Re-Boko Haram Is Deliberate Contraption To Kill Royal Fathers, Political Leaders From North

The governor of Adamawa State, Murtala Nyako released a bombshell in far away Washington, United States at a three days symposia organised by the United States Institute of Peace which took place between March 17 and 19, 2014 where he told US officials that the Boko Haram insurgency was a deliberate attempt to kill key traditional and political leaders from the region.

The governor challenged the presidency to explain the recent development where top northerners are being earmarked for execution, saying that he believed that the occurrences cannot be mere coincidence. “The Presidency should give us answers to all the foregoing serious questions and we do not want insults by aides in response or harassment by detailed security operatives! We want answers; Nigeria also wants the answers; the international community too should want answers”, Nayako told his American listeners.

Furthermore he alleged that, “There have been attempted assassinations of a number of states’ governors including my good self and the governor of Benue State; a number of top royal fathers of the North including the Shehu of Borno and the Emir of Kano, our senators and top business people have also been attacked in broad day light and escaped death by the skin of their teeth.

“Who gave the executive ‘orders’ to kill us? Is northern Nigeria facing another demonic agenda similar to that which wiped away its political and military leaders and killed a number from the Western Region in January 1966?”

Nyako also alleged that, ”The people in the north have also begun to suspect that the objective of all this is to create enough mayhem for an excuse to deny them their democratic right of vote by cancelling the forthcoming general elections in the region and also reduce the voting power of the people now or in the future through mass killings of its populace especially its youths”.

If these allegations are not weighty then weightiness has lost its meaning. My intervention in this is not to defend the presidency. The presidency has enough men to defend itself on these allegations by the governor of a state from  the Northeast, the epicentre of the insurgency. If you observe you will notice that the governor keep on using the pronoun “we” in his presentation. Apparently he was speaking the minds of the other 12 governors from the north present at the meeting. And some of the governors are still in PDP, the president’s party and we were not told that any of them rose up to challenge Nyako on the conspiracy theory he was dishing out to the Americans. I am intervening in this matter as a Nigerian who wants peace for my country. Nyako’s conspiracy theory is not different from that of Dr Junaid Mohammed who told Sahara Reporters that the reason the north is underdeveloped is the consequence of the 1966 “Igbo coup” that killed their political and military leaders. In other words 48 years after the coup in which northern officers and heads of states have been ruling the country, it was the “Igbo coup” that kept the north down! The Igbos must have mystique powers which have prevented them from producing president for nearly 50 years but could still halt northern development!

Now these conspiracy theories being espoused by the likes of Nyako and Junaid Mohammed are not different from that of national Ijaw leader, Chief Edwin Clarke and Asari Dokubo as well as the PDP, that the insurgency was a strategy to stop President Goodluck Jonathan from having a second term. Let us also not forget that the opposition APC has bought into the conspiracy theories as it recently alleged that the PDP controlled federal government knows more than it is telling Nigerians concerning the insurgency. APC has itself been accused by PDP of sponsoring the insurgency. The allegation by Clarke and co is that some politicians had promised to make the country ungovernable for Jonathan back in 2011 and that they are carrying out their threat in the north. Now if someone forewarned you that he would kill you, aren’t you lucky? At least you can prevent him from carrying out his threat! They say they would make your regime ungovernable and you still allow them to do so, what does that speak about your ability to lead? Where I come from we have a proverb that “ A war announced in advance does not consume a cripple”. We also have another one that, “It is only a tree that would be told that it would be cut down and it would still stand there till it is cut down”.

It is now obvious that the reason the war against insurgency may not be won anytime soon is because those leading the fight apparently believed that the insurgency was a deliberate act to make their regime ungovernable while those(governors) whose young men have been overtaken by religious zealotry that they(zealots) can kill anything on their way in the name of God are not ready to rein in their young men from their destructive zealotry are rather alleging deliberate policy to destroy their region. Where then lies the solution?

Until our leaders rise above conspiracy theories and personal interests and come to the full realisation that Nigeria is facing existential problem we may never find the solution to the insurgency and the conflict between herdsmen and farmers all over the north in particular and the country in general. Those in their fortified homes and offices at the Aso Rock Villa and Government Houses in the north hold the key to the prediction of Nigeria’s disintegration in 2015 by some American think tank group. If they hold on to their conspiracy theories then I am afraid to report that Nigeria may not last longer than three weeks after the presidential election results are announced in 2015. However if they choose to act as statesmen in accordance with their oath of offices, Nigeria will survive and become stronger. I rest my case!