For those who may recall, Nigeria’s former president, Goodluck Jonathan, was heavily criticised for his inability to deal with the six-year insurgency in Nigeria’s North-East. This, among other things, paved the way for the victory of current President, Mohammadu Buhari, during the 2015 elections. Many voters felt that, being an ex-military man, the incoming president would exterminate the plague of insurgency bedeviling Nigerian terrains with some ease.
Since President Buhari assumed office in May 2015, he has consistently assured Nigerians that overcoming the challenges of insecurity remains one of the core agendas of his administration, just as he had promised during his campaigns. Nigerians can still recall the vow he made that “Boko Haram will soon know the strength of our collective will.”
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This saw the president, in his first week in office, relocate Nigeria’s defence command centre to Maiduguiri, Borno, the hot bed of Boko Haram activities at the time.
Earlier in that year, long before the relocation order, the Multinational Joint Task Force (MNJTF) headquarters in Baga, Nigeria, was overrun by Boko Haram militants, with the town totally destroyed and many local residents killed. Following his assumption of office, Buhari reinvigorated the political process of expanding the MNJTF which saw a swifter process that led to the relocation of its headquarters to Chad’s capital, N’Djamena, including the expansion of both the mandate and the number of troops.
As the challenges of insecurity persist, there have been warring polemics as to whether the Buhari-led administration in the last five years has recorded any success. While some are of the view that the fight against insecurity has recorded very limited success under the Buhari-led administration, others have acknowledged some remarkable strides made by the federal government under President Buhari. In view of those remarkable strides, Femi Adeshina, media aide to the President, has urged Nigerians to be grateful for government’s ability to respond well to the challenges of insecurity that had ravaged the country prior to his assumption of office. The presidential media aide who was speaking on national television opined that Buhari has done well in ensuring the security of lives and property in the country. Mr. Adeshina did not mince words in stating that his principal was winning the war against insurgency. His words:
“Yes, there are times, a week, two weeks even a month that you don’t have all these things happening. There was a time in the immediate past when they happened daily several times. You talked of one bombing within three or four days. There was a time in this country when bombs went off like firecrackers every day.
“There could be five, six bombings in one day. Now, you can have two, three months with no single case of bombing. Let’s be thankful for small mercies. Any mercies we receive, let’s be thankful for it, and let’s not dwell on negatives alone.
“Life is taking the rough and smooth together. So, sometimes we see when things go on for days, for weeks with no negative developments, let us emphasize those ones. We have challenges but these are not the constants in the country.
The presidential spokesperson averred that Nigeria, like every other country in the global space is going through her own problems of insecurity. He noted that top countries in the world were not left in extrication in the upsurge of global terrorism: “All over the world, security is a continuous thing and even the most advanced countries are still working at it.”
Those who have failed to recognise the efforts of the President, especially those who are screaming, “we are losing the war against terrorism”, and “Buhari has failed Nigeria”, are clearly oblivious of the intricacies of the situation. They do not realize, like Femi Adeshina noted:
“There are certain things in which you don’t have control of all the variables.
“If you don’t have all the variables, you don’t then begin to give timelines. And security is not one of those things that you will give a timeline to say by this time to this time, we will achieve this.”
Even so, a number of strides is worthy of mention. So far, bomb blast and suicide bombing have almost become a thing of the past. 14 local governments within the North-east where the insurgents had major footholds have been recovered. A greater part of Sambisa forest, the very base of the terrorists, has been cleared, pushing back the insurgents. This is alongside several victories recorded by the military against the insurgents.
The recent rescue of over 300 abducted boys in Kankara will forever remain one of the great highlights of the Buhari-led administration in the fight against terrorism. Like Bola Ahmed Tinubu stated, the Kankara school boys rescue vindicates Buhari “in his untiring commitment and determination to rid the country of insecurity and confront Boko Haram insurgents and bandits operating in some parts of the country.”
It is perhaps instructive that this does not disregard the presence of insecurity in the country. It only indicates the pace of significant progress in the overall fight against insurgency. Unfortunately, a number of people have continued to talk down on the efforts of the president as well as the Nigerian military, while disregarding the implications it has on its morale.
This is why Senior Special Assistant to the President, Garba Shehu, in one of his five takeaways from the Kankara rescue operation, stated that “Our Security Forces often do not get the accolades they deserve”. This, he feels is specially engineered by those he describes as “merchants of misfortune”.
Throwing more light, while speaking on those who continue to peddle false narratives concerning the country’s integrity in the fight against insecurity, Shehu stated:
“There will always be profiteers from other people’s misfortune. The lack of patriotism shown by few unnecessary elements in our moment of national distress is crass, shameful and despicable. If they are not directly affected by a tragedy or no immediate family member involved, it is fair game for them and time to gloat or even make a few fast bucks. Indeed, emergency activists thought they could cash in on these schoolboys and their parents’ misfortune devoid of their conscience. While patriotic Nigerians prayed for the boys’ quick return, these merchants of fortune were renting crowds, creating certain suspicious hashtags, opening bank accounts for the sole aim of soliciting funds for a cause they thought would linger. What will they do now with the one million T-Shirts they have produced? This is hugely shameful. These scavengers should now be honourable enough to refund the monies they have so far collected for the now futile campaign to discredit their fatherland.”
Shehu therefore joined other well-meaning Nigerians in lauding the efforts of the military. His words:
“Once more, the Nigerian Military has delivered on the big stage. They had a plan, kept to it, and got the job done without firing a single shot. This is important because one casualty, one dead schoolboy, could have traumatized President Buhari and the parents. One dead student would have tainted the rescue mission. The President wanted the boys back alive and delivered to their parents. As a compassionate father figure, he would have been pained if one life had been lost in the rescue process. Bravo to the Nigerian Military and our security agencies for a well-coordinated and professionally executed mission to the President’s order reuniting the boys with their parents. There are not enough words to thank our gallant men and women in uniform, the military that continues to make sacrifices for many of us to enjoy and express our freedoms in its various forms and shapes. Millions of appreciative citizens applaud the success of the Army in bringing back the Kankara Schoolboys. Well done, boys!”
It is also important to see that insecurity goes beyond such stereotypes as kidnapping, armed robbery and banditry. It includes every activity that brings about disruption of national peace, and like Lai Mohammed avers, we have seen the Buhari-led administration function in this capacity. The emphasis of Minister of Culture and Information was on the EndSARS protest where public and private properties were destroyed. Fortunately, the NA “who are constantly battling Boko Haram insurgent in the war field had to intervene” to salvage the polity that was plunging in the direction of disintegration and anarchy, given inciting comments, demonstrations, and donations from hijackers of the original campaign against police brutality.
While the fight against insurgency has not recorded the desired degree of success, it would be a case of deliberate mischief to discredit the successes recorded so far, as well as the efforts of the Nigerian Military, that has shown itself capable of delivering results safe for paucity of funds, among other technical setbacks. According to Femi Adeshina, Nigerians have to be patient as “security is not one of those things that you will give a timeline to say by this time to this time, we will achieve this.” According to him, this type of “Patience must be elastic” as the situation we are in, and as it is in other climes, does not require getting to a point and you say patience has run out. “Patience must be a continuous thing.”