A week of three tragedies
His demise, when it finally occurred last week Wednesday, with as much drama as expected had something sorely anticlimactic about it. The Nigerian military, with whom he had been at war for so long, had nothing to do with his violent end
Late Chief of Army Staff, Lt Gen Ibrahim Attahiru
“The greatest hazard of all, losing one’s self, can occur very quietly in the world as if it were nothing at all. No other loss can occur so quietly: any other loss—an arm, a leg, five dollars, a wife, etc—is sure to be noticed.” — Soren Kierkegaard, The Sickness unto Death
It has been a long time coming, the inevitable death of notorious mass murderer and terrorist, Abubakar Shekau, whose Boko Haram has for over a decade held Nigeria, Africa’s 4th strongest military, to an intractable insurgency that has caused about 50,000 lives and displaced over 3.2 million persons across four countries.
The fifth and hopefully final death of Shekau has been long anticipated, following on multiple reports by the authorities of his killings, which he had laughed off in his wacky videos that often displayed the zany state of his mind. Such contemptible personalities have been known from history not to last very long and there is nothing tragic about his death.
His demise, when it finally occurred last week Wednesday, with as much drama as expected had something sorely anticlimactic about it. The Nigerian military, with whom he had been at war for so long, had nothing to do with his violent end. That credit goes to ISWAP, a breakaway faction of Boko Haram, that monster Shekau helped create, loyal to the Islamic State, who stormed Shekau’s Sambisa Forest, decimated his troops, killed his bodyguards and seized the scoundrel. With no way to escape and seeing the loss of his grip on power, the man blew himself up and a few others along with him.
News of Shekau’s death was received with muted optimism and great scepticism. Was it true? When it seemed obvious that it was, the next question was well, why didn’t Nigerian soldiers get him and now that ISWAP did, what does that mean for Nigeria?
It certainly does not mean an end to the insurgency. ISWAP has proven itself better trained, better equipped and clearly more ambitious than Shekau’s eccentric band of bloodthirsty misfits. It also means for the next few weeks and months perhaps, there will be questions about what becomes of the headless remnants of Shekau’s army. Will they band under a new leader, what kind of leader would this be? Or would they join up with ISWAP or just become pockets of bandits under several heads.
Looking at the bigger picture, however, something far more sinister emerges. From Buharin Daji to Auwal Daudawa and now to Abubakar Shekau, none of these notorious terrorists was neutralised by the Nigerian state. All three have been eliminated because of infighting within their band of criminals.
Nigeria’s lack of capacity to take out the people who threaten its population the most, who have ended up on the list of its most wanted persons is a source of worry. That for me is the tragedy in this episode.
While those questions swirl around as to the outcome of the power struggle in the heart of Sambisa and what it means for the rest of us, Nigeria suffered a tragic blow. General Ibrahim Attahiru’s nearly four-month reign as Nigeria’s Chief of Army Staff came to a sad end when a military plane conveying him and 10 other officers crashed and killed all on board.
It is a calamity on the scale of the Greek tragedies of old. Here was a man whose career had peaked, just a few months after he emerged as the head of the army at a time as crucial as this. Just as he was settling into his mission to end the insurgency, and might already be strategising on taking advantage of the latest developments Sambisa had thrown up with regards to Shekau, a man he had personally led the pursuit of during his ill-fated seven-month stint as the Theatre Commander of Operation Lafiya Dole, this happened.
The accident that killed him is the third military air crash this year alone—the other two being the recent fighter jet crash in Borno and the one in February where 11 officers travelling to intervene in the kidnapping of some schoolboys in Niger State lost their lives when their plane crashed in Abuja.
Nigeria has always had a bad air travel record. If the record of 50 air crashes in 80 years is accurate, then it is a very worrying figure. What is also worrying about the latest incident is the political missteps that have shifted the focus away from how and why did this happen, how could we ensure there is no repeat to how we mourn?
Those who have glowered at Nigerians for asking why the president chose not to attend the funeral of his own chief of the army and other senior military figures must have their reasons, I imagine.
For these people, the fact the funerals were held in Abuja, not some remote village somewhere, mere minutes’ drive from the presidential villa is immaterial. As is the fact that the chief of the army is a crucial part of the president’s now long-forgotten campaign promise to tackle insecurity in the country. Only a few months ago, the president had handpicked Lt. Gen Attahiru to head his army, as the commander in chief, there is certainly everything wrong with him and his vice president not turning up at the funerals. The same argument applied to the death of celebrated war hero, Lt. Col Muhammad Abu Ali, for which the entire country fall into mourning.
The president’s attendance would not have brought any of these men back, but it would have been symbolic. It would have sent the message that the cause these men died for—the cause of our collective security—means something to the president and that the lives of our troops, who are fighting for this country, mean everything to him.
But it wasn’t only not attending the funeral that was off-key, it was the little things as well. Not until two days after the deaths did another presidency statement announced that the president had spoken to the widow of the COAS, formally declared days of national mourning, ordered flags to be flown at half-mast and declared a “work-free day for members of the armed forces” who are busy fighting a war from which Boko Haram does not intend to take a day off.
Those terse press statement from the villa, the decision to declare national mourning two days after their deaths and the decision to call rather than visit the widow of the COAS, all smacked not only of nonchalance from the villa but suggest that the president is afraid of his people, afraid to show his face and be seen with them, even in their darkest hours.
All of these made that fatal slip by Defence Minister Bashir Magashi who delivered Buhari’s speech at the funeral seem on point. His tendering of a “heartless felt” condolence was a slip, but it was a telling one. A mistake that many feel reflects the true sentiment of the villa.
For the third tragedy, if you haven’t figured it out yet, it is the long, painful-to-watch, slow loss of Buhari. The candidate who wept for Nigeria, who marched the streets in protest, called on a sitting government to resign for failing the people has, as president, lost himself in the trappings of power. Unlike what Kierkegaard said in the opening quote, this loss did not go unnoticed because a whole country is at stake and some 200 million people helplessly watched this happen. Unlike the loss of Gen. Attahiru and the other fallen heroes, and the hundreds killed needlessly in this country, this is one loss we cannot yet mourn.
May the souls of our fallen heroes rest in peace.