- Our military should not allow this kind of embarrassment again
It was a tale of woes when locals from Dalori village came to claim the corpses of victims of Boko Haram attacks at the Specialists Hospital in Maiduguri, the Borno State capital on January 29. The insurgents had killed 76 people in Dalori, and about 130 in three other villages in the state. According to them, the insurgents arrived at the area at exactly 6.10 p.m. and started shooting sporadically while coming towards the village.
Umar Kachalla, a relative of one of the victims, reported that the insurgents killed some soldiers and members of the civilian Joint Task Force (JTF) at the road block close to their village before they started to attack the villagers. “We ran into our houses, they came and started burning the houses. If you come out, they would shoot you, but the fire would also burn you if you stay inside. So, most of us ran out”. Although some of them escaped, many others were killed in the process because “there was no security or military that came to our rescue until the Boko Haram sect left”, Kachallah said.
This is a very serious scenario indeed, especially against the strings of successes the military has had over Boko Haram insurgents in recent times. Inasmuch as we know that terrorism does not die overnight, we believe that a place like this should have enough troops always to prevent the insurgents from having the kind of freedom they had to operate and wreak havoc in the villages as they did with crass impunity. The danger in this type of attack is that it takes from whatever confidence the people have in the government concerning their security. Others who had just returned to their homes from refugee camps would no longer be able to sleep with their eyes closed. This is not good for the people whose lives had been dislocated by the insurgents. They need not just assurances that they are safe in their homes; they must be able to feel the assurances.
We should be worried because the January 29 attacks only happened to be the latest in the series of attacks by the insurgents in recent times. There had been some suicide bombings that had claimed limbs and lives also in recent times. What all these tell us is that winning the war is one thing, but getting the locals to live in peace in their villages or towns with minimum discomfort from Boko Haram attacks is actually winning the seemingly elusive peace.
Given the fact that terrorism has now assumed an international dimension, and indeed Boko Haram once claimed that it was affiliated to ISIS; Nigeria must not hesitate to collaborate with other countries to fight terror.
There is no doubt that Boko Haram cannot disappear overnight as we have seen from experiences in other countries. Having been allowed to fester, it would take time to rout the insurgents completely. The military still needs to improve on intelligence to avert this kind of embarrassment in our national security system, and avoid the sporadic killings or maiming of innocent citizens in any part of the country by the insurgents.
