Enough Of The Bloodletting

The last few weeks have seen an upsurge in the attacks by Boko Haram, this time not only in its traditional northeast axis of Borno, Adamawa and Yobe states but all over the northwest and north central and even beyond. In the wake of this renewed reign of terror, several hundreds of people have been injured, killed or maimed for life while the government looks on helplessly.

It appears the Islamic sect has become a government unto itself; as if these criminals have decided to decimate the population and create fear in the hearts of Nigerians, especially in Northern Nigeria. On Tuesday at the secretariat of the Sabon Gari Local Government area of Kaduna State, an Improvised Explosive Device, IED, was detonated by a young lady with a baby strapped to her back. The blast caused the death of at least 40 people, many of whom were female teachers who had gone to the secretariat for a staff audit.

In Borno, at a military check point in Damboa Local Government, a female suicide bomber detonated an IED killing four people. The North-Central zone of  the National Emergency Management Agency says 44 people were killed while 48 others were injured in Jos, Plateau State.  In Kano a 13-year-old suicide bomber detonated a bomb near the popular Aliyu Ibn Abi-talib mosque in Dengi area of the state, killing herself.

According to the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria, Boko Haram insurgents have destroyed about 850 churches, while the Internally Displaced Monitoring Centre Global Overview says over 975,300 people have fled their homes. It seems there is no end to the carnage. Even the relocation of military command centre to Borno State, the heart of the insurgency, has failed to stop the bombings; in fact it seems to have had the reverse effect.

We believe the military can step up their campaign against the insurgents who have bounced back after they were seemingly degraded just before the general elections in March and April. We think President Muhammadu Buhari has studied the situation long enough to begin to tackle it headlong. Enough of the pussyfooting. There should be a renewed onslaught to stop this wanton destruction of life and properties.

Buhari should immediately reinvigorate the security architecture to totally degrade the capacity of the insurgents to strike in the manner they are doing now. If need be, new blood should be injected into the top hierarchy of the security apparatus to give the war against the insurgents a major boost.

We can’t afford to wait for the insurgency to spread all over the country before decisive action is taken. While we don’t believe in rushing into taking any action that may likely worsen the situation, the new administration of President Buhari would do well to take another look at the military and look for officers who are hungry for challenges and deploy them against the stubborn terrorists. After all the insurgents are not ghosts.

If the whole of Sambisa forest does not yield the criminals, then intelligence officers should be deployed in the right places. Intelligence agencies should complement the patriotic efforts of the troops at the front lines as their roles would be very crucial to the defeat of the insurgents.