Following the January 2002 bomb explosion that rocked Ikeja cantonment in Lagos, which prompted no fewer than a thousand Nigerians to run into a canal in what would go down in history as perhaps the cheapest way to die, I wrote a piece titled “One Hell of a Country.” My thesis was based on the fact that we live in a society that tends to focus and respond to immediate calamity without taking a broader view to stem future occurrence.

An anecdote used in that article goes thus: nationals of various countries were said to have queued up in hell to make a one-minute call home from a single telephone line. To make the call, a Briton was charged a million pounds while an American also had to pay a million dollars for a call lasting only sixty seconds. But when it got to the turn of the Nigerian, the operator said our compatriot should just bring one Naira. Quite naturally, there was commotion in hell as the Americans and the Britons could not understand such a discriminatory billing system. However, the operator explained rather calmly that the rates were fair because whereas the American and the Briton would be making international calls, the Nigerian would simply be making a local call!

I could not but remember that anecdote last week following the gruesome murder of no fewer than 43 innocent school children at the Federal Government College, Buni Yadi in Yobe State, where scores of others are still missing. On Monday, the state Commissioner for Justice, Mr. Ahmed Mustapha Goniri, disclosed that the government had to deploy hunters and herdsmen to search the bush because, “many parents are still complaining of not seeing their children after the attack.” How tragic!

Unfortunately, the gravity of the situation has either not hit many of us or we have so lost our humanity that we no longer care. The stories of how the children were practically butchered are heart-rending enough yet some 20 female students who were kidnapped from another school a few weeks ago are also still unaccounted for. As the Yoruba people would say, it is easier to come to closure on the death of one’s children than if they just disappear. It is even more so in the harrowing circumstance under which those innocent female students were abducted by Boko Haram and one can only imagine the trauma their parents now go through.

Whether we realise it or not, we are gradually losing a section of our country to the insurgents. But do those who should help to address the madness really care? While a presidential aide is exploiting the tragedy to send out irresponsible mails with fictitious names in the bid to advance a sinister political agenda, some of the northern governors are also more concerned about finding oil in the region or grandstanding about 2015.

It is true that fighting terrorism is a largely uncharted territory in our country. But it is also true that we have not availed ourselves of the opportunity to learn from the examples of other countries, especially given that the Americans have developed a counter-insurgency strategy which recommends a four-pronged approach. The strategy, according to a 2009 manual, “rests on a number of assumptions: that the decisive effort is rarely military (although security is the essential prerequisite for success); that superior knowledge, and in particular, understanding of the ‘human terrain’ is essential; and that we must have the patience to persevere in what will necessarily prove long struggles.”

As the Americans have found out, insurgents require not only safe havens, illicit funding and the collaboration of a few political enablers to succeed in their evil machinations, but also “the passive acquiescence of a large proportion of the contested population” since the ultimate goal is to seize control “through a combination of persuasion, subversion and coercion while using guerrilla tactics to offset the strengths of government security forces. Their intent is usually to protract the struggle, exhaust the government and win sufficient popular support to force capitulation or political accommodation...”

I am not sure the relevant authorities have taken time to study the situation in Borno and Yobe and the level of Boko Haram penetration so as to come up with an effective containment strategy that would not alienate the people. Yet when you deal with such a formidable enemy, you need to be one step ahead and that explains why counter-insurgency involves deft political negotiations, provision of economic empowerment both in the immediate and long term, robust media management and deployment of military muscle. These ingredients have been missing in the efforts to fight Boko Haram. For instance, in admitting to its mistake with regard to the media, the American manual says “there is often a weakness in the relationship with regional media in overseas insurgency situations. This can result in missed opportunities to influence key stakeholders.”

For the Nigerian authorities to defeat Boko Haram, boots on the ground can only be one in a cocktail of strategies. As it would happen, that is the only approach we have adopted and even on that, we neither have sufficient number of troops nor the necessary training and tools for our soldiers to undertake this very risky assignment. We have also not factored in the international dimension with regard to our neighbours like Chad, Cameroun and Niger as aptly captured on Monday by Dr Jibrin Ibrahim (http://dailytrust.info/index.php/columns/monday-columns/17968-as-the-war-intensifies). As for the political approach, all that one can see are recriminations, self-justifications, accusations, counter-accusations and even exploitation of the tragedy in furtherance of some personal agenda without any serious attempt to deal with both the cause and the effect in that section of the country where abject poverty is all too evident.

Aside the fact that the reports of all the committees that have been set up on the crisis by the federal government in the last three years have ended up in some drawers, the rhetoric of members of the political and business elite from the Boko Haram axis of operation indicate that they don’t buy into the military campaign, essentially because of the collateral damage being suffered by the civil populace. Under such a cloud of distrust and mutual suspicions, the hands of Boko Haram fighters can only be strengthened. To worsen matters, the Inspector General of Police told the National Assembly on Monday that the amount voted for personnel cost in the 2014 budget is not even enough to pay the salaries and allowances of his men who ordinarily should complement military efforts in fighting the insurgency.

On the economic plane, the institutional failings in the northeast are all glaring though we should lay the responsibility also at the door of the states concerned because questions should be asked about where their monthly allocations go. But the federal government bears a greater responsibility. As for the media, there is little or no appreciation of the fact that efforts to defeat Boko Haram can never succeed without a deft information management strategy that would require the collaboration and support of critical stakeholders in that sector.

I once invited the late National Security Adviser, Lt. General Andrew Owoye Azazi, to brief members of the THISDAY editorial board on the nature of our security challenges vis-à-vis Boko Haram and he came to spend about three hours with us. I tried the same with his successor, Col. Sambo Dasuki (rtd), who wanted to send an aide and I declined. Whereas the late Azazi was always within reach, I doubt if Dasuki even has the phone number of any editor! Yet pertinent questions remain: Is there a media strategy for the Boko Haram area of operation by way of a sympathetic radio station that could be deployed for propaganda? Do our military/security chiefs understand the critical role the media can play in this war that is fought both on the battlefield and in the minds of people?

All said, I am still optimistic that we can win this war because where there is a will, as the saying goes, there is always a way. But until we muster that national will, there will be no solution. For the sake of our people in the northeastern part of the country who are now practically at the mercy of Boko Haram, it is time to rise up against those who seem determined to kill our collective peace and to circumscribe the future of our children.

•This piece by Adeniyi (shown in photo) originally appeared in his column “The Verdict” in today’s edition of ThisDay. He can be reached via olusegun.adeniyi@thisdaylive.com

Update news