THE other week, precisely in the afternoon of Friday, January 28, gunmen belonging to the Boko Haram religious sect killed, as admitted in their public notice pasted in parts of Maiduguri, the Borno State Commissioner for Finance and Economic Development and ANPP governorship candidate, Alhaji Modu Gubio, the younger brother of Governor Ali Modu Sheriff, Alhaji Goni Sheriff, two security details attached to Gubio, and three other persons. The following Tuesday, members of the sect killed a senior police officer and wounded his daughter. Since July 2009 when its founder, a certain religious zealot named Mohammed Yusuf, was arrested but killed while in police custody, Boko Haram adherents have killed or maimed policemen, soldiers, and ordinary citizens at will in Borno and Bauchi States.Their grouse, as may be gleaned from the public statement issued after the murder of the Maiduguri Seven, is both religious many churches have been burnt and Christians murderedand politicalthey seek to change the subsisting political order in the land. The group stated that We are actually doing these in order to propagate the name of Allah and to liberate ourselves and our religion from the hands of infidels and the Nigerian government , concluding that This is the time for all of us to rise and change this government and give way to Muslim government.It should be noted, however, that in the face of this position, it is on record that Boko Haram militants, attacked mosques and killed fellow Muslims including the seven killed lately, and at another time, the Islamic preacher Sheik Bashir Mustapha. It is an irony that the public admission by the Boko Haram sect both contradicts and supports Governor Sheriffs ill-considered claim that the killing of his brother and others was political and not the handiwork of the sect. He even went on to say, contrary to so much evidence, that the pattern of the Boko Haram people is to just rush out, shoot in the air, and run into hiding.Boko Haram also has a social root. It is largely populated by young and often educated but unemployed believers who are, in the circumstance, restless and disenchanted with a life of idleness and hopelessness. They are therefore, a ready and willing audience for a preacher who, pooh-poohing western education as valueless in this life and in the life to come, calls on his followers to reject it. This is the meaning and import of Boko Haram. But in an election time such as this and in a political system in which so much material benefits are at stake, the explosive mixture of religion with do-or-die politics makes the threat to the polity even more real and worrisome.Sadly, the security agencies are, from all indications, not at all up to their task. The political leadership also appears so disastrously incapable to secure the state and the citizens. Our country is under threat of various hues from religious fanaticism through ethnic bigotry to political thuggery. These are, in many instances, aided and abetted by persons in high places and/or in law enforcement uniform.The Boko Haram sect is just one of the many threats to this polity. The Nigerian state is riven by an amalgam of sectional grievances, group disaffection, and individual dissatisfaction with the system as currently is, a sense of social dislocation by some and economic exclusion by others, and for most, a feeling of disenfranchisement from the democratic process that denies both the free expression of the will and choice of the people, as well as the benefits derivable therefrom.Nigeria at this time poses a lot of challenges to its leaders and Government must keep this in view and seek a holistic response. But of course, to do so requires that government seeks to understand the cause(s) of the problems, the objectives stated and unstatedand modes of operations of the Boko Haram, as well as others who may be aggrieved for whatever reason.It is disheartening that, faced with such huge task, President Goodluck Jonathan carries on as if each of these problems exists in isolation, localised to its immediate environment. Maybe so. But again, many localised problems have a way of growing into a big problem, unless addressed in time. It may be politically expedient at this time, to play the ostrich with the present state of insecurity in the land. But it is certainly not the right and proper thing to do. Each passing day, precious lives are lost and property destroyed. Woolly promises to fish out the culprits are inadequate. It is indeed a strange response to a serious matter that Governor Sheriff would request prayers for God to intervene in the Boko Haram threat to peace. The people of Nigeria want hard proof that there is a government in charge, one willing and able to secure them and their country.
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