Every country has challenges unique to it as well as challenges it shares with other countries. What sets countries apart from each other is how they respond to common as well as unique challenges.
In Africa and in the world, Nigeria is not the only country assailed by terrorism. So many countries around the world are caught in terrorism`s suffocating sandstorm.
What leaves a lot to be desired about Nigeria is the way it has responded to a threat that has shown that it can rewrite and recreate the experiences of countries for bad.
Particularly, when Nigeria`s political leaders have gone into the ring with terrorism, many of them have been inexplicably and unforgivably found with kid gloves.
A suffocating sandstorm
On March 28, 2022, a passenger train travelling from Abuja to Kaduna was successfully immobilized by terrorists who proceeded to slaughter nine passengers and abduct over sixty others.
In the months that have since followed, the terrorists have effortlessly combined serving Nigerians haunting images and videos of the excruciating experiences of their victims, and raking in hundreds of millions in ransom which predictably will go into restocking the arsenal of the terror.
It appears that out of the pains of Nigerians, the terrorists who now patrol extensive forests in Kaduna, Niger, Zamfara, Kebbi and a handful of other states are having a swell time.
A bursting dam
The terrorists who are holding the AK9 train victims continue to insist that the government knows what they want.
But Nigerians don`t. The government thinks that what the terrorists want is not in the interest of the Nigerian public. This has created an impasse and it is the helpless and hapless Nigerians already held for more than a hundred days that are being used as bargaining chips.
The question must then be that if terrorist non-state actors have grown the guts to spell out outrageous demands to the Nigerian state, promise the direst of consequences if those demands are not met, and go further to threaten the country`s president, how must the Nigerian state respond? Does it have the capacity to muster a response that will be as devastating as it is deterrent?
It really does appear that finally the dam is bursting for Nigeria and there is no telling how much will be swept away once the dam fully bursts.
Security concerns in the country have mounted for years. Boko Harams decision to accelerate its campaign in 2009 was only an escalation. The recent entry of bandits into the game has further complicated things. Tellingly, Nigerias security forces appear overwhelmed.
Many Nigerians can no longer sleep with both eyes closed, and it is the locusts who have been posing as leaders in Nigeria since 1999 who must now take responsibility.
If the fears that Nigerias extremely fragile security architecture would crumble even under minimum pressure is finally being confirmed, it was because those who should have heeded the calls to strengthen the countrys security architecture were too distracted or corrupt to do their jobs efficiently.
As a result, Nigerians are now saddled with a country that has murdered sleep,with the night set to grow even longer.
Kene Obiezu,
keneobiezu@gmail.com
