Biafra, Nigeria and a striking similarity

OPINION:

You see a heartbreakingly beautiful woman, elfin andlissome. She has won all the beauty pageants and is always on TV giggling, winking, and crossing and uncrossing her long legs to tantalize voyeurs. But she is deep cover.

You see a world boxing champion that is a vicious left hook. He flattens opponents as a matter of course, floating like a butterfly and stinging like a bee. But he is deep cover.

No one suggests that deep cover operatives are unheard of in the country. But they have to be in appreciable numbers. The good thing about this covert operatives is that they are trained to smell trouble from far off. They are trained to use weapons, to defuse bombs, to smother threats.

They have direct reporting lines to controllers able to take preemptive, preventive and remedial actions. And they report suspicious and criminal behaviour without the fear of exposure and the consequences. These are the kind of operatives that infiltrate terrorist cells and blow their cover. Nigeria could and should have upwards of 4000 deep cover operatives in each of the 36 states of the Federation and Abuja. That is the way to teach terrorists that kinkana no dey sour.

Whoever raises concerns about financing has not looked at all sides of everything. If Nigeria contained the hemorrhage of over-invoiced contracts, it could easily create between 150,000 and 200,000 properly trained, middle-and-high-level, deep cover operatives across the country, not to talk of doubling, trebling or even quadrupling the number of uniformed and suits-wearing security operatives. On the eve of the Nigerian civil war, the strength of the Army was less than 9000. Following the outbreak of hostilities, the figure galloped to a quarter million in a couple of years. Nigeria has entered a new war – the war against terrorism. The numerical strength of its warriors must jump exponentially. If Nigeria has problems funding its security, it should not be “dashing” to each state governor a monthly security largesse in excess of N300 million.

There have been worries ventilated on the security services being infested by cultists. If true, medical hypnosis can swiftly separate the chaff from the grain.

All told, there are a number of reasons for hope. The terrorists have demonstrated by their cowardly and indiscriminate bombings that they are nothing to do with religion. Their horrific actions have discounted fence-sitting for the rational. Their wantonness has united Nigerians and won the country invaluable international support. As for the security personnel at all levels, their gallantry and sacrifices are commendable, and call for redoubled security consciousness from the general public. When victims and businesses hit by terrorism are rapidly recompensed, it will presage the addressing and redressing of the underlying social conditions that fuel deviance.

It is evident that Nigeria is set on a serial decapitation of the hydra-headed monster of terrorism. One question, then, to those who may know the identities of the terrorist “heads” but are holding back: Why?

Mr  Chuks Iloegbunam, a commentator on national issues, wrote from Lagos.

Source: Vanguard