The words, the bombs, and the sound

Just two months after the mass murder of 106 persons in Izghe, Borno State and at least 29 boarding pupils of the Federal Government College in Burni Yadi, Yobe State, Nigeria’s Minister of Information, Labaran Maku, in an official reaction to the kidnap of over 200 (regrettably, weeks after the attack no credible official figure of actual number of victims) Senior Secondary School girls, suffered a bout of dementia as revealed in his ignorance of Boko Haram’s penchant for large-scale atrocity. More so, with evidence of over 1,500 citizens killed by the insurgents (including 20 pupils and a teacher fatally shot in July) in 2013. According to the minister, “…nobody in his wildest imagination would ever believe that such a thing could happen in Nigeria.” I do agree with the minister, except that while he is confined to the imaginary world as a government appointee, the ordinary Nigerian citizens are confronted with the realities of a country where “formal education is not just a sin” but a crime punishable by abduction or/and death! Fast-track to the real world, abduction of teenage girls is a pastime of Boko Haram. According to the Human Rights Watch, about 40 women and girls were abducted between September and November 2013, and over 20 in the first two months of 2014. Agreeably, high incidences of terror are a global phenomenon, requiring that nations adapt collaborative measures to combat varying acts of terror. Even the United States has invoked the tools of partnership to respond to terrorism “in and out” of its border. Similarly, Ukraine and South Korea have adapted collaborative responses to the rhetoric of cross-border terror with Russia and North Korea respectively. This observation may have informed the calls by Nigerians for our government to seek physical and technical help in dealing with the iterative acts of terror. Beyond engagement with Chad, Niger, Cameroon and the Republic of Benin, the United States for instance offers lessons on school attacks, and mass killings that can be adapted to the Nigerian context. Roll back to December 14, 2012 when Sandy Hook Elementary School was attacked by Adam Lanza, 20 pupils and six teachers fell (in all, three short of Burni Yadi victims) but the nation as a whole and the world with them rose! The lessons generated by experts from this school attack and others outside of the US, suggest the vulnerability of schools was an the underlying factor in the attacks, simply because, vulnerable persons and circumstances are easy and cheap tools for amplifying attackers’ outrage. In our case for instance, in addition to schools, public places such as motor parks may be the next severest point of vulnerability to terror attacks. Between March 18 2013 and May 1, 2014 over 100 persons have lost their lives in separate bomb attacks of motor parks in Kano and Abuja! Since this is widely known, the seizure of almost 200 young girls following incessant attacks on schools in the North-East geopolitical zone, suggest the following: (i) the security forces are ill-equipped to deal with the zone’s vulnerability or/and (ii) like the Minister of Information, the nation’s leadership is confined to an imaginary world, (iii) poor intelligence gathering or/and management of information. The latter may actually be the crux of the collective failure on security responses, which are mainly reactionary and not responsive – more like chasing shadows rather than the substance, lacking the will and efforts to galvanise response as evidenced in other climes. As usual with all political settings, there were measures of publicity in America’s response to the December 2012 school attack but these were with due considerations to the memory of victims of the attack, their families and overall public safety. Aside from public and private sectors making some political gains from the incident, deliberate efforts were geared towards reinforcing security protocol, and preventing a recurrence, at least within the same location. First, school safety measures, such as front-door buzzers and security cameras were installed to secure school facilities. Second, a variety of mass actions to stem violence was activated. Next, the broad range of search for solutions was extended to the private sector, to the effect that the Entertainment Software Association published a condolence statement to families of victims due to the perceived linkage between real-life and entertainment violence. And because the calls were genuine and passionate, it was collaborative without compromise to overall safety. This brings to mind the question about the preparedness of our nation’s managers in providing the ambience and requisite instrument for ensuring safety in public places, particularly schools and motor parks. Regrettably, this is not the case in Nigeria, where government, the opposition, and organisations seek to make a political capital of unfortunate happenings. Little wonder that the investment of $470m National Cyber Security Project through the installation of Closed-Circuit Television was discovered a hoax, not worthy to be dignified with an official response. Everybody is talking, nobody is culpable! At the moment, it is convenient to blame the military, while the politicians and their cronies, conveniently profit from the blood of Nigerians through under-table deals boosted by our security vulnerabilities. Meanwhile, a reflection on the nation’s ability and readiness for a change from the current security situation suggests the need to: - Strengthen Nigeria’s information governance framework - Maximise capacity to gather, manage and protect information - Promote information sharing amongst agencies to enable appropriate response The abduction of these innocent girls like the disappearance of the Malaysian Airline flight MH370, may be a call to the “bloody civilians” responsible for managing government information and their counterparts in the military to evolve a synergy for the management of information on terror. This way, they may jointly develop new tasks for the National Orientation Agency, which currently is preoccupied with merry-go-rounds, and condemnations but lacking the professionalism to guide the general public on practical steps to responding to an unsafe environment. Hopefully, with two bombings in Nyanya within three weeks, President Goodluck Jonathan will be guided towards more action and less talk – he should know that the torrents of bombs with the attendant thunderous sounds are deafening, and he has become inaudible! Maybe, just maybe, he should listen to David Mark, after all, the Senate President, like Joe Bidden, is the only one with the military experience in the top three – it is all about synergy!