By Bashir Adefaka
As a reporter, my duty is restricted. I could only mirror presentations of people and if I must interpret them it must be within the ambit of their very presentation without distortion, failing which is capable of earning me a court suit for libel or slander. But the coming of social media particularly Facebook created an extra ordinary opportunity for me to go out of my way as a reporter to really vent my opinion about problems of our nation community and people. I have since 2009 done that vehemently and effectively too. Part of those efforts is my warning against hooliganism in our land outside the North of the country.
Recall when Boko Haram started and the Northern people in whose region what later became national disaster were calling on government of Goodluck Ebele Jonathan to come to their aide, we the Southerners were the ones who blocked Jonathan from acting fast, although it might be that he too wanted to be inactive being the man with the maximum power as President and Commander-in-Chief. Particularly the immediate past President of Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor, had a constant comment that he made, that the Boko Haram was nothing but Northern Islamisation agenda. Although Sultan of Sokoto and Leader of arguably over 100 million Muslims of Nigeria, Alhaji Muhammad Sa’ad Abubakar III, repeatedly said there was no reason for anybody to want to Islamise Nigeria because, according to him, it was never done by Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him , be it in Makkah or Madinah and that it would not happen anywhere else by anybody especially in Nigeria just like it would never be possible for anybody to Christianise Nigeria. Although Christian leaders in the country had made many efforts subjecting Muslims to persecution in schools, hospital, public offices and other places they have opportunity to head. Those pleas by Sultan had always entered the deaf ears of the former CAN President and his co-travelers. This way they kept diverting attention from the real problem of facing the country.
I particularly knew that leaders of Yoruba race too like Chief Olu Falae had asked questions why government should dialogue with a people who said education was forbidden thereby trivializing the emerging problem that was to later become a national disaster on which a serious government that came later on May 29, 2015 was to spend billions of dollars after a long time of the nation losing tens of thousands of lives of innocent citizens to the insurgents. Recall that the immediate past government of PDP under Jonathan had earmarked (amount on record) of $2.1 billion to fight the scourge of the Boko Haram when, as a result of insincerity of handling, it later became a terrorist organization. They were asking for justice over the killing of their leader in police custody. They also claimed a particular governor was their creator but PDP mingled with that governor and the rest is now history. Many rumours had come publicly why the leader of the Boko Haram sect was killed in police custody but not even the result of probe by past government is known till today. Another proof of insincerity on the part of the past government of PDP under Jonathan was that even the $2.1 billion released for the fight against Boko Haram insurgency had to be spent by leaders of the same PDP-led Federal Government who shared the monies among themselves allocations in hundreds of millions to their party leaders.
Recall Femi Fani-Kayode, a lawyer, former Minister of Aviation under Chief Olusegun Obasanjo administration and Director of PDP’s Goodluck Jonathan Presidential Campaign Organisation, confessed before EFCC to the fact that the N850 million or so that he got from the money meant to fight insecurity was by his position as spokesman of the campaign organization. He has not only tried pridened himself mocking Nigeria for trying him for the huge loot he called legal but also, he has persistently claimed “as a David” where he said “Buhari is the Goliat”, that President Muhammadu Buhari is facing health challenges because “his EFCC” questioned him how he got the N850 million and other loots traced to him. Fani-Kayode has said more; he said those that faced him among Senators and others had to die and that they died. That is the extent to which corruption has been able to fight back in Nigeria from the hands of people who plunged us as One Nation One People into the security and economic quagmire that we, until recently when Buhari started facing it squarely, found ourselves.
Most disgusting being that the same people that plunged into the security and economic quagmire are the same people vocalizing publicly to blame Buhari for the same problems facing the country. They failed persistently to appreciate that there is difference between a President who created a security quagmire and economic meltdown for the nation and failed continuously for six years to find solution except the entrenchment of lootings hugely, and another who inherited those predicaments his predecessor created for the nation and has not only insisted on getting the nation out of the inherited security quagmire and economic meltdown (recession) but also has been seen to be physically and practically doing it. More unfortunately is that President Muhammadu Buhari’s “I can work with anybody” has led to what many have now rumoured to be human-factor disease of the singularly most popular anti-corruption czar on the continent of Africa.
No wonder Judge Abdul-Jabbar Bolasodun Ajibola CFR, SAN, KBE, LL.D. in a report by The DEFENDER on Friday recommended special Tribunals to try corruption cases for the government to have smooth sail to winning its anti-corruption war against the unfortunately shameless, and proudly too, corrupt people in our land. This is the extent of how corrupt people have continued to cause insecurity in our land and that remains the very factor responsible for cultism activities such Badoo in Ikorodu Lagos and Ogun states, cultism in Rivers, Fulani robbery and kidnap activities particularly in Nasarawa State, militant activities in Nigeria’s Niger Delta area, the secessionist agitation for breakup of Nigeria by some Igbo guys under the aegis of Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) and MASSOB and lead kidnapping activities of a particular billionaire kidnap kingpin from Nnewi, Anambra State and the rest of them. One will be alarmed by the amount of support that the agents of insecurity have garnered from our media practitioners, columnists, lawyers, civil society organizations and other supposedly social media activists in Nigeria. What in that shows that Nigerians are serious about actually wanting to move forward security wise, economically, politically and industrially?
Back to my main message of this piece, I, like other serious minded Nigerians, had warned against the current security challenges in Southern Nigeria. I said yes the North’s problem of Boko Haram was identified and we are making mischievous public noise about it thinking that we are mocking them but that our own problem was imminent which would come from the hooliganism that we encourage in the agberos and political thuggery and particularly ritualist activities that we know but were pretending that we did not know. Today, those cultists are youths who were served with guns by politicians of Southern Nigeria. When they no longer have jobs to do they turned to armed robbers, so much that even some of them who are into trades are no longer satisfied with the proceeds of their trades but can always be pushed by “the devil” into robbery. And don’t forget that the same youths are in a part of the country where ritualists (who call themselves traditional religionists) recruit on daily basis and so they use the benefits of their guns to help ritualists adopt unsuspecting travelers who board vehicles to destinations and through that many lives of Nigerians of Southern part have lost.
Today is Badoo and it now happens that they don’t even operate with guns in most cases as it has been revealed through reports of confessions obtained from the arrested ones by the police in Lagos. They used heavy weight stone to hack people to death and many families have lost their lives to that. It is therefore hoped that we have learned our lessons in the South of Nigeria to now know that mischievous cries over other people’s predicaments do not help but aggravate our own situation that we have kept under as if it did not exist.
I must however thank the security agencies for helping in Lagos and Ogun states. I do hope that the efforts will be extended to other parts of South West just like the Nigerian Armed Forces had helped to curtail the insecurity they proudly caused themselves and the nation in the South East and South South of Nigeria. There is no shortcut to unity, peace and development: ensuring security is key and achieving this is responsibility of all of us.
*Bashir Adefaka, a social media activist, is a Lagos-based media practitioner.
