The north started bleeding long before now, the blood-shedding dates back to yesterday when money meant to procure arms were callously shared amongst the elites. The people that spearheaded this financial jamboree hails from Sokoto, today’s helpless epicentre of terrorism. What we witnessed in Borno and Yobe with splashes to Adamawa was a enough signal for prevention, alas! We continued to live in borrowed illusion. It started in Zamfara, instead of Katsina and Sokoto to be on full alert, we went to sleep and today the result is what we have.
Just when successes were being recorded in Zamfara, the bad guys chose Sokoto for their demonic onslaught. Paranoid with the heavy decimation of their ranks, they set a bus ablaze as they watch the cruel end of fellow humans. The world was miffed and shocked to the barbarism of man to fellow man. Something more tragic happened, the president chose an infamous lane!
He journeyed to Lagos to sit in witness of a book written in historical anecdote. His handlers goofed tragically by not stopping him from that needless trip. The mood that morning of that unfortunate carnage should have been solemn, mournful and constricted. But we lost it to the vain witness of a book launch. A father stays away from the farm, the day a child dies- not to even talk of when children died in scores like the Sokoto carnage! I wished the day that birthdays that book launch never happened. Buhari chose the farm, a very gutless move.
With our security forces falling every day in the line of duties, rather than the president speaking to the helplessness of our situation, he chose to witness a book that speaks not necessarily to the realities on ground but for the power that should be shared. He lost it and for the first time as his firm supporter, I felt pained and disappointed that the President acted the way he did. It was a miscalculated decision.
To be fair to him, as far as insecurity is concerned, the only thing he hasn’t done is weep before the cameras and sprawl on the ground in helpless resignation. No time has Nigeria spend in defence procurement than now; the country has in her infrastructural armouries all the sophisticated armaments in warfare. What therefore is giving the belligerence forces edge over our security forces?
This is what genuine citizens concerned with the danger that envelops their country should be interested in, and not the regurgitated lame symphonies of blames, regrets and lamentations built on the presets of mischief and political leaning. The theme song of ‘I regret voting Buhari’, ‘Allah ya Isa’, and other hurried and needless lines seen mostly as a vindication of standing in opposition to the man earlier. I see more gloating than genuine tears for the deteriorated security situation in Nigeria.
What every patriot should be preoccupied with now is how to galvanize energies to end the reign of terror, to mobilize support for our security forces, to tell government at all levels to address the choking realities that greet us. In times of terror, citizens forge a common front with their government to win the war that will consume everyone when it births. This is not the time to count your regrets, this is the time to push for a win against the enemies of Nigeria.
Good
Frankly musing
Abdullahi Haruna Haruspice writes from Abuja
