Soldiers on Government Sanctioned Mass Suicide Mission

By Farooq A. Kperogi, Ph.D.

Twitter:@farooqkperogi

The Wall Street Journal’s disturbing July 31 report of the secret mass burial of at least a thousand Nigerian soldiers who were murdered by Boko Haram terrorists has, once again, brought to the fore the conscienceless villainy and duplicity  of the Buhari regime and its illegal service chiefs who have overstayed their statutorily mandated length of service by  several months.

The regime never stops to claim that it has “defeated” Boko Haram even when indisputable evidence to the contrary stares it in the face. In late last year, for instance, it was reported that Boko Haram had murdered hundreds of Nigerian soldiers. Yet the federal government did not consider it fitting to acknowledge the tragedy, much less condole with the families of the deceased soldiers.

In fact, on the day the fallen soldiers were given an undignified mass burial, Buhari met with APC senators who’d threatened to defect to other parties. Several reports have also surfaced to show that soldiers fighting on the frontlines are owed several months’ worth of allowances and that many of them are now practically beggars.

TheCable’s September 21, 2018 investigations show that the military men fighting Boko Haram are practically being forced to commit suicide because they are severely ill equipped. I also shared videos on Facebook and Twitter yesterday of Nigerian soldiers battling what seem like Boko Haram terrorists with obsolete, barely functional guns. That’s why they are sitting ducks for Boko Haram. They are on a government-sanctioned mass suicide mission.

In other words, there is no difference between President Goodluck Jonathan and Muhammadu Buhari in the prosecution of the war against Boko Haram. Well, the only difference is that the Buhari regime has been more effective in muzzling the press, in intimidating private individuals in the northeast into not disclosing the true situation of the Boko Haram insurgency in the region, and in enlisting well-heeled individuals in its propaganda efforts.

What is now coming to light in spite of government’s studious efforts to suppress it supports my column of February 24, 2018 titled “Bursting the Myth of Buhari’s Boko Haram ‘Success’.” Almost everything I said in that column is bubbling to the surface now. The sanguinary in-fighting among Boko Haram members, which I said was the biggest reason for the lull in its attacks between 2016 and early 2018, has now subsided considerably.

I have taken the liberty to reproduce portions of my previous article, which seemed incredulous to many people when it was first published:

A false narrative that several people cherish about the Buhari government is the notion that its singular greatest achievement is its success in containing, downgrading, or defeating Boko Haram. It’s like a consolation prize to compensate for the government’s abject failure in every index of governance. I recognize that taking away the consolation prize of Buhari’s Boko Haram success narrative would cause psychic and cognitive dislocation in many people…

But the question I always ask people who talk of the Buhari administration’s “success” in “downgrading” or “technically defeating” Boko Haram (whatever in the world that means) is: what exactly has Buhari done that hasn’t been done by his predecessor to bring about his so-called success? The only intelligent answer I’ve received is that he ordered the relocation of the command center for Nigeria's military operation against Boko Haram to Maiduguri. Well, that’s commendable, but it conceals the unchanged, sordid underbelly of military authorities.

For instance, the military is still severely underfunded and ill-equipped. Soldiers on the front lines are still owed backlogs of allowances; several of them still starve and survive on the goodwill of do-gooders. Two videos of the heartrending conditions of our military men fighting Haram went viral sometime ago, and military authorities were both embarrassed and caught flatfooted. I periodically speak with my relatives and friends in the military fighting Boko Haram, and they say little or nothing has changed, except that propaganda and media management have become more effective. The fat cats in the military still exploit and feed fat on the misery of the foot soldiers.

Even on the symbolic plane, which is the easiest to navigate, Buhari hasn’t been better than his predecessor. He did not visit our foot soldiers in Borno to boost their morale nor did he visit IDPs whose misery has become one of the most horrendous humanitarian disasters in the world. He only visited Borno on October 1, 2017—more than 2 years after being in power—to celebrate Independence Day with the military after so much pressure was brought to bear on him by critics. There are three major reasons why the intensity of the Boko Haram scourge has subsided, none of which has anything to do with Buhari’s policies on Boko Haram.

One, our foot soldiers, like always, have never wavered in their bravery and persistence in spite of their prevailing untoward conditions. This isn’t because of the president; it is in spite of the president.

Two, Boko Haram has been weakened by an enervatingly bitter and sanguinary internal schism. Since at least September 2016, the Abubakar Shekau and Abu Musab al-Barnawi factions of Boko Haram have killed each other more than the military has killed them.

Three, and most important, the conspiracy theories and tacit, if unwitting, support that emboldened Boko Haram in the north because a southern Christian was president have all but disappeared, making it easy for the military to get more cooperation from the local population. Remember Buhari said, in June 2013 in a Liberty Radio interview in Kaduna, that the military’s onslaught against Boko Haram amounted to “injustice” against the “north.”

Babachir David Lawal, then a CPC politician, infamously said Boko Haram was a PDP plot to “depopulate” the northeast because the region doesn’t vote PDP. As my friend from the northeast noted on my Facebook page, “Borno elder Shettima Ali Monguno used to call BH ‘our children’ and he only stopped after he was kidnapped for ransom by the group.”

The Northern Elders Forum in 2013 said Boko Haram members should be given amnesty, not killed. Even then PDP chairman Bamanga Tukur said in 2011 that “Boko Haram is fighting for justice. Boko Haram is another name for justice.” Several Borno elders and everyday citizens protected Boko Haram members and frustrated the military.

In fact, in June 2012, Borno elders told the government of the day to withdraw soldiers fighting Boko Haram terrorists from the state. (But when the military dropped a bomb and killed scores of IDPs, these Borno elders didn't even as much as say a word of condemnation.)

I published letters in 2014 from Borno readers of my column that said the people would rather live with Boko Haram than cooperate with the military because they believed the military was part of a grand plot to annihilate them. The military was so frustrated that it almost wiped out the entire village of Baga in April 2013 when residents provided cover for Boko Haram insurgents who escaped into the area. I wrote to condemn the military at the time.

All this changed because the president is no longer a Christian from the south. Buhari isn’t just a northern Muslim; his mother is half Kanuri, and that’s why most (certainly not all) people from the region intentionally exaggerate the extent of safety and security in the region even when the facts give the lie to their claims. It's all ethnic solidarity.

Because someone with some Kanuri blood in him is president, Boko Haram is no longer a plot to depopulate the northeast. No northern elder is pleading amnesty on the group’s behalf. The group is no longer fighting “for justice.” Killing them is no longer “injustice” to the “north.” And everything is now hunky-dory. Ethno-regional bigotry will be the death of Nigeria.

Work in Progress: To Love a Woman By Sunny Jack Obande

Sunny Jack Obande

Wilfred was indeed surprised when he got home at few minutes to six that evening and met Rita’s absence. It was unlike her; she usually arrived home before him especially since her office closes at 4pm, an hour earlier than his does. In addition, on the occasions that she opted to stop over either at her hairdresser’s place or to pick a few confectioneries from the stores, she’d always put a call through to intimate him of her movements.

At first, Wilfred figured she might possibly have taken a stroll to the mall in the neighborhood to get one household item or the other. This thought was reinforced when he remembered she had complained days earlier on the need to restock the condiment in their food store, as they were already low on supplies. 

He thought to himself that the quarrel they had the previous night might be the reason she had refused to call him. He picked his mobile phone to dial her number to know where she was, but sheer pride got the better of him and he quickly changed his mind. 

After a brief consideration, he reckoned that he should not be the first to break this particular deadlock. Rita had really disrespected him by daring to open her mouth and called his actions childish. She should learn to apologize anytime she misbehaved or said something wrong. 

With these thoughts, running through his mind and giving him a feel-good air of vindication, Wilfred decided to attend to his plants in the small garden at his backyard while he awaited her return. He loved to spend time with these plants whenever he was less busy. To him, gardening was a form of leisure that should be cherished. Moreover, his plants were flourishing thanks to the packet of specially formulated fertilizer that Mr. Wang had brought to him as a gift from China.

Mr. Wang was one of the foreign experts engaged by NIGCOMSAT to oversee the company’s other ground control base station located in faraway China. He had gradually taken a liking to Wilfred in the course of his repeated consultative visits to the Nigerian office and had promised to bring him this special fertilizer on his next visit after learning that Wilfred loved gardening. 

The Chinese man had eventually delivered on the promise and even gone ahead to demonstrate to Wilfred, in faltering English, how to sprinkle the fertilizer uniformly around the mulch soil of each plant after which he should endeavor to irrigate immediately.

“Do...every two weeks... for good plants... grow... fast,” Mr. Wang had gesticulated to him in his funny English, smiling proudly to show off badly stained teeth. He was a gangly man with smouldering cigarette sticks eternally hanging from the side of his mouth.

Wilfred had done as he was taught by Mr. Wang and his garden had assumed a new healthier look since after, the tomatoes and peppers especially. Presently he even noticed more fresh fruits have sprouted that were not there the last time he was here to tend the garden. He fixed the long hosepipe to the tap head beneath the kitchen’s window and proceeded to water his plants and do some pruning. 

He was still preoccupied with tending to the garden when, from over the walls separating them and their neighbors, Bruno, the neighbor's dog began to bark and trash excitedly around in his cage on sensing his owners presence at the front gate. 

Few minutes later and Wilfred could hear the gate being unlocked and the neighbor’s car driven into their house. He heard the car’s doors being opened and closed, followed immediately by the children’s chattering as they ran into the house. 
He checked his watch. It was a couple of minutes to 8 o’clock and Rita had not returned. What could be keeping her? A sudden thought crossed his mind and he became a bit worried. Could it be that she had seized on the opportunity that they were having a little misunderstanding to visit any of those her anonymous male admirers? Wilfred pictured his Rita sitting on the laps of a stranger and felt blood rushed to his face. He imagined Rita smiling willingly as this imagined stranger whispered lewd words to her. He pictured the stranger’s hands fondling delicate parts on his Rita’s soft skin and he involuntarily clenched his fist so tight it began to hurt.

Without a second thought, he fished the mobile phone from his pocket and dialed her number with shaky hands. “Where are you right now?” he almost screamed immediately she picked the call.

“Please come and open the gate for me,” Rita replied from the other end. She was already in front of the house.

Only then did Wilfred realize his heart was already pounding so fast as though wanting to burst out of his rib cage. He heaved a controlled sigh and tried to steady his breathing as he hurried round the building and made for the front gate.

“I’m very sorry I stayed out this late,” Rita began to apologize as Wilfred opened the gate for her to come in, “I couldn’t get a cab coming this way on time-”

“Where are you coming from?” Wilfred queried with a glare.

“I followed Buki home from the office.”

“When did you start following Buki home from the office?”

“You are raising your voice, Baby,” she tried to caution him.

“What if I raise my voice? Do you realize it’s almost 8 o’clock?”

“Please, can we go inside?” Rita begged and tried to touch him on the shoulder, “I will explain.” 

Nevertheless, Wilfred rebuffed her gesture angrily.