Stop Boko Haram Before It’s Too Late

In the 1980s when a religious sect called Maitatsine unleashed mayhem on the northern part of Nigeria, it was crushed with military precision, but not until hundreds of people died and property worth billions of naira were destroyed.

Maitatsine, a Camerounian Koranic teacher and leader of the sect, had denounced the use of radio, bicycle and watches. He even condemned the reading of any book but the Koran.

Several other religious disturbances have claimed lives and properties all through the 1990s until 2009 when another Islamic sect that identified itself as Boko Haram started its own campaign against Western education and began its reign of terror, this time, using bombs and killing innocent people. Efforts to understand and bring to book the perpetrators of this violence has yielded little fruit and the government and security forces seem unable to stem the tide of violence.

The United Nations building in Abuja, the Nigeria Police Headquarters, several places of worship all became targets, and just a few days to the Eid-El-Kabir Muslims celebration, the Islamic sect  bombed the Joint Task Force headquarters in Maiduguri, Borno State. They also killed dozens in Damaturu, the Yobe State capital. Prominent Nigerians have tried to talk members of the sect out of this mindless violence but the killings have continued. We believe the Federal Government should come down harder on members of the sect and probe deeper into the sponsors of the sect.

Just before the general elections that saw Goodluck Jonthan emerge as president, some prominent northerners promised to make the country ungovernable if Jonathan emerges as president. And it is on record that some public officers are behind the formation and arming of the Boko Haram sect for political reasons. Now that they have unchained the dragon, the beast has got out of control and like everything else in Nigeria, the blame game has begun.

But we need not look too far for a solution to this problem. Those who promised mayhem should be thoroughly investigated while those suspected to have been sponsors of the sect should be called and questioned about their complicity in this troubling bombings in which lives are lost.

Security forces and the Federal Government must take more drastic action and stop the foot dragging. The rhetorics must stop and the National Assembly must stand up and tackle this menace before it destroys our nation.

The genocide in Rwanda and resultant wars and conflicts in several parts of Africa started this way. We can’t afford to fold our hands and allow our country to go the same way. The Boko Haram sect cannot be allowed to destroy Nigeria, because that is what their actions imply.

Playing the ostrich has always been our approach to serious issues but this problem is much more than making half-hearted attempts to provide security. This is about security and security is the greatest threat to our continued existence as one country.

If a group of people are asking for the impossible and unleashing mayhem because they can’t get it, must we keep quiet and allow dicontent to grow? Must we allow a religious sect to destroy our collective destiny? We should not. We believe that more decisive action on the part of the Federal Government can solve this seemingly intractable problem. We believe that Nigerian security agencies, if allowed to do their work, can fish out and prosecute the masterminds of these mindless killings.

Religious and inter-ethnic violence have a way of snowballing into something more serious. The government seems not to realise that the violence being perpetrated by the Boko Haram is slowly generating tension and may eventually grow into something worse than we ever imagined. Do we need to wait for Nigerians to take up arms against one another before we act?

Jonathan must act now. His pacifist attitude must give way to a more decisive move to protect his country against enemies, especially enemies from within. Afterall, did he not promise in his oath of office to do just that? And is he not Nigeria’s chief security officer and commander in chief of the armed forces?