There is a flurry of activities everywhere as Nigerians gingerly approach the end of the year. There are feverish prayers in churches and mosques, many thanking God for their good fortunes, the growth in their businesses, and in their families and some sundry successes recorded. Some are also grateful for the many Heavenly benedictions as reasons, including the finding of a wife or a husband while others for such mundane achievements such as owning the first car in their lives. This is the auspicious period in the year in some parts of the country for certain events. It is the period for the annual Igue festival, an elaborate traditional festival with profound spiritual meaning, owned and celebrated by the Binis of Edo State; many other ethnic groups celebrate the end of the year in a variety of ways. The River State Carnival, an innovation of the Chibuike Amaechi's government is waxing beautifully, posing a potent threat to the well-established, older and very picturesque annual Calabar Carnival which enjoys the pride of place as a tourist's toast. This period also enjoys a boom in the acquisition of chieftaincy titles, house warming, burials and even marriages. The tempo of activities is on the increase partly because of the usually long public holidays that accompany the Christmas and the New Year celebrations.But the two events that clearly defined the out-going year were the April 2011 elections and the wave of continuing insecurity ravaging the country. After the infuriating electoral experiences of 2003 and 2007, the last set of elections provided a refreshing departure. For the first time in the management of elections in this country, a renowned professor of impeccable pedigree and of a Northern extraction was appointed Chairman of INEC. He is Professor Athahiru Jega who was at the time of his appointment the Vice Chancellor of Bayero University, Kano. Unlike his immediate predecessor at INEC, Professor Maurice Iwu, reputed for his infantile comics, Jega brought sobriety, seriousness and focus into election management in Nigeria. Though the Elections Tribunals have overturned some of the results, it has been clearly obvious that the 2011 elections were the best in the new democratic dispensation; probably only rivalled by the June 12, 1993 presidential election. Observers from international bodies, foreign governments, professional bodies and the civil society organisations adjudged the 2011 credible. Whatever anybody may think, it is only fair to congratulate INEC and the President for driving a free and fair election. But in the same stretch of thinking, the security agencies deserve serious knocks for not acting promptly to save the lives of the youth corps members who contributed to the success of the election but were attacked and killed by impassioned political hooligans of unclear motives.The challenges of insecurity took a different turn for the worse in 2011. Though these challenges had been tormenting Nigerians for some years now, the complexities it assumed in 2011 rattled the government shell-shocked the people and has continued to assault the very basis of those things that unite Nigeria. It is threatening domestic investments and has virtually put a full-stop into the inflow of foreign investments. The economic activities in some states are virtually comatose.The challenge of insecurity cuts across the country. Kidnapping which is an outgrowth of the agitation for the development of the Niger Delta, the goose that laid the golden egg for Nigeria, became so pronounced both in the South-South and the South-East. It spread marginally to the South-West especially Lagos State. The South-West takes the lead in armed banditry, though its nefarious activities are spread across the country. Boko Haram takes the lead in unleashing violence everywhere in the North but with bases in the North-East. The salient questions to ask are: What Boko Haram wants that necessitates their unceasing and unprovoked attacks by bombing, arson and assassination of the innocent. They say, according to their interpretation of their name in Hausa language which means that 'Western Education is a Sin' and that they would not stop their atrocities until Sharia Law is imposed on the North. These demands amount to arrant nonsense; they are impossible to meet in a country like Nigeria as presently structured. It is only a deranged mind that can contemplate an end to western education in Nigeria, not even in Borno, the home state of the sect.Solutions to the Boko Haram terror must be driven by the government through the security agencies must rise to the level of the challenges with renewed vigour, new but strategic initiatives and actively consider the options of enlisting external assistance and expertise with relevant track record. Also, political leaders who traversed all the corners of the North- Muhamadu Buhari, Nuhu Ribadu, et al and the likes of Adamu Ciroma, the self- ordained apostle of a Northern President must hit the road again, to rebuke openly the activities of Boko Haram with the same passion they campaigned for support. Condemnations through press releases are inadequate and lame. Anyway, some good words must be said about the efforts of the Sultan of Sokoto for open moves and speeches against the sect. He could do more by galvanising his fellow traditional rulers in the North to follow suit. Unless determined renewed and drastic efforts are made now to secure peace, we, as Nigerians may inadvertently be undoing the decision taken by lord Lugard on January 1st 1914.
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