The philosopher-mathematician Bertrand Russell once observed that the cruelest acts are inspired not by hatred but by cold indifference. When I wrote the other week about the children of Chibok, some of my well-meaning readers wrote to ask if I had succumbed to hate. My answer to that is, uhmmm, yes. You cannot whip a child and stop them from crying. That would be double jeopardy. The Nigerian people have been whipped too many times and we have a right to be angry. Angry about the new slavery, about the rape and rapine. I hate murder and the shedding of innocent blood. I solemnly depose that all acts of forced conversion are not from God but from the pits of hell.
For the records: I do not believe it be a Muslim-Christian issue. The overwhelming majority of Muslims despise Boko Haram and what they stand for. Muslims have suffered collateral damage, but they are not the primary target. Boko Haram is undeniably a weapon fashioned by powerful northern interests in their single-minded pursuit of power using the language of Jihad. They aim to weaken the government. Another objective is to decimate the non-Muslim communities in the North and Middle Belt, so that, during 2015 elections, there will be no dissenting vote. We know those bankrolling Boko Haram. And they know themselves – governors, senators, retired generals, members of the political opposition and wealthy magnates.
There are also foreign interests from as far afield as Sudan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Iran. Our American frenemies know more about it than they are prepared to acknowledge. Some of the firearms the insurgents have used have been traced to Uncle Sam. Indeed, have they not been prophesying ad nauseum that Nigeria will disintegrate by 2015?
The project of the American Century crafted by the likes of Zbigniew Brzezinski aims to expand America’s global hegemony by dismembering large nations like Nigeria while checkmating China. This is why Washington appears to be tacitly backing the northern power brokers while consistently refusing to declare Boko Haram a terrorist group. Nigeria’s size and incalculable potential is intimidating. They would rather we became a failed state like the Congo, persistently menaced on behalf of Western interests by mineral-thieving hyenas from Rwanda.
There are secret organizations out there who decide when war should break out and how many people are to die. Jean-Marie Le Pen, the ultra-nationalist right wing French politician, declared that Ebola might be a good solution to the population problem in West Africa and the relentless flow of immigrants trying to reach Europe. When the news of Ebola broke out recently in our sub-region, I did not know what to make of it. Apparently, ideas regarding the holocaust and Shoah are very much in the hearts of some people.
The Boko Haram virus is being spread by the internal and external enemies of the Nigerian people. This is in addition to the global media propaganda that seeks to dismiss this land of geniuses — of Achebe, Soyinka, Awolowo, Aminu Kano and Venerable Father Tansi — as a land of contemptible scammers.
Killings of defenseless peasants are going on persistently and surreptitiously in the ancestral hill communities of Adamawa, Borno and Yobe. None of it is ever reported. A few weeks ago these people launched a savage and unprovoked attack on the town of Manchok in Southern Kaduna; against a defenseless community. Over 300 souls were lost. The other week they descended again upon Kachia. They bombed Jos market again, killing hundreds. The Plateau has been a target because it has the most beautiful landscape and the best weather in our country. What they cannot take, they must destroy.
They have brought the once fearsome Tiv to their knees. They keep a respectful distance from Ombatse land only because the guys are hard nutters. The Roman statesman Pliny the Elder once remarked that there is always something strange coming out of Africa. Ombatse is beyond Senator Solomon Ewuga. Believe it or not, the ancestors of the Eggon have resurrected and have foresworn the enemies of their people. There can be no genuine democracy where minorities continue to rule majorities perpetually as they do in Nasarawa, Adamawa and Kaduna States; with the gerrymandering of constituencies imposed by the erstwhile northern dominated military administration to disempower Middle Belt peoples.
There are some undeniable parallels between Boko Haram and the erstwhile militants of the Niger Delta. Both were sponsored by politicians. Both had the implicit backing of all sorts of foreign vultures. But there ends the difference. Niger Delta groups such as MEND had a clear political goal: they wanted justice for their people and greater share from the oil earnings to compensate for historic injustices and for the awful ecological damage visited upon their primeval forests. Their war aims were legit, even if their methods – kidnapping, bombing and blackmail — were condemnable. But the militants never planted bombs in crowded places, killing people on such a staggering scale. Their targets were mainly infrastructures and oil installations. It is doubtful if the Niger Delta militants could have killed more than 200 people in all their decade of violent agitation. Boko Haram, by contrast, have a harvest of blood exceeding the order of magnitude of 20,000.
We all knew who the militants’ leaders were. We also know that they were in the regular pay of the Governors of Rivers, Bayelsa and Delta. We also know they received money from foreign intelligence agencies in their covert efforts to dismember our country and corner the oil-rich region to themselves as a protectorate of American AFRICOM.
Boko Haram may have started as a homegrown bunch of thugs; but they have metamorphosed into a murderous organization committed to the unlimited war aims of Global Jihad. They aim to wash their bloody swords in the Atlantic Ocean. Very soon the ogres may cross the Great River, where fire meets petrol. By force, by thunder, we must stop them if we are to save Nigeria.
OBADIAH MAILAFIA
