THE DRIFT TO BOSNIA

By Frank Ofili

 I found this article in 'Anioma Political Forum'. The article is thought-provoking and quite revealing as well. And i know TOB readers would find this interesting. Read what Frank said
I am not in a happy mood this morning. Two principal reasons put me in this foul mood. One, day by day President Goodluck Jonathan appears to be digging deeper into his comfort zone, preferring to be content with being the nice guy who is unwilling to make the hard decision that would lead to stepping on toes – big powerful toes – and ultimately bringing Nigeria out of her current political cul-de-sac. When a leader shows such signs of weakness, he unwittingly sends clear signals, as has now been the case that he is not up to the task of leading a complex nation such as Nigeria. Such a scenario would undoubtedly not take long for hawks and doves alike to start testing their might against authority.
Such has been the lot of President Goodluck Jonathan in the past five years. The President’s disposition to be seen as a good man has now become his greatest undoing resulting in countless loss of precious Nigerian lives since he assumed office as acting president in 2009. His regime has witnessed the worst of blood-letting in Nigeria’s history, as insecurity pervades the length and breadth of the land. Even the regime of the late maximum ruler, Sani Abacha, touted to be the worst regime ever in Nigeria, can now be correctly said to fare better than the Goodluck Jonathan administration. The scale of bloodletting under this regime is second only to the Nigeria civil war. All thanks to a man who is afraid to lead.
To be a good man is one thing, but to be a good leader is quite another altogether. It seems our President is satisfied with being the former. If that is the case, then I venture to posit that he should stop posturing towards 2015. Nigerians do not need a good man; Nigerians need a good leader! I get pissed each time someone asks me to remember that someone threatened to make the country ungovernable for the President. So if someone actually made that threat, and it is being carried out, whose duty is it to deal with it? A good leader faced with such a threat would deal with it anyhow he deems fit as long as it puts an end to loss of lives and property. To fold your hands and watch the carnage go on is unacceptable.
The second reason I am in this foul mood has to do with the demand on President Jonathan by the Northern Elders Forum, NEF, to exchange detained Boko Haram terrorists for the kidnapped Chibok school girls. This demand was reportedly made through their rabid fundamentalist spokesman, Prof Ango Abdullahi, while speaking to Punch recently. The demand of the NEF beats me. I am still trying to make sense out of it. How could any reasonable person, much less a group of men who say they are elders, ask government to negotiate with a bunch of mindless killers? It would have made better sense to me if these so-called elders had asked government to grant amnesty to Boko Haram ONLY on condition that they return all the abducted school girls unharmed, as well as laying down their arms as did Niger-Delta Militants.
If the demand of the Northern Elders Forum were made by mere ordinary folks, it would have been excused as one informed by ignorance, but coming from a group of prominent northern elders parading the likes of Ango Abdullahi, a professor and renowned academician; it is simply ominous and tendentious. The NEF demand simply betrays the sinister motive of the northern political establishment, especially against the backdrop that there has been no official rebuttal or condemnation of that demand from any quarters in the political north. Before now the Northern Elders Forum and Arewa Consultative Forum had claimed not to know anything about Boko Haram, but now by making this demand, northern elders must now prove that they do not know more about Boko Haram than they are letting on. This demand raises profoundly disturbing questions about the political and moral health of the NEF.
Pray, before making this senseless demand on President Jonathan did the NEF think of justice for all those who have been slaughtered, maimed or kidnapped by Boko Haram? Did they spare a thought for the parents, families and loved ones of the Boko Haram victims? How could those who say they are elders make such insensitive and callous demand when majority of the victims are of the same flock as they themselves? Are they saying that the lives of a few detained Boko Haram members are worth much more than the lives of the 234 kidnapped Chibok school girls, or the thousands already dispatched to early grave by the terrorist sect?
Without knowing it, the NEF has now confirmed that Boko Haram, though disguised as a religious sect fighting a jihad, it is in reality the military arm of the political north formed with the intention of using it as a political bargaining chip. It also now seems obvious that the kidnap saga is just one of the many sub-plots in the grand design of the northern political establishment. What is this country turning into? Gradually but steadily Nigeria is drifting towards a conflagration in the mold of the Bosnian example. Every indicator points to that ominous prospect, and those who ought to weave this country together are busy polarizing it along primordial divides.
Few days before the NEF demand was made, the ancient city of Kano was bombed to hell. Twenty four hours later, a popular market in Jos was bombed. Before these two bombings, there were other bombings in Abuja, Borno, Adamawa, Yobe and other parts of northern Nigeria. Countless lives have been lost and properties destroyed. Amid intense politicization of the Chibok kidnap between APC and PDP, a foreign army has now landed our shores to join the search for the kidnapped girls. I never imagined that a day would ever come when a foreign army would set foot on Nigeria soil. In-between all these, the Movement for the Emancipation of Niger Delta, MEND, is threatening to attack the south-south and resume their criminal activities in the creeks of the delta; the south-east, through MASSOB, is seeking Biafra Republic; while the Yoruba, via Afenifere, are agitating for Odua Republic. Across the land the story is one of insecurity.This is what you get when you have a president who is afraid to lead.
The failed project called Nigeria has attracted other agitations and comments too - from the serious to the comically laughable. One of such is the comment made by the Lamido of Adamawa, Dr. Muhammadu Barkindo Mustapha, in response to south-south agitation for resource control. He told them to be ready to forfeit their lands in all parts of the North, especially Abuja, if their aspiration sailed through at the on-going national conference. He made this comment after he threatened to lead his people to join the Republic of Cameroon if Nigeria disintegrates. As far as the Lamido is concerned Abuja is a resource to be controlled by them. I could never fathom this new but sinister definition of resource control.
Neither could I place my fingers on the call by erudite Prof Akin Oyebode of University of Lagos, for Nigeria to change her name from Nigeria to the United States of Songhai. If I didn’t personally know the respected professor I would have thought that an excessive over-dose of reading has caused something to snap somewhere. Prof Akin Oyebode taught me Jurisprudence and Internal Law as well as the Law of the Sea at the University of Lagos 11 years ago. Since he made this call, I have been at sea trying to understand what informed it, but then that is the prof for you. He always has a way of making light a grave situation. His call could only be his way of expressing frustration with the elephantine puzzle called Nigeria and her tragic leadership incubus.