Boko Haram, Davies, and a nation on the brink

And even if we may at times disagree with his methods, we cannot question his right to hold a contrary opinion. We cannot also fault his courage and conviction. Dino is also not someone who can be caught sitting on the fence on any issue. In that sense, I was not at all surprised at […]

And even if we may at times disagree with his methods, we cannot question his right to hold a contrary opinion. We cannot also fault his courage and conviction. Dino is also not someone who can be caught sitting on the fence on any issue.
In that sense, I was not at all surprised at Dino’s reaction to the former Aviation Minister, Femi Fani-Kayode, who, unsurprisingly given his recent antecedents, joined the erstwhile army chief, General Azuibike Ihejirika, and scores of ethnic bigots from across the country, to lampoon Nasir El-Rufai for daring to share the views of Dr Stephen Davies – the Australian clergyman and President Jonathan-appointed negotiator with Boko Haram – on his social media platform.
In the widely circulated interview he granted Arise Television a few days earlier, Dr Davis had named Ihejirika, along with Senator Ali Modu Sheriff among the leading sponsors of the Boko Haram sect which has proclaimed an Islamic caliphate in some part of the North-East, among other things.
But Fani-Kayode, in his reaction to the allegations, failed to address each directly, and on their individual merit. He chose, instead, to discredit them completely with some absurd theories of his own shrouded in the typical disjointed narrative favoured by the leading spokesmen of the PDP and the Presidency in recent times.
Ihejirika could never be a sponsor of the sect, in his view, for the simple fact that the former army chief belonged to the Christian faith and Boko Haram was only interested in annihilating Christians, Christianity in its entirety, along with moderate Muslims (whatever that means).
He completely ignored the grave allegations against Senator Ali Modu Sherriff, and also absolved the PDP, to which they both presently belong. Worse still, he claimed that Dr Davis named the APC as one of the leading sponsors of the sect even when the Australian never said so anywhere in the same interview.
None of the irritating claims was new, and, like I hinted earlier, they fit snugly into the stale narrative of Olisa Metuh and his ilk which delighted in highlighting the non-existent link between the APC and its leaders with the Muslim Brotherhood in the Middle East. The objective, which was shamelessly glaring in Fani-Kayode’s disjointed thesis on the subject, is obviously to divide Nigerians along sectarian lines as the 2015 general elections approach.
Like they did to great effect in 2011, the key element of the strategy is for the PDP to exploit religion to ensure the block voting of Christians in the South-South and the South-East, the South-West, and the key northern states of Kaduna, Plateau, Benue, Kogi, and Taraba states, and to some extent Kebbi and Niger states.
But that strategy also comes with its significant risks. First, it is predicated on the assumption that the greater majority of our good Christians brethren will take temporary leave of their senses like Fani-Kayode and vote blindly in 2015 irrespective of the performance of the president.
Second, it is also hinged on the presumption that the strategy is still as potent as it was in 2011, when most Nigerians embraced the narrative of the deprived candidate with ‘no shoes’ and also believed in his  so-called transformation agenda, believing it would rid the nation from its previous ills. Today, unless you belong to the leadership of Transformation Ambassadors of Nigeria (TAN) or fraternized with any of the Jonathan advocacy groups, the reality on the ground suggests that Nigerians have only been transformed for the worst.
Third, it should be obvious from the foregoing that the only way the PDP strategy of disinformation and the exploitation of our ethnic and religious divide can remain in currency is if the Boko Haram sect is to continue its deadly attacks on hapless and innocent Nigerians, particularly Christians. This is particularly where the linkage of General Ihejirika – Jonathan appointee- with the Boko Haram sect by an expatriate appointed by the same president to negotiate for the release of the Chibok girls, is so instructive.
But we must never be in too much of a haste to believe the Australian. The burden of proof is on him, after all. What the government owes all intelligent and right-thinking Nigerians – not the serial buffoons who have chosen to reduce the allegations into an ethnic and religious slug-fest- is a Judicial Panel of Inquiry to which the Aussie must be invited to testify to be able to unravel the truth.
The way some Nigerians have gone about the issue clearly stands logic on its head. I was particularly amused by the claim that Dr Davies –who I must once again emphasize, should have greater sympathy for the Nigerian authorities that hired him to negotiate with Boko-Haram for the release of the Chibok girls – was paid by the opposition to make the startling allegations.  Is it possible that the clergyman is not different from most Nigerians we know whose conscience could be so easily purchased for a fee?
Still, one thing is beyond denial in this entire sordid impasse, the status-quo in the North-East presently with the likely prohibition of free and fair elections as a direct consequence of the security situation there certainly suits the party with lesser votes to lose if normalcy were to be speedily restored. The next logical question to ask is: are there any correlations with that truism and that damning impotence of the Nigerian Army in the face of the fresh offensive by the Boko Haram sect?
Given the allegations from Dr Davis, is the embarrassing failure of the supremely endowed Nigerian state to contain Boko Haram part of an elaborate political strategy in some quarters? How could the Nigerian military, which helped to maintain peace in the Congo in the 1960s, and effectively routed rebels in the perilous marine terrains of Liberian and Sierra-Leone and Biafra, become so embarrassingly unstuck against the rag-tag forces of Boko Haram, the relatively easier arid topography of Borno and Yobe states?
If we accept that our military have suffered from corruption for longer than any institution should be compelled to endure, or that the Boho Haram sect has superior armaments, do they also possess an air force?
How were they able to move their few light tanks and armoured personnel carriers to their launching positions without being detected or bombed? What about the surveillance aircraft promised by the Western countries? Didn’t we have a protocol for sharing of intelligence with them? Obviously, there are simply too many questions on the current state of affairs in the nation begging for desperate answers.
With all the intriques about the upcoming general elections and the tension they continue to generate, as many have consistently argured, could this be the last year of a united Nigeria as we presently know it?
Are there also forces presently at work internally to ensure that the long touted prediction by the American intelligence establishment that Nigeria would cease to exist by 2015 becomes a reality? Millions of Nigerians, especially those worst hit by the Boko Haram insurgency, no doubt wish they know the answers to the perils presently confronting them.
What has become abundantly evident is that certain actions from those presently enjoying their prolonged hangover from their seeming absolute and suffocating control of our state institutions appear more provocative than logical.
I can cite as example the lopsided composition of delegates to the recently concluded national Confab and its endless shenanigans; the needles assault on Shiite Muslims in Zaria and the killing of the sons of Sheikh El-Zakzaki; the glaring partisanship of security forces and the SSS; arrest of northern elements in Abia on mere suspicion; the assassination attempts on General Buhari and the recent pattern of appointments and recruitments into the public service and security forces.
But the worst provocation of all was the way the Boko-Haram injury to our collective national psyche has been allowed to fester with the attendant implication to our national unity and security. In any other democracy but Nigeria, the president would have been impeached for crass incompetence.    
Is somebody, somewhere, hoping that the glaring impotence of the National Assembly will prompt injured parties to seek undemocratic means of effecting change that will surely precipitate the cries the nation is unlikely to survive from?
The sole consolation is that those who enjoy riding on the back of tigers usually end with in their expansive bowels.