Boko Haram: Fighting a defeated foe

This fading and dying year is a year of technical defeat for a supposedly collapsing and falling Boko Haram. In the eyes and thinking of the Federal Government, the insurgents are literally dead.
That became a popular sing-song for everybody in government. They would beat their fleshy chests and sing the song to high heavens, with choruses.
They tried hard to convince us. But we were convinced they were not telling the whole truth. We grudgingly succumed that there was a measured improvement in the fight against the terrorists.
But the praise-singers, sycophants and do-gooders claimed total victory. They argued that there could not be 100 per cent security in any society anywhere in the world. They blindly credited President Muhammadu Buhari with “at least 90 per cent!”
That was the height of deceit. The governors unknowingly gave enough credence to this when they gathered last week Wednesday. It was an unholy gathering.
First, Vice President Yemi Osinbajo hurriedly met with his exclusive All Progressives Congress (APC) governors for one hour, 15 minutes. They claimed it was a strategic meeting. Thereafter, they moved to the larger governors’ meeting, all in the Villa.
Gombe State Governor Ibrahim Dankwambo was given the hatchet job. It was really decisive, because Dankwambo is of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) exraction. Like a fiat, he told a bewildered nation that the governors unilaterally approved $1 billion for the Federal Government to fight the “defeated” Boko Haram.
That almost set the nation on fire. Nigerians practically went to war with the governors. They were up in arms against them. This post picked on the social media aptly captured the mood of the moment. It is unedited:
“But wait. The Buhari administration wants to take $1 billion from the Excess Crude Account to fight Boko Haram? Was it not just weeks ago that they said Boko Haram is finished? Did they not say Boko Haram were ‘technically defeated’? Who spends $1 billion on a finished defeated foe? You see, no matter how fast and far falsehood has traveled, it MUST eventually be overtaken by truth. And Lai Mohammed is understandably SILENT!”
Trust him, Ekiti State Governor Ayodele Fayose is as usual in the forefront. He is clearly leading the struggle: “For posterity sake, I wish to place it on record that I was not among the governors who approved the withdrawal of almost half of our savings in the Excess Crude Account, which belongs to the three tires of government to fight an already defeated insurgency.”
Fayose did not stop at that; he dug deep and made great discoveries. He found out that Buhari, military chiefs and other top shots of his government at different times and forums told us that Boko Haram has long been defeated.
He lay the amazing facts bare with these astonishing samplers: “Nigeria has ‘technically won the war’ against Islamist Boko Haram militants, President Muhammadu Buhari says. He told the BBC that the militant group could no longer mount ‘conventional attacks’ against security forces or population centres.” That was BBC on December 24, 2015.
A day earlier, information minister Lai Mohammed was reported on December 23, 2015, by Premium Times: “Today, I can report that the war against Boko Haram is largely won. They (military) have so degraded the capacity of Boko Haram that the terrorists can no longer hold on to any territory just as they can no longer carry out any spectacular attack.”
Seven months later, the Nigerian Army told Daily Sun on July 25, 2016: “The fight against terrorism and insurgency in the North East is hinged on three things, first defeating the Boko Haram terrorists, which has been accomplished.”
On August 9, 2016, The Punch reported: “The Chief of Army Staff, Lt. Gen. Tukur Buratai, has said that the Nigerian Army has defeated the once-dreaded Islamist sect, Boko Haram, and has degraded its capability to re-group in any part of the country.”
Buhari again came on board. He told Daily Trust as recently as November 27, 2017: “Let me be clear, Boko Haram has been massively degraded and its surviving members put on the run. What we are witnessing now are the last kicks of a dying horse.”
These are just five of Fayose’s numerous attestations to the “defeat” of Boko Haram. The very reasons he is vehemently opposed to the $1 billion approval: “I will not support it. Every state has its own peculiarities in terms of security. In Ekiti State, people are hungry, we are having hunger haram.”
With this, the Federal Government was forced to change gear. And Osinbajo did the padding, by expanding the scope of $1 billion: “It was to assist all the (security) issues in the states, including policing, community policing, all of the different security challenge that are here.” That was clearly an after thought.
But Fayose is neither swayed by that argument nor deterred. Promptly, all the local government chairmen in his state went to court. They instituted a suit at the Federal High Court, Abuja, to stop the withdrawal.
Zamfara State Governor Abdul-Azeez Yari, who is also chairman, Nigerian Governors’ Forum, strived hard to justify the approval. He stubbornly claimed it has “viable” antecedence: “This is not the first time a decision like this is being taken. It happened during (former President Goodluck) Jonathan’s era, when they took $2 billion to procure equipment for the military.”
Let us even reluctantly agree with Yari. But he forgot so easily that this government promised us change. You people swore to do things differently. You made it clear that old things have passed away, and all things have become new.
Have you changed the change? We were shocked when you lousily made favourable reference to Jonathan’s era. You are even proud to do what Jonathan did. So, something good can come from Jonathan after all?
You are openly picking useful lessons from him, tapping from his well of wisdom and rich experience. We now know it is not all condemnation for Jonathan, there is commendation too! These shameless politicians with warped reasoning and argument. There is nothing they cannot turn upside down.
It is in the air that this government is desperately sourcing funds for the 2019 elections from every available source. Nigerians are groaning and lamenting. They are utterly disappointed that the change has not changed anything substantially.
What changed are the operating characters. And they only changed platform, but their colours remain the same.
We are not deceived. We have come a long way with them. We know them inside out. Can a leopard change its spots? Not even time and season can perform the magic!