I
do not expect this article to be popular with anybody. I do not expect any accolades either. But in security, perception is reality for
the person involved. Most Nigerians’
reality today is that 200 plus girls were kidnapped from a secondary school in
Chibok, Borno State some 77 days ago while in their boarding facility while
preparing to write their West African Examination Council (WAEC) Senior
Secondary School Certificate Examination.
As
a person who lives by my analytical skill as a security practitioner, I have
been following the whole saga and trying to read between the lines. I am beginning to feel that there is strong probably
no school girls were kidnapped in reality and that the whole issue has been a
written piece of drama which the authors are set to keep updating to ensure there
is no end as an end would expose the possibility that no one had been
kidnapped.
If
you have not gotten too angry to continue reading this piece, I would provide
you with red flags which show that the equation does not fit together and
therefore, grounds to question the story of kidnap of more than 200 girls from
a school boarding facility at Chibok, Borno State.
One,
so far, nobody has given an exact number of girls who were in the school that
night and exactly how many were abducted and the exact number of girls who
escaped before they were taken away.
Everything about the numbers have been conjectures of about 200, 274,
300 girls kidnapped or 20, 40, 60 girls had escaped.
Two,
the principal of the school Mrs. Asabe Kwabura had given two different versions of how the kidnap incident
happened. In one account, “she said that
she was in Maiduguri for a medical checkup and her daughter called her to tell
her insurgents are attacking the school”.
In another account, Mrs. Kwabura “said that the insurgents had come to
her in the guise of soldiers and told her that they need to move the girls to a
safer location and she allowed them”.
Who did she call to confirm the need to move the girls? Who did she call to tell what the “soldiers”
had told her before permitting them to take the girls, should that be the true
story? If the school was not safe for
the students, why and how come it was it safe for Mrs. Kwabura and her daughter
that resides with her? Is it not interesting that such a begging muddle would
be in place and we are ignoring it and playing into the hands of Boko Haram and
all those in the same ship with them.
Three,
when the first video of the “abducted girls” were shown, we were shown video of
chubby happy Islamic girls who were reciting the Koran and Hadith perfectly “though
they were just forcibly converted to Islam only a few weeks earlier”. What magic did the busy Boko Haram fighters
use in achieving such a feat impossible for even Albert Einstein? If they can do that magic, we had better
allow them to come and teach our children science and mathematics.
Four,
on the first day when the parents of the “abducted Chibok girls” were asked to
identify them from the video; the news report was that none of the girls were
their daughters. By the second day, the
identification parade moved to the governor’s office and 4 girls were
identified. By the third, fourth, fifth
days, we heard, 20 girls, 40 girls and 60 girls had been identified. And that was the last we heard about
identifying the girls. What about the
remaining two hundred and something if 274 or 300 girls had been abducted?
Five,
a sixty year old woman was listed among those that were abducted. Even if we assume that she is doing adult
education, how come up to date, nobody has come forward to say that his or her
sixty year old mother or sister or aunty was among those kidnapped if she were
to be childless at that age which is possible.
Six,
Mrs. Asabe Kwabura in one news report said that 43 of the girls had been
accounted for and 230 are still missing.
But every day, the report in the media is that 274 girls are still
missing.
Seven,
some Northern leaders are already preparing us for the inevitable – the time
when there would be no real girls to use in proving some girls were ever
kidnapped. Sani Shehu was quoted by the Nigerian
press to say that “by the time the girls are released, they would not know
themselves again and some of them may become militants”. In the business of persuasion, that statement
is tantamount to ‘preparation’ – getting us ready for the day that we could not
have any girls who can vouch to being taken. Then it would be said, “They have
been so confused, they cannot remember who they are anymore”. And also as soon
as more female bombers join the boko haram terrorist group, it could be said
that they must be the Chibok girls who have been indoctrinated.
Eight,
Olusegun Obasanjo, one of the marauders of Nigeria that I distrust greatly
joined forces with the North and said that “he is afraid that before long, all
the Chibok girls would be impregnated by their captors”. These are all preparations.
Nine,
check it out – no single parent or parents or relations of the “Chibok girls”
have come forward to discuss about their ordeal to the Nigerian press. All that has been heard were from parents
that spoke through governor Shettima of Borno State or other governor’s office
officials.
My
security background and instincts find it difficult to stay comfortable with these
obvious conflicts and misleading statements preparing us to accept what next
lie that could be sold about the Chibok school girls’ abduction.
Therefore,
my imagination is running riots presently and if you have liberty to create so
much embarrassment for the Nigerian nation and government, I am at liberty to
imagine that the true situation is that we are being beguiled by a ruse
calculated to embarrass the Nigerian government and people and also achieve
sinister agenda clearly connected to the Boko Haram Agenda. My grounds are adduced below.
One,
it is not hidden anymore that the Boko Haram programme is an agenda planned and
executed to bring home the threat made by no less than three eminent Northern
politicians including Junaidu Mohammed, Atiku Abukakar, Muhammadu Buhari to
mention but a few, that they would make Nigeria ungovernable for Jonathan if he
wins the elections in 2011. This threat
has been repeated in several other ways and guises especially with the learning
that President Jonathan might want to contest for a second term in 2015.
Two,
when you listen to ‘Abubakar Shekau’ talk, the same statements he makes is the
same that all Jonathan’s opponents are making.
After each terrorist bomb attack on the Nigerian soil and people,
‘Abubakar Shekau’ boasts how he is better than Jonathan. He boasts that Nigerian security forces and
the President are weak. It is this same
statement that the opposition and most northern elite use. Even the failed governors’ of the North-East
talk in exactly the same language and term of how Boko Haram fighters are
better than the Nigerian soldiers just with the same words ‘Abukakar Shekau’
would use when boasting about his successes.
Three,
since the 1950s, the United States of America have always wanted to have a
military base in Nigeria. So far, this
has failed through the efforts of Nigerian students in the 1950s and 1960s and
the military leaders of Nigeria and current leaders to resist the chocolate
coated sword from America. An embarrassment like the kidnap of so many girls
and apparent failure of Nigerian soldiers to rescue the phantom girls is enough
to announce shame on a leadership and force their hands to accept help of
American troops.
Four,
a year or two ago, the U.S. Intelligence predicted that Nigeria would
disintegrate in 2015. Is there a chance
that all that is in motion is an operation to actualize that prediction?
My
counsel to the Northern peoples of Nigeria – this country is better than
anything else. If you do not live and
let live, you would lose the oil money that has served you so well in the past.
To
America, my counsel is that it is a wiser step to support and help Nigeria to
stand in an equitable manner. If Nigeria
disintegrates, there would be no space in America regardless of you’re the efficiency
of your immigration security officials and apparatus.
My
one counsel for President Goodluck Jonathan, and he needs to do this before his
luck runs out. “President Jonathan
should realize that we have a civil war on our hands with boko haram being the
armed forces of the rebel North. He should
put on the cap of a President at war and go ahead and prosecute the war against
boko haram as a war”.
Good
luck to all.
