Onyebuchi Onyegbule’s write-ups in BusinessDay on Boko Haram in the last two weeks have been quite interesting. Friday, February 3, his assessment that our complacency now fuels the group’s steady ascendancy was right on the money. The week following, the bit on Arewa Consultative Forum was pointedly put.
As I followed his observations, I couldn’t help considering at least four disturbing points about our nation. The first is that we couldn’t be more mistaken in wishing away this tumor; that this virulent extremism will run out of steam; or that some divine intervention will bring it to an abrupt end.
Sometimes you get this feeling that tons of our “knowledgeable” people do not appreciate the existential nature of the confrontation. Hence remarks such as “Boko Haram is faceless” or “they are yet to state their objective” are simply naïve. When the United States began paying close attention to the geo-strategic implications, some individuals were on radio in Lagos warning that what is purely our internal affair shouldn’t be internationalized. Some people said it equated to the Niger Delta agitations and so chorused dialogue as the way forward. Unbeknown to these our people, we are dealing with zealotry at its worst; they are wedded to two options only: accept their way of life or face destruction. That being said, what good should anyone then expect from engaging with such a group that confesses to delight in killing humans as it does slaughtering livestock?
The second point of interest is the thinking that this is Goodluck Jonathan’s wahala. That’s no surprise, though. It stems from our sub-culture of cynicism, spite and sometimes inexact reasoning. Hardly prepared to put in a good shift to further the common good, we relate to our myriad challenges as if the solutions are going to come from the other man or some fellows from outer space. Failure of leadership is the convenient and familiar sound bite chiefly because we see the concept in the narrow context of the man with executive authority.
Consequently, we relieve ourselves of blame when we fail miserably to show leadership in the most basic of situations we find ourselves as individuals. We lament our derelict infrastructure but look away when street lamps on newly built roads are broken by careless motorists and drains filled with garbage by those around us. Anyone who decides to take the culprits to task risks the scornful looks and snide comments of bystanders. If you reside in Lagos, I invite you to ride on the new and yet-to-be-finished roads for first-hand experience. We could go on and on about how we basically flunk our own test on leadership while casting about for excuses – someone or something to blame our failings it on.
Unlike the Americans, British, and Indians who, faced with similar acts of terror, chose to close ranks, we do not see this orgy of violence as an affront to our common sensibilities or way of life. Even as we close in on Iraq and Afghanistan in the daily body count of victims of bomb blast, we do not look ready to stand shoulder to shoulder to vanquish what is clearly a universal threat. While some in the south harbour the indifference of “let those people up there stew in their own problem”, prominent individuals up north in the immediate vicinity of the mayhem are either standing aloof, making unconvincing murmurs about this whole thing being un-Islamic, or are not pulling punches in crowing “failed leadership” with every bomb blast. Elsewhere, yesterday’s men angling for relevance in the political space are congregating, asking for a so-called national conference. How that will resolve the present imbroglio or address our economic challenges remains unclear.
Looked at another way, can some of the voluble individuals, particularly our northern elite, really be absolved from blame in this mess? Does it not have deep roots in their age-long policies and practices? Hear this very telling commentary: “What is all this noise about free education, free education when all you will only succeed in doing is to give people the opportunity to antagonize you later?”
This world view was expressed not in 2011/12 or by a Boko apologist but in 1980/81 during the Second Republic by one northern senator. He couldn’t stand the aggravation from the Unity Party of Nigeria on the policy of free education. Incidentally, he sat on the senate committee on education. The comment may well be somewhere in the Hansard of that parliament as it was well reported by Daily Times and I kept a cutting of it for several years. Dare I add that that fellow was not alone in that mindset? Three decades and counting, look where we are. The indolence of a haughty and self-perpetuating few sowed and nurtured the seeds of a whirlwind now threatening to bring the house down on everybody.
In point of fact, the senator’s outburst can be further positioned against the argument by the likes of the late Tai Solarin (UPN) that insofar as the so-called advanced regions/peoples cannot be held back for others to catch up, it would be apt for a federal government policy to make education free and compulsory in the north up to secondary level in a resolute push to rapidly redress the imbalance. February 14, 2012, Femi Okunnu’s tangential take on this educational gap (as recounted by Kaye Whiteman in BusinessDay) was remarkable.
The third point of interest is the suggestion that a prosaic factor like federal character be discarded in the selection and discipline of the security chiefs. If that ever happens, it would be the day Nigeria takes the first determined step to fix not just the security apparatus but to get to grips with how to run result-driven state institutions: from the failed refineries and soon-to-be privatized power sector to the educational system. That will upset the applecart and query the musical chairs that lots of public appointments became a long time ago. You know that isn’t going to happen just yet!
The way it has gone over the years, the matter of federal character or quota, which was intended as some sort of affirmative action for the weak or disadvantaged, has since been codified and now constitutes a major spanner in the works. It has developed a problematic life of its own, feeding through to our crass incapacity to live the way decent societies do. It has engendered a very dysfunctional recruitment and reward culture which, I might add, is more dangerous than the much talked-about corruption. Now, that runs counter to the popular view. But when did a popular view necessarily imply what is true or right, and vice versa? That’s a debate for another day even as history is replete with examples.
