Nyako, Boko Haram and patriotism

It may be necessary to delve a little into history to know the kind of patriot that former Naval Chief Murtala Nyako is. Remember that he was the former Deputy Chief of Defence Staff under Pres­ident Ibrahim Babangida. Until he took that office and after he left, there is no record that anyone ever held that office. The only person who can answer why that office was created is Babangida himself; but some in the military then suggested that because the IBB did not want to con­tend with the intemperate behavior of Nyako, he gave him the office to keep him in check.

Many also seem to forget that he is one of governors former President Olusegun Obasanjo foisted on the Adamawa people as part of his strategies to see how men who had been successful outside government would perform in governance. Also, any­way, Obasanjo reportedly needed someone to checkmate the large image of his then-but-now-forgiven-political foe, Atiku Abubakar. As fate would have it, Atiku and Nyako are now in the same party, the All Progressives Congress (APC).

The discernible minds in the APC must now be wondering whether what they now have on their hands is what they bargained for. There are too many liabilities to con­tend with. The moves now being made by some of these politicians is definitely going to cost precious votes not only in the north, but also in the South. Take that letter writ­ten by Nyako, which was only a shade dif­ferent from the outburst of our dear Fulani leader, Lamido of Adamawa at the ongoing National Conference recently.

This is what a party like the APC suffers when it calls itself a progressive party and absorbs men, who, out of bitterness, flock to its midst; and now has to contend with the same bitterness that drove them out of where they previously be­longed.

In his bile-filled memo to the Northern Gov­ernors’ Forum, titled: “Genocide in Northern Ni­geria,” unaware of the implications on ground. According to the protection of life and property of innocent citizens in Northern Nigeria and rec­ognizing their Human rights and voting rights in the forthcoming general elections is no longer a cardinal principle of the (present) administra­tion.”

This is fresh information coming from the sol­dier-turned politician. Many citizens of Adama­wa have complained how land is being appro­priated by the governor. But now, the governor, without addressing these human rights abuses in the State, is seeking to turn logic on its head.

He knows that insurgency predates this admin­istration; and when the administration sought to deal with it, some men who have more money than common sense, in tandem with desper­ate power seekers of their genre, made matters worse. Now that the misadventure is backfiring, they are inciting others through private and pub­lic letters to join in. If we must tell ourselves the truth in the north, we have sown the wind and we are reaping the whirlwind, and until we back­track, we will be miserably left behind.

This suddenly brilliant security analyst, who could not bring his years of military training to bear in his State after nearly seven years in the saddle, is now telling us that the victims of the (present) administration’s evil-mindedness are substantially Northern Nigerians, adding that the administration was bent on bringing wars in the North between Muslim and Christians and within them and between one ethnic group and another or others in various communities in the region. Without knowing it, Nyako is telling us the blueprint of those behind the on-going carnage, either because somebody knows what is at play or has been adequately briefed by the blue printers, and now that the noose is tighten­ing, hands are being thrown up to show inno­cence before the noose asphyxiates.

Nyako says, that “cases of mass murders by the administration’s bloody minded killers and cut-throats are well known, but it attributes the killings to so-called Boko-Haram.” Is that so? So, why does Boko Haram take the credit for these mindless killings? He adds: “thou­sands of our young girls and boys have been kidnapped by clearly organised militia in the last few years and kidnapping is now a random affair all over the far North. These organized kidnappers must have the backing of the fed­eral administration for them to move about freely with abducted children just as those who convey ammunitions and explosives from the ports to the safe-houses of so-called Boko-Haram in the North. Hurrah, we are no lon­ger being deceived!”

One is beginning to wonder where Nyako got the information upon which he based his allegation. Is President Goodluck Jona­than and his security chiefs reading between the lines?

This exposition is either a function of a brilliant security analyst or someone in the know, but we know that brilliance in mat­ters like this is not one of the attributes of the man who allowed his signature to be ap­pended to this letter.

All that jibe about being targeted by a mi­litia, along with other prominent Nigerians, does not wash with Nigerians, even when it has been proven that some of the would-be killers were of the same ethnic stock as this governor, some coming from as far as the landmass that the Lamido Adamawa told us that his kingdom stretches as far as. Many have said if this is an attempt to further the ideals of Uthman Dan Fodio, it would fail, but it is necessary to tell the ones who take this position that the present children of the sage are incapable of doing what he did be­cause they simply do not have it in them.

But if it is true that is what is happen­ing, they are merely trying to prosecute in the complex 21st century, what might have worked for their great forebear in his time.

It is time Nyako realized that all the de­cades of unbridled shedding of blood in the far north, now extending to the middle-belt, on its way to the South, is a bad men

*Abubakar writes from Abuja.