That question can be posed in another way: Can President Goodluck Jonathan go into Sambisa Forest? The point is that the question of willingness is closely allied to that of capability. But before one goes on to look at the issue of capability, it is important first to settle that of willingness because that is at the very heart of President Jonathan’s administration’s strategy towards prosecuting our own battle against terror.
From the very beginning when the terror insurgents resurfaced during his administration, President Jonathan had showed himself incapable of rising to the challenge. He lacked the will to take on the terrorists and failed to exercise the power invested in him as president to bring the terrorists to their knee. He was all too tentative, in turns weak and vacillating on what to do.
Even though what he needed to do was clear –crush the rising revolt with one firm and determined blow and thereafter take the initiative from the terrorists- he was clearly unprepared for it. More so, as the Northern oligarchy that lost the election that brought him into office were yet breathing fire and speaking from both sides of the mouth about the dangers posed by the terrorists. It’s no wonder today that he is effusive in his gratitude and showering of praise on Mohammadu Buhari for his belated condemnation of the terrorists.
But lacking both the decision and the decisiveness to act, the President went about making virtue of his weakness by saying he wanted to respect the law and avoid the mistakes of Odi and Zaki Biam. But the criminalities that prompted the military outrage of Odi or Zaki Biam were not the handiwork of terrorists. Yet, Jonathan blossomed in weakness and continues today to luxuriate under the delusion of respecting the rights of beasts who are neither human nor respectful of the minimum standards of human relations. He dithered way too long in the pit latrine that flies now swarm around him.
He allowed the sore of intermittent outbursts of hoodlums to fester into the cancer of routine terrorism with international dimensions. Now Nigerians wonder how things got to this point where terror has taken over our land, where school children are shot on their way to sit public examinations and hundreds of teenage school girls are rounded up in their hostels and herded into forests within national territorial spaces known to the ruling authorities. The impunity of terror is spreading fast as was reported in parts of Mushin in Lagos where rival criminal gangs terrorised, robbed and raped residents for many hours without a whimper from the police.
Which brings me back to my earlier question- Will Jonathan go into Sambisa Forest, will he, can he effectively deploy the apparatus of state power to take on the terrorists? For his initial lack of initiative, he now has a tough row to hoe. His job has been compounded and he cannot and must not expect any relief any time soon- not when his thoughts are wholly directed at retaining his tenancy at Aso Villa.
His strategy against terror, if he has any, has become too routine to be effective just as the battle his poorly motivated, battle-weary military pretended to be waging against the terrorists has been too much prolonged. You don’t have to be Hannibal, heard of Napoleon, read Sun Tzu or fought alongside Shaka to know nothing good can come out of it. It is a non-starter of a battle. We need not confer the grandeur of war on these boys scout-like skirmishes yet. So let nobody call this a war on terror.
The postponed meeting between the President and the state governors last week confirmed the routing bog into which the response to the reign of terror has fallen into. The much anticipated meeting was an anti-climax as all that came out of it was the same call on the military and the security agencies to work to rescue the abducted school girls. Wonder what comfort this would be to their traumatized families.
SOURCE VANGUARD