In recent conversations on the unfortunate fate that has of late
befallen the sovereign entity known as Nigeria, My friend and I lamented the
poor respect and regard that the constituted authority in Nigeria gives to the
sanctity of human life. My friend who is a well established crude oil magnate
but who ironically still thinks like a socialist regretted that human
life has been speedily degraded by the Nigerian civil and military authorities that
the rest of the international community are at a loss what to make of it. He
said that in all of his recent foreign tours during the course of his business
transactions in Western Europe and the United States of America, most people he
met do not know whether to rate the persons who populate the Nigeria's civil
and military authorities as primitive people who are far removed from modern
civilization. He is of the considered opinion that in other civilized
climes whenever the governmental authorities be they civil or military fail in
their constitutional obligations to the people in the area of national security
the most transparent option is for the very persons heading those branches of
government to quit honorably or be shown the way out. My friend pointed out a
plethora of samples in the United Kingdom, Australia and the United States of
America to justify his affirmation and I too found them to be true since I do
also have a working knowledge of how civilized societies work.
But I quickly reminded him that Nigeria is a member of the United
Nations and by so doing has signed on to almost all of the modern humanitarian
laws that safeguards the sanctity and sacredness of human lives but he wouldn't
budge even as he argued that the fact that for nearly six months that over
three hundred teenage girls were snatched from their dormitory in the girls
secondary school in Chibok town in Borno state and the Nigerian State has
failed to rescue these girls and bring their abductors to pay for these
detestable crimes against humanity means that the civil and military
authorities pay only but lip service to the legal obligations that they owe the
Nigerian citizenry in line with the various provisions of the international
humanitarian laws. Whilst not distancing myself from his well considered
conclusion I also told him that even in Egypt right here in Africa when the
then Moslem Brotherhood-led government was suspected of abusing the human
rights of most persons outside of their own brand of radical religious beliefs,
the people's power were invoked even as over 14 million ordinary civilians came
out in the streets of Cairo, to demand the removal of this contraption called
government and the military heeded the call. In the Nigerian situation both the
civil and military authorities have come under considerable accusations of
abysmally failing in their duties to safeguard the lives of Nigerians and so
only the people can decide how this mess can be cleared may be through
electoral process that is devoid of manipulations and violence. This is not to
say that the leading opposition political party has any working idea of how to
resolve these killings because the Presidential candidate of the All
Progressives Congress has severally been seen in the media defending the
actions of some of these mass killers especially in one instance he was quoted
as criticizing any heavy military action against these terrorists.
We had hardly rounded up our conversations when the most gruesome
of all despicable crimes against humanity was reported in Baga, Borno state as
carried out by the armed Islamic terrorists who were reportedly implicated in
the killings of hundreds of innocent civilians and the number was
conservatively put at 2000 by the international Non-Governmental organization-
HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH quoting sources directly from the scenes of these vicious
crimes.
Also virtually all the international news channels immediately
took interest in this breaking news from the epicenter of Nigerian terrorists
attacks just as tongues started wagging why the rest of the international
community have yet to invoke the relevant United Nations Security Council's
resolutions rejecting these genocidal killings in Nigeria and practically
adopting military steps to flush out these mass murderers.
Commentators even in international electronic media channels such
as the Sky News and the United States based Cable News Network expressed open
consternation to why the rest of the World is silent when genocides of
unprecedented scale are going on in Nigeria but were too quick to show open and
practical solidarity with the French Government and people who suffered series
of attacks targeted at a Paris based cartoons' news magazine whereby 17 persons
were killed but which immediately drew out instant and effective response from
the French Government leading to the gunning to death of the three armed
terrorists fingered in these abominable and despicable atrocities.
But again, some other observers raised issues with the abysmal
failures of the Nigerian military to crush decisively this rebellion by the
armed Islamic terrorists which has raged for more than three years now. On the
apparent silence of the rest of the international community on the range of
grave atrocities being committed by the armed Islamic terrorists based in the
North East of Nigeria, one issue to be mentioned is that a nation is taken
serious depending on how the civil and military authorities rates itself. Why
for instance is a small nation such as Cameroon able and ever willing to crush and
defeat any incursions made against their populace by these same Islamic rebels
based in North East of Nigeria but the Nigerian military rated as the third
largest in Africa has been unable to defeat these terrorists and has even
abdicated from their constitutional duty and allowing these rebels to cease
virtually two states out of the 36 that we currently have? So the international
community is said to be pissed off with both the civil and military authorities
in Nigeria for their inability and failure to rise to the occasion and defeat
these terrorists seen as only a rag tag terror group.
In the last three years the civil and military authorities have
offered reasons ranging from sabotage within the military for the inability of
the Nigerian military to defeat these terror group but still others blamed the
poor state of weapons in the possession of the Nigerian military for this
apparent failure but again there have been reports that the terrorists fighting
Nigeria are actually making use of the weapons stolen and taken away from the
Nigerian military whose members and operatives have been accused of cowardice
in the face of advances made by these terrorists. Reports said that Nigeria
spent over $6 Billion USD last year in the Defence budget making Nigeria the
third largest spender in the defence sector in Africa but the question remains
where are these weapons and why is the Nigerian Military unable to crush these
terrorists?
I seriously felt embarrassed and ashamed as a Nigerian when I
watched the CNN this morning of January 13th 2015 and the anchor person who visited Abuja was asked by the news
caster based in Atlanta in the United States the whereabouts of the Nigerian
military authority when these outrageous mass slaughters of civilian population
took place in Baga, Borno State. In the past the military have showcased to the
media arrested hardened mass killers belonging to this terror group and the
Nigerian judicial system is so weak and too compromised to deliver decisive
justice to these mass murderers and the few that are convicted due to poor
detention facilities and corruption in the prison system, these detained
terrorists have been known to have regained their freedom through series of
prison attacks that occurred last year and till date the ministry of interior
in Nigeria is unable to render proper account.
What makes a nation Sovereign is the near infinite capacity of
both the civil and military authorities to defend the territorial integrity of
that nation state and to defend the sanctity of the lives of their citizenry.
The essence of STATEHOOD is the capacity of the constituted authorities to
stand up to be counted when it comes to the issue of national security and the
enforcement of the rule of law. Whereby the state is incapable of fulfilling
these simple constitutional tasks therefore there has to be series of questions
on the quality of such a nation state and even the rating of such a sovereign
entity which according to most scholars can be classified as a failed or
failing state.
Speaking to the issue of the kind of respect and regard that both
the civil and military authorities pay to the universal sanctity attached to
the value of human life brings us to the recent media briefing by the military
authority in Abuja Nigeria whereby the spokesman in an attempt to deny that up
to 2000 Nigerians were not killed in Baga, Borno State did also committed the
fallacy of appearing to say that the lives of 150 Nigerians mattered very
little in the entire calculations even though he appeared to be saying that
those who exaggerated the figure meant serious harm to the credibility of
Nigeria as a nation State.
His words: “…It is however necessary to inform Nigerians in
the interim that the exercise so far has not corroborated the report on the
casualty rate which was put at 2000 deaths.
“From all available evidences, the number of people who lost their
lives during that attack has so far not exceeded about 150 in the interim. This
figure includes many of the terrorists who were bearing arms and got killed in
the course of their attack and battle with troops".
“It should be noted that Baga and the neighbouring towns have been
under series of attacks and harassment by terrorists. In the course of this,
many residents have left, leaving the population in the town almost seriously
depleted. Many were also able to escape while the terrorists’ battle with
troops lasted.
“The figure given by sources, who claimed to be
eyewitnesses, must be an extremely exaggerated estimate. Unfortunately, this
figure is now being bandied about in a section of the media as if it has been
authenticated. It cannot be true,” he said.
What a country one may say. In France the other day when the two
terrorists- the Kouchi brothers after committing their dastardly crime of attacking
the media house and inflicting several deaths and were pursued hotly to an
industrial zone in Dammartin-en-Goele, North East of Paris France, the French
military didn't wait to give a press conference in an air conditioned office in
the nation's capital to give flimsy excuses why these terrorists were not
captured. The French military brought all the forces they can muster to inflict
maximum damage on these terror masterminds and smoked them to death even as the
entire civilised World rallied round France in a sympathy match in the nation's
capital to denounce terrorism. But in Nigeria, regional War lords and
politicians have been allowed the freedom to politicize these mass killings to
such an extent that over fifteen thousand Nigerians have been killed and yet
the military authority has still not thought it wise to massively hunt down
these terrorists by attacking their base in the so called Sambisa Forest near
Maiduguri, Borno State and from this safe haven these terrorists have annexed
several towns and villages in the North East of Nigeria and the military
authority is still not so ashamed of itself but has continued to insult the
intelligence of Nigerians by offering flimsy excuses.
But why is the rest of the Nigerian population still in slumber
and have not reacted massively to compel the Nigerian state to discharge their
obligations? Why is everyone so silent even in the face of these atrocities
that are worst than the Rwanda genocide? Why is the United Nations Security
Council so silent in the face of these incessant killings of Nigerians and yet
Nigeria is still a member of the United Nations and to even think that Nigeria
still contributes troops to keep peace in other countries under the frameworks
of the United Nations peace keeping missions and the African Union while the
country is about to be extinguished by terrorists is to say the least shocking
and annoying.
+Emmanuel Onwubiko is
head of Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria and blogs @www.huriwa.blogspot.com; www.rightsassociationngr.com, www.huriwa.org.
13/1/2015.
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