Thursday 28 March 2013

Musings With Efe Wanogho: The Terrorists of Nigeria!


Musings With Efe Wanogho: The Terrorists of Nigeria!


Efe Wanogho
Since the 1st October, 2010 bombings in Abuja, that signposted the berthing of terrorist activity on Nigerian shores, in this dispensation, and the consequent official reception granted terrorism by none other than the President – and Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces – of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, following the explosion that rocked the Police Force Headquarters building, wherein he stated that terrorism is a universal phenomenon and that perhaps it was the turn of Nigeria to experience it; terrorism has taken firm roots in Nigeria.
Individuals and groups of people have since been targeted and killed by the seemingly ubiquitous terrorists under the auspices of the broad franchise of Boko Haram. They have perpetrated unspeakable violence and bloodshed in the land and deserve not only to be condemned, but also to be served justice, whether retributive, punitive, or corrective.
Whereas the Boko Haram brand of terrorism conforms with the simplistic understanding of terrorism as the use of violence or threat of violence as a means of coercion towards some religious, political, or other end; and whereas Nigerians have rightly expressed their indignation towards terrorism, except of course, for the handful of misguided people who think that throwing money at national problems by way of amnesty or enlisting criminals in the public payroll, is still the way to go; there is an aspect of terrorism that has received minimal scorn, though it is worse than the Boko Haram brand. That brand of terrorism is not conventional terrorism, but is certainly as deadly, if not more so, than conventional terrorism.
Official corruption by public office holders is the most deadly scourge that confronts and affronts the national progress that has become increasingly elusive to Nigeria. In a manner of speaking, this brand of terrorism is that which kills Nigerians softly, with less apparent goriness and assault on our objective senses.
For elucidation, the following scenarios should suffice.
When there is a conventional terrorist attack, there is instant death and gory sights of mangled remains of victims. Let’s say about a hundred people are killed. The media is, sooner than later, bombarded by series of condemnations by government functionaries and security agents with a perfunctory vow to bring the perpetrators to book. But when there is an attack by the non-conventional terrorists who hold public office, by way of misapplication, misappropriation, embezzlement, and outright thievery of public funds; there is no concomitant outrage and indignation. This is despite the fact that the casualties resulting from the attacks of this officially-backed terrorists, is over and above those that result from the joint attacks of Boko Haram, armed robbers, kidnappers, and others, that already suffer public opprobrium.
When diseases and sundry ailments kill Nigerians because they are unable to access basic and fundamental healthcare delivery as a result of lack of drugs and equipment, lack of qualified medical personnel, or as a consequence of humongous medical bills; owing to the continued criminal neglect of the health sector, and while the political office holders live in luxuriant and imperial affluence; terrorism is at work. When a medical student is made to face incompetent lecturers in the university and has to resort to financial inducement of complicit lecturers to garner needed grades; only for him to send Nigerians to early graves upon being “qualified” as adoctor, through wrong diagnosis and or prescriptions, or through making erroneous incisions on vital organs during medical operations, for no other reason than he doesn’t know better, corruption-induced terrorism is at work.
When a political office holder neglects to release needed funds forconstruction of roads and bridges, while receiving gratification from contractors, thereby letting them get away with shoddy and ill-supervised constructions that lead to the deaths of thousands of Nigerians when such infrastructure suffer imminent collapse; officially perpetrated terrorism is to blame.
When our security agencies conduct recruitment of new intakes on the basis of how much they have been forced to part with, or on the basis of which godfather recommended them, and as a consequence we have security agents that lack the requisite competence to fight crimes and check the actions of those unfortunate criminals, which criminality is itself a function of incompetent, corrupt, and a vision-less political leadership; non-conventional terrorism is at work.
When a political office holder administers public funds as though he was administering his personal estate to the attainment of his narrow and nocturnal interests, and doles out gifts in cash and in kind to his coterie of praise singers and engage in baseless and repugnant patronage of political and economic benefactors, while the majority of the people continue to wallow in debilitating but avoidable penury; terrorism of a different kind is at work.
Innumerable instances and scenarios of the criminal complicity of public officeholders in the perpetuation of “euphemized” and not too apparent terrorism, abound in the land. It ought to be noted, and rightly so, that the goriness of a crime and the scar it leaves on our collective psyche, as in the case of the recurring violence perpetrated by extremists, is not enough to warrant its singular classification as terrorism. If someone breaks into the house of an unsuspecting family and hacks the entire family down with machetes, axes, and AK47s, leaving a horrid and disturbing sight behind; and another person visits a home as a family friend or relative, only to clandestinely cause the poisoning of the food eaten by the occupants of the household, while he is long gone and far removed from the scene of lifeless bodies that follow; no less a crime has been committed in either case. We must not reduce the severity of the crime of the one who caused the food to be poisoned, while directing our outrage solely against the one who macheted, AK47ed, and axed life out of the members of the unsuspecting family.
To do that would be synonymous to towing the inglorious path of those who justify amnesty for convicted thieves but call for the heads of Boko Haram members. It is akin to treating equal crimes of taking life, unequally.
Further, we must note that the sustenance of the AK47-wielding and bomb-detonating terrorists and their seemingly invincibility status, is largely a function of the preponderance of the not-too-conventional terrorists who populate our public and political offices across the land. For, only the presence of the right people in the right offices, acting to further the greater good of the greater number of Nigerians, can bring about an effective and definitive end to terrorism, as we presently know it.
Thus, as we steadily approach the next round of elections into political offices across the country, we must make conscious effort to prevent terrorists of any kind, but particularly the not-so-apparent terrorists, from assuming positions of authority. It must have been in the spirit of the foregoing that Plato have been quoted as positing that better is the society whose kings were philosophers, and philosophers were kings; or something to that effect.
I am @efewanogho on Twitter.

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