Between Home Made Brew Violent Extremist and Imported Interlopers

President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan finally sacked his kinsman, General Azazi (retd), as the national security adviser last month. Contrary to what many experts predicted the news barely drew any whimper. In fact, all sides of our political divide simply view the announcement as long in coming, not necessarily because of anything nefarious General Azazi did but because of what he failed to do. The announcement of erstwhile General Babangida aide camp, Sambo Dasuki however drew commentaries from many analyst of the Nigerian political scene. Some view it as a sellout to the Northern oligarchy, some of whom have been at loggerheads with Azazi because of his comments on the root cause of the Boko Haram menace.

Opinions on Boko Haram insurgency is as diverse as any discussion on the Nigerian national soccer team. Every Nigerian thinks they can fix the rot in our national team with a mere wave of hand, just as they seems to think they can put an end to the menace posed by Boko Haram violence. The truth however lies in between. What most seems to be missing is any serious attempt to find the root cause of the menace.

Some analyst mostly from the south seems to think that Boko Haram sect was spurned by Northern politicians to create a cog in GEJ administration, whilst others from the North believes that the sect has been hijacked by Al Queda in Maghreb to pursue their nefarious religious ferment.

Whether home made or foreign brewed, the most important thing to most Nigerian is to nipped the menace in the bud, and this is one area the GEJ administration has been caught bare footed with little or no strategy other than platitiudes; despite huge security vote to that effect. I wrote elsewhere that the most important thing, this administration could do is to invest majority of the security vote in gathering intelligence about the sect, either through modern technology or what they call in the state "shoe leather" law enforcement investigation.

The months and years ahead will reveal to us whether Sambo will heed this advice and for once nipped this menace in the bud.

Furious Frank