TheCable

In recent times, the active-governor of Borno State daily visits victims of attacks, caused by terrorists! Our ineffectiveness has turned him to a consistent mourner. This is quite unfortunate in a nation that prides itself as the giant of Africa. I read somewhere that immediately Mr. President left Borno State yesterday that Boko Haram launched a rocket, killing and wounding our precious people. This is no longer acceptable. We do have so much blood of innocent Nigerians crying from our soil.

People die day after day in our country without anyone being held accountable. Some hours ago, Boko Haram burnt 30 precious citizens of Nigeria, including pregnant women and baby! What can be more terrible than this? Our flag is supposed to be constantly flown at a half mast until we truly overcome the problem of insecurity ruining the strength of our country. You know the number of youths we have lost as an effect of this madness? And youths are the strength of every country!

Whoever plays senseless and shallow-politics with the ongoing security-issues in Nigeria is doomed forever—together with his or her household! We are having a serious crisis on our hands and we need to think very fast. This is no time to spin what is open before the whole world. Twisting what happens before the whole world makes us appear flippant and unserious. This is one of the reasons—serious nations of the earth do not take us serious again.

It is not wrong for baba to declare a state of emergency on our security. Our current security architecture and design is not effective. We need to be brutally sincere with ourselves. People have been agitating that we try new hands, but it seems Buhari has his reasons for keeping the current security chiefs. But no one has a company and keeps those who are running it when the company is consistently not doing well. The way our leaders run Nigeria is not the way they run their private companies! Bishop Matthew Kukah spoke some hours ago as a grieving father who lost a priceless son. In his lucid and coherent speech, he spoke on too far many germane issues, affecting us a people, but instead of us to call a national solemn assembly, weeping and thinking through all he said and applying them
to our national life, some of our people are back playing politics with it. The reason we are where we are today is because we are fond of playing politics with every fiber of our national life.

Customarily, it is my culture to always keep quiet on things that affect the Nigerian cream of the crop and elite alone, because the Nigerian elite is like a cult! Each time a crisis hits the poor alone, they look the other way, but when it affects them, they hypocritically scream for help. Nigeria is where she is today, because those who know their onions are hypocritically silent. They wrongly believe that one day they would wake up; finding out that Nigeria has changed on its own. Also, they are deliberately docile because they are citizens of many first-world countries.

It is in the news that a group (of terrorists) is planning to hit the National Assembly. God forbid this happens. But are we going to wait till this happens before we critically look at the current security configuration of our country? We cannot deny again that Boko Haram and other dangerous enemies of Nigeria have many dangerous weapons in their possession. How they are bringing them into our country is a conundrum waiting to be solved by those in the corridors of power.

A few days back, I sat quietly, thinking on the issue of insecurity that is disgracing us in the comity of nations. After a long time thinking, it dawned on me the avant-garde-wisdom behind the citizens of America being allowed
to own guns for the sole purpose of self-defense. I know it has some disadvantages, but the truth is; the advantages outweigh disadvantages! We too need to start thinking radically along this line. How beautiful would it be when terrorists get to a village, wanting to attack our people living in it and everyone suddenly rises to defend themselves. I have heard a lot of gory stories of terrorists and other enemies of Nigeria getting to towns and villages, killing our people like animals, because they do not have guns to defend themselves. The concept of self- defense is useless when our people do not have access to guns to defend themselves!

I know the way we think in Nigeria. Some folks will read through what I am saying here and say that I am crazy for saying that our people should have access to guns. They will say that it is impossible for it to happen in our polity. No problems, but what I do know that some national problems can only be solved by thinking outside the box. I make bold to say that the problem of terrorism in Nigeria can never to be solved conventionally. Lastly, I ask Buhari, our lawmakers and every well-meaning-Nigerian to consider this crazy-idea. May God bless the Federal Republic of Nigeria!