By SUNNY IKHIOYA
Nigeria has a distinct culture of its own that she does not share with any country in the world; the only country that has fought wars and not taken advantage of them to develop its own science and technology. I believe religion and ethnicity have really turned our thinking upside down; we have now traversed into Thomas Hobbes’s brutish society. A few years ago, 24 February 2022, almighty Russia invaded Ukraine, with all the confidence that it would be a short-term war.
The forces of Ukraine resisted and suffered heavy casualties. Everyone in the world thought that Ukraine would capitulate, including the United States President, Donald Trump, who publicly humiliated the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Four years on, the war is changing; the Ukrainian forces have managed to master the technology of modern warfare and developed both defensive and offensive war drones, including weapons that possess long-range capabilities. Whether President Vladimir Putin of Russia will listen to the voice of reason and find an escape route from this needless war that he has imposed on his country is another matter.
The same President Trump of the United States just made peace with Iran after trying for about five months to force them to capitulate. Aside from the Vietnam situation, the US has never been humiliated in any conventional war situation since it became a world superpower. With an array of supercarriers, warships, fighter jets and the latest technology of mass destruction and supported by Israel, they invaded Iran and eliminated all of their top hierarchy. Meanwhile, the Iranians knew that this day would come and prepared adequately for it.
Producing drones and rockets with long-range capabilities, they retaliated with strikes on the US bases in the Middle East and Israel. They also closed the famous Strait of Hormuz, which is a major shipping route for commerce, especially in oil and other related products. They forced the world into an economic crisis and America became the villain in the conflict. The US allies refused to join them and ultimately, Trump had to face the humiliation of negotiating peace with Iran himself. Although he would not acknowledge the fact that he had failed woefully in this adventure. I am sure that the country of Taiwan had taken notice of the brave Ukrainian response and the superpower China will be looking at alternative ways to achieve China unification without the use of force.
When a country commits to education, with science and technology as its main focus, there is no way any external force can mess with them. It also enables internal peace and stability. We have wasted years trying to copy and be like the Western nations and we have failed woefully at it. Even our democracy is becoming a huge joke. For nearly three decades, ragtag terrorists, bandits and religious extremists have continued to make vital parts of the country ungovernable. It has gone on for so long without any consequences for the villains that they are now enabled to move south of the country.
That is the position that we have found ourselves in with the recent attack on Oyo State schools. Have there been attempts to use science and technology to solve the insurgency problems? If yes, what is the result? We fought the legendary civil war of the sixties; weapons developed by both sides in the course of the war—what happened to them? They were abandoned. Nothing learned, nothing gained, nothing preserved. We must depend on foreign countries for everything, as long as a tiny few are living fat on this arrangement. And we have a department of science and technology, we have military schools everywhere, we have research institutions, we have war colleges, we have over three hundred universities; what are they doing in these places? Is it not a shame that we still cannot develop capacities to monitor the activities of bandits, terrorists and kidnappers in this country? Is it not a shame that we cannot develop instruments and templates to contain their activities?
How did we get to this low point? So low that the President will say they are using insecurity to destabilise his government. If that is the case, what are the President and his security team doing about it? There lies the source of all the insurgency going on in the country: the lack of iron will to contain them, the kowtow to religious and ethnic sentiments, the fear of stepping on sacred toes. There lies our weakness: the boldness and decisiveness to face them frontally.
Students of history will tell you that you never win the war when you negotiate with terrorists and bandits because they are never satisfied; they will keep demanding more. The only solution available to contain them is to face them with the full might of the state and crush them in such a manner that they will never rear their ugly heads again. That is the message they understand and also what will bring peace to the whole country. We are becoming a country of ridicule, helpless in a state of school shutdowns caused by insurgents. State policing is okay but before then we must evolve strategies to put these people in permanent containment. If we must win this war, we will require a stronger-willed leadership who will be ready to mobilise the people to flush out these criminals from our bushes; enough of the palliatives. This will cascade down to the security chiefs, state governors, local government chairmen, traditional leaders and the people respectively.
Those inflicting these damages are human beings like us and they must be faced with courage. There is a video circulating now of a village, Owa Onire in Kwara State; everyone, indigenes of the town, has vacated the place, including the traditional ruler. It is a pitiable sight to behold, people being forced out of their ancestral land. If allowed to go unchecked, that village will be wiped out from history within a while. This has happened to so many communities in the north. Now, contrast this with Abia State’s Ohuhu village community, where the villagers gathered themselves and went after those who kidnapped two of their indigenes. They succeeded in rescuing the two kidnapped victims. This should be the determination of every single Nigerian: to take out these devilish criminals, and the ginger for action must start from the top.
•Ikhioya writes from Lagos.
