It is unfortunate that Northern leaders are not doing anything tangible to reign in the activities of the terrorist Boko Haram group. It is true that the organisation is trying to destabilise President Goodluck Jonathan’s government, and one of the ways towards achieving this is by attacking security agents and Christians, which they hope will help ignite a full scale religious war in the country.
However, since it is know that the activities of these Boko Haram people is political, and not religious, as it is being claimed. We must cast our minds back to when some Northern politicians vowed that they would make the country ungovernable for Dr Jonathan when he was elected president. Now, what they claimed is happening, and nobody is looking in their direction.
In the next couple of years, Dr Jonathan will end his term, and the insurgency will stop, but the effect of this madness will continue for a long time to come.
Already, the North is far behind the South in every aspect, be it education, business, health, employment, and this insurgency will only widen the gap.
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Long when the insanity of these terror sponsors is over, Northern children yet unborn will continue to suffer for what their leaders have planted, all in the name of politics.
Already, companies are leaving the region in droves, and there is a record unemployment rate. Many people are already not allowing their children to come to the North for their National Youth Service Corps (NYSC). To this people, they will rather allow their children to be redeployed or let them come to the North where it is not sure they will return in peace. This is just so unfortunate. However, after this madness, things will never be the same again for the Northern region, and it will take years to return people’s confidence again.
I am, therefore, calling on Northern elders, both the political, as well as religious leaders, to consider the future of the region and prevail on the sect’s members to allow reason to prevail.
It is clear to everyone that the sect is fighting Dr Jonathan, but in a couple of years, the president will leave office; what then becomes of the ruined region? We should all know that it is much more easy to destroy that to rebuild.
For the sake of the region, Boko Haram should stop this violence.
Ibrahim Idris,
Ahmadu Bello University (ABU), Zaria
