Vunderkind
Social Member
Regardless of what President Goodluck Jonathan’s government would have us believe, we are losing the war against Boko Haram. We’re losing it to the original Boko Haram and to its various franchises, including those in Jonathan’s government.
Days after the chief of defence staff, Air Marshal Alex Badeh, took over in January, he vowed to end the Boko Haram onslaught by April. He had barely finished speaking when gunmen struck, killing 74 people in separate attacks in Borno and Adamawa states. Badeh ate the humble pie and promptly disavowed setting any deadline to end the killings.
In the last two weeks, gunmen presumed to be Boko Haram have killed over 200 people, including children and teenagers, with over 30 killed on Tuesday.
It’s no use asking what President Jonathan is doing about it. He is doing well at doing nothing. OK, he has fired a national security adviser, created a special military unit to tackle the insurgency and renewed the state of emergency in three north-east states, which was first declared in May 2012. He also purged the military high command early this year after intra-service infighting over strategy opened another warfront.
Boko Haram predates Jonathan, but in his four years of being in charge the insurgency has, on the whole, escalated. It’s true that after the April 2012 attack on ThisDay, Abuja has been relatively peaceful. But it’s troubling that the government has failed to replicate that success outside the capital, creating the impression that as long as its backyard is secure the rest of the country may burn.
Jonathan has blamed everyone for the escalating violence in the north-east and his aides have even accused influential northern politicians of stoking the fires because they don’t like the president.
It’s nonsense to suggest that these politicians, whoever they are, have to kill their brothers, sisters and families and virtually uproot themselves from their homesteads, to prove that they hate Jonathan. However you slice it, the truth is that the Boko Haram outside and the ones inside Jonathan’s government have exploited the president’s unwillingness and/or his failure of leadership, to turn what started as a skirmish into a raging warfare.
Click here to read more
Source: Leadership
Days after the chief of defence staff, Air Marshal Alex Badeh, took over in January, he vowed to end the Boko Haram onslaught by April. He had barely finished speaking when gunmen struck, killing 74 people in separate attacks in Borno and Adamawa states. Badeh ate the humble pie and promptly disavowed setting any deadline to end the killings.
In the last two weeks, gunmen presumed to be Boko Haram have killed over 200 people, including children and teenagers, with over 30 killed on Tuesday.
It’s no use asking what President Jonathan is doing about it. He is doing well at doing nothing. OK, he has fired a national security adviser, created a special military unit to tackle the insurgency and renewed the state of emergency in three north-east states, which was first declared in May 2012. He also purged the military high command early this year after intra-service infighting over strategy opened another warfront.
Boko Haram predates Jonathan, but in his four years of being in charge the insurgency has, on the whole, escalated. It’s true that after the April 2012 attack on ThisDay, Abuja has been relatively peaceful. But it’s troubling that the government has failed to replicate that success outside the capital, creating the impression that as long as its backyard is secure the rest of the country may burn.
Jonathan has blamed everyone for the escalating violence in the north-east and his aides have even accused influential northern politicians of stoking the fires because they don’t like the president.
It’s nonsense to suggest that these politicians, whoever they are, have to kill their brothers, sisters and families and virtually uproot themselves from their homesteads, to prove that they hate Jonathan. However you slice it, the truth is that the Boko Haram outside and the ones inside Jonathan’s government have exploited the president’s unwillingness and/or his failure of leadership, to turn what started as a skirmish into a raging warfare.
Click here to read more
Source: Leadership
