Now, National Security Adviser Names Boko Haram Sponsors

Despite pockets of desperate acts - suicidal shootings and bombings - still directed squarely at the Church of God in Northern Nigeria, there are rising hopes that the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel might just be around the corner. That the Boko Haram matter is fast approaching its climax and eventual terminus became evident when the National Security Adviser (NSA) to the President, General Gabriel Owoeye Aziza recently went public on who are the major actors behind the entire wicked saga. Incredibly, some people are insisting that even the NSA does not know what he is saying! (http://www.sunnewsonline.com/webpages/news/national/2012/may/08/national-08-05-2012-0018.html). Here is a man who sees all the reports, is familiar with all the arrests made (even though no known prosecution still!), and eventually gets all the blame for security lapses in the country. Yet people who are unhappy with his prognosis wasted no time in trying to discredit him and reduce his very weighty statement to a mere peppersoup-joint analysis. Any wonder why nobody had shown any enthusiasm about names-naming prior to this time? The personalities involved have got well established machinery most people would prefer not to get entangled with. Starting from their minions in the “free press”, the battery of SAN lawyers under retainership, to the professional killer squads. But even the NSA stopped short of mentioning names. Northern politicians within the ruling Party who were aggrieved at the zoning policy of the Party are behind the bombs, he had said. And he really did not need to say anything more! In any case, as if we didn’t know! When at the peak of zoning or no zoning palaver within the Peoples Democratic Party, Atiku Abubakar said he would make the country ungovernable and that violent change had then become inevitable, we all heard and the records are still there. Strangely the press, depending on their individual sponsors and their peculiar agenda all now comment as if Abubakar never said those things. The next episode in the tragi-comedy show ongoing in Nigeria is Charles Orkar now saying it was actually the President, Goodluck Jonathan, that organized the independence day bombing. Jonathan was having his first major outing as an elected president and he had invited the whole world to come celebrate Nigeria’s Jubilee with him - even despite severe threats by terrorists who insisted he must cancel the celebrations lest they bomb. The whole point of the threats was clearly to portray Jonathan as a weakling not fit for the office, and would have been followed even by more and more threats. Jonathan’s defiance and the resulting explosions at the precincts of the Eagle Square are now history. It is then comical that Mr Orkar should imagine anyone dumb enough to buy the words of a notorious terror-monger suggesting Goodluck Jonathan as the mastermind behind the bombing. More is the tragedy that some national dailies (for example the PUNCH) had the guts to put this accusation as screaming front-page headlines, with all manner of silly analyses insinuating that the allegation might just be true! Even more interesting is Orkar’s deposition (from his cell in South Africa) that the President organized the bombing in order to push the blame on Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida (IBB). Now that is some real, raw names-naming! IBB was one of the figures who desperately appealed, to no avail, to the Zoning formula of the PDP in order to edge out Jonathan from the presidential race in 2011. He was conspicuously absent at the Independence Day Jubilee ceremonies when the bombs were booming. It seems evident to us that Orkar is merely attempting to jump the gun. Now, before names become publicly named in Nigeria, and before hard evidences are produced in Court in South Africa - all no doubt implicating IBB (as if we didn’t know!) and Raymond Dokpesi (IBB’s right hand man and chief campaign manager), the desperate game plan is to make the association in public and reduce the trial to a media one rather than a sober legal one. As a media mogul (owning the very influential African Independent TV and sister radio stations), Dokpesi and his principal would be far more comfortable with a hyped media trial than a real one that will certainly send them to jail. Just like ex-governor James Ibori was humiliated at the courts in London, IBB and cohorts know what await them in a fair trial, particularly in a foreign land. Taking the cue from the NSA, the various security organizations are now putting together, for the first time, a Watch List comprising names of major actors to be placed on active surveillance with the goal of proving their culpability in the Boko Haram killings. And so, with fingers crossed and trusting in the wisdom of God to catch the crafty in their own conceits, we await the next developments which will help Nigeria permanently put these security failures behind.  The good news then about the NSA’s disclosure is that it indicates that the heat must be really getting to the bad guys, hence these desperate pranks. What broad lessons can Christians learn from all these developments? We see a desperate devil troubling the world using all means possible and all agency available (Rev 12:12). We take courage playing our God-mandated patriotic duties and thus not only saving ourselves from corruption, despair and despondence, we actually rise to save others, shine and do exploits (Daniel 11:32). Thus we confirm the Scriptures: “and the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness comprehends it not” (John 1:5). Shalom.