We are gradually inching towards the end of 2014. We are on the cusp of a new year, 2015, which promises to be momentous, not only because it is an election year.
It is a year that will sorely try the soul of the Nigerian nation (if it has one). The major game changer will neither be the politicians nor their political parties. It may not be the outcome of the election, as important as that may be.
For me, 2015 may well be the year of Boko Haram and what it achieves or fails to achieve will determine what becomes of Nigeria. Right now, it has done incalculable damage to the North, particularly the Northeast.
Those of us in the South do not quite appreciate the enormity of the damage the Boko Haram insurgency has caused in the North.
Just as it happened during the civil war when those in Kaduna, Lagos, and elsewhere continued to have their weekend parties as if nothing was happening even when the East was being devastated, today those of us here seem to be oblivious that Nigeria, or a part of it, is in a state of war; and war is human being at his worst.
Socially, economically and even politically, the North is lying prostrate. The insurgency is no longer a tempest in a tea cup. It is now real catastrophe and the consequences are too damning. Even if Boko Haram repents of its sins today and halts the insurgency, it will take eons for the North to recover.
Those who inhabit that part of the country are unlike the Igbo who made a dramatic recovering after a devastating 30-month civil war and punitive economic policies deliberately foisted on them after the war to further seal their ‘damned’ fate.
What is more horrifying is the fact that despite the protestations to the contrary, not much is being done to mitigate the insurgency. Defeating Boko Haram extremism and stanching the fire it is stoking is an existential challenge. That is the greatest challenge facing the country today. That is the challenge of 2015.
But, unfortunately, that is the challenge that is not bordering Nigerian leaders. If it was, there will be a different attitude in the corridors of power.
As the leaders of Nigerian Catholic Bishops told President Goodluck Jonathan when they visited him in Aso Rock on Friday, November 14, “things are not right.”
The Bishops reminded him that, “Territorially, our land is being taken away (by Boko Haram). The people we look after are being displaced. Their homes, their villages, towns are being captured and they are internally displaced.
“They are refugees in their own land. We thought this is not right. We have families that are just stranded.”
But as I have argued here, though Jonathan is the President and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, this is not his fight alone. The leaders in the North who caused a dustup by threatening to sue former Chief of Army Staff, General Azubuike Ihejirika, for fighting Boko Haram must weigh in seriously on the crisis.
They must decide what they want and on whose side they are. They are either with the terrorists or with Nigerians. There is no middle ground. In any asymmetrical war, such as the one against Boko Haram, sitting on the fence is a costly illusion.
It is never an option because there is no neutral ground. Boko Haram has committed so much atrocity that there should be no sympathy. It is an evil group that must be uprooted. Every well-meaning Nigerian must be anti-Boko Haram.
Even the idea of a ceasefire deal is a non-starter. It is an aberration that should not even be contemplated. For anybody to suggest, therefore, that Nigeria should work out a peace deal with the evil group is something beyond the pale.
How can anyone contemplate any kind of rapprochement with a group that revels in massacring innocent and defenseless citizens? What philosophy would inspire people to slit the throats of innocent students in their sleep?
How will “Allah’s name” be praised because a suicide bomber went to a school assembly ground to massacre nearly 50 students, some of them Muslims? How can the kidnapping and raping of teenage girls, crimes against humanity, be committed in the name of Allah?
If indeed these people worship Allah, why are they spilling so much blood? Why would anyone decree another’s death because they don’t profess the same faith? Why should I be killed because of where I face when praying, or how I bend my head? Why are men committing heinous crimes in the name of God?
Is it God that told Boko Haram to burn people’s homes, vandalise their businesses, burn down schools and hospitals, decapitate pregnant women, abduct young girls as sex slaves and recruit teenage boys and even children as soldiers and suicide bombers?
What really does Boko Haram want? Is it true that the goal is to Islamise Nigeria? On whose authority are they doing that? How do they intend to achieve that goal? And if they can’t achieve the goal, what happens? Will the mayhem continue?
These questions concentrate my mind every day. They need urgent answers. They are the questions that will define 2015.
Can we continue to live with the atrocities committed by Boko Haram in the name of Islam? Do their activities define who we are and what we are?
Boko Haram is indubitably capitalising on the ethnic and religious prejudices in the country in its atrocious war, but can we afford that?
Shouldn’t our collective revulsion against the Islami sect be strong enough to drain the swamp of ethnic mistrust in Nigerian?
The philosophy that drives Boko Haram is evil. It is anarchic and must be fought headlong.
The main issue that should define the 2015 election is how to defeat Boko Haram. Who can successfully lead this battle?
Security of lives and property must be a priority. If there is any issue that should unite all Nigerians as we inch closer to the election, it should be the fight against Boko Haram.
This evil group must be defeated.