To great relief President Goodluck Jonathan has accepted the offer from a host of nations to assist in tracing the kidnapped Chibok girls.
The acceptance is rather belated, but very much welcome. Nevertheless, not very much can possibly remain of our national self-esteem after these interventions. Mass protests in capitals and cities across the world calling for action and insinuating inertia very much highlight our impotence as a nation.
No Nigerian with any self-esteem can be happy with the scathing condemnation of the nation’s inadequate response in newspaper editorials worldwide. For example, the New York Times stated that “although Boko Haram is believed to number no more than a few hundred men, Nigerian security forces have been unable to defeat them.”
The insinuation is clear. How on earth has about $6 billion a year in “security votes” been spent? It is obvious that defence contractors are having a field day. This means alarmingly that we now have an interest group which wants the war against Boko Haram to continue indefinitely.
As a sovereign state, Nigeria by now ought to have developed its own “special forces.” Inability to do so has nothing to do with paucity of funds. On the contrary, it has everything to do with the structure and specifically the lack of cohesion in a dysfunctional, deformed post-colonial state. And it is not just about Boko Haram. Across the country on the coast, the Nigerian Navy looks on, arms akimbo as illegal oil bunkerers and pirates have a field day.
Not surprisingly, the only hope is coming from assistance from abroad to the relief of the parents. This should put paid to all the delusions of grandeur about being the giant of Africa and “rebasing.” The time has come for a rethink.
First of all, the state must reassert itself as the sole custodian of the means of violence, intimidation and force. Secondly, we must get prepared for the age of unconventional warfare. The government must get out of denial and muster the political will to create a special service unit within our conventional armed forces.
They have to be developed with outside technical assistance as a counterterrorism containment force very much in the mould of the American Navy Seals or the British Special Forces. There is simply no way out. This is because no one is going to put down combat troops on our behalf. And frankly we can’t blame them for not doing so. It has been a bad week for Nigeria’s image. The important thing is to understand why. The country must now begin to redress the balance. It will be a long and hard road.