STATE OF THE NATION: DEATH OF THE NATION

As I sat in front of the screen and switched the channel to the popular news channel and low I saw my Nation being the headline of the ‘World News’. If it was a good report I would have rejoiced but it is far from good and if I'm correct it is far from news anymore, there has been a rise in the level of violence in the country that it can easily be compared to other nations in crisis. Nigeria has been under the spotlight since the abduction of over 200 girls and although these girls have not been rescued there have been other attacks by the deadly terrorists showing the government that they can strike at any time.

The level of security in this country is so bad that citizens do not trust men in uniforms any longer, the deadly group has been said to wear the uniform of the military in their attack and that tells a lot. For the sake of security I would not write anything that can threaten national security as the country is in a delicate state
right now, however there are just some things that cannot be left unsaid. In this week alone there has been no fewer than four attacks which goes to show that not only is the security incapable of curbing this act but the presidency is just too soft on the issue. As these bombs go off and I see the reactions of the emergency unit and the security at the scene I could only but wonder if we can readily be prepared for disaster be it natural or artificial. The aftermath of the Jos bombings I could see women packing debris, men carrying dead bodies in wheelbarrows and security men with guns just walking around and there was no perimeter set, no pictures of the scene taken, no body to tell the people around what to do everybody is just doing the usual ‘clean after the deed has been done’.

I once told a group of people that ‘Nigeria has no intelligence’ but they argued with me saying we do and that maybe the wrong people are being trained but we do. What is intelligence if it’s with the wrong people? That’s not intelligence that’s stupidity! If we can’t use what we know to solve the problem facing us then we have no intelligence whatsoever. When the British military arrived in Nigeria they came out saying there is virtually no intelligence in finding the girls as there is a broad gap of intelligence in the Nigerian military, even the President in his last media chat admitted that the government is not funding or supporting the military as it is supposed to. Although I believe there are some things the president should not say even if it were true, I still think if the military is not being funded properly then it’s the job of the government to do so and not tell us what it is not doing well.

Until the government gets its acts together and start getting serious about confronting this insurgency heads on and stop running to the screens to ‘condemn’ the attack anytime it happens I think this would continue. If the president of the USA in 2001 only came out to ‘condemn’ the 9/11 bombings I don’t think justice would have been served. There should be a co-ordinated approach towards this terrorist group and it should be fast especially with the world supporting with their various military personnel and experts what else can we ask for. I believe this would stop but the question is not how but when.