Before more obituaries

They deployed a cocktail of depopulation tactics – fire bombs, guns, IEDs, land mines and direct butchery of victims. Had they succeeded in smuggling their bombs into the Borno Express bus terminus as planned, the death toll could easily have been in hundreds; but the suicide bomber tasked with bombing the terminus was not able […]

They deployed a cocktail of depopulation tactics – fire bombs, guns, IEDs, land mines and direct butchery of victims. Had they succeeded in smuggling their bombs into the Borno Express bus terminus as planned, the death toll could easily have been in hundreds; but the suicide bomber tasked with bombing the terminus was not able to gain access. In frustration he detonated the device strapped to his body and took two unlucky passers-by with him.
The increase in the tempo of terrorists’ activities in this Ramadan period means something. As a humble student of the university of Life, I think the terrorists are working towards a timeline. It seems they want to hold some territory, no matter how small, before the end of Ramadan in line with their ‘caliphate’ dream.
Any serious simulation exercise by our military authorities will tell all.
Think like the terrorist to beat the terrorist. Now that the doors are shut against them in Chad, Niger and Cameroon, and with the bombardment of
Sambisa forest and other hiding places, no one should expect these terrorists to cut and run. If they fled they would not be the mindless terrorists that they are. Like flood water they will find the line of least resistance. That accounts for why they have been concentrating on soft targets of late.
Apparently, their sources of funding are alive and well. The volume of arms and armaments they have deployed in the last two months attests to the fact that they are prosecuting a well-funded campaign. They are no longer a rag-tag army. They are a real fighting force.
There can no longer be any excuse for not second-guessing the vandals. The bulk of what we have to do is intelligence work. And plenty of citizen sensitisation, not the gratuitous insult being dished out in the name of mass mobilisation. Let’s have various fora where we can exchange perspectives. And let all those concerned be open to new ideas so as to stem this tide of large scale obituaries. Sabotage is the easiest crime in the world. Any idiot can drop a bomb or shoot worshippers in a church or mosque. We can ambush them with enhanced intelligence. We must.
*Adieu Madukife!*
He was a citizen of the world. Although he hailed from Umunya, Wing
Commander Emmanuel Madukife made the global space his village, touching many lives across ethnic, religious, generational and economic boundaries.
We called him “Commander of the people’s aircraft” because of his infectious bonhomie and ability to break down difficult subjects, be they gearboxes or rear axles.
For the 16 years that our paths crossed during an evening stroll on Gimbiya
Street, Garki, Abuja, we developed a close friendship which gave the impression that there was some consanguineous relationship somewhere down the line. But no, it was the pull – call it charisma or that jolly-good-fellow visage, which made him mingle without restraint. Add to that his mastery of Igbo, Hausa and Yoruba languages. In those days, from his strategic positioning on his “throne” in front of his residence, he never missed a thing; and you could not drive by without an acknowledgement of the man on the throne.ashionable, dandy and up to date in virtually every sphere, he was a conversationalist’s delight. There was no subject that was too complex or sacred for him to dissect, no trend that was too yuppie or too ‘old school’ for him to dabble into. I can say without fear of contradiction that since his retirement from the Nigerian Air Force, he has been well turned out whether formally or on informal occasions. He belonged to that generation that believed that you had to complement internal vivaciousness with trendy couture.
We swapped stories often: the true, the imagined and the fantabulous – from
Mungo Park who borrowed money from somebody in Umunya to mend his leaking boat, to Nathaniel Eze Okoli whose forebears left Umunya to America only to change their family name to Nat King Cole; from his escapades as a flight engineer in the Nigerian Air Force to the thrills of cultural differences between Africans and people in other continents. Madukife was always the life of the gathering. And we also shared cooking lessons since he was a honorary master chef and several of us whose families were not in Abuja often compared culinary notes with him.
One of the endearing lessons of the life of Wing Commander Madukife was his commitment to friendship. He called up his friends if he didn’t hear from them for a while. He waded through traffic to visit friends no matter the distance. Several times, at great inconvenience, he would travel to Minna,
Kaduna, Lagos, Kano or Port-Harcourt to honour an old friend or military colleague. Three weeks before he turned 70, he sent word round that he would want his friends to spare a few hours to celebrate with him. Many made it. Those who were unavoidably absent phoned in. It was the turn of friends to honour a man who had made positive impact on their lives in his humble way.
He was very proud of his Igbo heritage as well as his background as a Kaduna Boy. Perhaps that was why he was so large-hearted and cosmopolitan in outlook: a proud Igbo man who was not blind to the goodness in other people. Like the unknown philosopher whose words of wisdom have guided generation after generation, Madukife subscribed to the mantra of every mortal who deserves the appellation, Citizen of the World: “Become friends with people who aren’t your age. Hang out with people whose first language isn’t the same as yours. Get to know someone who doesn’t come from your social class. This is how you can see the world. This is how you grow.”
Fare thee well, valiant soldier and brother beyond borders. I must allow
Leonardo Da Vinci to put in a word: “As a well spent day brings happy sleep, so life well used brings happy death.”
We shall all cherish the good times we shared with you till we reach our own mortal bus stops as we all must someday. Adieu!