31st December 2014
“Fear of collateral damage” was the – I must say — rather lame and exhaustively repeated excuse Brigadier General Olajide Laleye, Director, Army Public Relations tried to feed journalists in a press conference on the spate of Boko Haram deadly terror and occupation of most of Borno and the northeast, held in Abuja this Wednesday.
It is the same excuse the Jonathan-led government and army gave when Boko Haram was holed up in Sambisa forest till June this year: the Alex Badeh-led army and Jonathan government claimed that the reason why the Nigerian army failed to go into Sambisa and liberate the 234 abducted Nigerian girls from Chibok was for fear of harming the girls.
Under this unprecedented protection by the Nigerian government, Boko Haram in the months after the abduction, came out of their comfortable positions in Sambisa and occupied 20 out of 27 local governments in Borno massacring thousands of Nigerians and forcefully conscripting thousands of youth.
It was our ENDS organization that exposed to the world the location of the terrorists camping freely under the military’s watch in Sambisa with the abducted girls. The Nigerian government and army chiefs, current and past – accused of terror, General Azubuike Ihejirika – are yet to explain why they never crushed Boko Haram in Sambisa for the 5 years prior to the abduction when the excuse of the girls being their shields was traded. [See our April 25th widely read release: National Security Update: Details Of The Sambisa Camps Holding Our 200 Abducted Daughters; link: http://ends.ng/?p=848]
ENDS, on behalf of the Civilian-JTF in the Northeast and thousands of able and ready hunters had formally pleaded the Jonathan government give us the permission to raid Sambisa forest, liberate our abducted girls and guys, and defeat Boko Haram without fear of being killed by the Nigerian military in such engagement.
The Jonathan-led government refused to respond to our formally sent letter requesting permission to go into Sambisa which the Nigerian army had proven unable or reluctant to. [Refer request sent 26th April, 2014: Request For Executive Authorization to Recruit, Mobilize, Train and Deploy Concerned Volunteers Against the Boko Haram Insurgency; link: http://ends.ng/?p=864]
Boko Haram Occupation Is Worse Than Any Form Of Collateral Damage
Today the crisis has spun out of proportion. Boko Haram according to reports from Nigerians who recently escaped from Bama when the Cameroonian army invaded the Nigerian occupied city, have described that Boko Haram is actively and freely conscripting hundreds of youth and torturing and killing all those who will not fight for them. This is worse than any form of collateral damage possible.
The exterminator Boko Haram now constitutes a nuisance for neighboring Cameroon where they go for food and have invaded over 5 towns. The terrorists are sending the thousands of recruited poor youth from the occupied northeast as sacrificial soldiers on high risk escapades in search for food as they continue their French-Chad sponsored mission to displace and annihilate all life in the northeast.
The longer the Nigerian army cooperates with the terrorists, granting them treasonous cessations of Nigerian army fire to allow them regroup and recoup and protecting them by failing to invade the occupied territories to liberate the people and hinder the grave violations against humanity with the terrorists killing our elderly and recruiting our youth as happens freely in occupied local governments, the more deadly a calamity Boko Haram becomes not only for Nigeria but the entire region and world.
Nigeria’s defense chief Alex Badeh has bragged that he liberated his Mubi from the terrorists in just 14 days from the occupation of the towns, north of Adamawa which occurred October ending. Assuming his claims of credit are true and the brave Ibn Fadlallah warriors and man hunters who the government and police insanely clamped down on, are not responsible for that liberation, why then has it been 6 years of Boko Haram operations freely in Borno that Ihejirika and himself have failed to abate as he showed was posisble within just two weeks of the terrorists invading his home state and town?
These are questions Nigerians are asking Alex Badeh and President Jonathan.
Dr. Peregrino Brimah; http://ENDS.ng [Every Nigerian Do Something] Email: drbrimah@ends.ng Twitter: @EveryNigerian