In an eerie clime like ours, ugly history keeps repeating itself carelessly. Queer things can never be in short supply. In fact, they take the front burner.
Here, you have them in reckless abundance. You unconsciously wonder aloud if this is actually a country. But, it is. It is a Nigeria made in 1914.
This has been our plight and unpleasant experience since 2002. That was the unkind year we ignorantly took delivery of the dreaded Boko Haram and its insurgents in Yobe State. It was a landmark, but nobody took serious notice.
We naively thought it was a normal birth. That there was nothing suspicious in founding a religious group, if not for the purification of body, soul and spirit.
More so, when such body pretended to be purely an Islamist organization. We genuinely concluded there was nothing awkward about that. But, we forever goofed. We completely missed the point. We did not read well the bloody handwriting on the frightful wall. We are still paying dearly for that eternal error.
A report by Ismail Omipidan in Saturday Sun of June 18, 2011, solidly established that Boko Haram originally came with the radical name of “The Taliban.” And it was actually violent right from the onset.
Excerpts from the report: “Until recently, the group was never known as Boko Haram (Western education is a sin), but it is known to be against Western education and forbids one working in any government establishment. The name Boko Haram may have been given to it by members of the public, because of the group’s opposition to Western education.
“The group, which initially drew membership from the South-West, started off as “The Taliban.” It was first invited to Yobe State during the build-up to the 2003 elections, in the wake of Sharia implementation in the North. The group first struck in Yobe State on December 22, 2003. It struck again on December 31, 2003, in Yobe State, on its way to Borno State, when it engaged in a gun duel with military personnel, a situation that left two of the members dead.
“The group’s initial abode was Burkarti, in Bursari Council of Yobe State before leaving for Kanamma, a border town between Nigeria and Niger. Kanamma is the headquarters of Yunusari Council, also in Yobe State. It is also not far from Gaidam Local Government, where the leader of the group, Ustaz Mohammed Yusuf, hailed from.
“Their first strike in Borno State was recorded on Tuesday, September 21, 2004, when they invaded Bama and Gwoza, where the Area Commander-in-Charge of Bama, Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) Ismail Sirajo, was brutally murdered. And after four days of battle with a combined team of army and mobile policemen, the group was subdued, with about 40 of the members killed.
“A year later, the late Yusuf, leader of the group resurfaced in Maiduguri in Bayan Quarters, where members converged. In one of the encounters with Ustaz Yusuf in 2005, shortly after one of his arrests, he confessed to this reporter that he had since severed his relationship with the Taliban group because of its ‘extremist’ tendencies. He was, however, quick to admit that his group would not relent until an ‘independent and a just state devoid of anything haram (ungodly) was established.’
“Boko Haram firmly regrouped under Yusuf in 2005. From there, the Islamist insurgents became truly global. In the process, it threw up wild and weird characters like Shekau, Mamman Nur and Albarnawi (meaning: Somebody from Borno.)”
Reality actually downed on us when Boko Haram had its major breakthrough. That was the Bama-Gwoza attack of September 24, 2004. We were taken aback.
Ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo could not stomach it. The military traits in him would not allow that. He ordered his Assistant Inspector-General of Police (AIG), Operations, Mike Okiro, into action. And it was promptly crushed.
But Boko Haram refused to be subdued. Instead, it grew in strength and spirit. It expanded beyond our borders. To show the hard stuff they were made of, the insurgents diversified. They ventured into suicide bombing, and it “handsomely” paid off for them.
They tested this new strategy on June 16, 2011. The suicide bombing was carried out by one Mohammed Manga, 35, on the Police Headquarters, Abuja. It missed its prime target, the then Inspector-General of Police (IGP), Hafiz Ringim. He had boasted in Maiduguri, Borno State, that the days of Boko Haram were numbered.
Since then, they have been making inroads and recording immense successes. They effortlessly inflicted heavy losses and damage on us.
Their greatest prey being the police and the military in that order.
Against all odds and permutations, Boko Haram continued to forge ahead. It improved tremendously on both its intelligence and tactics.
It took the world by surprise on April 14, 2014. We woke up to behold the audacity and courage of the terrorists.
Seamlessly, they attacked Chibok in Borno State and abducted 276 schoolgirls. It was not done under the cover of any night. They came in Hilux vehicles and harvested the innocent girls away without any resistance.
It took the Goodluck Jonathan government weeks to come to terms with the stark reality. And when it pretended to take action, it was so shoddy. The matter was poorly handled, because the government did not initially believe that there was an abduction.
It was a great tragedy on the part of Jonathan. Till date, we still have 112 of them in the “Diaspora” in the so-called Sambisa forest, Borno State. The lucky 164 were freed through heavy compensations to Boko Haram and swap of their deadly commanders.
So far, Boko Haram has taken us through a tumultuous journey from Chibok to Dapchi. The same scenario that played out in Chibok was repeated in Dapchi.
Even more disheartening, the same template used by government in Chibok is being perfected by government in Dapchi. The army and police are still at loggerheads over the true situation in Dapchi.
The Nigerian Army admitted pointedly that its troops were withdrawn from Dapchi before the schoolgirls were abducted; insisting it “handed over the security of the area to the Nigeria Police Division.”
Police instantly responded: “There was no time that the military informed the police of its withdrawal or handed over its locations in Dapchi town to the police.”
Again, government should learn to talk less in this unconventional war against the Islamist sect. It is not about microphones, neither is it about rhetoric. It is not about talk show either.
This war is essentially about intelligence gathering. So far, Boko Haram is excelling in this vital aspect of warfare. And it is a sore point on the part of government.
Government should keep its game plans to its war chest. It has been a sad pattern. Each time government boasted of its so-called exploits against the insurgents, they sprang surprises. They struck even in greater dimension and where it hurt most.
We ought to have picked some useful lessons from this since 2002. Pray somebody, somewhere, is listening and taking vital notes.

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