It is about time we started to set goals and objectives in this country. This will serve as a benchmark upon which performance can be assessed. I believe with commitment and sincerity of purpose we can take Boko Haram and Banditry, massively reduce youth unemployment and substantially increase power generation and distribution.
BOKO HARAM
An embarrassingly perplexing and devastating local menace that has wreaked havoc in the Northeast region of the country, destroyed communities and paralysed economic activities in that region for nearly 14years if not more.
Insurgency all over the world takes between 12years to 28years to be brought under control on a general average. So the Nigerian situation is not unique.
But it is about time we ended it in Nigeria.
When the Buhari government said that the Boko Haram had been degraded, they were right.
But that was Boko Haram as it existed before the Buhari administration came into power.
Read Also: If I Were President Muhammadu Buhari (Part II) – By Doyin Okupe
After May 2015, Boko Haram as it was previously known had “mutated” like a typical virus. New more virulent strains had emerged and changed the inner capabilities as well as external vicious manifestations of the new terrorists variants on rampage. The African command of the ISIS had fully emerged operating as the West African outfit of ISIS and also as Islamic fundamentalists operating as Fulani herdsmen. Their style and operational signatures were clearly different from that of the “degraded” Boko Haram we knew.
CURTAILING THE INSURGENTS IN 2021:
- We need a serious cooperation agreement with Chad, Niger, and Cameroon. Nigeria must be prepared to bear the cost of empowering the regional Army to cordon off all exits and external buffer zones and border safe havens of the insurgents.
- The Commander-in-Chief must of necessity change all levels of senior commanding officers at the war front.
- Government should prepare secured multiple large resettlement camps around Maiduguri and major towns, for those who will be evacuated from Sambisa forest and environ.
- The military command must double the boots on ground to improve and increase the combative strength of the Army in the region.
- There will be a need for international cooperation in areas of intelligence and surveillance.
- After evacuating civilians from Sambisa forest, the army led by the airforce with all its might and cooperation of international and regional collaborators can completely destroy insurgents’ bases in the Sambisa forests. The ground troops and possible special international forces and military contractors can finish the campaign and establish army of occupation in the whole area.
At this stage the insurgents can only thereafter operate as small rag tag groups striking from easily identifiable bases in and around surrounding villages.
These can be seriously decimated in 12 months.
I WILL TAKE UP BANDITRY IN MY NEXT WRITE UP.
HAPPY NEW YEAR.
*Okupe is a former presidential spokesman