A season of national embarrassment: It is bad enough that our military young blood are slaughtered in a very messy manner by non-state actors, and hundreds of schoolchildren are abducted, while everyday people die scrambling for a loaf of bread, a tuber of yam or a small pack of rice. It is unbearable that the authorities are scarcely learning from these tragedies
By Ogochukwu Ikeje
No one can deny that effort has been made to send the message that the killing, on March 14, of 17 soldiers in Delta State was a national tragedy. Everyone, including politicians, called them gallant soldiers. On TV some almost let a tear drop. The high-ups in the military threatened fire and brimstone. “There will be injurious consequences,” warned the Director of Defence Media Operations, Major-General Edward Buba. The bodies of the slain soldiers, among them a lieutenant-colonel, two majors and a captain, were flown to Abuja.
When they were buried on March 27 at the National Military Cemetery, draped in national colours, it was a veritable moment to celebrate the departed afresh. No one poured praises more than President Bola Tinubu, who not only bestowed national honours on the soldiers but also announced, among other things, a scholarship for their children, from primary school to the university, including those in the womb.
Indeed the soldiers’ death was a national tragedy. They were young and just starting their careers, one or two probably unmarried yet. They were the future of the Army.
The manner they died was also a national embarrassment. It was said that 14 of the 17 were beheaded by their killers, their organs removed. Seventeen soldiers of the most populous nation in the world cut down in that fashion? Where was intelligence to give them an idea what they might come up against on their mission? Were they properly briefed about the operation? Were they on a peace mission to settle a land dispute, as we were initially told, or were they after oil thieves, as was later speculated? If peace-making was their mission, to stop Okuama and Okoloba people from grabbing each other’s throats over land, why haven’t we disbanded the police and let our gallant soldiers do the job? If the soldiers were out to crush illegal bunkering forces, were they properly equipped and ready for that tough task? If non-state actors could take out four army officers and the 13 soldiers they led in the manner they did on March 14, we need a lot of help from above. Many things didn’t add up when the story broke; they still don’t add up now.
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Now consider the typical response after the soldiers were felled. The soldiers reinforced and descended on the coastal Okuama community with annihilation on their minds. Videos of the burning town have been circulating on the internet, and the locals have fled into the forests, some possibly even beyond their homeland. Okuama has been sealed off. No one is allowed in. “Okuama is a crime scene, and as a crime scene, kit is being investigated,” says Major-General Nosakhare Ugbo, chief of civilian-military affairs.
Okuama people who spoke to the press from their hiding said they have lost many of their kin and should be allowed to return home to bury their dead.
Major-General Buba meant it when he said there would be “injurious consequences”. If anybody dare touch a military personnel, the assailant’s community is reduced to dust. It doesn’t matter if the assailant is caught or not. This sort of response troubles me. I saw it in Odi, Bayelsa State, in 1999 after soldiers moved into the coastal community and pulled down nearly everything in sight. I saw houses torn down. I saw yam barns burnt up. I saw bodies in the grass, including that of a man said to be around 100 years old. Odi was a ghost town, whose residents fled into the forests on the other side of the River Nun. Everyone in Odi paid dearly for the crime of a few misguided youths who dared to kill policemen and soldiers. This is sad and embarrassing.
Two years after Odi, Zaki Biam suffered the same fate and in similar circumstances. If some characters are mad enough to attack our security personnel, we should be smart enough, in the 21s t century, to fish them out and make them pay for their madness, not crush everyone and everything in sight. This self-cannibalism must stop.
When, on March 7, bandits abducted 286 schoolchildren from two Kaduna State schools (that number was later scaled down to 137), some said it was the president’s turn to be served his horrors. On April 14, 2014, Boko Haram abducted 276 schoolgirls from Chibok in Borno State. It hastened the departure of President Goodluck Jonathan from office. On February 19, 2018, the terror group also abducted 110 schoolgirls from a Dapchi, Yobe State school. Gen Buhari did not leave office in a blaze of glory. When will this national embarrassment stop?
When, on December 3, 2023, a military jet twice bombed Tudun Biri, a community in Kaduna State, killing over 120 persons, the Army said it was a mistake, the Defence Headquarters said some bandits infiltrated the community. This was tragic and embarrassing.
It is equally tragic and embarrassing for citizens of the giant of Africa to scramble for free loaves of bread or yams or little packs of rice, some dying in the process. Recently, two female students of Nasarawa State University, Keffi died in a rice stampede. The donor was Governor Abdullahi Sule.
On Saturday, nine persons reportedly died, 30 injured at a food distribution point in Sokoto. The donor was a former governor of the state, Aliyu Wamakko.
Clearly, we haven’t figured out a way to safely feed the hungry. If those two Nasarawa undergraduates and the Sokoto 9 knew they would die trying to avert death by hunger, they would have stayed away in this season of tragedy and embarrassment.
