Mr. President, right there in Abuja, and all over the nooks and corners of<\/p>\n
Nigeria, in the mornings especially, you see young men just sitting on the
\nground of Nigerian streets, seated under short trees, at the base of the
\ntrees, their legs stretched out in front of them ; or, at other times,
\nlaying on the bare ground with saws, axes or shovel by their sides, some
\nbarely managing to keep their eyes open, waiting to be picked for any
\nkind\u2014any kind– of laborer\u2019s work.
\nA closer and careful look at their helpless faces will show that they are,
\nin reality, sincerely looking for honest work, and not waiting to be
\ncalled to what former Chief of Defence Staff General Theophilus Danjuma
\ncalled a Civil War, nor what Professor Wole Soyinka called a \u201crevolt\u201d.
\nLet us be clear. President Jonathan has never waged war against the North,
\nbut according to Danjuma, by way of a psychological quip or Freudian slip,
\nhe tells the Southerners to make no mistake; this is an ongoing five-year
\nwar, with enemies between the South and the North, period!
\nThese young men with a show of fluctuating emotions behind their smiles of
\nanger and frustration, on any given day, can be seen listening to their
\nlittle radios with ethnic-sounding languages drumming into their ears,
\nNorthern-related worries, ranging from religious, governance, economic,
\npower and politics, deprivation, health concerns and many others. Yes,
\nthey have heard complaints relating to Northerners\u2019 concerns that it was
\ntheir turn to rule. But this is not the immediate concern of these
\nhelpless young men. All they need and are asking for is the opportunity to
\nwork in order to meet their most basic needs for survival.
\nBut these critical needs are not forthcoming, day after day, week after
\nweek, and month after month; so they inherently come to the point where
\nthey feed into the Northerner elites\u2019 political concerns, and are forced
\nto embrace messages of violence. With nothing to look forward to from the
\nlarger society, we make them into something they are not, extremist
\nfighters.
\nIf truth be told, the larger part of the North is statically an economic
\ngraveyard, with the rural areas full of pictures of miserable lives. In
\nthe north-eastern states in particular, the entire region is known for its
\ndeep economic wounds of insufficiency and poverty. The only thing that
\nseems available is the Jonathan War, and many of these young men, on the
\nbasis of historical affinity, become open to recruitment into the Boko
\nHaram flock.
\nWithout their direct knowing, these young men, who have always been closer
\nto the door of death, could now care less if their hands bring destruction
\nand their plundering acts further aggravate poverty and pain in the North,
\nas long as they themselves are no longer visibly idle and saddened by
\ntheir former empty lives. They are now willing to die and take hundreds,
\nif not thousands, with them, having been forced to come to grips with
\ntheir long-standing reality of living in abject poverty.
\nIf truth be told, Boko Haram intrinsically has never been about the
\ncreation of an Islamic state for the whole nation, as they know such
\ntheory in itself is sheer fantasy. In the same light, it is not about a
\nnegative view of Euro-American education, as the Northerners have always
\nhad a bi-learning approach to education in terms of English and Islamic
\neducation. Indeed, many have always had an open and a special heart for
\nthe great Islamic teachings as it relates to peace and humanness.
\nNigeria remains a geographically complex place and the Nigerian security
\nforces find themselves fighting a diffuse war with the Boko Haram who, in
\na crude manner, find themselves advantageously depending on poor
\nelectricity, poor and narrowed roads with hidden big holes, poorly
\nmaintained road paths, mosquito-infested environs, and snaked-filled
\nforests to strengthen its stand against the modernized styles of the
\nNigerian security forces.
\nWith the common knowledge that Nigerian security forces may never be
\nbacked by superior American war devices, the Boko Haram crowd and its
\nsympathizers believe Nigeria is almost finished! But God forbid.
\nMr. President, the irony here is that in 2010, the US designated the Boko
\nHaram as a terrorist organization, amid concern that it had developed
\nlinks with other militant groups, such as al-Qaeda. So why they are
\nunwilling to deploy American troops or sell Nigeria weapons remains an
\nopen question. Could it be that there are bad insiders or secret
\nsympathizers within the Nigerian security forces that are acting as
\nwatchful eyes for the Boko Haram, against the nation\u2019s security agencies
\n\u2013 the military, police and secret police known for their human rights
\nincapacitations, deep corruption and ambiguous approach to the rule of
\nlaw?
\nThis civil war may continue for a very long time under the cloak of
\ncomplicity at the uppermost levels of the Nigerian state and ruling elite
\nwho possibly take corrupt pleasure in allowing these killings for
\npolitical reasons, especially in the run-up to the 2015 elections.
\nAs the yet-to-be-recruited young Muslim Northerners continue to bear the
\nconsequences of living in the northeast environment, where 70 percent of
\npeople live on less than a dollar a day, and malnutrition and
\ninfrastructure difficulties remain the most severe, the President, who is
\na southern Christian, must now swiftly find a way to make the long
\nstanding injustice against the North reduce drastically. All these
\nyoungsters do not wish to maintain their current deadly and vicious
\nextremist beliefs, thoughts and feeling but, instead, desire something
\npersonally beneficial to their lives. In general, they want to see a more
\nequitable distribution of wealth and meaningful economic opportunity, just
\nlike in the South, where they have an opportunity to earn a fair
\nlivelihood.
\nAs long as the North remains a region marked with a hopeless and helpless
\nexploding youth population, the Jonathan War provoked by Northerners\u2019
\nbitterness, fury, and wrath could exacerbate further and further with no
\nquick end in sight. Let us hope this will not be the case.
\nDr. John Egbeazien Oshodi is a Forensic and Clinical Psychologist and a
\nformer Secretary-General of the Nigeria Psychological Association.
\nJos5930458@aol.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Mr. President, right there in Abuja, and all over the nooks and corners of Nigeria, in the mornings especially, you see young men just sitting on the ground of Nigerian…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":31048,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32412","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles-opinions"],"yoast_head":"\n