The Country That Refuses To Start -By Kene Obiezu

Nigeria’s raging war against terrorism claimed more victims days ago when some soldiers led by Brigadier General O. O. Braimah were slain in Benisheik, ,Maiduguri, as they defended the country. The attack followed a recent deadly pattern in other parts of the Borno State. In the aftermath of the attack, the Nigerian military has offered its customary press release, with the government following closely with a fusillade of platitudes and condolences. But in a country that is literally sacrificing its bravest and boldest to the hawks that hover over Borno and many other states of the North, for how long will this bloody madness continue?

According to reports, the attackers came at night and overran the military formation. The brigadier general fought bravely, but a last-ditch attempt to escape in the armored tank was foiled by a failure of the vehicle to start. In a critical moment when life wavered on the wafer-thin line between life and death, the failure of the vehicle to start was a sobering metaphor for a country that refuses to start.

As has become its custom of late, the Nigerian army has denied that any vehicle involved in the operation was not serviceable. But Nigerians know the report they believe and the one they can only take with a pinch of salt.

In a week when Olamilekan Rotimi, a former soldier dismissed for his blunt and brave social media commentary, laid bare the startling conditions of service for soldiers fighting terrorists in the North, it is a heartbreaking irony that a brigadier general would fall because a vehicle supposedly refused to start at the most inopportune of moments.

It Is now beyond doubt that the terrorists charging like a cloud of locusts from the dust-draped deserts of the North and threatening to overrun the country are shockingly more equipped than some formations of the Nigerian army. Abominably, it is becoming clearer that Nigeria is sending its bravest young men to certain death by ordering them to engage well-funded terrorists in the North with empty hands and emptier stomachs. Thus, the tragedy of the country is framed in terms of the sobering irony that while the fat cats of Nigeria’s political and military establishment feed fat in Abuja, where they are consigned by cowardice and avarice, the brave defenders of the country run on empty even as they sign the dotted lines of suicide missions.

It would sound Ignorant, even mischievous, at this point for anyone to call for better funding for soldiers fighting terrorists. That should be a moot point in any serious country. It should be common sense that it is only the welfare of soldiers that can oil the weapons they bear. But, alas, Nigeria is that country that treats grave matters with glee and grandiloquence. For many years, a corrupt and derelict government has failed to channel resources where they are most needed, preferring concentrate on the inane and mundane rather than on issues that bother on the security and survival of the country.

Things must change. A country run ragged by many false starts and even more forceful stops must finally gather its wits and string its acts together. But even this would seem to be asking too much. With the kind of people who now stampede its corridors of power, Nigeria stands very little chance of taking the kind of decisive measures that will put the country on the track to meaningful progress. This spells danger.

The terrorist death adders setting death traps in the North do not come with poisoned daggers. They bear superior weapons and artillery, which bespeak the ferocious cruelty and conviction of those who bankroll them.

While Nigeria fumbles with projects that just refuse to start and morally vacuous politicians in Abuja who refuse to stop the rot, it is only a matter of time before the rumble from the Northeast rolls over the entire country, leaving nothing but scorched earth, shambles, and terminal strangled sobs.

Kene Obiezu is a lawyer, writer and public commentator. He can be reached via keneobiezu@gmail.com