by Victor Nwadike

Yet all is not lost. Though, the time to have ‘stitched in time’ has been long lost. To counter this insurgency we need brave, virile, courageous and competent leadership, one that is cognizant of the enormity of the challenge. The kind of leadership that would have long visited Borno to assure the good Nigerian people of Maiduguri that all the majesty and fearsomeness of state powers are with them in this horrendous time of their lives. 

At twenty four years old, I thought I had seen enough display of brazen crassness, senile ineptitude and downright dumbness from our leaders in all spheres to consider myself having reached the ‘Dele –Giwaresque’ state of ‘unshockability’. The pictures circulated of a dancing jubilant President at a political rally in Kano, less 24hrs after the Nyanya tragedy and the abduction of 100 girl students defies all logic. It is petulant, inexcusable, unconscionable, absolutely repugnant and extremely abrasive. This is beyond being ‘unshockable’. I can understand if a president doesn’t give a damn but have we no regard for basic human decency? To every right thinking person this is the time to shudder, to consider, to reflect that at this juncture in our history; as we are shaken by the dark forces of religious extremism, the survival of our collective destiny lies in the hands of a desensitized dancing President.

Our deepest sympathies go out to the bereaved of this past week. We share in your pain, agony and trauma. We are unlike those who will cry with you one minute in the hospital and are off the very next on a meaningless jamboree. Those who have died have not died in vain. They died as heroes, going about their ordinary business, insisting on mutual respect and tolerance and standing as an unyielding bulwark against a barbarous horde seeking to transmute us back to the time before the wheel; to a ‘hobbessian’ state of lawlessness. But let it be known to all and sundry that 200 million Nigerians will not be intimidated by a gang of cannibalistic drug addicts and psychotic foreigners. We will incinerate every ‘Sambisa’ forest, chase them to every border town and bring them to justice. The narrative will not be left to those who wish us to cower, to be very afraid, and to hide under our pillows or not to criticize their incompetence because “these things happen everywhere”. This is the time to galvanize our people and not to cry crocodile tears at hospitals.

However, to think that we could have nipped this insurgency in the bud? The cost of our complacency is regretfully mirrored in the blood and tears of Nyanya, in the pictures of mangled bodies driven in wheelbarrows, in the trauma of an innocent girl child perhaps forever blinded in one eye. Even today in this country we have all kinds of mischievous gangs, some masquerading as university confraternities, youth organizations and socio-political bodies, going about harassing ordinary citizens, wielding dangerous weapons and acting above the law while our government indulges them. Politicians need the gangs for elections. Only recently a member of a House of Assembly was caught on camera chanting the esoteric language of a deadly cult group. Our President openly hobnobs with ex terrorists, men who have previously been involved in the killings of patriotic Nigerian soldiers and the blowing up of pipelines containing our collective wealth. Our government is more interested in arresting Twitter users and sharing gold-plated iPhones at daughter’s wedding than with its fundamental duty of law and order. The Nigerian life is worth less the life of an American dog.

Yet all is not lost. Though, the time to have ‘stitched in time’ has been long lost. To counter this insurgency we need brave, virile, courageous and competent leadership, one that is cognizant of the enormity of the challenge. The kind of leadership that would have long visited Borno to assure the good Nigerian people of Maiduguri that all the majesty and fearsomeness of state powers are with them in this horrendous time of their lives. The kind of leadership that will shelve a political rally, take a tour of all military formation in the country, insisting that the boys remain brave and resolute, boosting their morale while privately scolding their commanders on why it seems the psychos are sometimes a step ahead. The best of our soldiers today are in various hotels carrying the make up bags and underwear kits of mistresses, girl friends and one night standers of our politicians. You wonder where are the boys to counter the insurgents when every corrupt politician in this country has a minimum of 10 tough as nails soldiers as private bodyguards. Yet as Nigeria burns, President Jonathan dances to a fiddle.

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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.