The Kankara Lies and Evident Lax National Security

ONWUASOANYA FCC JONES

I am happy that the over 300 boys taken from their school in my President’s backyard have finally been reunited with their parents, but I am not happy with the fact that some of them will never come over the mental and emotional trauma that they were put through in those few but torturous days. I do not know who is behind this bad drama, but I am sure that, as it is sometimes in the art of film, the script may not have been religiously followed. Of it was, then, the script is beyond crappy.

It was Peter Agba Kalu who first raised my eyebrows when he posted more than once that there was no abduction of any sort in Kankara, that it was just another bad film from my Party trying to play out. I read him once, and began to think about it. Unfortunately, I found clues to believe him and immediately pick holes with the tale. But, somehow, I restrained myself from completely dismissing the authenticity of the story. While I do not quite have good logic to dispel the narrative by some elements in the opposition that this federal government led by my Party, is the most deceptive and insensitive we have had since the return of democracy, I still found it quite difficult to believe that anyone whom God or the Devil has lifted to such political or professional heights would ever sit down to imagine some innocent boys as pawns for some image boosting or to retain jobs, they obviously lack the slightest ideas on how to do.

When it was announced that the boys have been released and further confirmed by a Katsina State Government official, I quickly put up a post in solidarity with the boys and their parents. I couldn’t have, even if the kidnap was real, and a true rescue operation actually occured, congratulated those who set the convenient grounds for such awful criminality to be perpetrated in the first place. However, was there truly a kidnap? That’s one question I will leave you to answer for yourself.

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It would be hard for a not-too-bright child to believe that school boys, non of whom is less than twelve years old, would sit comfortably on a bike and be conveyed many miles to an uncertain fate. The human urge for survival is natural and these boys, at least some of them, would have made a run for their lives, with the slightest opportunity. Or were all the boys tied to the motorcycles, thereby, restraining them from making any attempt to escape?

To convey 344 boys, would require at least 170 motorcycles. How were these motorcycles able to move in a convoy across several kilometers between, at least two different States without detection by any of the many security outfits that are supposed to man our roads? If this is possible, then, it presents those calling for the immediate sack of our service chiefs strong points for their arguments. Zamfara and Katsina have especially being flashpoints of violent crimes in the last few years, with those mischievously christened as “bandits”, killing hundreds, if not thousands of innocent people, looting homes, raping women and girls, destroying farmlands and kidnapping many vulnerable people. If we could leave several miles within such States without security patrols, then, there is absolutely no reason, why anyone in commanding cadre of our security structure should still be drawing salaries from public funds for security related issues. Nigerians will understand if we are told that these guys are drawing their pensions of loyalty to an individual or a cabal rather than our nation or its security.

The only reasonable explanation for the obvious porosity of security on our roads would be that the federal government has, maybe, as part of its amnesty or negotiations with these terrorists conceded some territories to them.

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Some newspapers had quoted residents living around the school environment as reporting that some of the gunmen were repelled by some security operatives around the school. While some of the boys who “escaped” told of how the gunmen tried to cajole them into coming back into the school premises as they meant no harm. I am confused about how security operatives could have repelled some gunmen, yet, as much as 100 gunmen or ‘bandits’ successfully raided the school and abducted over 300 boys. What really does it mean to repel criminals? Could it be that the security operatives tried to confront these gunmen and got an order from somewhere asking them to retreat? If there was an exchange of gunfire that warranted a withdrawal of some of these criminals, there would have been some casualties for the operation to have eventually succeeded.

Another laughable twist to the tale is the involvement of the notorious and highly divisive Miyetti Allah group in the ‘rescue’ operation. While those who proudly announced this involvement might have believed that it would be a good image cleaning strategy for the group, it also leaves room to suspect that the Miyetti Allah group could be accomplices in some of the crimes ravaging some parts of the country. If they could so quickly identify where these bandits are located and with hours got them to release the boys without a single shot fired, then, the President could as well relieve the service chiefs of their appointments and replace them with the leaders of the Miyetti Allah Kautal Hore. They have proven to be more effective in tracking these terrorists than our conventional security outfits. The only snag however would be that the group may only act when those affected are Muslims and when the Commander-in-chief is also a Muslim. They couldn’t intervene with such dispatch when our girls in Chibok were abducted, and we still have a number of them in captivity.

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Usually, when the celebrity cop, Abba Kyari gets involved in trying to crack a crime, bullets pierce through skulls and bodies are brought back in bags, while those who are fortunate are paraded in handcuffs. But, in this case, Abba Kyari obviously lost his magic. He only smiled to the cameras, and maybe while he was still trying to track the criminals, our boys came back smiling, wearing good clothes and looking like they would miss their place of captivity.

It is understandable when nation’s negotiate prisoner swap with an unfriendly nation, but it is nothing short of an epic embarrassment for a sovereign nation with a big part of its budget going to defence and hundreds of thousands of personnel or millions drawing salaries and allowances from tax payers money to negotiate with what is supposed to be a ragtag group of criminals within its own territory for the freedom of our young citizens. What other ways do we want to tell the world that we do not have the slightest capacity to protect our citizens?

If the President must listen to anyone at this time in our history, it must be to those who tell him the bitter truth and not those who would tell him that everything is alright, while his own wife has reportedly ran away out of concerns for her own security in where is supposed to be the most secured house in Nigeria; the Presidential Villa.

The President should also understand that his liars are not very creative, if they were, they would have put up something more credible in Kankara than these childish lies that my four year old daughter would sneer at, if she reads it. Rather than boost the President’s public image, this whole charade has done otherwise.

May Nigeria Prevail!

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