Amnesty International, in the tradition of its vintage self, Thursday, May 9, squarely chided the Nigerian Security Agencies for failing to heed warnings which could have successfully averted the Boko Haram attack on the Chibok Government Girls Secondary School and the subsequent abduction of over 270 girls by the insurgents in about the weirdest terror fashion in history.
This reprimand is significant indeed. Its significance dwells not necessary on whether or not the testimonies and the subsequent warnings they led to were just and justifiable – normally, the Global Human Rights Watchdog’s verdicts have attracted a wide range of contrasting comments and interpretations – but on its vindication of a substantial section of the global public that the failure of the Nigerian Military to successfully battle the four-year-old insurgency is solidly founded on a grand mischief aimed at annihilating a section of the Nigerian population, among numerous other related interpretations and verdicts.
“Damning testimonies gathered by Amnesty International reveal that Nigerian security forces failed to act on advance warnings about Boko Haram’s armed raid on the state-run boarding school in Chibok which led to the abduction…” Amnesty International reported in its official Newsletter.
Even the Nigerian Defence HQ’s swift dismissal of the Amnesty International’s claim as “unfortunate” could not blunt the shaft of the Global Human Rights Watchdog’s verdict at piercing into the global public’s swollen emotions over the insurgency and corroborate them on the ‘deliberate’ failure of the Armed Forces Joint Task Force (JTF) to quell the Boko Haram insurgency.
Over the last four years, there has been a steady increase in public irritation over what the public describes as the Nigerian Military’s obstinacy at admitting the bitter truth that it not only failed to nip the insurgency in the bud but has, all along, ‘deliberately’ trifled with the need to adequately prepare and victoriously battle the insurgents with the adequate arms that match the ones they wielded, in spite of the country’s possession of stupendous wealth with which all state-of-the-arts potent arms can be purchased to outmatch those of the insurgents.
The global public is, again, vindicated on this by the Wednesday, May 14 mutiny of the Maimalari Cantonment, Maiduguri, soldiers over what they described as the military authorities’ deliberate failure to adequately equip them for a victorious fight with the insurgents, a situation that has led to the killing of hundreds of their colleagues at most attacks by the insurgents, as well as the ‘deliberate’ delay in the payment of their allowances by the military authorities which has often left them hungry and weak for the comparatively more energetic insurgents to mow down with ease.
The vindication of the global public by this mutiny seems so forceful that even the institution of a board of inquiry into the mutiny by the Defence HQ does not seem to give any clue as to the military authorities’ ability to adequately defend itself against the raging public opinions and fears over a ‘grand mischief.’
The Global Human Rights Watchdog’s reprimand leads the public into a chilling discovery of the shocking degree of the Nigerian military’s ‘mischievous’ intransigence on the widening range of constructive criticisms and productive advices from numerous sections of the global public on how to go about quelling the Boko Haram insurgency.
The horrendous situation at hand: The Nigerian security agencies blatantly refuse to heed warnings and advices on planned assaults by the insurgents and how to victoriously fight them; hundreds of troops and innocent civilians are downed by the insurgents at most assaults; the Defence HQ prevaricates and even misrepresents facts about true situations; the insurgents gather more strength and resources; meanwhile, the brunt of the blame on the entire appalling terror situation in Nigeria massively descends on President Goodluck Jonathan.
Whether or not President Jonathan can be exonerated is a matter of opinion. A major section of the public is always tempted to blame the president squarely for the terror situation in Nigeria, oftentimes in a rather affronting and confrontational tone, leaning on politics and on the principle that a leader must always take responsibility for whatever adversity befalling the entity he or she leads. Another section see the president as in a very difficult situation over how to go about being “on top of the situation” with the imperative of acting mainly on the advices of his ‘competent’ aides.
The fact is: President Goodluck Jonathan, an individual Nigerian citizen, acts on the advice of his ‘competent’ security agents and some political notables and outfits on the terror situation in Nigeria. He was competent enough to appoint them to their various capacities; they do not seem competent enough to do the work he has entrusted them with or, when necessary, advise him honestly and purposefully on how to go about helping them to do the work as well as required.
I rest my case.