Is the Nigerian government doing anything to combat insecurity in the country?  No —- I’m not talking about searching for abducted children in the forest.

• Nigerian defense minister Bashir Magashi downplayed the deadly violent attack and kidnapping that occurred recently in Niger, Nigeria, calling it, “minor, minor, minor things.” He then chided Nigerians to defend themselves against these armed bandits. With what, Sir?  Cassava stems, stones and sand?
• Magashi said that victims of these deadly attacks are “cowards” for not fighting back.
• These remarks, in the opinion of this writer, are profoundly nonsensical and unhinged, especially coming from the Minister of Defense who is supposed to be at the helm of efforts to protect Nigerian people.
• Entertainer and government critic Charlie Boy weighed in, opining that the Buhari government is incapable of defeating these bandits because powerful folks are sponsoring and profiting from these attacks.
• If Magashi has nothing constructive to say, he should just shut the f-up.

 

ONUMBA.COM – We now know why Nigerians are not able to defend themselves against armed bandits.

They are all “cowards.”

That’s right.  They are all wimps.

Really?

Yep —- if you let the country’s Defense Minister Bashir Salihi Magashi tell it.

Our leaders (from Hausa, Igbo, Yoruba tribes) have failed us, and continue to fail us.  Shame on all of them.  SHAME, SHAME, SHAME.  They all should be ashamed of themselves.  Not one state out of 36 is worthy of being assuredly dangled as an example of where good and effective governance is taking place ——- not one.

That Nigeria is bedeviled by a smorgasbord of woes is a fact that should come to no one as a surprise.

What people find head-scratching though is why the government is caught abysmally flat-footed and unprepared to ward off the widening rash of violent attacks wreaking havoc on Nigerians across the country.  These attacks, which often play out brazenly in broad daylight, are beginning to morph into an endemic security conundrum in a country fast drifting into a beehive of ethnic restlessness and teeth-gnashing gehenna.

What’s really going on?  Why is Nigeria wallowing in this deepening mess?  Why?  Please don’t take my word for any of this.  Just ask Nigerians themselves how they feel about the state of affairs in their country and then sit back for an earful of gloomy, eye-tearing sagas.  As if grappling with myriad biting economic problems is not enough, now these folks are also left to fend for themselves fighting off the insidious insecurity that got everyone on the edge.  This is pretty atrocious in a country endowed with so much —– vibrant and educated citizenry and a treasure trove of natural resources.  South Korea, for example, never really enjoyed these advantages to support her embryonic endeavors and national aspirations, yet that country emerged from the laborious ashes of her primordial beginnings to now a global economic and technology powerhouse.   For us, concatenating the word ‘power’ and ‘house’ in the same sentence only brings to mind, not ‘powerhouse, but the opprobrious woes of ‘power’ outage in my ‘house.’  Why we are not able to accomplish the same feat as South Korea is beyond me.

There’s power outage.  Now there’s insecurity.  It is reasonably safe to assume that Nigerians expect their government to be pulling out all the stops to stem the tide of these brutal attacks.

But Magashi’s recent remarks appear to convey otherwise.  Downplaying these menacing attacks, the minister pretty much told Nigerians they are on their own and should fight back these “minor” attacks.

What exactly is the government doing to stem this menace? 

The shared feeling of insecurity in the country, the growing sense of individual helplessness and the constant sense of looming vulnerability, is beginning to stoke concern over whether the government is even proactively going after these marauding morons?  Is anyone doing something, anything, to eliminate these threats, not just reacting to attacks, often with deadly consequences?  Or are the folks in charge only dawdling and moping, waiting for the next village assault to occur.  I am not sure.  But if the government has been working on eradicating these swords of Damocles, then the outcome has been dismal, at best.  The depressing mood of the nation regarding insecurity reflects that staggering pittance, and more importantly, explains why Nigerians at home and abroad are scared —— those at home constantly in heightened state of trepidation of a deadly tinderbox or being kidnapped and those abroad worried to death of visiting home.  Those who are brave enough to travel home do so reluctantly and often clandestinely —– tiptoeing from one hideout to another to avoid being spotted.

Boy —– it is a monumental mess.

It goes without saying that the Buhari administration has done a lousy job handling the burgeoning insecurity in the country.  It is unclear now who is unleashing more mayhem:  Boko Haram or the Fulani Herdsmen?  Perhaps, both are now in some ilk of strategic cahoots —— who knows?   What I do know for sure though is that for the government to succeed, a scrum approach must be adopted to replace the failed whack-a-mole strategy now in place.  The approach is to methodically infiltrate these criminal cabals by sprinkling in a few Trojan Horses in their midst as phony members and then scooping up forensic tactical intelligence about them.  With that trove, craft a smart military strategy to unleash a shellacking able to decapitate these lupine hooligans.  And please spare me that hackneyed BS about why it cannot be done unless of course someone explains to me exactly the purpose and benefit to Nigerians of maintaining a sprawling, and by all accounts, well funded Nigerian security force.

Magashi called Nigerians “Cowards.”

Nigerian Defense Minister Magashi, who is believed to be calling the shots to defeat these gangs and restore a sense of security in the country, is pretty much chiding Nigerians to stand up against these vicious criminals by themselves.

“We shouldn’t be cowards,” he told reporters while responding to questions about the recent attack in Niger State.

“I don’t know why people are running away from minor, minor, minor things like that,” he said. “They should stand. Let these people know that even the villagers have the competence and capability to defend themselves.”

Yeah ——– “minor, minor, minor things like that” blah, blah, blah…

Please take a moment to absorb such breathtakingly farcical remarks awash with naiveté of simplism, and oozing a nauseating stench of stupidity.

It is the kind of jaw-droppingly outrageous claptrap, staggering obloquy that chafes Nigerians into aghast and doldrums.  That kind of reckless talk cheapens both the office and the person holding it.  If these wackadoo remarks were made by some Ogbomosho, Sokoto or Onitsha motor park attendant, it would not have been as startling, but a government minister?  Defense minister, at that.

It appears in Magashi’s eyes, the dozens of folks attacked and abducted from Government Science Secondary School in Niger State, and victims of other macabre incidents, were all feeble victims of their own vast “incompetence,” all of them lacking the “capability” to defend themselves, therefore all of them “cowards”.

Leaders, for heaven’s sake, should think before they talk

These extenuating remarks would be irrational and unhinged coming from an average Joe, let alone a top tier government official.  In short, the former army general, who appears to be a vapid political dilettante and a throttlebottom devoid of eloquence, displayed both ignorance and a stunning impoverishment of perspicacity, because, for one thing, it is practically illegal for Nigerians to obtain firearms for self-defense.  While uppity and well connected Nigerians are often able to bribe and finagle their way through the rigorous and contouring protocols for purchasing guns, the Nigerian hoi polloi are quite a distance from the vicinity of what it would take to pull that off.  Yet, these same rich folks, outside of the fact that they are able to buy guns for themselves, are also the ones who can afford to pay for private shamus to protect themselves and their families from the scourge of these brutal attacks.

Furthermore, the minister’s dim-witted and precipitous remarks come at a terrifying juncture for Nigerians who are tiptoeing in fear of violent attack  and vandalism and seeking reassurance from their government leaders that meaningful efforts are being made to protect them.  Those mostly in need of this reassurance are folks in the Northwest region of Nigeria.  They have borne the brunt of these attacks.  But these swaggering gangs are now increasingly sprawling out to central and western Nigeria as the rest of the country braces for the worst while the Buhari government disappointingly mopes in paralysis and offering very little effort to combat the crises.

Again, calling Nigerian victims of gang attacks and kidnappings cowards is foolish.  Heck, if anyone is effete and duffer in all of this, Magashi himself makes a compelling case.  He is a classic ninnyhammer, who as a defense chief responsible for the security of Nigerians, has dropped the ball.  He is part of a fumbling and blundering government which has done next to nothing to combat the menace of insecurity in the country.  Shifting his colossal failure elsewhere is a copout.  If the minister has nothing constructive to say, he should shut the fuck up.

Charlie Boy weighs in

Entertainer and veteran political gadfly Charlie Boy recently appeared on Arise TV show hosted by Charles Aniagolu to express his reason for why this government is not postured to defeat these armed thugs.

Police, army “cannot get on top of it because they are a part of it,” he said.

Charlie Boy added:  “Terrorism has gone transactional, it has turned into a business.”  He said the business of violence is thriving because cagey powerful folks in high places and other eminences grises are behind it.

For him, “It’s the same old story.”