The incidence of planned Boko Haram insurgency in the country has been reduced by 70%. This figure was not provided by any senior intelligence chief or defense head. No, it was provided by Doyin Okupe, a Jonathan cabinet official who is quickly becoming a jack of all trades and a wearer of all hats in Aso Rock.
Okupe is one spin doctor that will make the geniuses in Washington DC think tanks go green with envy. He is a professional. He can sell water to a whale or even sell fire to Lucifer himself.
Whilst addressing a press conference in Lagos on Saturday, Okupe had the effrontery to slap us with half-baked statistics. He claims Boko Haram insurgency is down 70%, but in all honesty he didn’t claim the insurgency was down. His actual words were, “planned insurgent attacks”. This is a very ambiguous claim and only a fool would take the bait on this one. Luckily Nigerians are wisening up.
In fairness, Jonathan seems to be making some progress with Boko Haram. However its hard for analysts to assess the progress, because there has been no concrete and visible development in the fight against Boko Haram. The only thing we have witnessed as a people is a reduction in the number and frequency of attacks.
Okupe says attacks have reduced, and he uses credible newspaper reports to buttress his claims. He says that according to the newspaper sources, eight attacks were recorded in January, nine in February, seven in March, eight in April, five in May, seven in June, six in July, five in August, four in September, seven in October, four in November.
Okupe added the creative statistics when he said that 70% of Boko Haram’s planned attacks were foiled. He says these are unverifiable because they were not reported in the media. So being the crafty spin doctor he is, we can then witness what he just did. In one sentence, he says that actual Boko Haram attacks have reduced and we can verify that through newspaper reports. Then in the same sentence, he says planned attacks have reduced but we cannot verify them because they were not in the newspapers as they did not happen.
Whilst we felicitate with the jonathan administration for the reduction in the attacks by Boko Haram. It is unfortunate that we cannot attribute their reduction in number to any physical step taken by the Federal Government. If the government is doing something to stop Boko Haram, it should carry the people along and tell them which factions, which public figures, which financiers and which arm dealers were responsible. The government should also tell Nigerians which foreign governments, which agencies and which technologies are aiding in the fight. We all suffered through Boko Haram together and we all want to know when we can stop living in fear. We need the government to tell us what it is doing proactively to challenge Boko Haram.
Hear Okupe, “Due to the increased capacity of security agencies in the area of intelligence gathering, I can report that over 70 per cent of planned insurgent attacks were foiled before actualisation. These are largely unreported because they did not happen and this is a good thing.
“The intelligence arm of our security agencies has deployed massive modern technology to preempt and destabilise these criminal elements who intended causing harm.”
One would fancy a guess that its not even technology the government is using to foil Boko Haram. Maybe it has cut a deal behind everyone’s back. Maybe that was what the N161 billion subsidy fund Jonathan requested for was used to achieve. A ceasefire.
Government cannot play with the intelligence of the people. Nigerians have a right to know. We also reserve the right not to be fed BS.