SECURE NORTH (1)

-November 29, 2020

By Aliyu Ibrahim

The last time I googled Borno state on my phone what I saw flabbergasted me, the pictures were breathtaking: corpses and homeless individuals running for survival or camped in the bush. These have never been the kind of pictures one would see back in the day when farming, mining and other business were flurishing in the state. Borno state has now turned to a war zone, and dead end to innocent, arm-less civilians.

Yestarday, 43 innocent hardworking farmers were beheaded in Zabarmari by the famous terrorist, Boko Haram in some approximately 20 kilometers away from Maiduguri, the capital of the state. Their offence was only being civil and law abiding. They were the same Muslims the marauders are claiming to fight for.

Boko Haram war has never been about Islam or Islamizing the country, but to bring mass destruction and inflict hunger and hardship to the lives of innocent citizens. And most of whom are the same Muslims, who embraced the same faith with the terrorists. Allah (SWT) says that a single life of a believer is better than anything on earth. But terrorists who supposedly fight for the course of the same God are destroying His most valuable creatures.

Arewa is tolerating. The blow is too much on the region with so many insecurity challenges at hand and the government whose primary job is to protect lives are virtually asleep. Lives should not be wasted this way. Majority of Nigerians are angry; so angry and disappointed that they see the government as evil as the terrorist themselves.

When a government fails to protect its citizens, and refused to step down, people naturally see it responsible for its inactions to swiftly make every life counts. For this reason and others not mentioned, Buhari's administration which was seen and perceived as the only option to secure the entire region from insecurity before 2015 as a historic failure in the country's democracy. And many wish the President to step down.

Being alive and have a territory secured is not a privileged but a mandate mandated on the shoulders of the government. Northerners will never forget this. History will always be written and rewritten that a northerner in power has more blood of his brothers in his hands.