The problem is leadership

The security agencies in the city were certainly caught flat footed as they didn’t have any answers to the fire power of the attackers. As  usual even before the attackers retreated, the nation was thrown to the usual euphoria of postulations and outright declaration that it was the handiwork of the Boko Haram movement whose […]

The security agencies in the city were certainly caught flat footed as they didn’t have any answers to the fire power of the attackers. As  usual even before the attackers retreated, the nation was thrown to the usual euphoria of postulations and outright declaration that it was the handiwork of the Boko Haram movement whose members were arrested and detained in some police outposts in the city.

In fact I read in of the dailies that the movement had issued a warning of the impending attack which was disregarded by the authorities and the security. The paper reported that the security agencies and ‘Christians’ were the focus of the attack. I am no longer worried about such a hopeless expression of stupidity by those who still live in the shadows of religion and region in the face of these daunting national challenges.

What the so-called daily failed to actualize in its report was how many Christians were killed in the attacks. That is not important to the paper and those who resorted to false alarm. However, one thing that is very clear is the fact that such a narrow prism of the understanding of the national horrors we all face today is clearly an agenda which has since been carefully put in place as a strategy of either gaining access in the competition for national privileges by the contending elites, and which either consciously or otherwise is about to consume those who perpetrated it and even those of us that are innocent.

If the attacks that Kano was subjected to last week Friday were in any other Nigerian city, the level of destruction, fear and anxiety would have been more horrendous. The manner and sophistication of the attack should by now make those who ought to understand to know that indeed the country is poorly governed and is in a big mess.

Clearly, the leadership of the country at the highest level has failed and woefully too. The leadership in Abuja that controls national security is flat and so far incapable of protecting life and property in several parts of the country. The evidence of a failed state is very glaring and facing us straight in the face.

This failure is further amplified by the seeming refusal, I believe deliberately by the powers that be to own up to the fact that all is not well and they are not in control of the situation.

Could it be that truly the Boko Haram phenomenon is merely a fabrication of the state and its security apparatuses? Otherwise from the first bomb in the Jonathan era on the 1st of October, 2010 in Abuja to the last one in Kano, what the president kept saying was that they knew those who are responsible but up till this moment, we have not seen them bring any such person to book.

All we see and hear on a daily basis is one hypothesis or the other and the dominant ones have since not changed, and that all these mayhem that we face are products of certain groups who do not want Goodluck Jonathan to rule. We have heard this time and again and the unfortunate thing is that you hear this from people who ordinarily should know what the situation is. Functional illiteracy is certainly at work in Nigeria and at the highest level.

I think President Jonathan missed the point in church the other day when he claimed that Boko Haram had infiltrated his government and everywhere else. I think the most dangerous Boko Haram that the nation is facing today are those around the president who keep ramming it into his ears that some groups or individuals in the North who do not want his presidency are responsible for the crises.

I am beginning to think that this belief firmly held by the cabal in power is responsible for the failure to understand the magnitude of the issue at stake and even begging to deploy necessary skills to resolve it. You cannot solve any problem unless you understand it and its nature.

Above all, the glaring polarization strategy used by the Goodluck Campaign organization is partly responsible for the fracture in the polity. The desperation to clinch and/or hold on to power led the campaigners to place premium on fault lines and now after victory has been conscripted, it is difficult to bridge the gap so that the bounties of office are enjoyed.

You can see this fault line sensitization going on even when the nation is facing its most trying times. Soon after the subsidy strike, the South-South leaders under Mr. Edwin Clarke went on rampage in the South-West trying to forge an alliance that has never existed. The aim of that visitation was simply an acceptance of the fact that the South-South seem to know that they cannot get it done alone, so they are courting the Western leadership.

If that is gotten, the North can go to hell knowing fully that there exist crack through the political Middle-Belt that can always be exploited to further weaken the North. I am not worried about that because I do know whoever in the North chooses to weaken himself, does so at his or his children’s peril and so we are at liberty to behave the way we want to.

The South-South Elders delegation were moving to fortify support of the South-West for their son at a time when Kano was counting its losses and living in fear and silence. Politics must go on. Again, this shows the collapse of leadership at the top in the country because the message in this is very clear intensification of the politics of dichotomy.

Is it not too late for the leadership to retrace its step and do things right? Do those who hold forte today think that they can superintend over the affairs of the country on the basis of divide and rule? What this simply means and shows is truly, the leadership is incapable and unable to do what others have done at least in keeping Nigeria one.

I hold the leadership responsible and accountable for the national emergency that we face today. Care must be taken to reverse this, otherwise it may be too late for everybody.