THE saying that power belongs to the people
found practical expression in Adamawa State on
Wednesday. With the monumental failure of the
military to checkmate the rampaging army of the
Boko Haram sect, which in recent weeks, has
overrun many towns in Borno and Adamawa
states, the people decided to take their destiny in
their own hands. Local hunters, armed with bows
and arrows, flushed out the dreaded Boko Haram
insurgents from Maiha, one of the numerous
towns earlier captured by the sect in the North
East, killing no fewer than 75 sect members in the
process. They followed this up a day later with
another offensive on the sect in Mubi, flushing
out its army of occupation and killing the stooge
they installed as the new Emir of the town.
Armed with Dane guns, bows, arrows, cudgels
and amulets, the brave hunters confronted the
army of insurgents that had humiliated our
military, capturing town after town and forcing
our soldiers to flee with their tails between their
legs. Before Wednesday’s exploits by the brave
hunters the news media were frequently awash
with tales of Nigerian soldiers fleeing to
Cameroun in their hundreds at the sight of the
army of the dreaded sect. And while the
authorities of the Nigerian Army told the worried
public that the soldiers only made a tactical
detour into the neighbouring country, it is on
record that many of the soldiers deployed to fight
insurgency are currently on trial for mutiny. And
for the first time in history, we had soldiers’
wives protesting the deployment of their
husbands to Boko Haram enclaves.
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Coming barely 24 hours after President Goodluck
Jonathan declared his decision to vie for four
more years in office, the hunters’ action was an
eloquent and unambiguous passage of a vote of
no confidence in the ability of the armed forces
and their commander-in-chief to protect the lives
of hapless inhabitants of the South East zone
against the ruthless sect that has slaughtered the
people in thousands. Like his predecessor, the
late Umaru Yar’Adua, who ordered the military to
quell an uprising the sect began in parts of the
North in 2009, President Jonathan had every
chance to nip the activities of the sect in the bud
after the Christmas Day bombing of Saint
Theresa Catholic Church, Madalla, near Abuja
where 42 worshippers were killed in 2011. But
rather than move decisively against the sect, he
adopted a phrase that has since become a
mantra: “We will name their sponsors.”
So, when the sect bombed the United Nations
House in Abuja, the President said: “We will name
their sponsors. When they attacked churches in
Yola, Gombe, Bauchi, Maiduguri and other parts
of the North, the President said: “We will name
their sponsors.” When they unleashed terror on
markets and motor parks in Kano, Kaduna, Abuja
and other parts of the country, the President said:
“We will name their sponsors.” When they
attacked prisons in Bauchi, Bama, Gwoza,
Kotonkarfe and other parts of Nigeria, setting
thousands of prisoners free and killing scores of
prison officials and inmates, the President said:
“We will name their sponsors.”
Weary of empty promises and shocked at the
ease with which the sect took over Mubi, the
second largest town in Adamawa, while the
soldiers on ground simply abandoned the armoury
and fled, the people decided that the time had
come to take their destiny in their own hands. The
people borrowed from the Yoruba saying that
when a load defies the head and rejects the
shoulder, there is yet another place you can keep
it. They were simply not taken in by yet another
pledge by the president during his declaration of
interest in the 2015 presidential race that he
would not take a flight in the face of the security
challenges that have rocked that part of the
country since 2009.
The demystification of the dreaded sect by
hunters who tread where soldiers dread appear to
lend credence to the conspiracy theory of the
Boko Haram crisis. Although the Federal
Government has vigorously denied it, Nigerians
are increasingly alligning themselves to the view
that the crisis in the North East is being fuelled
by the PDP-led government for political gains.
The reasoning is that the North East is a
stronghold of the All Progressives Congress
(APC), hence there is a grand plot by the ruling
party to make it ungovernable in order to ensure
that elections are not held in that part of the
country in 2015. Such a situation would put the
APC at a disadvantage and brighten the chance
of the ruling party to sustain its ambition to rule
Nigeria for 60 years.
Two major developments have lent credence to
the foregoing. The first was the confession of the
Australian negotiator, Steven Davis, that Nigerian
politicians were sponsoring Boko Haram. He went
ahead to name specific individuals as sponsors of
the group and the Central Bank of Nigeria as the
financial institution that helps the sect to move
funds around. Although the Federal Government
was quick in refuting the allegation and
distancing itself from Davis, subsequent events,
including the President’s clandestine rapport with
some individuals accused of funding the group.
Also of great concern to observers was the ease
with which the sect captured Mubi after the
soldiers deployed to guard the city capitulated
without firing a shot. Not a few residents of the
city raised the alarm that the soldiers were only
acting a script prepared by a higher authority, a
view that has been stregthened by the relative
ease with which cudgel-wielding hunters flushed
out the sect from Mahia and Mubi.
The exploits of the hunters could signal the
beginning of a major revolution in our national
life. The subtle declaration of loss of faith in the
ability of the government of the day to secure the
people’s lives in the face of clear and present
danger could rub off on other Nigerians who
could now live with the belief that entrusting their
future in the hands of the current administration
could amount to suicide.
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