Stop playing politics with war against terror, Fani-
Kayode writes Buhari
December 28, 2015 /
Mr. President, as one of your most loyal and
faithful subjects who has nothing but the utmost
respect for your person and your office I am
constrained to write you this open letter.
This is because there are a number of issues that
I believe that it is important for you to clarify and
to come clean on. I say this because some of your
assertions of late are at best contradictory and at
worst patently dishonest.
Whichever side of the political divide we are on I
believe that we can all agree on one thing: that
the prosecution of the war against terror is not
something that any of us should play politics
with.
This is especially so given the fact that human
lives are at stake and the very existence of our
nation is under threat. Like much of the rest of
the world, our country is going through hell at
the hands of the jihadists and Islamist terrorists.
There is no gainsaying that we must all come to
terms with the fact that the Islamic State in the
Levant (ISIL), Al Qaeda, the Taliban, Al Shabab,
Boko Haram, Hamas and another group that the
internationally-respected Global Terror Index has
described as the ”Fulani militants” (aka Fulani
herdsmen) are nothing but bloodthirsty
murderers and the lowest form of life.
They are indeed the scum of the earth, the
troublers of humanity and the vermin of hell. It is
with this in mind that I urge you to take the war
against terror far more seriously than you are
doing and plead with you to stop passing the
buck.
Your penchant for blaming your failings in this
regard on the previous administration is simply
nauseating and it does not serve you well.
You continuously contradict yourself when it
comes to this matter and frankly such flip flops
are unworthy of the office that you presently
occupy.
We your subjects look up to you for consistency,
strength, unequivocal commitment, a firm resolve
and the ”leadership from the front” that you
promised during your presidential campaign in
this war. We do not want and neither do we need
doublespeak, lame excuses and buck passing.
Permit me to point out a few examples of your
contradictory assertions and your buck passing in
this short intervention.
Initially you claimed that your predecessor in
office President Goodluck Jonathan never bought
any arms and that instead he squandered and
stole all the money that was appropriated for the
procurement of arms.
Yet when the British Minister of Defense visited
you in the Presidential Villa the other day the
story changed. You did a U-turn and gleefully told
him and the wider world that President Jonathan
bought arms with raw cash.
One wonders which story you shall come up with
next and which one you will conjure up in the
future.
Kindly tell us what the position is: is it that
Jonathan did not buy arms at all and stole all the
money or is it that he used cash to buy arms? You
cannot have it both ways. It is either one or the
other.
Quite apart from your glaring doublespeak on this
matter there was another issue which you ought
to have raised with your highly esteemed and
respected British guest.
You forgot to tell him that his was one of the
countries that not only refused to sell weapons to
us during the course of this bitter conflict but
that also helped to impose and enforce the
international arms embargo on our country even
though we are at war.
This resulted in the unnecessary death of
thousands of our people because we found it
difficult to procure the weapons to protect them.
Your guest’s country insisted on towing the
American line and doing this to us even though
we were fighting a war against a relentless, well-
motivated, well-funded and well-armed fighting
force that Global Terror Index has described as
the ”deadliest terrorist organization in the world.”
One is forced to ask: with friends like this, who
needs enemies?
Given the fact that the embargo was in place, one
wonders how we were supposed to procure arms
unless we did so with raw cash on the black
market.
The alternative was to buy none at all, to do
nothing and to allow Boko Haram to take Abuja,
Port Harcourt, Enugu and Lagos. Perhaps that is
precisely what your western friends and allies
wanted but thankfully it never came to pass.
Despite the challenges and constraints President
Jonathan faced, instead of losing any more
ground, he rose to the occasion and retook no
less than 22 local government areas and virtually
pushed Boko Haram out of Nigeria.
The only place that they occupied by the time the
election took place was Sambisa forest.
Jonathan achieved all this with those arms that
he bought with raw cash. This is apparently what
you are now complaining about. Permit me to
remind you that it is those same arms that
Jonathan bought with raw cash that your army is
still using till today.
Yet sadly since you were sworn in as President
seven months ago, you have lost some of those
same local government areas that were earlier
recovered and they are now back in the hands of
the terrorists.
Despite this you keep telling the international
community and the Nigerian people that we are
”making progress” in the war against terror.
As a matter of fact you went as far as to say that
we had ”won the war” against Boko Haram and
your Minister of Information, Mr. Lai Mohammed,
echoed that grotesque mendacity and reiterated
that sentiment by adding the words ”technically
won” (whatever that may mean) to the equation.
Sadly, two days later, on Christmas day, in what
can only be described as an eloquent response
from the terrorists, scores of innocent civilians
were killed by Boko Haram in Borno state and a
whole community was burnt to the ground.
Again on Sunday 27th of December, Maiduguri,
the capital of Borno state, came under heavy
attack from the terrorists. So much for having
”won the war against Boko Haram”, whether
”technically” or otherwise.
Instead of conceding that you had told the
Nigerian people a pernicious lie, curiously the
next thing that you did was to tell them that you
would ”persuade Boko Haram to drop their arms”.
One is compelled to ask: why would you have to
persuade them to drop their arms if you had
already defeated them and won the war against
them?
In any case, this would be the first time in the
history of modern warfare that a sitting President
has sought to destroy and defeat a vicious and
relentless terrorist organization and win the war
against terror simply with the awesome and
devastating weapon of persuasion.
Perhaps you should recommend that same tactic
to the Americans and the rest of the international
community as an effective and credible weapon
to adopt in their war against ISIL, Al Qaeda, Al
Shabab, Hamas and all the other jihadist groups
that plague the world.
Whilst you are at it perhaps you could also
persuade Boko Haram to free the Chibok girls. It is
disturbing to note that despite all your campaign
promises and assurances that once you are
elected President the girls would be rescued or
returned, nothing has been done or heard about
any of them ever since you were sworn in.
Worst still, the Bring Back Our Girls Group
(BBOG), which was essentially an appendage of
your election organization, together with its
distinguished leaders and conveners, appear to
have gone very quiet. I guess they are busy
trying to persuade Boko Haram to drop their arms
too.
The truth is that it is time for you to free yourself
from your monumental delusions and to get real.
Sadly you appear to be detached from reality.
Instead of fighting the war against terror, you are
making it worse by slaughtering one thousand
Shi’a Muslims in Zaria on December 12th, 2015,
locking up their leader Sheik Ibrahim El Zakzaky
and opening yet another war front in our country.
The last thing that we need is for Hezbollah or the
Iranian Republican Guard to rise to the occasion,
take up the challenge, jump into the fray and
decide to protect and avenge their Shi’a Muslim
brothers and sisters in northern Nigeria.
Yet despite the reprehensible and indefensible
actions of your military commanders in Zaria, you
have refused to show any remorse for what was
undoubtedly a war crime against fellow Nigerians
and you have not prosecuted the officers and
military personnel that were involved in the
butchery.
Instead, the homes of the victims and those that
share their Shi’a faith have been burnt to the
ground in Zaria and their graves and burial sites
have been dug up and desecrated.
Instead of fighting Boko Haram, you are fighting
and killing your own people. Worse still you have
refused to defend our country. I say this because
a few days ago the Cameroonian military invaded
our country, violated our territorial integrity and
savagely murdered over 70 innocent Nigerians in
their village before burning it down.
Your government refused to acknowledge that
this event even took place, despite the media
reports. You did not console or express
condolences to the families of the victims or
retaliate against the Cameroonians.
You did not even warn them or demand an
apology or reparations from them. This is
heartless and shameful. It could not have
happened under Jonathan, Obasanjo, Babangida,
Shagari, Abacha, Abubakar, Shonekan,
Mohammed, Balewa or indeed any other former
Nigerian President or Head of State.
If any of them had been in power and the
Cameroonians cultivated the effrontery to do such
a thing there would have been consequences.
Yet you did nothing to avenge this affront or to
defend our honour. What happened to the gallant
and brave General Buhari that courageously led
our troops into victory in Chad in the early
1980’s?
What happened to the honest and forthright man
that we all admired and looked up to because of
his military exploits in Chad?
What happened to the war hero that gave the
Chadians a ”bloody nose” for daring to attack a
Nigerian village and that almost took Ndjamena,
the Chadian capital?
What happened to the man that proved to the
Libyans and their Chadian proxies that Nigerians
knew how to fight? It appears that you have
changed and that you are no longer the man that
you used to be.
Instead of being honest with our people, you have
insisted on selling them a dummy and telling
them a lie.
You refused to tell the world that our military is
terribly demoralized, our soldiers are suffering
heavy casualties and are not being paid their
salaries regularly and, worse of all, that you have
failed to procure a single bullet or weapon for
them to use in the last seven months since you
came to power.
Instead of deploying all the power of the state
against Boko Haram you have spent all your
energy and resources trying to teach the former
National Security Adviser (NSA) Colonel Sambo
Dasuki (reted), and all your other perceived
enemies the lesson of their lives by
misrepresenting them before the world,
subjecting them to state-sponsored tyranny and
the most insidious form of persecution, violating
their human rights and lying to the world that
they stole and shared money that was meant for
the purchase of arms.
You have also misled and misinformed the
Nigerian people about the rules and conventions
that are applied when it comes to the
administration of security funds and about the
fact that it is the National Assembly alone that
has the right to probe the use of such funds as
part of their oversight functions.
To cap it all, you have claimed you did not receive
any benefit from the NSA’s office whilst Jonathan
was in power. This is an assertion which we all
know is, at best, questionable.
You must be mindful of the fact that God hates
liars and He despises those that abuse power.
You must remember that the more you scorn
God’s counsel and mock His admonitions, the
more your errors will be made manifest and the
more your people will suffer.
You must understand that any leader or
government that is motivated by bitterness, fear,
hate, vengeance and malice will eventually hit the
rocks and crash like a pack of cards.
You must appreciate the fact that God is
watching and that He sees and knows all.
May the Lord have mercy on you and may He
forgive you for your many sins and wicked ways.
God bless Nigeria.
http://www.vanguardngr.com/2015/12/stop-
playing-politics-with-war-against-terror-fani-
kayode-writes-buhari/
