Boko Haram: Borno youths say, enough is enough

“We are tired of this and we want to put an end to it. Since soldiers don’t really know who the Boko Haram members are, then, we who live with them and know them very well, have resolved that we have no option than to help fish them out,” That was Abubaka Maulum, a Boko hunter.

The lead-event: Bokos loaded a casket with weapons pretending to be driving to a burial site; on getting there, they off-loaded and began to shoot at random. 13 were instantly dead.

Note, there’s madness in everybody. Going to three years, it’s been Boko-madness. Now, it’s the people’s and they’re clubbing down Bokos with madder madness. Otherwise, how would you explain the scenery of chasing AK-47 wielding beasts with mere sticks and machetes? But that’s exactly what Borno youths are doing. David-spirit you may say, because Goliath must go down.

In different editions, this column has been asking, ‘where are the people?’ Perhaps, they had taken a long time to watch this killer-group. They may have thought they had a cause; or that they were for the poor, or for Islam; they were for none, just for themselves in greed and blood. This time, the youths said, let’s die that others and country may live. It’s taken a long time to decide, but in the end, there’s a decision that is a decider.

At the point the people get directly involved, Boko is finished. What’s been missing in the JTF operations is the people-component. Now that it is added, the circuit is complete. Why wouldn’t they be involved? Their education is aborted. By the time they allow silence to cripple their future, their Southern counterparts will have become made-professionals in their chosen fields of endeavour and they’ll be nowhere to compete.

Already, telecommunication lines are cut, industries have fled and the economy is kissing the stone age. That’d be the cost of continued silence. Worse still, all the trappings of Islamic faction-rivalry from Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan and all the bad news areas would have come to nest in innocent Borno – something hitherto unknown to the people and viral to their cohesion.

I hope those in charge of National Awards are watching. For horror-stricken youths to lay down their lives to move barehanded against terrific terror is sublime heroism.

But this is just a tap; the knock will come when their covert sponsors are picked. They’re in the military. That’s why it should be clear who the vigilantes are handing the killers to; it shouldn’t be: caught by the patriotic guards and let lose by some in authority. They’re in politics. They’re the ones who want power by all means. They’re the ones who arm their children with knowledge in foreign universities but let the mugus go fray with can-bombs. They’re in decision/law-making echelons: preaching Nigeria in the day and praising Boko in the night. They are the ones with the grand design to pocket the future of the youths to make way for their children to perpetuate their hold on power. They’re the real enemies the youths should turn to next.

For decades they were in power; no good flowed from them, only incitements. They are in the religious sanctuaries turning Islam downside-up, preaching hate and encouraging killing-after-prayers. The youths say they know them, they live with them, then they should let them know how sad they are. It’s also an opportunity for southern youths to show solidarity rather than generalising and calling all northern youths Boko Haram. Now that all other Nigerians have fled the north, it’s the northern youths that are now the victims. Such patriotism could come in various forms starting with enlightenment, onward to tangible support.

What’s unfolding is people-power. Now on, they’ll have the courage to ask, ‘what’s happening’ and be heeded. Let none think terror easily goes away. It doesn’t. The hoodlums will retire to marking the people for reprisal attacks. They may fight back now or wait till the JTF withdraws. This means that mechanisms should be in place for rapid response but more importantly, developing local espionage to identify and prevent at source any attempt to relive the bad times. It is the people who own the system who also are in the best position to spot out deviant behaviour that is threatening enough. Once the people are free, politicians can begin to govern without using part of the state budget to ‘settle’ criminals just to remain in power. This is the undoing of many administrations in the affected states.

The people emphatically carving their stand in governance amid terror, is the political victory of this struggle. The social victory is unmasking terror; the people know them. These victories should not be celebrated away, they should be kept and nurtured. 

Onyegbule, PhD, is the Consultant-in-Chief of Conflict Out- Peace In Consult.)

buchionye@yahoo.co.uk

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