Time to change guards!

God is not in the business of creating indispensable human beings. Otherwise, we would all be Gods (sacrilegious as it sounds). No man born of woman is so important that the world cannot do without his mortal presence. It is the lot of the public intellectual to speak truth to society, to proffer solutions to […]

God is not in the business of creating indispensable human beings.

Otherwise, we would all be Gods (sacrilegious as it sounds).

No man born of woman is so important that the world cannot do without his mortal presence.

It is the lot of the public intellectual to speak truth to society, to proffer solutions to problems, to dig deep into contemporary morass and unearth the cankerworm for excision.

The truth needs not be nectareous. But truth is unchanging and it is the only quality that sets humankind free.

So important is this principle that the world acknowledges God as the Ultimate Truth.

“But for me, the world would collapse”, is the biggest lie ever told. History is replete with carcasses of potentates, warriors, geniuses and inventors after whose demise the world moved on to even greater achievements.

I’m reminded of the truism in the wise saying of the unknown bard: “In life nobody is indispensable or irreplaceable; including you.

And your replacement will always be better than you. For every Queen Vashti there is an Esther waiting to take your place.

For every Saul there is a David ready to take your place.

For every Eli there is a Prophet Samuel ready to take your place.

Many people due to their position, their talent or their beauty, think they are irreplaceable…how wrong you are!”

I congratulate President Buhari for having the humility to finally come to terms with our patriotic agitation for a change of guards in the security sector, even if he is yet to take the necessary step of bringing in the required new blood without which the current spate of insecurity will persist and, perhaps, worsen.

There is nothing new the current service chiefs can bring to the table that they have not done in the last five years. At least three of them have nepotistically  established universities in their hometowns (as if that was the core function of the armed services) while crying that their armoury is inadequately stocked!

To say that they have something new to offer is to suggest that they were doing less than their best in the past.

They have all tried their best. As things stand, their best is not good enough.

It’s time for new ideas, new faces, new fish in the pond. You cannot continue doing things the same old way and expect a different set of results.

I can hear the distinct echo of the song, ‘Changing of the Guards’, composed by Robert Allen Zimmerman, the singer-songwriter, author, and visual artist better known as Bob Dylan —

I’ve moved your mountains and marked your cards

But Eden is burning, either brace yourself for elimination

Or else your hearts must have the courage for the changing of the guards.

The current spate of insecurity in Nigeria is unprecedented.

In addition to the murderous Boko Haram terrorists, who have turned the northeast of Nigeria into a war ravaged zone and precipitated the incidence of Internally displaced Persons (IDPs) on a larger scale than was witnessed during the Nigerian Civil War, new groups under different cognomens — bandits, kidnappers, foreign herdsmen, trans-border gunmen — all trading in violence and death, have mounted the stage.

In the face of all these challenges, the armed forces have unleashed uncoordinated individual attacks with each arm proclaiming its ‘decimation’, ‘degrading’ and ‘elimination’ of their targets.

Each huffing and puffing chief is fighting his own war and claiming his own ‘victory’.

Contrary to those boasts, however, Nigerians now know that the claim that, “There is no inch of Nigeria under the control of the terrorists”, is simply not true.

Last week, the Borno State Commissioner of Reconstruction, Rehabilitation and Resettlement, Mustapha Gubio, disclosed that five local government areas had become inaccessible and largely abandoned because of the terrorist scourge

“In Guzamala Local Government area, the army base has been destroyed and the security forces were dislodged… Abadam is another town destroyed by Boko Haram; it has the most difficult terrain in Borno State.

“It is about 250 km from Maiduguri, and it has no access road… You can only access the local government through Niger Republic.

“As for Kukawa Local Government, there hasn’t been the presence of the Nigerian Army in the area until last month. For now, there is no single person in Kukawa as I am talking to you now….”

The situation in most states of Northern Nigeria is so dire that Sultan Abubakar recently spoke up: “The repeated massacre of people, as well as the senseless burning of houses and livestock in Borno, Katsina, Sokoto, Zamfara,

Niger States and indeed other states such as Adamawa, Kaduna and Taraba; should give governments and its functionaries at both federal and state levels sleepless nights.”

Truth be told, we talk too much.

When Chad was ready to rout the terrorists in its territory, the army simply unleashed a blitzkrieg, the mother of all military fury, and completely rid the country of the terrorists.

The surviving terrorists moved to ‘safer’ climes in Nigeria. Until victory was secured, Chad did not issue self-congratulating press statements.

By contrast, in Nigeria, we activate so much media frenzy over the mere relocation of the army chief to Borno State. So, what has the relocation achieved?

President Buhari’s legacy is on the line.

What matters is not what he says. It is what he does.

And what he needs to do right away is, following the principle of federal character, appoint new service chiefs and rejig his entire security architecture.

So help him, God.