Blessed are the Peace makers…
OBJ told reporters himself that he was on a private visit but he couldn’t have undertaken the peace making trip without official clearance or promptings, after all he went with one of the presidential planes. Whatever it is, it is heart harming that at long last a highly visible and high profile peace overtures was […]
OBJ told reporters himself that he was on a private visit but he couldn’t have undertaken the peace making trip without official clearance or promptings, after all he went with one of the presidential planes. Whatever it is, it is heart harming that at long last a highly visible and high profile peace overtures was being made towards the appeasement of the quarters from where Boko Haram emerged. Among the many ways of seeking solution to the bitter violent onslaught of Boko Haram against the larger society, it has always been said that a representation to the group or its quarters in search of understanding and rapprochement would, at the end of the day, be the veritable harbinger of the peace needed.
To be sure, the federal government had raised a committee and with fanfare charged it to do just that, but as it happened not much was heard about its exploits on the assignment it was given, creating the impression that the committee’s efforts or lack of it has run into a cul de sac. Meanwhile, as it were, the Boko Haram or those suborning the sect have raised the scale of their ‘’war’’ with the bombing of the United Nation’s office in Abuja, terminating the lives of some 21 Nigerians in the process. The UN bombing was a gruesome and telling reminder that the recourse to military action as reprisal against the sect was not having the desired effect; rather than cowing and scattering it into submission, the sect was becoming more emboldened by undertaken spell bounding acts quite unheard of in these parts.
It was therefore imperative that a new momentum must be found to what was becoming tit-for- tat between the government and the Boko Haram. Moreover, the virulent dimension the Boko Haram campaign has taken was said to have arisen because of the military action against it; illustrating the notion that violence begets violence. President Goodluck Jonathan has displayed the necessary caution, much to the chagrin of those blaming him for being unable to bring the sect to heel by refusing to unleash the full weight of the force government can muster. The president is justified for being cautious, a blistering scorched earth reprisal against Boko Haram could further escalate the crisis beyond the level we are at now. It is for all this that the OBJ peace foray should be seen as of utmost imperative to finding a solution to the Boko Haram conundrum.
The man is most eminently qualified for the assignment, he will bring the considerable weight of his experience in the military and in government to bear on the need to grapple with the complex forces that caused Nigeria to bring forth an anarchist group professing a religious credo. And it is expected that OBJ should be so preoccupied as not to get him into the kind of mischievous altercation that occurred between him and IBB which embarrassed many of their admirers no end. A mischievous colleague of mine wondered why IBB was not also enlisted in the quest for peace with Boko Haram, reasoning that working together would force the two of them to patch things up between them and what is more, the two could deploy so much clout as to hoodwink and indeed stupefy the sect members to do a rethink on their dangerous exploits! If they succeed at it, the two would have set a good example on how to deploy the energies of superannuated presidents in order to save them the boredom that come with being out of power.
Anyway, OBJ’s intervention can be seen in the sense of a well known African (Yoruba) aphorism which says that “agba ki iwa loja ki ori omo tuntun wo’’which loosely means it is so that the misplaced head of the baby strapped behind its mother would be corrected that the elder need to be at the marketplace. In plain language, it enjoins and beseeches the elders and respectable individuals to use their influence to bring peaceful cohabitation in society, an ingredient that was sorely lacking in Borno and other parts of the our north eastern region. Clearly, the violence and mayhem have gone on long enough for all people of goodwill to join hands to seek a workable and peaceful solution to it and save us all the untold hardship we are going through now.
Residents of Abuja would tell of the excruciating effect of the surveillance culture that has taken hold of the city as a result of the bombings it has witnessed,where stern looking soldiers in fatigue man every entry point to the city, on the look out for the bomb throwing arsonists that have turn our country into a blasted heath. We are waiting with baited breath therefore to wake up from this nightmare and be told everything is ok and that we can now have our lives back. Shows the enormity of the assignment OBJ is carry on his head. For now however, we can only quote to him the Gospel according to Mathew: Chapter 5; verse 9— “Blessed are the peace makers for they shall be called the son of God.’’