BOKO HARAM KILLINGS: ANOTHER REFLECTION OF A SICK NATION.

I have in a couple of weeks had to write about certain issues rocking the stability of our dear country, Nigeria. Having to write this piece in addition to others, makes me so sad that i was almost going to simply write,..
'Dear Nigeria,
Get Well Soon.'

This however would convey nothing but complacence as against the depth of my concern for this country.
Let me be clear from the scratch that I am outrightly opposed to the principles and modus operandi of Boko Haram. It still doesn't fit anywhere in my wildest comprehension, not as a Muslim or a Nigerian, how such principle was intended to be propagated especially if one has to consider their target points and the underlying slogan,' Western Education is a Sin!'. It's simply outrageous.

I have exchanged notes on this matter with respected individuals and one of my conclusions in the course of the exchange was, and is still that, Boko Haram is no where close to MEND as in the case of Niger Delta considering its scope, organisation, underlying ideologies, (permit me to add, Sponsoring Authorities) and above all, style of combat.

What bothers me is the confidence that comes with this shoddy implementation of the anti-west slogan. Targeting the Nation's Military might with locally-made guns, bows and arrows? It's laughable and only laughable can match the folly.

We might however get a better understanding of the overall approach to this crisis if we take a quick look at the colonial history of our country, the period when our collective destiny was re-written and our heritage shortchanged.

The colonial master had at that time deliberately built a monster to terrorise its own people. The psyche of this monstrous structure was so altered to make it intimidate and brutalise its own people under the guise of crisis management.

Our masters christened it the Nigeria Police Force. In our haste to become an independent Nation, we left this menace untamed, a problem we became doomed to battle later.
This is the sad story of the Nigeria Police. Do not forget, none of our colonial master's policing unit has the suffix 'FORCE' though it is still obvious in their policing manner when dealing with Black immigrants.

When our sleep was rudely interrupted with the news of attacks in some Northern states and the attendant death toll, one would have expected a sensible government to manage the crisis and effect necessary arrests that would aid conclusive investigation.
The reverse was offered to my dismay. Our government gave a blank order to an already berserk and under-informed Police and Military force to manage a crisis she had allowed to grow, out of sheer negligence and ineptitude.

Everything immediately became Boko Haram and was guilty of instant death like it was in Mile 12, Lagos, Odi village and Choba in Rivers state (1999), when shoot-on-sight was General Obasanjo's favourite slogan.

The government agents took a step further to confirm their agelong over-zealousness by killing the leader of the Boko Haram sect after his arrest.

This inevitably punctuates whatever investigation we could have called for to understand the workings of Boko Haram and opens a fresh chapter of debate: WHY KILL A MAJOR WITNESS? WHO ORDERED HIS KILLING?

Rather than get an answer, our then rebranding agent, Dora Akunyili, hastily packaged an instance of gross abuse of human right as a blessing to the nation, who is rebranding what?

I am all hears hoping to get my facts right and understand what exactly motivated the killings. No doubt, it was meant to silence the truth but we need to know what truth it is.

Let Nigerian beware.