As we in Nigeria finally come down from the Nations Cup high and the Super Eagles’ victory and naira rain, reality didn’t waste time to hit us in the face again.

Before its release, ‘Zero dark Thirty’ got a lot of buzz obviously because it depicts the CIA’s fight against terror in Pakistan, as well as the search for and eventual killing of Osama bin Laden. The fact that it ended up with 5 Oscar nominations, tells that it was a pretty good movie. More instructively for me, many members of the US Congress were against its release. They believed that several classified documents, which were not yet supposed to be released to the public, were revealed in the movie.  Nothing could have given the movie a better endorsement than that. If national legislators are worried that a movie is too factual, then of course, the member of the public will want to see it.

I saw the movie this past week and more than anything else, I wanted to know how American intelligence worked and works under pressure in critical times. The attention to detail and most importantly, passion and resolve to follow through with tasks, was pretty impressive. Every lead was treated as valid until found to be otherwise. Every potential witness was stalked and hunted till they were found and made to spill. All security operatives were more concerned about the safety of their nation than their lives. It didn’t matter that death was a possibility in any mission. What was paramount was that terrorism had to be quashed.

As we in Nigeria finally come down from the Nations Cup high and the Super Eagles’ victory and naira rain, reality didn’t waste time to hit us in the face again. From the sad shooting to death of polio health workers, to the continuous war against innocent Nigerians (and foreigners) being waged by terrorists in the North East, the scary times we seemed to have forgotten at the beginning of the year, have become louder than ever; even more so now that countries in the first world, are starting to become affected.

I’m still yet to understand who or what this new ‘Ansaru’ group is all about. But they seem to have a totally different agenda than Boko Haram. Targeting members of the international community as kidnap victims, has instantly given them global infamy.  British and French interests have been aroused and suddenly groups that our government had long refused to give the ‘terrorist’ label are making trade partners and foreign investors, rethink their involvement with businesses in Nigeria.

The news late last week, that the United States had opened a Drone Base in Niamey, the capital of Niger Republic, got me worried. This will be America’s second permanent military base in Africa after the one in Djibouti, which was set up because of the troubled Horn of Africa. Yes, the Americans did state that their mission with the Niamey base is as a direct result of the issues being posed by insurgents in Mali. But it also stated that the Drone Base is a strong indication of the priority West Africa has become in American anti terrorism efforts. Without a doubt, Nigeria is in West Africa and probably poses the most threats to America and world peace as a whole after Mali. Using ‘drones’ and ‘Nigeria’ in the same sentence, bothers me.

Terrorists have laid siege in North-East Nigeria (an area that borders Niger Republic) for upwards of 2 years now and things are not even abating. More depressing is the almost non-existent homegrown plan to stop it and/or find peace. Some might say that it took America 10 whole years to find and kill Osama bin Laden. But it must be noted that in that time, the fight against terror was intense and for the most part, incidents of terrorism were almost quashed in homeland America. The resolve to keep Americans safe at home, was pretty evident and still is.

What are we really doing? One day we hear that amnesty is being considered. The next, we hear that more troops have been deployed to the region. Then, we hear that the terror groups have declared a ceasefire, right before we hear that these same groups have claimed responsibility for the death of more innocent Nigerians. I do not expect security operatives to call a press conference and tell us what they do. Neither do I want them to show us what their game plan is. All I ask is for the one man who swore by the Constitution that he would protect Nigerians, to let us know that he is doing something. Everyone looks clueless and everything looks hopeless. How long will we continue like this? When will we start to see signs of progress?

What’s really sad right now, is that Nigerians don’t even mind the Americans coming in as long as they can solve our security problems. That’s how much faith we have lost in our government with securing our lives. And nothing can be more shameful than that to a sitting government anywhere in the world.

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Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija.