If a society cannot protect and defend the many that are poor, when the tide turns, it will not be able to protect and defend the few that are rich'AnonThe Punch newspaper on Wednesday the 21st of September had the screaming headlines 'Boko haram leader speaks' featuring excerpts from a television interview with Aliyu Tishau, allegedly a co-founder of the Islamic sect Jam'atu Ahlis Sunna Lidda'awati wal Jihad a.k.a Boko Haram. It sure makes interesting reading.It underscores the fact that Boko Haram is not an amorphous faceless masquerade cocooned in mysticism to strike terror at the heart of the rest of us. Secondly it shows that the security forces ' the Police in particular - are not as nonplussed about the group as they would have the rest of us believe. In the interest of all of us, I hope and pray that someone would debunk all the claims made by this guy. If any of the things he said is true, then we still have a long way to grope.The claims in that interview are nothing but a wholesale indictment of politicians and our entire heavily compromised security apparatus. Tishau named various parallel security outfits funded and armed by various state governors. Or is this just an attempt to appeal to popular sentiments as a catharsis for the evils the group has perpetrated on this soil' I wish that were the case so that we could let the group know that we are not impressed, especially after the loss of so many innocent lives.Unfortunately, up till the time of writing this, none of the governors or their representatives have come out to deny these allegations. The Police came up with the effete alibi that it had earlier handed Tishau over to a sister security outfit for further investigation and interrogation. I am even mystified further because I thought that by the constitutional role of the police, the other agencies should be handing suspects over to it' Meanwhile, the Army and the SSS have categorically stated that Tishau was NEVER with them! Haba! Now who is fooling who' The more you look, the less you see.This is the basis of my worry. I am more sceptical now of the security setup in place to checkmate the Boko Haram menace than I am scared of the threat that the sect poses to the rest of us. When push comes to shove, are we really safe outside of the security our faith in God affords us. I shudder!While I was trying to process the Tishau rvelations, I saw on the internet, clips of a gory video of five guys purported to be students of Abia State University gang-raping a female undergraduate of the same university. Her offence' She had been rude to one of them. They took turns to brutalize her mercilessly and filmed the entire episode, showing their victim's face and hiding theirs. The vermin later circulated the video round the school by phone and later the internet.While enraged Nigerians denounced the act and called on the police to fish out the culprits, the relevant authorities simply did what has become their standard trade mark; face-saving denial. The authorities of ABSU denied that such a thing ever happened around them, talk less of the perpetrators or the victim being their students. Besides, the video had been in circulation for several months before it went viral. The police also jumped on the denial bandwagon. And unfortunately so did the Abia State government which further issued threats against anyone who tried to connect ABSU with the episode. Afterall, the victim had not come out to make a formal report. But God was on the girl's side. She has been identified by Project Alert as a student of Abia State University. Three of the rapists have also been identified. Two of them are even on Facebook!Sahara Reporters, the online news portal reports that the rape, which was videotaped and posted online on August 17 2011, took place at 'Maranatha Lodge', an off campus student's hostel near ABSU. Two students, Ifeanyi Ogu Justinand Jonah Uche have been identified by witnesses. A third perpetrator, 'Zaki' was arrested on Friday. Their victim has been located in a safehouse where she and some members of her family have taken refuge for fear of her life. She and her mother are so fearful for their life that the young woman told investigators she was never raped.How so-called responsible people can start denying video evidence without any intelligent investigation beats my imagination. Besides, was the image of the university more important than the dignity of womanhood that was so shamelessly debased by those scoundrels' Now that the victim and some of the culprits have been found, the university and state government officials should just bury their heads in shame, apologise to the nation and forever keep their mouths shut on this matter while justice is allowed to take its full course.But then, if they did, they would not be true Nigerian officials! Just my thoughts!Remember, the sky is not your limit, God is!
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