Former Presidential aspirant and Head Pastor of the Household
of God Church Pastor Chris Okotie today May 14th posted an
article he wrote on the missing Chibok Girls, state of the nation
and the international help Nigeria is receiving in the fight
against Boko Haram, on his Facebook page.
In the interesting piece, Rev Okotie said Nigeria should not
accept help from Israel to avoid Islamizing the terror war
because of Israel's long drawn conflict with the Arab nations
with whom our predominantly northern brothers share a
common faith. See the article below
"In modern times, apart from Adolf Hitler’s Holocaust
which killed an estimated six million Jews; the more
recent ethnic cleansing in the Balkans and the Rwandan
versions, no other massacre of the innocent surpasses the
Boko Haram killings in brutality. These guys have
kidnapped a part of this nation. We need a new strategy
to rescue it. Thank God, First World leaders with
experience and proven competence in counter-insurgency
have responded to President Goodluck Jonathan’s call for
assistance.
What makes Boko Haram’s case puzzling is that the
group targets its own people, and especially weak
demographic groups like women and children that are
normally spared, along with civilian populations, in
conventional warfare. Although, terrorists hardly respect
this convention, even groups like Al-Qaeda do not attack
their own people, expect where they establish a case of
betrayal by fifth columnists within their ranks.
The unbelievable cruelty of the Boko Haram insurgents as
evidenced by the recent abduction of more than 200 girls in a
school hostel in Chibok, Bornu State ordinarily would have
shocked the sponsors of the Islamists, if they have human
hearts in their chests. Nothing suggests that they do, otherwise,
they’d have called the fighters they unleashed on this nation to
order.
At the time of writing the United States, Britain, France and
China had pledged support for Nigeria’s efforts to help track
Boko Harm and rescue these defenseless girls. This has given
hope to Nigerians that, at last, a greater, more realistic action
is in the offing.
It may be too late for the falcons to hear the falconer. If you
ride the back of the tiger to power, it would devour you if it
has nothing more to eat. That is the case of Boko Haram.
Those who use the hoodlums to rig themselves to power
abandoned them when they finally left power.
Then, the thugs, abandoned to their own devices were hijacked
by politicians of diverse tendencies, and pseudo-Islamic
militants, who use the renal youths to pursue dubious objectives.
As disparate criminal elements infiltrated the group, it became
amorphous, leaderless and difficult to control.
The killing of the original leader of Boko Haram, Mohammed
Yusuf allegedly in police custody provoked the initial reprisal
attacks against the police. Gradually, other targets were being
hit. As the sect made headlines it attracted jihadist partners
from neighbouring countries like Chad, Niger, Sudan and Mali.
Arms from the failing state of Libya after the death of Col.
Maummar Ghadaffi fell into the hands of these mercenaries,
who have strengthened Boko Haram, to the extent that members
of the terror group are now strong enough to frustrate our army.
That is why arms and ammunitions captured by Nigerian
security forces from Boko Haram fighters appear to be more
sophisticated than those our soldiers use against them. We must
understand the forces we are dealing with before we could
defeat them.
It is doubtful if the terrorists have a well structured command
and control system like Al-Shabab of Somalia or Al-Qaeda – in
the – Islamic Maghreb, which almost over-ran the Malian
government, before they were stopped by an African
intervention force led by French troops.
If we must destroy Boko Haram, we need foreign help in the
shape of highly sophisticated intelligence which the
aforementioned Western powers who have experience in
combating global terrorism have started offering. Some of their
personnel are already here; but the President must act with
greater decisiveness on this terror war. We need help from
anywhere we can get it except Israel. Israel is out of it to
avoid Islamisizing the terror war because of the former’s long
drawn conflict with the Arab nations, with whom our
predominantly northern brothers share a common faith.
Therefore, we must carefully select our foreign partners in the
war against Boko Haram to avoid introducing international
rivalries into it. President Goodluck Jonathan should summon
the political will. With foreign help we could fish out the
sponsors of the terrorists, and pre-empt the attacks before they
are launched. The kidnapping of those young girls at Chibok has
set a world record; it is a monumental disgrace, it strikes at
the soul of our nation.
As it were, Nigeria has been kidnapped. At no time in our
checkered history did we live like this, in perpetual fear of
being attacked by criminal elements who are now on the prowl
across the nation. For the first time, armed groups are laying
siege on our military installations; invading army barracks and
police formations, leaving heavy casualties in their trail. They
appear capable of engaging our last line of defense as hit and
run urban gorillas.
Now, after the failure of every trick in our books, we obviously
have no answer to Boko Haram. We thought the terrorists have
been dislodged permanently from Abuja and restricted to just
the three North Eastern States of Bornu, Yobe and Adamawa,
until the two recent Nyanya bombings. Chibok, which capped
this brazen assault is a terrifying reality. How a group could
abduct more than 200 girls from their school in an operation
that required huge logistics, without being detected in an area
where a State of Emergency is in force, is amazing. Nobody
knows where they’d strike next, except the terrorists
themselves.
This recurrent circle of condemnation after a strike and visits
by the President or top government functionaries to bombed
sites has continued for too long. While this may be a painful
imperative for our leaders, what is lacking is a strategy to
seriously decapitate the terrorists to such a point that their
strike capability is completely destroyed. Effective intelligence
could stop the terrorists in their tracks, while a swift, well
organized counter-insurgency operation could annihilate them
completely.
So far, we have not succeeded in containing the terrorists
because, either our security forces are ill-equipped, incapable
for some reasons, or are over-stretched to police the vast area
they are supposed to cover. The Chibok tragedy and the
frequent attacks on soft targets like motor parks, worship
centres, markets and academic institutions ought to be
prevented by the military authorities, because we all know that
is the stock-in-trade of Boko Haram. Nobody should claim
ignorance of the history of these attacks on such targets.
Boko Haram is a special problem in our country, and we
require a special arrangement to move ahead of their logistics
to nip them in the bud. Aside international assistance as earlier
mentioned, localized knowledge of the terrains is an important
factor. We have enough Para-military forces, which could be
deployed to compliment efforts by our armed services, to
provide adequate security coverage for our nation. There’s
nothing wrong if we incorporate our ethnic militias and
vigilante groups in this security arrangement because the nation
is at war. And anyone, except the terrorists, could be a victim.
When a nation is kidnapped, no effort should be spared to
rescue it. So that’s why I join the rest of the world in saying:
Bring Back Our Girls Now!
Rev. Okotie, a Presidential Aspirant, wrote from Lagos.
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