Nigeria should unite against terrorism
Boko Haram

Boko Haram

Saul Gwakuba Ndlovu

THE African continent is watching in what one may describe as tangible silence while a couple of radical Islamic sects are sowing palpable terror in Nigeria, Cameroon, Kenya and Somalia.

While international security forces have now for some years been trying to bring back normalcy in Somalia, Kenya is obviously battling the strange scourge within its borders as well as in neighbouring Somalia. Nigeria seems to have virtually raised up its arms in despair, and is leaving Boko Haram to terrorise Africa’s most populous nation at will.

Cameroon is a victim of Boko Haram’s spill-over terrorist onslaught from neighbouring Nigeria in whose territory the blood-thirsty, ultra-radical organisation is based. The Cameroonian military leaders have expressed their amazement publicly at the cross cowardice shown by Nigerian armed forces.

Nothing worth remembering has been done by that country’s security forces to protect the civilian population who must have by now lost all confidence in President Goodluck Jonathan’s government.

Boko Haram was launched about six years ago, and has killed literally thousands of people, most of them defenceless women and children. It violently kidnapped more that 200 schoolgirls earlier this year.

They were later married off to some of Boko Haram’s personnel, an utterly bestial group of men whose minds are under the control of God’s major opponent, Lucifer.

Nigeria is not only the most populous African state, but it is the most economically viable because of its oil and other natural resources. That should translate into one logical conclusion. It should be the continent’s strongest military power.

If all these are facts, the only sensible conclusion we can make is that country’s government is the most inept. Were it not so, surely the Nigerian administration would have taken pro-active measures to liquidate Boko Haram, an evil organisation that is condemned by every decent human being, including some Islamic leaders in Nigeria itself.

We are now told that some Nigerians have decided to form “vigilante groups” that will help to secure their respective communities. That is a good decision. However, “vigilante groups” are more suited to handle usual, if not petty, criminal activities and anti-social tendencies than those caused by Boko Haram, an obviously militarised terrorist organisation that threatens Nigeria’s very integrity, its very existence.

The magnitude of Boko Haram’s crimes is undoubtedly beyond the capacity or scope of “vigilante groups” whose role in any society is generally to back up national or municipal police force services.

However, since the Nigerian national security forces have let down that nation by falling flat on their bellies like punctured soccer ball bladders, civilians are expressing their disgust by forming such groups.

Meanwhile, the people of Nigeria at large must take a closer look at their situation starting with the political viability of their country, the weaknesses of President Jonathan’s administration, the socio-cultural characteristics and their actual as well as potential effects on the country (Nigeria) in particular and the region in general to see whether or not a separation of that country’s cultural communities can be a viable solution.

The separation of Pakistan (Islamic) from India (Hindu) in 1947 saved the whole Indian sub-continent from the type of bloody politico-cultural terror Nigeria and Cameroon are currently experiencing.

As for the retention of Jonathan as Nigeria’s president come that country’s elections, one can only say although that is a prerogative of the people of Nigeria, the man is more closely associated with blatant failure than with success.

He has run out of steam and is not in any manner suitable to lead Nigeria at this extremely critical time. A determined, focused government is what Nigeria requires, a national administration that pursues objectives on the basis of principles and not on patronage.

African political leaders south of the Saharan desert should not lose sight of the core of pan-Africanism, that is to say Africa belongs to the African people and should be ruled by them.

Africa should be African not only politically, but also culturally (and this entails religious beliefs and activities), economically and socially as is witnessed by the on-going Africa sports activities in Bulawayo.

Who is African? The answer is as simple as it is historical. ‘African’ is the black person who is found predominantly in countries south of the Sahara. There was a time when black people predominated in southern Egypt, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Mauritania and Afrikiya (from which the name Africa is derived) in what is now Arabic.

Black people were either pushed southwards or were carried away as slaves to Oman, Saudi Arabia, Greece, Persia and Rome where the male members were castrated to be turned into eunuchs, and the females were thrown into havens and used as sex slaves.

Those were the days when Sudan was called by the Arabs ‘Bilal al Sudan’ (the land of the black people). Those black people were wiped off later by the ancestors of those who now rule that land and are based in Khartoum.

Surely the black people did not free their part of Africa from either French, British, Portuguese or Spanish colonialism only to let it become a cultural or whatever colony of some other people.

It is in this aspect of the continent’s revolution that its political leaders should act against cultural imperialists such as Boko Haram.

Nigeria’s President Jonathan has a historical and moral obligation to ensure that Nigeria remains in black hands culturally and otherwise. If he cannot or does not have the necessary will power to do so, the sooner he quit the better for the whole of Africa south of the Sahara, and for Nigeria in particular, of course.

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