What was Senator Ali Modu Sheriff doing on the former President’s delegation to Chad after he’s severally been linked to the sect and at a time when it was declared that he was under investigations by DSS? Was he in another country to welcome the President as a diplomat or a staff of the Foreign Service? What was Sheriff’s mission to the extent he was seen sitting in company of our President and Idris Deby, the President of Chad, with no other member of the President’s delegation named by the Government?
Looking at the Davis report particularly his mention of the name of the ex-Chief of Army Staff- which is a remote possibility, but not impossibility, convinces me that there is a direction we are not looking at in our resolve to fight and flush out the seeming ubiquitous sect.
Let us not forget, Sambo Dasuki the then NSA requested the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to shift the February 14 elections by six weeks to enable the Army confront the terrorists. A dramatic event happened in Gombe state during this period. The Boko Haram allegedly attacked some parts of the state before an air raid of fliers warning the residents to stay away from the elections hence they will be attacked (written in Hausa) became visible.
The question is: Who was distributing these fliers? At what point did Boko Haram begin to concern itself with elections? Something tells me that the compromised Nigerian Army or the Jonathan’s cabinet faction of Boko Haram was at work to scare people away from voting. The recent trial of the ex-NSA convinces me now who was behind the fliers distribution!
This writer is of the considered view that former President Jonathan, at this time, should take a hard look at his own administration, within his government, his advisors, the military, security agencies and other para-military institutions to smoke out sponsors of the group and those he worked with. This advice is particularly a harsh one. The enemy within were more dangerous than those without. They were the ones that praise him the most.
They are the ones that were most active. They are the one who licked his boots publicly. They were, still, the ones that want him desperately to fail. Because he couldn’t identify the enemies within, it was easy for those without to operate.
As the Yoruba wisdom says: The thief outside cannot devour you unless with the permission of that who is inside. The owner of the house must identify the thief within to keep pilfers at bay. If they had looked well enough, they would have discovered that Mr Steven Davis’ report contains that important clue.
The quotation at this beginning of this piece is from Amílcar Cabral, the great African revolutionary who led Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde’s struggle against Portuguese colonialism before his cold-blooded assassination in January, 1973 which effectively prevented him from leading the newly-liberated nation.
When he urged his comrades to “Hide nothing from the masses… Tell no lies… Mask no difficulties, mistakes, failures. Claim no easy victories.” He knew they will be saved a great deal, now or in the future, if they tell the truth. This is where I really sympathise with Dasuki, for doing a thankless job!
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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
Olalekan Waheed Adigun is a political risk analyst and an independent political strategist for wide range of individuals, organisations and campaigns. Email: olalekan@olalekanadigun.com, adgorwell@gmail.com. Follow him on twitter: @adgorwell
