There is a Yoruba adage that says; “ti oju ba f’arabale, a ri imu”, meaning if the eye is calm, focusing downwards in a steady gaze, it will see the nose.
The first statement that came out of my mouth when I heard about the US intelligence report was, every intelligence is local, which I posted on my FB and someone remarked on it, “are you sure”, to which I simply responded, process it.
The depth of my conviction is based on a Yoruba philosophy, “ti oju ba f’arabale, a ri imu”, try it, you may not capture the fullness of your nose, but you will not be lost to its shape, though faintly!
The strength of terrorists in government and among us is the weaponising of poverty that has destroyed the middle class, made hustlers out of them, the keen attention to observation that once marked them out as the bridge of hope between the poor and the upper class is lost to the focus of their minds on survival!
Same has brought over half of our population below poverty level where they are preoccupied with scavenging for daily bread to care about what is happening around them!
As for the upper class, it is restricted to the political players, not a single person out of the political class directly or indirectly can be numbered among the upper class!
From politics, is where life flows and having political power is the only way to secure yourself in the class!
Intelligence is local, and if you still disagree with me take a study of a retired Army General, one time Head of State and 2-time elected President in Nigeria, a strategist per excellence and an icon of native intelligence, so good at local sourcing of information and its passing that some called him tortoise, not for the slow nature of the shelled reptile but for the wisdom it exudes for tactical survival!
It is rumoured that several pieces of Intelligence has been gathered by the Nigerian DSS as late as July this year, that many ISIS bomb-makers were quartered in Abuja, in houses of prominent Nigerians of northern extraction. Please, be reminded that the attack of Kuje prison was in July 5th or 6th to be precise and on Thursday that follows, Senate President Ahmad Lawan said he was disappointed with the intelligence system in Nigeria!
When the Commander In Chief of the Armed Forces, a retired General and elected President of federal republic of Nigeria came on inspection of Kuje after the jail break, the man whose greatest reason for hauling our votes was to end insecurities was asking questions he should be answering, he started with the usual, about the security chiefs and architecture of Nigeria. He is solely responsible for their appointment and they are directly responsible to him and indirectly to Nigerians!
The next question was how did the defense at the prison fail to prevent the attack? Should I say asko! Meaning: ask me again!
Then to the heart of his investigation as the head of government in negotiations with terrorists who bombed Kaduna rail line from whom certain number of inmates in the broken facility were being demanded in exchange for abducted passengers! How many inmates were in the facility? How many of them can you account for?
In other words, is the deal done?
The threat that followed from the terrorist who claimed responsibility for Kuje jail break was issued to the President and the Governor of Kaduna state. Was it an empty threat?
The attack on the 7 Guard Battalion of the Nigerian Army Presidential Guards Brigade few days later in the same month of July says it all, 3 wounded, 8 killed. The architecture that Buhari queried has not been altered! No heads have rolled, no one sacked! The disappointing DSS according to Lawan, remains as constituted!
Then came the American report in October, and we are told by APC propagandist and FG information minister that there is no cause for alarm and nothing to worry about!
Days later the rumour broke, they have been hiding in and around Abuja making bombs with the intention to cause uproar! Could this be a strategy to make sure that 2023 elections does not hold?
We were told by the President that he is in a hurry to leave Villa life for Daura’s. Is there any intelligence available to our President that he may not be allowed to fulfill his constitutional period? Is their a plan to use serial terror attack as an excuse to install a transitional government that could be headed by a Dambazzau or any other northerner of such frame and records? What is the complicity of INEC chairman in this alleged plot that could truncate our nascent democracy?
Every intelligence is local, there is no way, quote me, America and UK intelligence will know about things originating from Abuja and the DSS will feign total ignorance!
Intelligence was probably sent up the chains of command all these while but for interests to protect and plans to hatch, it was sat on!
Any trip by the President out of this country at this tense moment we should all suspect. It could be the signal to trigger things and start operations!
I don’t want to insult any country, but Nigeria is not what APC led government is making her look like. Undoubtedly with one of the best police and military in Africa. The same system failing Lawan has never failed the world on any international peace keeping operation in which they participated!
This fact is available to the Nigerian government. The cadre making strategy and giving commands are obviously culpable and our men will live in the fear of this rag tag men who are able to cock a gun and shoot if nothing is done to convert them to tractor repairers as soon as possible, apologies to Bola Ahmed Tinubu!
We should be interested in how a local intelligence became an international alert. How did the Americans source the information? Or was it given to them by someone in the system? The top echelons of our DSS should be invited by Lawan led Senate if he is as disappointed as he claimed! Were there documents exchanged or any form of information sharing on this alert between Americans and their Nigerian Counterparts before they went public?
I can’t process it that the Americans actually tracked the bomb makers and helped Nigerian authorities arrest these guys!
Nigerians, ti oju ba f’arabale, a ri imu!
Life is not just about scavenging and hustling. E fara bale there is more to the ongoing than meet the eye. If the eyes can have the nose, it will see and if the sight is missed the nose will smell something. So much is moving and oozing. We either see or smell or God forbid! we all perish!!
