situation had occurred in Europe, and the girls were little white girls, the news would be on 24/7 until those girls were found and all the analysis in the world would take place to investigate the root cause of such an evil barbaric act. Although even Boko Haram or we have managed to get this to the attention of the international community, I am not sure that we appreciate the gravity of what has gotten us here. 

The residents of Borno live increasingly in fear and tension. We should not feel removed at all from Chibok the village. It could be our city tomorrow. Have we taken time to ask ourselves: “Why is it that these girls ready for WAEC exams (O’ levels) cannot speak English?” They are barely articulate. Are they taught in English? What quality of education are they getting? This is true of schools all over Nigeria.  What does this have to do with the state of mind of the average citizen in Borno?

We should hearken to Ayn Rand’s statement: “When you see that trading is done, not by consent but by compulsion, when you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing, when you see money flowing to those who deal not in goods but in favours, when you see that men get richer by graft and pull than by work and your laws don’t protect you against them but protect them against you, when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self sacrifice, you may know that your society is doomed.”

Let us see if we as a people have learnt a lesson from the awful situation in which these children find themselves. Let us hope that it will act as a wake-up call to all Nigerians that we need to pull our socks up and start to do things properly.  Remember that we are a sovereign nation. There is so much that outsiders can do for us, short of inviting them into our country to take over our affairs. We are all aware of the dangers of that. In fact it seems that that imperialist mentality is exactly what our government, our colonial monkeys are practising that has gotten us to where we are today.

And in all of this, who is the loser? You and me. We should not allow them and any other copycat body that is watching to feel that they can. The schools are closed, parents and children terrorised and living in fear, their faces all over the international media for the wrong reasons. This is not about religion or ethnicity. It is about good governance. We cannot leave our fate in the hands of politicians; we have seen their hands. We need to demand answers always and keep this marching culture alive; otherwise the terrorists will come and will march all over us. #BringBackOurGirls.