FEATURE ARTICLE

Temple Chima UbochiThursday, September 18, 2014
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Bonn, Germany

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2014: THE YEAR NIGERIA WOULD NOT FORGET IN A HURRY (4)


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Continued from Part 3

You are what you do, not what you say you'll do (Carl Jung)

Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

Ninety-nine percent of the failures come from people who have the habit of making excuses (George Washington Carver)

There is a point at which everything becomes simple and there is no longer any question of choice, because all you have staked will be lost if you look back. Life's point of no return (Dag Hammarskj�ld)

he insurgents are getting much stronger and deadlier, and have reinforced their base, through the recruitment of some Tuareg fighters, in their offensive against the Nigerian military. This was made known by Cameroon�s Communications Minister, when he said that two Tuareg fighters were identified among the dead, after Cameroon�s military killed more than 100 militants after they fired shells into the small border town of Fotokol. Not only that, Boko Haram, as a designated Al-Qaeda-linked terror group, receives all kinds of support from other Al-Qaeda affiliated groups all over the world. Nigeria�s Chief of Defence Staff, Alex Badeh, confirmed it when he said that weapons recovered during operations were �very alien to Nigerian armed forces, which means there are people from outside fuelling this thing�. As it�s now, uprooting the insurgents will not be easy, because, the Tuareg fighters have been in the business of killing or displacing people for long, and see that as a passion. Also, those foreign fighters are mean; they are experts in land grab and in destabilizing countries, and that�s why Boko Haram was now copying the tactics of the ISIS by declaring a caliphate in the north-eastern part of Nigeria. Those foreign fighters are making Boko Haram more resilient and hard to defeat. Boko Haram is not only increasing its fold with foreign fighters alone, it�s also using forced conscription of young men from neighbouring countries to boost its depleted ranks. It has been revealed that in Cameroon, young men from towns and villages near the Nigerian border have been conscripted with inducements of motorcycles and 150,000 naira in cash as a �signing-on fee�. According to AFP, police in Cameroon�s impoverished far north region confirmed that hundreds of young people had been forced to fight for Boko Haram. The Report said that one police officer confirmed that �Children from Kolofata were conscripted, drugged, manipulated and sent against their own city�.

On the above point, Elombah.com, while reporting that locals of Michika and Gulak of Adamawa state raised alarm on Monday, September 15, over the abduction of over 50 women and undisclosed number of children by the Boko Haram insurgents in the area, added that the latest development happened as the nation continues to clamour for the release of over 200 student girls abducted by Boko Haram insurgents from their school in Borno State where they were writing their West African Examinations Council (WAEC) in April 2014. The Report added that �The Islamist terrorists are increasingly toeing the path of their Islamic State brothers in the Arabian peninsula who reportedly make about $3million monthly from oil, theft and human trafficking including trafficking in sex slaves. ThisDay Reports quoted a source from Husra in Michika as having disclosed that able bodied young men have been conscripted by the Boko Haram insurgents. He said the insurgents conducted preaching sessions to attract converts to their sect but people only listened out of fear. The next day, they asked if anybody wanted to join them, but, there was no response, so they selected many healthy looking young men and asked them to go with them. The source added that one of the victims is his relative who did body building exercise regularly. The source further reported that there are hundreds of people, including women and children across Northern Adamawa State still languishing in the custody of the insurgents.

Further more, the NGRi of Sept. 17 reported that Boko Haram operates freely, as it likes, in that it has installed emirs in Gwoza and Dambua of Borno State, the two towns that fell to the Islamist sect two weeks ago. Senator Ali Dume told his colleagues this, as Senate resumed from its two-month recess on Monday Sept 15, and the Upper Chamber urged President Goodluck Jonathan to declare total war on the insurgents, advising him to mobilize all resources and efforts to that effect. In Senator Ndume�s words: �I represent southern Borno and Gwoza. The challenges we are facing are more serious than what we have faced before. We, the people of southern Borno, particularly Gwoza, parts of Adamawa and Yobe know that it�s presently occupied! I read here on the Senate Order Paper about a threat. It�s no longer a threat; somebody is occupying that place and he has declared it a caliphate! Yesterday, a new emir was installed by Boko Haram in Dambua. The original emir is taking refuge in Abuja. Boko Haram installed a new emir in Gwoza�. Thereafter, a resolution for the declaration of total war, against Boko Haram, came through a motion moved by Senate Leader, Victor Ndoma-Egba (SAN), and other 107 senators, tagged: �Threat to national sovereignty and territorial integrity of Nigeria by insurgents.� The Senate resolved that the Boko Haram challenge had risen beyond mere insurgency to a full-scale war against the Nigerian state. The lawmakers, who know that with Boko Haram�s territorial gains, that some of the senators representing the areas being occupied by the insurgents in Borno, Yobe and Adamawa States have no business again remaining in the senate or seeking re-election in 2015, and that the 2015 general election may not hold in Nigeria, if the Boko Haram�s gains are not reversed, declared that only a declaration of total war by the President will offer a sustainable solution to the menace of the sect. The Senate then resolved that the one billion dollars external loan requested by the President to fight the insurgents be granted with accelerated approval. Hopefully the money will not disappear into private pockets and bank accounts while the threat of insurgency lingers on.

While the Nigerian Army is no match to the superior firing power of the Boko Haram insurgents, their Cameroonian counterparts are the ones making serious moves against the insurgents as we read through The Punch that Cameroonian soldiers have launched further attacks against Boko Haram insurgents, shelling one of the sect's camps inside Nigeria. The Cameroonian soldiers launched the attack across the Nigerian border and killed many of the insurgents. Cameroon has turned into a safe heaven for our security forces, in that once the insurgents start defeating them, they run into that foreign country. That�s unfortunate! Remember that the week before, about 480 Nigerian soldiers ran into Cameroon when the insurgents closed in on them. It didn�t stop there. Cameroon�s military on Sunday September 7, said that another 400 Nigerian soldiers and Customs officers have sought refuge following intense fighting against Boko Haram militants in Borno State. The Sun wrote that the Voice of America (VOA) quoted Cameroon state radio as saying that �on Wednesday September 3, the soldiers arrived at the Cameroonian border town of Amchide, where they handed their weapons to military officials. A week before, 480 Nigerian soldiers crossed over to Cameroon, ostensibly in �hot pursuit of Boko Haram militants�.

Cameroonian soldiers are killing the insurgents, while the Nigerian soldiers are faltering. The Nigerian military should know, just as Joseph Campbell (1904-1987) wrote, that �The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek�. A report has it that villagers living near Sambisa forest in Borno State reported seeing a large number of Boko Haram militants leaving the camp and moving towards southern Borno with their families and possibly many of their hostages with large amounts of cargo in tightly secured convoys to the captured areas recently unmolested and triumphantly.

What the Nigeria Army is good at is the sending of its men against the insurgents with obsolete weapons which makes its personnel to run higgledy-piggledy into a foreign country whenever they face a serious challenge from the insurgents. The insurgents have more sophisticated weapons than the Nigerian military, as the Chief of Defence staff, Air Marshal Alex Badeh, revealed that for the country to win the war against terrorism, there was the need for diplomatic lobbying for foreign assistance in areas of equipment. What happened to the money budgeted for weapons? It�s no secret that some of Nigeria�s senior military officials sold some of the few military weapons in the armory to insurgents. 12 Nigerian soldiers will have to die, having being court-martialled, for shooting at their commanding officer, Major-Gen. Ahmed Abdullahi, who was the General Officer Commanding the 7 Division in Maiduguri, Borno State, in May 14, 2014. The soldiers blamed him for the killing of their colleagues in an ambush by suspected Boko Haram members. Sir Ugo G.C.Umunnakwe captured this writer�s mind when he wrote: �In a civilized society and developed world, these 12 trained soldiers should not face death penalty, they did not plot coup and did not kill their commander. Looking at the whole scenario one will understand that the soldiers commanded by that beast were ill-equipped and not taken good care of. The weapons they carry to fight Boko Haram should supersede the weapon of their enemy Boko Haram for them to succeed victoriously. I would like their sentence be converted to life or some years in prison not death, it is ungodly waste of their precious lives. The government and the military should tamper justice with mercy like other developing and developed world for example U.S and others have been doing. Nigerian military martial law cannot remain primitive and only primitive country can maintain primitive backward laws of the old. Discharge them from the military service and put them in prison to serve some number of years for disobedient period not brutal unethical death sentence that makes no common sense�.

Read more:

https://247ureports.com/?p=56175

Ndiameeh Babangida Babreek, in a report published by Elombah.com, touched the above points and more when he wrote that �As it is now the Boko Haram Islamic terrorists group has grown into a monster that the only solution is disbanding the Nigerian military that is infested with moles, fifth columnists and saboteurs. The only solution to the Boko Haram menace is for each and every community to arm and defend its people. The Daily Trust newspaper and the BBC Hausa service is making every effort to outwit the other in promoting the Boko Haram evil campaign. The already compromised Nigeria military is a source of weapons supply to the terrorists otherwise there is no explanation as for why a brigade of �trained soldiers� will abandon their weapons at the sound of the terrorists guns without even firing a shot. Listening to the BBC Hausa Service and the Daily Trust newspaper coverage of the terrorists pogrom on innocent Christians in North Eastern Nigeria leaves one in tears and agony. If the news from the above news media is true, then as it is now, there are no more Christians in Northern Borno, Central Borno, Yobe State and Northern Adamawa State. What is surprising in all the Boko Haram ethnic cleansing of North Eastern Nigeria Christians is the ease with which they overrun towns and cities. Since the recent surge in Boko Haram attack on towns and villages in Yobe, Borno and Adamawa states, the Sultan of Sokoto has been dead silent. Sheik Mahmud Gummi and Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) have been urging the vampire to fire on. One of the major active sponsors and overt propagandist of Boko Haram in the person of Senator Zannah Ahmed Khalifa has been active on the waves using BBC Hausa Service and the Daily Trust newspaper. With the active connivance of the fifth columnists and the mules in the military, it is a matter of when Boko Haram will chase Christians out of North East Nigeria. As it is now, the predominantly Christian communities like Potiskum, Gwoza, Madagali, Gulak, Michika, Mubi, Biu and Damboa have fallen to Boko Haram. The remaining Christian communities in the North East, North Central and even North West must prepare to defend their communities now. The Nigeria military has failed woefully. The predicted disintegration of Nigeria in 2015 seems imminent. As it is now, �the born to rule Nigeria cabal� are wining using Boko Haram. They made the threat to make Nigeria ungovernable for Goodluck Jonathan. They have carried out the threat to the later. Your perplex is as good as mine as to how Boko Haram acquired many Armoured Personnel Carriers (APC), Anti-aircraft guns, night vision military equipment and many Arabs terrorists fighters. There are hundreds or thousands of Boko Haram�s fighters in detention nationwide, yet not one of the sponsors have been named since the terrorists went violent in 2009. Can Nigeria survive beyond 2015 election if it ever holds? Only time will tell as the future belongs to God�.

The military officials think they can cloak their incompetence in nice words while fellow compatriots are being killed or displaced and Nigeria is being dismembered. Part of the Defence Headquarters� Statement says that: �We therefore urge our citizens not to lose hope or be disenchanted but to remain steadfast and supportive of the military as all steps are being taken to ensure the success of the counter-insurgency operations, especially at this crucial time when our sovereignty is being challenged. With this in mind, it is important to reiterate that the Nigerian military is fully conscious of its obligations to the Nigerian state and remains willing and ready to perform its duties with utmost diligence�. Nigerians are tired of empty words; the military should read what Les Brown (1945) wrote: �Wanting something is not enough. You must hunger for it. Your motivation must be absolutely compelling in order to overcome the obstacles that will invariably come your way�. Rather than engage in war of words, this writer is imploring the Nigerian military to heed the words of Bruce Jenner (1949), where he wrote: �If you want to take your mission in life to the next level, if you're stuck and you don't know how to rise, don't look outside yourself. Look inside. Don't let your fears keep you mired in the crowd. Abolish your fears and raise your commitment level to the point of no return, and I guarantee you that the Champion Within will burst forth to propel you toward victory�.

To be continued!

TIT BITS

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VddBlQ48GH0

THE THANX IS ALL YOURS!!!

Continued from Part 3

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